Time went rubbery, stretching. His body felt light, almost like zero-G, every movement achingly precise, the outlines of things cut in crystal.
Mandy was speaking again.
“Oh, moo. Some sort of escape or somethin’ from a headhunter facility. Everyone’s to stay put an’ report movement until further notice. Erg, mo’ waitin’ in the rain.”
“Damn,” the American said. “And I’s real anxious to get out of here.”
Wofor gave a growl, and Alexandra began to turn back, a casual movement that turned blinding-fast as her peripheral vision caught the muzzle of his Tolgren. Even then, it cleared the holster before the flat brak of his weapon stitched a line of fist-sized craters from breastbone to throat. Falling, she was falling away in a mist of blood and roar; the ghouloon leapt from the rear of the steam truck, its great hands outstretched and jaws opened to nearly ninety degrees. Flying toward him, the huge white-and-red gape, and two pistols fired in the background and he was levering himself backward off the horse. Inertia fought him like water in the simulator tank, back at the Academy. Then he was toppling, kicking his foot free of the stirrup.
The horse shied violently at the ghouloon’s roar and the crack of the firearms, enough to throw him a dozen paces further as he fell.
Damp gravel pounded into his back, jarring, but he scarcely noticed. Not when the transgene struck the horse at the end of its flight; the big gelding went over with a scream of fear, and for a moment the two animals were a thrashing pile on the surface of the road. Just long enough to flick the selector on his pistol to full-automatic and brace it with both hands. Wofor rose over the prostrate body of the horse, looming like a black mountain of muscle and fur, yellow eyes and bone-spike teeth.
Even with a muzzle brake, the Tolgren was difficult to control on full-automatic. The American solved the problem by starting low enough that the first round shattered a knee, letting the torque empty the magazine upward into the transgene’s center of mass. Wofor’s own weight slewed him around when the knee buckled, and the massive animal slammed into the ground at full tilt, a diagonal line across his torso sawn open by the shrapnel effect of the prefragmented bullets. The earth shook with the impact. Lefarge yelled relief as the pistol emptied itself, screamed again as the ghouloon’s one good hand clamped on his ankle. Dying, it still gripped like a pneumatic press, crushing the bone beneath the boot leather and dragging his leg toward the open jaws. The human twisted, raised his other leg and hacked down on the transgene’s thumb with the metal-shod heel of the boot; once, twice and then there was a crackling sound. He rolled, pulled free, came to his feet with a stab of pain up the injured limb.
Boot will hold it, he thought with savage concentration, as his hands slapped another cassette into the weapon.
Marya was running down the line of cars; the blond Draka lay on the ground, her hands to her belly. Lefarge hobbled forward, felt a stab of concern at the spreading red stain on the side of his sister’s jacket.
“Just a graze, first car in the row, go, go, go!” she shouted. At each car she paused just long enough to pump three rounds into the communicator; even so, she was in time to help him into the first as he hop-stepped to safety.
“Let’s go,” he snarled, wrenching at the controls as she tumbled through the entrance on the other side. The turbines shrieked and the aircar rose on fan thrust, just high enough to clear the treetops before he rammed the throttles forward. The SD would not shoot down a planter’s car, not until they got confirmation, and Marya had delayed that a vital fifteen minutes. At worst, a clean death when a heatseeker blew their craft out of the sky; at best, they would make it.
“We did it,” he breathed. Something slackened in the center of his body, and pain shot up the leg from the savaged ankle.
“We—did,” Marya replied. She was fumbling in the first aid box. “We . . . did.”
“I didn’t know that,” Yolande said, looking down at the body of her cousin.
The eyes stared empty upwards into the rain, and the steady silver fall washed the blood pale-pink out of the sodden cloth. The ambulance took off with a scream of fans; Mandy would be in that, and John riding beside her. Myfwany put an arm about her shoulders.
“You couldn’t, sweet,” she said. “If’n Alexandra couldn’t tell, how could you? Y’hardly met them.”
“Oh?” Yolande shook her head, and indicated the ghouloon; Wofor was not quite dead, though far beyond help. He had crawled the ten yards from the broken-backed horse with one good arm and one leg, trailing the shattered limbs and most of his blood. Now he lay with his head at Alexandra’s feet, and Yolande crouched to shelter his head from the rain.
“Not that,” she said softly, as the last trickle of sound escaped the fanged mouth and the labored breathing stopped. Her hand indicated the ghouloon, touched its muzzle. A bubble of blood burst at the back of its throat. “I didn’t know these could cry, is all.”
Chapter Ten
NEW YORK CITY
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DECEMBER 31, 1975
“Should auld acquaintance be forgooot—”
“I hate that bloody song,” Frederick Lefarge muttered, taking another sip of his drink. The room was hazy with smoke, and flickering light and music came through the door from the dance floor; the room smelled of tobacco and beer. More and more of the patrons at the bar were linking arms and swaying, attempting a Scottish accent as they sang.
It reminds me of Andy. Forget that.
O’Grady’s was supposed to be picturesque, a real Old New York hangout and Irish as all hell. The wainscotting was dark oak, and the walls of the booths were padded in dark leather as well; there were hunting prints and landscapes on the walls. It was crowded as all hell tonight, and noisy, but Cindy had swung a private booth just for them; some noncom friend of her dad’s ran the place. The food was better than passable, and the sides of the booth made conversation possible. There was a viewscreen on the opposite wall, showing the crowds outside in Jefferson Square, and the big display clock on the Hartmann Tower. Ten minutes to midnight, and the screen began flashing between views. Different cities all over the Alliance, Sao Paulo, London, Djakarta, Sydney. The Lunar colonies—they could almost be called cities themselves, now—and the cramped corridors of the asteroid settlements. A shot from low orbit, the great curve of Earth rolling blue and lovely.
“Don’t be such a grouch, honey,” Cindy said, and nibbled at his ear. Lefarge laughed and put an arm around her waist, always a pleasant experience. “You were happy enough after dinner.”
“There were just the two of us then,” he said.
“Grrr, tiger!” Another nibble on his ear. “And I’ve got some news for you, darling.”
“What?” he asked, raising the glass to his lips.
Cindy Guzman had had only two glasses of white wine with seltzer, but there was a gleam in her eye he knew of old. She was sitting in a corner of the booth, looking cool and chic in the long black dress with the pearl-and-gold belt. Her legs were curled up under her; the glossy dark-red hair fell in waves over her shoulder, and the diamond-shaped cutout below the yoke neck showed the upper curve of her breasts. The glass in his hand halted and he sat motionless, utterly contented just to look. She gave off an air of . . . wholesomeness, he thought, which was strange; you expected that word to go along with some thick-ankled corn-fed maiden from the boonies, not the brightest and sexiest woman he had ever known. It was like a draught of cool water, like . . . coming home.