He rotated the elves' crystal until its long axis was vertical, like that of the cavern's crystal. Moving it back and forth until he could ascertain the place where the elven crystal vibrated most strongly, he placed it on the cavern floor, propping it upright by tucking the satchel around its base. Then he stepped back in wonder as the crystals began to sing to each other.

7.

Kham's position let him look down into the clearing where the elves had set up their magical apparatus.

He watched as they blindfolded the j.a.p kid and led him over to the stream. Then he watched Neko squirm down into a hole and disappear. Seeing the perfor- 72.mance Kham wondered if the kid didn't have a separate deal with the elves.

Once Neko had disappeared underground, the elves returned to the clearing, where they fussed with their magic junk for a while. One of them, the more angular one who Neko had dubbed the Dark One, squatted down in the center of a triangle marked out by three tall poles. After setting up some occult devices of crystal and silver wire, the elf began to chant over them while his partner walked around the poles shaking a wand and scattering powder. Magic stuff, no doubt about it, but it didn't look to Kham like anything he'd ever seen Sally Tsung do.

The Light One finally settled down halfway between one of the poles and the hole where Neko had disappeared. As the elf crossed his legs and stretched his arms wide, Kham thought he could see a faint green light outlining the mage's hands, but he couldn't be sure. The Dark One remained squatting in the center of his triangle, singing. Kham could make out the tune, a strange awkward thing, but none of the words were clear; they sounded foreign.

Kham knew that magic rituals sometimes had to be performed in certain places and at certain times. Sally had told him. So, this crazy run was starting to make sense, as much as anything connected to magic made sense. These elves wanted mundane protection while they did their stuif. The spells would warn them of magical trouble, which was just as well because they were the only ones out here who could handle that drek, and the runners would cover the real world, protecting the elves against any mundanes b.u.t.ting in.

Kham couldn't see the connection with Neko crawling into the hole, though. Maybe it had some kind of ritual symbolism.

The glow around the Light One's hands became definite. With a flash that startled Kham, a spark leapt 73.from each of the elf's hands and converged on the pole behind him. The crystal at the top of the pole kindled to life, flashing beams of jade light to the crystals topping the other two poles, kindling them also.

In the glow of the crystals, the clearing was bathed in a wan, iridescent light, as the strange a.s.semblies of silver and crystal situated at the midpoints between the poles began to hum. Kham had the sense of a generator sparking to life. "I got movement out here," John Parker whispered excitedly on the radio link. He was on the eastern edge of the perimeter.

Kham tore his eyes from the spectacle of the ritual working and tried to see John Parker's position, but trees blocked his line of sight. Out beyond the perimeter the forest seemed quiet. ' 'Injuns?''

"Naw," John Parker responded. "Not unless they're coming to visit in a tank."

"If dey was in a tank, we'd hear it. Can't be." John Parker sounded unconvinced. "Whatever it is, it's big enough to be a tank."

"Maybe it's a tank stealthed like the elf car," The Weeze offered.

Greerson broke in. "If it is a tank, they been listening to your chatter. Dump it until you've got a good ID."

Kham watched Greerson cut across the clearing and disappear into the woods in the direction of John Parker's position.

"Everybody hold yer position," Kham ordered. "Dwarf's right. Keep it down till ya know what yer lookin'

at."

Kham considered swapping the magazine in his AK-74 for the one with explosive bullets. If it was a tank coming, the sh.e.l.ls wouldn't penetrate the armor, but they might decouple a tread on a tracked vehicle, or jam a thrust vent if it was a hover type. If it wasn't a tank, then it was trash; the sh.e.l.ls would wreak fine 74.havoc with anything unarmored. On the other hand, maybe it was just that John Parker was jumpy and the explosive sh.e.l.ls overkill, and overkill was expensive. Before he could decide, Sheila was on the radio net.

"Got an aircraft coming in from the southwest," she reported.

"That ain't a plane," one of the cyberboys contradicted. "It's organic."

"Movement on the west," the other cyberboy reported.

That could be bad. John Parker was on the eastern perimeter and Sheila to the southwest. They had activity in at least three directions. If they were all hostiles . . . "Fraggin' drek! It's a wyvern!" Sheila yelled. Kham heard her without benefit of the radio. He also heard the automatic weapons fire and the hissing bellow of the beast. Tracers lit the sky to the southwest with trails of orange fire. In their light, Kham made out the snakelike body and bat wings of the creature. It was headed toward the clearing, straight toward him and the elves.

Kham didn't bother climbing down from his perch; he just jumped. His heavily muscled legs took the strain with ease and he bounced up and ran for the clearing. He hit the open s.p.a.ce just as the monstrous beast cleared the treetops opposite him.

The Light One spoke without turning from his work. "Do your job, ork."

The wyvern swooped up, rising high over the center of the clearing. The serpentine body writhed as it twisted in a tortured spiral, higher and higher. Then it snapped its wings up and darted its head down.

Body followed head in a rush like a speeding bullet train. The beast screamed as it came, its jaws gaping wide. Wings beating, it dove on the elves. Kham fired, and the slugs from his AK ripped divots 75 from the beast's flank, but still it came on. Behind him Kham could hear the elves talking.

"Deal with it," the Dark One said.

The Light One's response sounded worried. "But the spell?"

"I will manage."

His weapon dry, Kham fumbled for a clip with one hand while he popped the release lever to eject the empty. As his fingers closed on the magazine with the explosive sh.e.l.ls, he heard the elf moving behind him. The wyvern slapped its wings down in a mighty stroke, suddenly arresting its progress. Wind tore at Kham, staggering him. The beast pulled its head back, neck arching in a sinuous curve.

"Drek! It's gonna breathe."

Kham's suddenly sweaty fingers fumbled with the magazine. He couldn't get it loaded in time. Turning, he readied himself to barrel through the elf's position. Maybe he could carry them both out of the beast's line of fire if he was fast enough. Seeing that the elf was standing still, staring up at the beast, his hands glowing with arcane energy, Kham rethought his plan; he didn't want to get caught between fire and magic. He turned again and raced away. If the elf wasn't bright enough to take cover, Kham knew one ork who was. As hard as he could, he ran for the trees, his precious magazine of explosive sh.e.l.ls clattering on the ground behind him.

Turning his head to look back as he ran, Kham stumbled and fell. He twisted, trying to get his shoulder under him into a body roll, but he didn't make it. He hit hard and flopped on his back, stunned.

Above the clearing the wyvern seemed to fill the sky.

Flames and a billowing cloud of sulfurous smoke burst from its open maw. The Light One stood firm as [the fire crackled toward him. Then he raised his hands, 76.the arcane energy around them shooting out to form a barrier between the elf and the monster. The beast's flames hissed as they struck the faintly glowing shield, rivulets of flame sliding along the surface of the magical barrier and falling to scorch the earth in a circle around the elves and their ritual apparatus.

Smoke roiled above the clearing, boiling up in a cloud that hid the wyvern.

Kham scrambled to his feet, grabbing the AK from where it had fallen. The sounds of weapons fire and strange crashes and howls were coming from the woods to the west of the clearing. That had to be John Parker and Greerson engaging whatever had spooked John Parker. Kham could also hear fire and b.e.s.t.i.a.l roars from the cyberboys' position on the west.

With a thunderous noise, something large and armor-plated smashed through the last trees and bushes on the east, bursting into the clearing. It might have been a tank, but Kham had never seen one so big nor one that ran on four legs. The new beast halted, seemingly taking in the scene before it. Its toothy jaws gaped wide, dripping with saliva. Above them the beat of the wyvern's wings sounded like thunder. But, for a moment, nothing happened. The respite gave Kham a chance to slap in a new magazine. Ordinary rounds, but better than nothing.

This new creature was alive, which meant it had to have some soft parts; the eyes at least.

Firing, he dodged as the beast charged. As expected, his slugs had little effect. The beast crashed into the arcane barrier the Light One had erected. It howled in fury and lashed its tail. Too close, Kham was caught by the tail and lifted from his feet. He sailed through the air, directly toward the center of the clearing. Expecting to be smashed into the barrier, he was surprised as he flew through its perimeter in a 77.flicker of green light, landing ignominiously on his b.u.t.t next to the dark elf.

The Dark One's magical mask was gone, and Kham could see his features contorting with the effort of his concentration. Despite his earlier casual a.s.surance, he was having trouble maintaining the spell he and his companion had set into motion. Kham checked the other elf. The Light One's mask was gone, too.

The conjuring the two elves were now doing obviously required all their strength and concentration, leaving insufficient energy to maintain their disguises.

Neither was familiar to Kham, but he marked their faces.

Greerson appeared at the edge of the woods, his weapon raised. Though he was aiming at the armored beast, Kham could see that Sheila, emerging from the trees on the opposite side of the clearing, was in his line of fire. Kham shouted a warning, but it was drowned out by the beast's bellowing. The scene flickered before his eyes, lit by the strobe flashes of the Light One's lightnings as the elf scoured the sky and ravaged the wyvern screaming overhead.

The dwarf fired.

Sheila fell howling. Flesh and blood exploded from the armored critter's neck in a fountain, covering Sheila's p.r.o.ne form with gore. Unmindful of his previous bashing by the beast's tail, Kham leapt over the thrashing member and ran to her side. She was alive. Scorched by the explosion of the dwarfs rocket, but alive.

"You crazy halfer, you could've hit me!" Sheila screamed.

"I didn't." The dwarf popped the one-shot launcher from his weapon and replaced it with another. "If you'd been doing your job, you wouldn't have needed my help."

"I was handling it."

78."Your version. Looked otherwise to me." The dwarf shrugged and inclined his head toward the center of the clearing. "I suspect it looked that way to our employers as well."

The three all looked to the elves as if expecting confirmation.

The elves, no longer engaged with their magic, said nothing, but they seemed to chafe under the stares the runners were giving them. The Light One muttered something under his breath and the variegated colors again sheathed the elves' faces.

There came one last burst of fire from the western perimeter, then silence descended over the clearing.

8 The elves' crystal was some kind of magical conduit, linked to the magical apparatus the pair had set up outside. Through it, Neko could see the Dark One as though through a fog. Behind the elf, Neko also saw flashes of gunfire and the darting shape of a wy-vern. When the Light One"joined the fight, pale semblances of his lightnings flashed upon the cavern walls. Neko gauged that the fight would be over long before he could return to the surface, so he merely sat back and watched. Nothing he did now could affect the outcome.

He didn't have long to wait. As expected, the runners' firepower and the elf's magic finished the wyvern and the other beast in short order. He saw the faces of the elves before they hid again behind their magic and returned to their ritual. The cavern walls echoed with the musical tones from 79.the elven crystal, now joined by lesser voices from the smaller stones in their cages of silver wire. The song was an inviting, beseeching melody. At the edge of his awareness he thought he detected a sour tone, but he couldn't be sure. Light sprang forth from the elven crystal, flooding the chamber and overcoming the ambient reddish glow with its harsh green fire. A stronger, more coherent shaft arrowed out to the cavern wall, opening a path through the earth to the surface that was at once there and not there. The Dark One, arms held wide, walked through that tunnel of light to join Neko in the underground cavern.

The Light One was hard on his companion's heels. Remaining outside, but reflected in the elven crystal, the orks and the dwarf stood scattered around the ritual circle in the clearing, watching their patrons disappear into the hillside.

A sudden roar shattered the tableau. "What is it?" Kham bellowed, as though he'd forgotten he had a radio link with the others still in the woods.

"It's another fraggin' dinosaur!" John Parker yelled back from somewhere in the woods. His voice was faint in Neko's ears; the ork might have been a half-kilometer away.

"Dracoform, you stupid tusker," Greerson grumbled. "Ain't no live dinos."

"Don't matter what it is. Get it before it clears da trees," Kham ordered.

The runners scrambled, converging in the direction of the new threat. Neko heard the beast's bellows, the runners' gunfire, and the single whoosh of the dwarf's rocket launcher. The dwarf boasted over the radio link that his shot had killed, but Kham heard other screams before the beast died, the kind that only mortally wounded persons make. Neko had heard such screams 80.before and knew that one of the runners was dead, or soon would be.

The elves stood, looking back along their magic tunnel to watch the conflict. They did nothing to help.

Unsure whether he could use the magic tunnel, Neko hesitated.

Silence returned as suddenly as it had gone. A few moments later, a bloodied Kham reappeared in the clearing. He peered into the tunnel and announced, "John Parker's dead."

The elves looked at him wordlessly for a moment, then the Dark One said, "The large crystal must be removed from the chamber.''

Kham didn't take their cold att.i.tude well at all; rage flamed in his eyes and he went rigid. In the magicallight, Neko could see the whiteness of the ork's knuckles as he gripped his automatic weapon. Neko edged to one side, away from the line between Kham and the elves. To his surprise, the ork seemed to slowly master his emotions. The Light One, apparently oblivious to his danger, snapped an order.

"Well, ork. This is what you are being paid to do. Come within and remove the crystal from the frame."

Kham stood frozen for only an instant longer, then he slung his weapon in short, violent motions.

Beckoning two of his gang forward, he strode into the tunnel, eyes focused on the great carved crystal to which the Light One pointed. Rabo and Sheila were the ones who followed Kham. Unlike him, they glared at the elves as they pa.s.sed, their eyes full of disdain.

Kham rattled the frame when he reached it, a.s.sessing its strength. The highest crossmember was at the height of his shoulder, too high to lift the ma.s.sive crystal over it. Rabo and Sheila joined him and they set to work. Neko gave the Light One a shrug of helplessness when the elf turned to him. The crystal was too heavy for Neko, and he'd just get in the way of the 81.burly orks. He caught the bag the elf tossed to him, but its contents were neither hard nor heavy the way the satchel had been. In response to the elf's gestures, Neko dumped the contents out, making a pile of the straps and cloth inscribed with arcane symbols.

The orks worked in uncharacteristic silence, no talk, no jokes, only grunts of effort as they attacked the frame containing the great crystal. When their knives failed to cut the frame's bindings, they worked the structural members, pulling and tugging on the old wood. Under the a.s.sault of their brute strength, the wood cracked and the crystal rocked precariously.

"Careful!" shouted the Light One.

Kham glared at him, but said nothing.

As the orks increased the violence of their a.s.sault, one of the vertical supports broke with a crack, sending slivers of dark wood flying in a hundred directions. Neko saw one of the splinters pierce Kham's arm, but the big ork only grunted and tugged harder on the rest of the frame until the remains of the crossmembers that cradled the front of the stone broke away.

Neko stepped up and offered the straps, which the orks took and fastened into a carrying sling. The wrapping cloths Neko handed to Kham, with the comment , '' You 're bleeding."

Kham looked down at his arm. A fragment of dark wood protruded from the wound. The ork snapped it off and tossed it away. "Ain't nothing compared ta what happened ta John Parker.''

"A piece is still embedded in your arm. It could get infected."

"Den let it! If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die."

"I was just concerned for-"

"Look, catboy. I'm a big tough ork. I don't need any mothering from a half-pint j.a.p."

Neko took the insult in stride. The ork was distressed at the loss of his friend; the lack of control was 82.83 understandable. Still, Neko stepped back. There was no need to press; the ork might decide that a "half-pint j.a.p" was a suitable target for the rage still boiling within him.

"Well, the hard part's over," Greerson said to n.o.body in particular as the orks finished loading the crystal into the elves' vehicle. In the silence that greeted the dwarf's remark, the elves checked the bindings, satisfying themselves that their prize was secure.

Mr. Johnson called the runners together. "Your services are no longer required."

"What about an escort," the blond razorguy began, and his companion finished, "back to the plex?"

"Yeah," Greerson seconded. "Don't you want help getting that thing home?" "No."

Greerson slapped his rocket launcher. "What if some more of the local wildlife want to play?"

With a disdainful stare, the ejf replied, "My princ.i.p.als do not consider that a significant likelihood."

From the back of the group, Rabo asked, "Hey, Greerson, what was with those critters anyway? Why'd they attack like that?''

"How the h.e.l.l should I know? What do I look like? A parabiologist?''

Neko took the opportunity and suggested, "Maybe you've got an explanation, Johnson-saw."

The elf shrugged. "Magical operations sometimes rouse the local wildlife into an unreasoning rage."

Rabo nodded as if he understood. "And that's why you wanted all the firepower."

"It seemed a reasonable precaution," the elf agreed.

"An expensive one," Greerson said. "Cost-effective, Johnson?"

The elf's look of disdain shifted to one of distaste. "That is not your concern. Our a.s.sociation is terminated." He turned toward his vehicle.

"So you're just buzzing," said the raven-haired cy-berboy.