Gridlinked

'Come on. He'll be here in a minute.'

Corlackis shrugged and climbed in. Stanton set the vehicle on low hover. The old grav motor had a hum with a slight edge to it that grated on the nerves. He turned off the charge on the screen and watched as dirty rain smeared it, before he set the vehicle drifting forwards.

'There,' he said, pointing, then looking at his watch. 'Right on time to the second.'

The man they'd had trailing them all over Port Lock had just appeared.

'Lucky it wasn't the Golem,' said Corlackis.

'Calculated,' Stanton replied. 'The Golem had to stay with Pelter and Mr Crane. It'll be the senior here, and the only one capable of dealing with Crane if things went wrong. As they will.'

The man halted out on the slabs and raised his hand.

No doubt he was expecting to be allowed into a nice dry car, his watching at an end for a while. Stanton drifted the car so the passenger side would come up to him. Corlackis touched a door control and the window slid down at an angle. He removed from his jacket pocket a fat little gun with a barrel wider than it was long.

'In the back seat,' said Stanton. 'We'll be needing the room left in the boot.'

'As you say, John,' said Corlackis.

They drew abreast of the man and he ducked down to peer in the window, a friendly grin on his face. Stanton felt sure he was about to say something about the weather. But he lost his grin when Corlackis shot him in the face.

'Shit, we wanted him alive,' said Stanton.

'Credit me with some intelligence, John. Short-acting neural poison in pellet form. He won't be pretty, but he'll be alive,' Corlackis replied.

'Right… right,' said Stanton. He checked his watch, then took a small comunit from his top pocket as the AGC settled. 'Svent, how is it?' he asked.

'He's heading for the cafe. We'll take him there.'

'Don't worry if we're a little late. Me

'That's OK,' said Svent. 'I wanted a coffee anyway. See you shortly.'

Stanton made an adjustment and spoke again. 'We got all four and are holding them,' he said.

Pelter's voice in reply was cold and correct. 'That was the easy part. Now we have this ECS machine to deal with,' he said.

'Where are you now?'

'I'm at the dump outside the spaceport.'

'The Golem still with you?'

'As far as we can ascertain. It is very good. Maybe it has chameleonware.'

'Need any help?'

'I have Mr Crane.'

Stanton shut off the unit. That was all Pelter had wanted him to say. He popped his door and walked round to Corlackis, who was searching the man he had stu

'Chuck it,' said Stanton. 'Might have a tracer.' He looked around. Still no one in sight, but it was best to get this sort of thing done quickly. He opened the back door, which no longer closed properly anyway since Me

'Now let's find that brother of yours,' Stanton said.

They got back into the AGC and Stanton reversed it back to its original location.

'How long will he be out for?' he asked, stabbing a thumb to the back.

'Half an hour to an hour,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton watched him carefully. 'Right then. You stay here and keep an eye on him. I'll go and see what your brother is doing,' he said.

'I could do that,' said Corlackis, returning his look.

'Yes, but you're not. You'll stay here.'

'As you say.'

Stanton opened the door and got out. As he headed for the alley he noticed that the ground skate was now at the edge of the flooded gully and was there squeezing out a long and slimy white worm. Further down the gully more of these worms were wriggling in the torrent. From what he recollected of these creatures, this meant it was male. The worms were motile sperm packets on their way to find an egg-laden pool to burst in. The wounds Me

Stepping into the darkness of the alley Stanton intensified his vision. He pulled his comunit and keyed it to pick up the signal from Me

A yell cut the night and Stanton accelerated. A glance at his comunit showed him Me

'Want to play, little pussy?' he asked.

Still moving in, Stanton drew his pulse-gun and let it hang at his side. Me

'Me

Me

'I thought I told you to stay at the car,' said Stanton, glancing aside at Corlackis. Corlackis held up his own comunit. 'I could see he wasn't far. Thought I might help.'

Stanton nodded and holstered his pulse-gun. 'Me

'He's becoming a liability,' Stanton said.

'He's not so bad,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton had to wonder just what precisely this mercenary's definition of 'bad' was. On reaching the AGC he waited in the pouring rain. He could have helped Me

'Wild party,' said Corlackis.

From a distance it seemed as if the three of them were drunk. Closer inspection revealed that the one in the middle did not have his feet on the ground and any movement was imparted by the two on either side, those two being Svent and Dusache. Stanton reached inside the car and popped the boot.