Demon

"He hadn't gone zombie?"

"No. Perhaps he won't."

"Maybe not, but we can't take that chance. Cremate him, please. Anything else?"

"Valiha spoke to me not long ago. She asked that, if you called, and if you had the time, would you call her back."

"Roger, will do." Cirocco switched cha

"I read you, Captain."

"Where are you, my friend?"

"I'm almost to the mid-point of Iapetus, Cirocco." They could all hear Serpent's exhaustion.

"You're making incredibly good time, Serpent, but I'm afraid it was for nothing. We're most of the way through Cronus, and we're sure he's on his way to Hyperion. I don't think it'll do any good for you to go on."

"I'd prefer to keep going, unless you have something better for me to do. But I'll soon have to stop for rest and food."

"Don't push yourself so hard. I don't think there's much you can do, either way."

"Then I'll go on until you turn back."

"All right." Cirocco once again pressed buttons. "Valiha, are you there?"

"I am at the outskirts of Bellinzona, Cirocco," Valiha said.

"What did you want to know?"

"You bade me catch live zombies," she said. "I have enlisted Hornpipe, Mbira, Cembalo, Sistrum, and Lyricon in this project. They tell me Luther was here a short time ago, but know of no other zombie band in the area. We can search for strays, but our noses tell us none are in the area. The citizens of this fair city have become cautious enough that few new zombies spring from their graveyards. What I wanted to know, Captain, is must these zombies be already dead?"

Cirocco thought it over for a while.

"Valiha, you are ruthless and practical."

"Captain, to me there are those who have been executed for their crimes, and those who, through an oversight, are still walking around. Do you wish me to read them their rights and arrange fair trials?"

"Follow the right path as you see it," Cirocco sang.

Valiha turned off the radio and stuffed it in her pouch. She sang a few notes to her five companions, and they trotted off down the broad pier that ran along the Grand Canal. When they came to the crossing waterway known as the Slough of Despond, they stopped, and looked around. It was here that much of Bellinzona's thriving business in slaves was done.

Soon a caravan came shambling down Edward Teller Boulevard.

There were twenty slaves in iron fetters: sixteen females and four males, many of them children. They were guarded by ten muscular men in rough armor, and at the head of the procession was the slavemaster in a sedan chair carried by a pair of identical twins. The chair was a conspicuous indulgence in Gaea's low gravity, but it had nothing to do with utility and everything to do with showboating. The contingent of guards, on the other hand, might have proved too few, even if the caravan had been set upon by human bandits. But the slavemaster was counting on the unseen presence of the mafia to which he owed his allegiance.

The Titanides spread out along the edge of the pier. The guards looked at them nervously, as did the slavemaster.

"Are these for sale?" Valiha asked him.

The man was obviously surprised at the question. It was well-known that Titanides never bought slaves. But good business practice demanded steering clear of them, never offering offense-or at least treating them as the dangerous animals they were. So the man got up and made a perfunctory bow. His English was not great, but good enough.

"All for sale, sure. You in the market?"

"It so happens we are," Valiha said. She put her hand around his throat and squeezed. Long, long ago, she thought, someone was this man's mother. He was her darling baby boy. She felt a moment's regret as she heard his spine snap. I wonder what happened to him? she thought.

It was the only eulogy he would get from her.

When she looked up, the ten guards were dead. It had been done so quickly that many of the people on the crowded boulevard were only now becoming aware that it had happened at all. One moment there had been a slave caravan, and the next there were just slaves and Titanides lining bodies in a neat row. Some people hurried away. Others, noting that the Titanides made no more aggressive moves, watched warily, then went about their business. No one screamed. No one wept.

They stripped the corpses and piled weapons and clothing on the street, then removed the chains from the slaves. It took some time to convince them they were actually free. Valiha and her band held the scavengers off long enough for the freed slaves to take their pick of the booty. Cembalo volunteered to escort those women who wanted to go to the Free Female Quarter.

"Most of these will be enslaved again within ten revs," Hornpipe sang.

"This I know," Valiha sang. "However, I did not come here to clean up the world. Just this part of it, and just for a moment" She reached into her pouch and took out the radio.

"Rocky, do you read me?" she said, in English. Titanide song was often garbled when put through these clumsy human devices.

"I'm here, Valiha."

"There are four Titanides on their way to you. They will build pens for these creatures. We have eleven in hand. Did the Captain give you instructions for their housing?"

"She did. Until we know if Nova's elixir remains potent in the house, they are to be kept some distance away. I have selected a site."

"We will be with you shortly."

There was no trouble on the way out of town.

Valiha paused at the graveyard and gathered a few bushels of dirt into a leather pouch. It was probably u

They made good time to the Junction. When they got there, they arranged the corpses on the ground, back to back, belly to belly, and scattered the soil over them. As the zombies began to stir feebly they were put into the newly-built cages.

Valiha felt satisfaction when the job was done. She watched the monsters shuffling to and fro, bumping into the walls, directionless.

It would be very interesting to see what killed them.

SEVENTEEN

"I don't like this," Conal said, for the third time.

"I can't fly the plane," Nova said. She snapped the safety line to her harness, and looked at him.

"I still don't like it," he grumbled. "I don't know if you appreciate the danger to Adam."

"I guess I deserve that," Nova said, keeping her temper firmly under control. "But I'm playing your game. I'm going out there to rescue my little sister."

He looked at her for a long time, then nodded.

"Watch those feet," he warned again. "For chrissake, don't let that thing slash you up."

"I will watch, but not for the sake of Christ." She opened the door, latched it in place, and stepped out on the wing. Carefully, keeping herself turned so he couldn't see it, she unfastened the line and hooked it to a cloth loop on her shirt. If the deathangel dropped her bro ... sister, Nova intended to jump after him. Her.

Great Mother, hear your daughter and grant her luck.

She looked down, and was pleased to note she felt only cautious, not afraid. Her concern was not of falling, but of falling at the wrong time.

She held on as Conal eased the plane closer. He edged around until Nova could almost touch him. She took a firm grip on the knife.

The deathangel turned its skull-face toward her, dipped one wing, and plunged straight for the ground.

Nova could hear Conal shouting into the radio. She stuck her head in closer and did some shouting of her own.

"Chase him, damn it! Follow him down! Get me in close enough so I can rip the christ-loving psalm-singing prick!"