"Goody. Did the Macpherson Tower raid come off?"

"You haven't heard?"

"Drummond was waiting for us when we arrived. Joanna and I have been stunned-out for over twelve hours."

"Well, shit. You missed some crazy action. Eve made her pitch to the media and then to the Servant, who denied everything in a rebuttal newscast. Couple hours later a mysterious armed hopper shot sleepy-gas grenades into every floor in the top half of the tower. Toronto Public Safety and ECID were shocked. Shocked."

I laughed. "Let me guess. The hopper escaped. The cops entered in force to assess damage to the embassy and injury to the poor alien occupants. They found the Halukoid folks."

"All safe, all removed to Toronto General Hospital-including your brother Dan, the only human being in the place who actually looked like one. There were no demiclones in Macpherson. They must have all been evacuated. Of course the media had a field day.

And the Servant filed a formal protest with Xenoaffairs, claiming the cops had kidnapped innocent Haluk, not transformed humans." I snorted. "Stick with the Big Lie, right to the edge of the Grand Canyon drop-off."

"The vote!" Joanna exclaimed. "What about the goddamned vote?"

"Did you hear the professor's respectful query?" I asked Karl.

He said, "The Assembly approved the three hundred new Haluk colonies by a margin of forty-six votes. The Speaker invited a Citizen Veto Poll. The PlaNet hits are still being tabulated and verified, but it looks like the veto won."

Joanna and I cheered.

"What's more," Karl said, "there's a groundswell growing for the recall of the Delegates who voted for the Haluk colonies. Some Reverse spokespersons are demanding top-to-bottom reform of the Assembly to eliminate the influence * of the Hundred Concerns. We're living in interesting times, my friend."

"And here we are," I lamented, "sitting it out on the sidelines with a homicidal maniac."

"I'll be on my way to the lodge myself after I talk to some people. Turn on your holovid and catch up on what's happening in the universe. Sit tight till the cavalry arrives, and don't do anything stupid."

"Have I ever?" I asked, and ended the call.

Joanna was already examining the holo projector in the adjacent snuggery, prodding its remote keypad without result. "Nothing but a blank blue field," she mourned. "The projector seems all right, so I suppose the antenna was damaged in the explosion."

The phone buzzed. I looked at the display. The instrument was in intercom mode.

I said, "Hello, Alistair. Did you enjoy the fireworks?"

"It's not over," he said softly.

"Yes, it is. Tell you what. I'll see that you get your real body back before they chain you to the bed in the funny farm."

"I'm leaving now, Frost, but we'll meet again. I doubt that the pleasure will be mutual.

I intend to have something very special waiting for you-and for Professor DeVet.

Dream about it." He ended the call.

Leaving?

Something medium-large sped past the windows, then reappeared and cut a sharp right turn, kicking a rooster tail of snow against the glass.

Cursing, I ran to check it out. The snowmobile's track led from one of the outbuildings to the lodge. Drummond had deliberately buzzed our suite. Now he was heading directly toward us at low speed, the twin headlights of the sleek Ski-Doo haloed by floating ice crystals.

The machine was classic yellow-and-black with nice scarlet flashes. The helmeted figure in the saddle lifted a hand with two gloved fingers extended. Peace?... V for victory? ... Nope. In the British Isles the double-digit salute had another meaning.

Fuck you.

An instant later a portable force-field shield enveloped the Doo in a hemisphere of golden sparks. Drummond did a 180 and headed straight out onto the frozen lake at maximum speed, leaving a huge white cloud of powder snow in his wake.

I dug in my pocket for the phone, frantically called up the lodge-exterior menu and switched on the defenses he had deactivated. Too late. The damned sled was traveling at nearly 200 kph and it was already outside the perimeter and gone away.

I rushed to the door of the suite, spoke the unlock code, and began galloping down the hall. Joanna was right behind me as I crossed the living room-where there was remarkably little damage from the blast-came into the entry and took a detour into the service wing. The com room door was wide open. My Talavera-Gerardi lay centered on a small table, neat as a display in a gunshop.

I swiftly checked the weapon out. It seemed completely undamaged, the barrel was clear, and the ready display said FULL CHARGE. I slung the piece over my shoulder.

Joanna said, "What are you going to do?"

I pushed past her, heading for the mudroom. Our enviro-suits, helmets, and overboots were still there. The Ivanov was gone. I propped the long gun against the wall and began to dress.

"I'll need to take the phone," I said. "You'll have to make a note of the door code so you can lock yourself in the secure-suite."

"But-"

"Drummond might double back. The exterior defenses are useless because he can access them. When I'm gone, get back into the suite and stay there until the SWAT team arrives."

"You can't go after him!" she stormed. "Don't you understand? It's what he wants you to do! He's not trying to escape. He'll be waiting for you out there."

I tinkered with the helmet, establishing the phone link and the system feed with the suit and boots that I hadn't bothered with during the short trip from the hopper to the lodge.

"Find something to write the code on, Joanna."

"Wait," she said tightly. She went into the kitchen and returned with a recipe e-book.

I read out the alphanumerics, tucked the phone inside my suit, and zipped up.

She said, "Don't do this, Helly. Not if you love me. Don't go after that man to kill him." Her face was very pale, with an odd hectic flush on the cheeks that had nothing to do with makeup. She clutched the little book tightly in one hand, holding it at her side like a missile ready for throwing.

"I'll bring him back alive if I can."

Speaking in a strained whisper: "The SWAT team can do that better than you. Stay with me. Please don't leave me alone again."

"I can't let Drummond get away. If he reaches Central Patricia, he could commandeer a fast Park Service hopper and fly down to Thunder Bay Conurb. There's a starship shuttle service at the skyport-"

"He's not trying to get away." Her eyes were bright with moisture. "He left your weapon when he could have taken it himself or destroyed it... And I'm sure you'll find an operable snow machine waiting out in the equipment building. If Drummond wanted to escape, he'd have disabled it. He's playing a game with you, Helly. An insane game!"

"Will you kiss me goodbye? I love you, Joanna."

She let me embrace her, passively accepted my hard lips, the alien tongue we'd laughed about and enjoyed. When we broke apart her tears had overflowed.

"Goodbye, Helly," she said, and turned and walked away.

Of course Joanna was right about Drummond planning an ambush. I knew that his chance of escaping-even as far as Thunder Bay-were infinitesimal. The SWAT team would nab his ass as easily as a pack of Ontario timber wolves running down a crippled caribou. Unless I got him first.

And I intended to.

I'd ignored my wife's good counsel, confirmed her doubts about my character, maybe torpedoed any chance of a permanent reconciliation. One part of me was kicking the other part and cursing it for a prideful fool. But I couldn't do anything else.

Cowboys...

As Joanna had predicted, there was another shiny Ski-Doo waiting for me. Two toys were evidently all Rampart had sprung for to entertain the troops, but the Concern hadn't stinted on quality. The Formula 12K-XC was the primo back-country trail sled. Its frame was scandium alloy-the same stuff that catalyzes trans-ack starship fuel-stronger than titanium and lighter than aluminum. To make the machine ride even lighter-and get you out of holes when you bogged down-it had inertial stabilizers and optional anti-gravity enhancement. Its powerful engine was whisper-quiet. The console was loaded with nifty gadgets, including com equipment, a terrain scanner with warm-body capability, global positioning, an emergency beacon, and a buddy beacon. Drummond would deactivate the latter feature, and so would I. Buddies we weren't.

Other goodies included a retractable bivouac enclosure that you could shelter in if you broke down or got trapped in a blizzard, an independent heater, trail rations, survival kit, and first-aid unit. My sled did not have a defensive force-shield. That particular item is not among the luxury accessories offered by the Ski-Doo folks. Drummond had either brought his own umbrella or swiped one from the Macrodur hopper. The Doo did have a swingaway hunter's gun-mount with a weatherproof stretch-sheath that was barely adequate to cover my ultramacho Tala-G. I installed the weapon, fired up the engine, and eased out of the barn.

I hadn't been on one of these machines for nearly ten years, but I didn't anticipate much difficulty driving. I was in no hurry. Alistair Drummond would wait for me in the backwoods arena of his choosing.

I hoped to arrive at a time, and from a direction, that was not of his choosing.

The snow was coming down heavier. It was now impossible to see the opposite shore of the lake, six klicks away. I checked the scanner to be sure my adversary wasn't lurking anywhere in the immediate vicinity-or circling the compound to catch me from the rear.

Even with a tree-filter, there was a lot of clutter on the screen. It showed only a single warm body blip, sans machine accompaniment, moving at a brisk galumph through the woods on the other side of the lake. An animal. The data strip said: --.

SPECIES: WOLVERINE-WT: 35.5 KILOS.

"Go away, beastie," I murmured. "Other game is afoot."

I called up the positioner map, selected a twenty-kilometer radius, and studied the bright terrain-proper display. A number of narrow tracks webbed the forest and bogs surrounding the lodge, illegally zapped a couple of years ago by bored security guards whose duty it was to nanny my unfortunate brother.

During warm weather the trails were probably horrific even for iron-butt backpackers or anglers-muddy, rough with burned-off stumps, and mosquito-plagued. In winter, after the snow attained a reasonable depth, they'd be handy little corridors for snowmobilers and game poachers, hence the gun-mount on my sled. Nothing like a rack of venison or a moose-muffle to liven up the staff menu. Nothing like a running target to sharpen rusty marksmanship skills.

I expanded to a 50 km overview, then 100 km. The last display included the hamlet of Central Patricia ninety klicks to the west. A single trail, beginning at the far side of Cad- disfly Lake, twisted and twined and ended up there. I wondered briefly what attractions the lonely men had found in the tiny outpost. A bar with live music and friendly local ladies? Hey, in their shoes it would have appealed to me.

I highlighted the C-Pat Trail, then returned to the large-scale map and called up a holographic topo display. To check for high ground overlooking that trail-preferably not too far away from the lodge.

There wasn't much. The most likely-very nearly the only!-ambush spot I could find was a sparsely wooded granite ridge only 29 meters above the surrounding terrain. It was situated about nine klicks from the western lakeshore. The ridge was relatively steep and treeless on the southern side, above the trail, and sloped gently to the north, where the forest was thicker.

The stretch of the C-Pat Trail next to the ridge was fairly wide and straight, inviting a sledder to travel at speed. A couple of klicks west of the high ground, a branch trail came in on the right. This was a much narrower and more convoluted path leading back to the lake, paralleling a short creek that drained a pond. Its termination was about five kilometers north of the C-Pat trailhead.

If I were Alistair Drummond, I'd drive across the lake and go west on the C-Pat past Granite Ridge to the Creek Trail junction. Turn right. Trend back eastward a klick or two behind the ridge. Leave the trail and drive my sled ever so carefully south, upslope through patchy trees and rocks to the overlook.

Hunker in. Wait for Helly to come bombing along the C-Pat down yonder, gung ho to catch up with the fleeing miscreant. Pot him like a ptarmigan.

Unless the intended victim entered the forest on Creek Trail instead, and snuck up behind the sniper.

I sped diagonally across the lake. The ice was freeway flat and the scanner came up dead empty. From the shore the Creek trailhead was almost invisible, clogged with brush and a tangle of downed birch saplings. I punched the anti-gravity and hopped over them, then started along a winding path that was barely wide enough for a single machine. The air temperature was minus-five. My snow-depth indicator read 34 cm. Ten of that was fresh powder, and there'd be lots more before long.

Nearly an hour had passed since I'd spoken to Karl Nazarian. The SWAT team would be arriving soon. I cranked the throttle and drove as fast as I dared. The engine was a tiger-purr, muffled by the falling white stuff.

Twenty minutes later I was behind Granite Ridge. The irregular ground upslope showed no trace of a warm body. I could only presume he was on the other side of the crest, where broken rock formed a natural redoubt above the C-Pat. If I went farther along the Creek Trail, looking for his sled tracks to verify that he had, in fact, chosen this spot for the ambush, there was a chance he might scan me or hear me. I opted to climb the ridge on foot. The scope of rny Tala-G had a thermal targeter three times more sensitive than that of a Ski-Doo-or a Claus-Gewitter blaster.

I called up a compass on my visor display and took a rough bearing on my objective. The vantage point was about a mile and a quarter southwest. There would be adequate cover until I reached the ridge top, where only small clumps of trees had found a footing in the frost-fractured granite.

My boots had a nifty feature: deployable miniature bear-paw snowshoe webs. I spread them and started mushing. The blood singing in my ears was the only other sound in the winter fastness. I still didn't have my old stamina, but I made the climb without too much difficulty in the relatively shallow snow, doing a sweep with the scope every dozen meters, finding nothing warm-and no shield ionization signature, either.

Just below the ridge crest, sheltered by a group of jack pines, I rested and turned off the heating system of my envirosuit. Every little erg counts. Then I began to creep toward the overlook, which I estimated was about 200 meters away, snaking through tall snow- covered rocks, taking advantage of every bit of cover, sighting through the gun scope every other minute, praying that Drummond was up here and that he was concentrating his attention on the C-Pat Trail, not scanning the ridge to his left.

In the scope, two blips of warm.

I flattened, sinking into the snow behind a white-capped chunk of granite the size of a car. Changed the scope mode to amplification, peeked out.

I saw a crouching figure holding a long gun at the ready. His Ski-Doo waited close by, slightly downslope among the trees. No force-field hemisphere, of course. You can't shoot a blaster through a simple portable shield.

I pulled off my right mitten so I could operate the trigger and targeted Alistair Drummond, the man wearing my body. Range, 156.2 meters.

Don't do this, Hetty. Not if you love me. Don't go after that man to kill him.

I'll bring him back alive if I can.

Rats.

I switched the gun to manual fire and blasted a pine snag six meters away from him.

He fired down at the C-Pat Trail, then sent another wild shot to his right, decapitating a small balsam fir. He hadn't found me with his scope and the snow made it impossible for him to judge my position.

I waited. Willing him to do it.

He fired again, coming nowhere near me, then made a dash for his snowmobile.

Boarded, flicked on the shield. Safe from my photon weapon beneath his sparkling dome, he started his machine and headed downhill toward Creek Trail, weaving feather-light through the spindly pines. He'd turned on the antigravity enhancer to maximize his speed on the flurry powder.

I surged to my feet, clambered on top of the rock, and began to mow down the trees ahead of him, blasting the trunks near the base so they dropped like jackstraws. Some bounced harmlessly off the force-field, others fell to either side as I continued to aim in front of the scuttling, turtle-shaped mass of golden sparks.

He had nearly dropped below my line of fire when I nailed him. A perfectly felled pine came down right across his path and the sled hit it head-on. The force-field projector cut out as the power died. I watched the yellow-and-black machine do a nose-flip right over the log and begin rolling down the steepening slope. Drummond was still in the saddle.

The Ski-Doo disappeared in the snow. I hopped off the rock and began floundering after it. I found him a few minutes later, under the broken and twisted machine. It had fetched up against a tree. Both of his legs were grotesquely entangled in the skid-frame.

There was not much blood.

I dug the snow away from his head and opened his visor and looked into my own face, twisted in agony. Alistair Drummond was fully conscious.

He said, "Damn you. Damn you."

"There's no way I can winch this thing off without hurting you," I told him. "I'll have to go back to the lodge and find a cutting tool."

"Why didn't you shoot me on the ridge?" he asked.