Exhausted defeat was already a close certainty, and I was on my knees, both in fact and metaphorically, when Darcy | reached the heavy sliding gla.s.s doors to the terrace. I couldn't by then have pulled even one those open myself at any speed, but when I saw Robin Darcy yank a huge gla.s.s panel aside against friction and heard the grate of the door's gliders, when I heard the waves down below on the sh.o.r.e and smelled the salt air, when a way out of being kicked to extinction lay there for the taking, then from somewhere I sc.r.a.ped up every vestige of resilience uneaten by myco-bugs, and I rolled under Michael's hammering foot and crawled a yard like an infant and thrust every enfeebled sinew into panic action... and I was out through the gla.s.s door and halfway across the terrace before they began with shouts to follow.

I stumbled as if inebriated down the stone staircase from terrace to pool deck, and untidily fell rather than dived into the water, horrified by the weakness that made a futility of my efforts to swim at even half of my normal speed in my own natural element.

If I'd hoped the one-sided fight would end at that point, I was wrong. Michael Ford's appet.i.te merely changed direction.

He decided against following me fully clothe into the water but instead s.n.a.t.c.hed his gun back from Amy and shot at me, the bullets splashing with appalling heat a great deal too close.

The prospect of a dead well-known meteorologist in a private pool in Florida, a body moreover plugged with bullets from a registered gun, still seemed not to deter Michael, nor get it through the thick skulls of Michael's pack that his success would be their time in jail.

I no longer tried swimming in fast circles to avoid straight lines from his barrel. I could no longer work out lines of refraction. I simply clung in wretched feebleness to the bar round the inside of the top of the pool and I shrank into the too-small shadow of the tiled overhang while Michael whooped with undiminished bloodl.u.s.t, and, having no success from where he stood, galloped round the pool deck to get at me from the other side.

The water slowed the bullets' speed, but not enough. Refraction as a really useful shield in water worked better the deeper the target, as the bent rays of light made the target appear where it was not. If one shot at the apparent victim, one would miss the real one. Deep water... I gulped air and swam downwards, and the bullets missed, but Odin hadn't taxed my lungs more.

It seemed ages, this time, before the floodlights poured onto the terrace and pool, until the swarm of navy blue uniforms erupted from the bushes with sirens and bullhorns and shouts and meaningful guns... It seemed familiar that I should be ordered at rough gunpoint to get out of the water and to kneel and be pressed down with a heavy hand at my neck, and be screamed at in gibberish in my ear and have handcuffs clicked onto my wrists behind my back.

The police weren't the same ones as those that had come before. These were if anything more afraid and in consequence more bullying. As I'd virtually summoned them to save my life, I couldn't complain.

Across the pool, Michael, in the same ignominious kneeling position, was talking his way out, "A bit of fun, officer, merely a game, " and claiming friendship with the police captain and with the commissioner further up the scale.

Arnold, along with Evelyn and Amy, could none of them understand why they should be treated this way. It was outrageous.

The police would be demoted, every one.

"What's your take-home pay? " Michael was asking. "I could double it. " Into this over dramatic scene ambled Robin Darcy, yawning, clad in a silk dressing robe, seeking out the highest blue rank and apologizing that his guests should have set off all the intruder alarms. "Very sorry, lieutenant. The alarm sets itself on a timer to summon you automatically. " Darcy promised the false alarm wouldn't happen again. He was afraid his guests had been playing boisterous party games. It was his fault entirely for having forgotten to switch off the system. He would of course be pleased to contribute as usual to the Police Ball Fund.

Robin Darcy, with small anxious-looking steps, then accompanied the lieutenant around, followed by a disappointed blue uniform wielding an undo-handcuffs key. They came with liberation via a spitting-mad Amy, a loudly furious Evelyn ("in my own house! ") and a growling deep ba.s.s from Arnold.

Michael, though violently threatening unspecified revenge on everyone, was unlocked also, to my extreme dismay.

"We might have booked all your guests for aggressive behavior, " the top rank said, slotting away his notebook and pen, "if it weren't for Sheila. " Darcy reminded him that I still knelt there patiently, though in fact at the time the patience was at least half too much tiredness to do anything else.

"Who is Sheila? " Darcy asked.

The blue uniform raised his eyebrows. "Hurricane, " he said succinctly. "We don't want our cells filled with playboys. " His a.s.sistant unlocked my wrists, but Michael had more or less pulverized my ability to stand. The lieutenant, seeing it, warned that hurricane or no hurricane Mr. Ford would find himself behind bars if there was any more trouble.

The policemen, job done, put up their guns and departed, and Evelyn, in bossy hostess mode, shepherded her guests, even including Michael, back into the house. She gave me merely a furious glance and left me outside.

s AT I N one of the pool chairs and gazed at the peaceful sky.

I supposed I could put up with the discomfort that washed in waves through my protesting body, I could put up with it better if anything had been achieved, but it was too soon to say.

Somewhere distant in the house a telephone rang and was answered. The security firm, I remembered, checked that all was well in the household, after a police raid ending without arrest.

It was thanks to Sheila that there had been no arrest.

Robin Darcy, alone, came down from the terrace and took the chair beside me.

"Thank you, " I said, and he nodded.

He sat for a while without speaking, watching me as if I were some kind of beetle. All he could see, I imagined, was the stiff soreness that made movement a trial, the legacy of Michael's ferocious fists and feet.

I asked if Michael was still around, and Darcy said no, because of the police warning Michael had gone tail-down to the house he and Amy owned north of Miami.

Like a fed lion, I thought. Sated.

"He can be brutal when he gets going, " Darcy said.

Ye-.

Pc Minutes pa.s.sed.

I said, "Will you fly with me tomorrow to Trox Island? " He stood up abruptly, as if I'd drawn a knife on him, and jerkily walked a circuit round the pool. Returning, he sat as before and asked, to my surprise, "How do you see me? " I smiled involuntarily.

"When I went to Caspar Harvey's lunch that Sunday, " I said, "Bell Harvey told me you'd been born clever, and I wasn't to be fooled by your cozy appearance. " "Bella! I didn't think of her as so perceptive. " He sounded put out by it.

"I listened to her, " I said, "but on that day I didn't imagine I needed to pay much attention to what she said. " "And on the whole, I thought you were hardly bright enough for your job. " He sounded suddenly depressed, saddened beyond expectation, as if he'd lost a major game. He had believed in himself too much, I thought.

"I listened to Bell, " I said, "and during our stay with you and with Michael and Amy, and after our disaster in Odin, where I learned about the Unified Trading Company, I saw that you were the one who knew how to achieve things, and because I liked you, I regretted very much that you dealt in deadly metals. " He said,

"And do you now think I don't deal in those metals? " "Oh, no, " I said. "I'm certain you do. " "I don't understand you. " I said, "Your purpose is inside out. " "Perry... " He was restless. "You talk in riddles. " "Yes, so do you. You sent me a message to find my way through a labyrinth, and... well... I have. " Robin Darcy looked stunned.

I said, "You are John Rupert's superior officer. " I waited for him to deny it, but he didn't. He looked pale.

Breathless. Horrified.

"John Rupert and Ghost consult you, " I said, "and you tell them what to do. They are part of a hierarchy of which you are the top. " Robin Darcy stared, blinked, took off his owl frames, polished them needlessly, replaced them, cleared his throat and asked how I came to such a conclusion.

I merely said that that morning I'd understood the workings of instinct and impulse. "And it simply crept into my mind, " I said, "that if I trusted my instinct in liking you, then you weren't evil, and if you weren't evil you weren't selling death, you were more likely defeating those that did. If you see things that way round it means that when you gather together a whole lot of destructive transfers, you prevent the worst ones from going through, and sometimes you manage to lose others, but you yourself remain unsuspected by your fellow Traders. You lead a very dangerous double life. Michael would probably kill you if he found out. So you needed me... or someone like me... to be your eyes, without me knowing it.

Everything I told John Rupert and Ghost went straight to you. " I smiled ruefully. "We'd have done better if we'd talked face to face. " Robin was shocked. "I couldn't have done that. " I guessed,

"It was outside need to know'? " He heard my irony, but he'd long trodden a double path where "need to know" divided life from death.

"So... will you come to Trox? " I asked again.

"What about Sheila? " "I'm afraid she may be along for the ride. " "Who's going with you? " he asked.

"You, me and the pilot. " "What pilot? Not Kris? " "Not Kris, " I agreed.

He sat in another long silence, then he said, "You're not fit to go anywhere. Why are we going? " "Hope, " was all I said, but he turned up the next morning at the General Aviation aircraft park at Miami Airport, early, as arranged.

I INTRODUCED HIM to Unwin and reunited him with the airplane, which was the same one, chartered from Downsouth, that he had flown in to Trox before.

Unwin gave me a broad grin and patted Robin Darcy on the back. Amused at the mixed Darcy expression at this piece of presumption, I checked again with our pilot how our trip looked for weather as I stowed my holdall in the cabin.

"The lady Sheila, " he said, "has overnight picked up her skirts and hiked northeast. She's Category 2 and building, and if I lived on Grand Cayman Island, I'd be hiring me this morning to go and fly me out. " Long years a professional, Unwin moved economically around the airplane and forgot nothing. I'd thought Kris a good pilot, but Unwin flew like silk. In his hands Trox Island appeared punctually in its coordinates and the solidified gra.s.s strip accepted the rented turbo-prop twin without lurch or slither. When he had braked to a standstill near the ruined church, Unwin climbed down alone and walked off by himself towards the remains of the village.

It seemed strange for me to be back on that land and stranger still to have Robin Darcy beside me.