Demon

A very few decided to take the big leap. They converted their homes into starships and headed out.

Conal heard about these events from refugees arriving during the seventh year of the war. An inescapable image came to mind: he saw the Earth as a blackened globe, cracking apart, girdled in flame. Tiny mites were scurrying away in droves.

"Rats leaving a sinking ship," he told Cirocco.

"And what would you expect rats to do?" she countered. "Go down bravely? The rat's about the smartest animal there is, and the toughest. The rats don't owe the ship a damn thing, and neither do those ellfivers."

"No need to bite my head off."

"I'll keep doing it as long as you think it's a good idea to trust psychopaths. Anybody who can get away from the Earth right now and doesn't is saying she believes it's okay to lie down with a mad dog. Those ellfivers are the sane escaping the asylum. And maybe the grave."

When he had the time, Conal liked to hang around the Portal just outside Bellinzona, improving the breed.

The Portal was just what the name implied: the port of entry for all the wretched refuse who flocked to Gaea's shores. On Gaea's outer surface was the catcher that retrieved Gaea's returning eggs or the now-infrequent human ships seeking refuge. From there the people were taken to Gaea's equivalent of Ellis Island, far down in her bowels, where they were processed. The immigration procedure had once been complex and time-consuming. Now it was simplicity itself: holy people to the left, mortals to the right. Messiahs, priests, preachers, pastors, shamen, gurus, juju men, dervishes, monks, rabbis, mullahs, ayatullahs, vicars, necromancers, prelates, and popes all were taken directly to an audience with Gaea. The rest were loaded into capsules with what they could carry on their backs. There was a short ride through Gaea's circulatory system to a sphincter valve that squeezed them out, twenty at a time, into a small cave that Cirocco called "the asshole of the world."

Since all the refugees came out at the same place, the Portal attracted a certain element that hoped to prey on weakness or ignorance. Like pimps standing sentry in a big-city bus station, these people were on the lookout for immigrants who had something that could be sold at a profit. Sometimes it was their meager material goods. Sometimes it was a lot worse than that.

It was a strange game Conal played. He had played it many times, though Cirocco said he was a fool to do so. He would have kept doing it even if he thought she really meant that, but he knew she didn't, and Hornpipe had confirmed it.

"It is a worthwhile foolishness," the Titanide had said. "It is a Titanide thing to do." Titanides didn't care if a cause was lost, and it didn't worry them that they could not stamp out all the evil in the world. If they saw a chance to do some good without getting themselves killed, they did it, and so did Conal.

Which was not to say he went about it rashly. Some of the Portal layabouts ran in gangs, and took a dim view of anyone interfering in their activities. Conal would hang back, out of their way, and look for the chance to stalk the hunter as he led his prey to a dark, private place. When that chance came, when he had come in behind a Portal Rat and taken him by surprise, Conal killed him. Murderer, thief, slaver, or babylegger-it was all the same to Conal. There were no jails in Bellinzona, no middle ground between the quick and the dead.

More often he would have to watch as people got the living shit beat out of them and were stripped naked and left bleeding. Then he would take the victim to one of the jack-leg medicine men who served the function of hospitals in Bellinzona.

Today seemed like a good day. Looking around, he spotted a group of four Vigilantes wielding clubs that bristled with rusty nails. There were also three Free Female archers standing well away on high ground. With any luck at all, he would not have to do anything. The mere presence of these protective societies had driven many of the vermin away.

Increasingly, the pickings had been small at the Portal. More and more people arrived without so much as a stitch of clothing, wearing a vacant look: the walking corpses of Graveyard Earth. Most had been at the edge of death when rescued, some after suffering horribly for years. Gaea healed their bodies, but either could not or would not do anything about their minds.

Today's group was different. Fully half of them were not only clothed, but carried packs and suitcases brimming with booty. Conal could hear the jackals start to murmur. A Free Female bow twanged and an arrow shaft appeared in a man's throat; it qualified as a gentle warning in Bellinzona. The Vigilantes began laying about them with their clubs, but soon were forced onto the defensive. Conal began to edge back. He didn't plan to die in a riot.

He saw a particularly interesting duo just as he was about to leave. A short, thirtyish woman with some kind of painting on her face carried a small bundle in her arms, walking beside a stu

Conal groaned. It was like watching a treasure-laden Spanish galleon sail into a nest of pirates. They had no idea what was about to happen.

It came quickly. A small figure darted from the crowd, punched the small one in the face, and grabbed the bundle. Conal realized it was an infant. The mother started to chase the man, but was suddenly hemmed in by the rest of the gang, who would strip the two women clean while the point man made off with the real prize.

There was nothing he could do to help the women. There were at least six men attacking them. So he would follow the man with the baby, because of all the things that could happen in Gaea he felt being sold to the Iron Masters was the worst. He was already after the man when the screaming began. Against his will, he looked back.

It was like a tornado. The women had knives in each hand, and knives in their boots, and they were whirling madly, shrieking at the top of their lungs, slashing and stabbing. One man took seven wounds before he had time to fall down and start to die. Another tried to hold his throat together as a second blade entered his bowels. Four were down, then five, as others moved in with knives drawn.

It was too bad, really. It was the most amazing display of sheer, furious will to fight he had ever seen, but he didn't see how the two could hold off an army. They were going to take a fine honor guard to hell. with them, but they were going to die. The least he could do was save the child of the older warrior.

He had almost waited too long, mesmerized by the carnage. The fleeing kidnapper was approaching the main bridge to Bellinzona when Conal finally got through the crowd and into the open.

He was a hundred meters behind the man when he left the bridge. The fleeing man was small and quick. He darted in and out of the crowd, and then he outsmarted himself. Knowing a ru

The man saw nothing the second time he looked back, nor the third. There was nothing to be seen the fourth time, either, and for a very good reason. Conal was in front of him by then.

It wasn't too hard to figure out where the man was going; the location of the Iron Masters' trading post was well-known. There was no sense in keeping a kidnapped human baby any longer than you had to; most humans took a dim view of babylegging. So Conal positioned himself on a narrow pier and waited.