Mindstar Rising

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The marine-adepts' Bedford van stank of stale water-fruit and pigshit; its thirty-year-old combustion engine wheezed asthmatically from the methane it was burning, a fuel it'd never been designed to run on. Eleanor neither noticed nor cared about its failings, the van moved, and that was all that mattered right now.

Nicole drove, hunched forward over the steering wheel, staring myopically down the weak beams its headlights threw along the narrow uneven road. There weren't any doors; wind whipped through the cab, frosting Eleanor's legs.

"Should be along here somewhere," the marine-adept woman said.

"Greg said it looks just like a farm road."

"Right." Nicole leaned even further forwards, nose almost touching the cracked windscreen. "What the hell's this?"

As they turned a corner Eleanor saw about fifteen cars and four methane-fuelled Transit vans parked along both sides of the road, all of them had flashing lights on top, blue and orange in equal numbers. "Police?" The ever-present fear increased its hold.

"Some of them."

Nicole slowed. A uniformed bobby was standing in the middle of the road, flagging them down. The headlights of the parked vehicles had been left on, casting pale beams of light along the tall hedgerows, turning the leaves grey. There were a lot of people milling about on the road, less than half were wearing police uniforms, the rest had green nylon windcheater jackets with Event Horizon's logo across the back.

The bobby looked into the cab and smiled. "Evening ladies, won't keep you a moment. There's a C9 division van backing off the road up ahead."

"I have to get to Wilholm manor," Eleanor said. "I've got an appointment with Julia Evans."

The bobby looked her slowly up and down, Eleanor had thrown a thick lumberjack shirt over her swimsuit, and there were some borrowed trainers on her feet. His eyes tracked her long bare legs. "Oh yes, ma'am?"

Nicole didn't turn her head, gripping the wheel tighter.

"Please, I really do."

"Name?"

"Eleanor Broady."

The bobby pulled out a slim cybofax and typed quickly. Eleanor's heart sank.

"I don't think you do, Miss Broady," he said.

"Well, its really Morgan Walshaw I'm booked to see."

He began to walk away. "Drive straight through when the road's clear."

"Arsehole," Nicole muttered.

"What is going on here?" Eleanor could see the big van ahead, creeping into a gap between two powerful Vauxhall groundcruisers with the Event Horizon logo on their sides, there were armed men inside.

"Lotta heavy shit going down."

They both jumped at the voice. There was a young man standing on the running board next to Nicole, dressed in a black jumpsuit with a rubbery collar which came up to his chin.

Familiar face, unpleasant memory. "Des, isn't it?" Eleanor asked.

Des grinned wolfishly. "Kinda memorable, right? Listen, Father's hung out a hundred metres past the last of the pigs. See ya there." He jumped off.

Nicole grunted and shoved the Bedford into gear and they growled slowly between the lines of stationary vehicles. Eleanor saw what must've been Wilholm's entrance, a cattle grid which opened into the fields of sugar cane. It was illuminated from below by a harsh orange light, as though something was burning beneath it. Several people were standing watching it, none venturing particularly close.

It was Suzi they saw first, standing in the middle of the road, hands planted firmly on her hips. She was wearing the same kind of jumpsuit as Des, a photon amp across her eyes, and a maroon beret on her head. She waved them on to the grass verge.

Nicole pulled over and switched off the engine and lights. Eleanor looked round to see Suzi marching determinedly down the road towards the ant's nest commotion outside the manor's entrance.

Teddy swarmed into the cab, sitting beside Eleanor. "Lo there, Nicole, thanks for bringing her."

"No problem. Good seeing you again Ted."

Eleanor hadn't known they knew each other. The military mates thing again.

"OK, we've got problems," Teddy said. "Royan can't access Wilholm to see what the hell's going down; the manor's 'ware has been burned by a virus. Event Horizon and English Telecom have both physically unplugged it from their networks, it was doing too much damage hooked in. Half of Peterborough's telephones have already been glitched by the fallout." His thumb jerked back towards the entrance. "That's why the cavalry's here."

"Someone's attacked the manor's 'ware again?" Eleanor asked.

"Yeah, third time. Persistent buggers."

"Why are the police waiting out here?" she asked. "Why haven't they gone in?"

"Can't," said Teddy. "All the manor's defence gear is running loose. They've got to deactivate it first, which ain't gonna happen before morning, some of that stuff is seriously hazardous. And when they do get in the likes of you and I aren't gonna be first on the guest list."

"But we've got to find out about Greg, it's been hours!"

Eleanor felt Nicole's restraining hand on her shoulder, sympathetic, alleviating some of the anguish.

"I know, gal. Looks like we're gonna have to go in ourselves if we want some answers."

"Hey, Father." Suzi calling with soft urgency. Teddy and Eleanor climbed out of the cab.

Suzi had a man in tow, oriental-looking with a young face, wearing one of the Event Horizon jackets. "Man here is Victor Tyo," Suzi said. "Met him last night, one of Julia's security people. Captain no less."

"I know you," Eleanor said quickly. "You went up to Zanthus with Greg."

Victor Tyo seemed puzzled. "That's right, although can't say I remember you. I'm sure I would do."

"Greg's my man," she said simply.

"And we'd like to know what's happened to him," Suzi said.

"Happened?"

"Yeah," said Teddy. "He never got back home after snatching that phyltre junkie from the di Girolamo yacht. Eleanor here is loaded up with grief about that. You know anything about it?"

Victor glanced round at the circle of faces. "I don't understand. Greg left the finance division offices right ahead of Miss Evans's convoy."

"When?"

"About half-past four this morning."

"You saw him leave?"

"Yes, he had Miss Thompson with him in the Duo. He said he'd be back later to help analyse some holomemories we'd acquired."

"The Crays from Ellis?" Teddy asked.

"How did you know?"

"Always cover yourself, Victor. Someone you trust. And don't sweat yourself, man, I ain't interested in no corporate politics. So Greg never showed today at all, right?"

"Not at the finance offices, no. But the programming assigned to crack the Crays squirted all the data they pulled out up here to the manor. I thought he must be here."

"Don't get it," said Suzi. "Nothing could happen to Greg, not with that Lady Gee in tow. She's in-fucking-credible, like nothing happens without her seeing it first. Nothing!"

"Then why did this virus get into the manor's gear?" Eleanor said. They all looked at her, faces gusted by random beams of blue and orange light from the vehicles in the distance. "Gabriel predicted the second hotrod attack against Wilholm, why not the third?"

"Shit," from Suzi.

"OK, so strike Gabriel," said Teddy. "She and Greg have been zapped—" he flinched, glanced at Eleanor, started again. "Least, we don't know what's happened to 'em; same time Wilholm gets burned again. You like maybe see a connection there, Victor?"

The Security Captain nodded earnestly. "I'll make absolutely sure that you get to the manor right after we debug the defence gear."

Teddy snorted. Eleanor was struck by just how menacing he'd become; nothing like the directionless thuggishness of Des, he focused his energy and anger with deadly precision. And she was very glad she wasn't on the receiving end of it. Victor Tyo was wilting under his stare, unable to look away.

"You're not reading me right, man," Teddy said softly. "The answers are in that fancy mansion your lady boss lives in, and we want them. Tonight. Now."

Victor spread his arms helplessly. "We're calling in all our security programmers, but it's the middle of the night. They'll produce an antithesis, but it's going to take time. There is nothing I can do that'll get us in there any sooner."

"Wrong, man. We're going in now, and you're coming with us."

"What?"

"Think about it. Security hardliners inside see us coming at them it's gonna be target-practice time. We need you out in front to show them we ain't hostile."

"You're insane," Victor Tyo said. "Do you have any idea what kind of hardware is guarding that manor?"

Teddy grinned and beckoned.

There were five electric Honda bikes behind the hedgerow. Des was waiting with them, along with Roddy and another Trinity called Jules. All of them wearing the same black jumpsuit. Eleanor began to think it must be more than just a uniform.

Teddy flipped open a cybofax, showing it to Victor Tyo. "See this? List of Wilholm's defence gear. We know what they're loaded with, where it is, line of fire. Got our approach all figured out. We can handle the automatics, all we need now is some way of convincing the security hardliners not to shoot after we've broken through. That's you, man."

Victor Tyo took the cybofax, holding it gently as he read down the screen, dismay growing on his face. "Where in Christ's name did you get this from? Every byte here is ultra-hush."

"Snatched right out of your security division cores," Teddy said. "Now you believe we're serious?"

Royan, Eleanor knew. The thought that he was behind them, an intangible general, bolstered her in a way she couldn't define. She actually began to believe there might be hope after all.

The Hondas took them across country, heading for the back of the Wilholm estate in a long, flat curve to avoid the police patrols checking the perimeter. Eleanor rode pillion behind Suzi, clinging tenaciously to the wiry Trinities girl, sugar cane beating at her legs and arms. She could see the front wheel-fork's chrome suspension springs hammering up and down as the bike bounced over the compacted furrows of sandy red soil. They were travelling in single file, with Teddy leading; Nicole was his passenger.

There'd never been any question over the marine-adept woman joining the break-in team, which irked Eleanor, because Teddy hadn't wanted to take her along.

"No offence, gal," he'd said calmly. "But you ain't used to this kind of heat."

"So how many times have you broken into a place like this?" she'd retorted.

"That ain't the point. My troops, they got the discipline, know weapons."

"I used shotguns and rifles at my kibbutz. And I'll just follow you after you go in."

"Shit, OK gal, but Greg'll have my arse if he ever finds out. Guess there's more to you than—well, you check out neat."

More than tits 'n' ass, Eleanor had filled in silently. But Teddy had stopped objecting after that. Some part of her wished he hadn't.

It was Suzi who'd given Eleanor one of the jumpsuits to put on. "It's an energy dissipater," she'd explained intently. "It can hold out against a hand-laser for a good twelve seconds. But with those Bofors masers they've got up at the manor, you've got maybe three, four seconds to skip out of the beam before burn-through."

Along with Victor and Nicole, Eleanor had stripped off before pulling the heavy garment on, its slippery, spongy lining clinging to her skin. When it had adjusted to her figure there was virtually no restriction of movement. A tight cap held her hair down, and a hood with an integral photon amp came over her face, sealing to the collar.

Once it was on she became appreciably colder, the thermal shunt fibres siphoning out her body heat.

"It's no use against bullets," Suzi went on. "Then you can't have everything. 'Sides, Wilholm only has beam weapons. So Son says. Better be fucking right."

The world as seen through the photon amp was a place of ghostly shadows, shaded blue and grey. Eleanor was gradually growing used to it; depth perception was a little misleading, but as long as she remembered that, there'd be no trouble. Suzi had shown her how to up the magnification, bleed in infrared. There was a throat-mike activated graphic overlay, the jumpsuit's internal gear already loaded with the route Royan had devised into Wilholm. Eleanor ran through an articulation acceptance check, and practised calling up the various data projections.

The Hondas were riding down a slight incline. Teddy's bike was slowing up ahead. Eleanor searched her mind, but there was no fear, only determination. A sense of inevitability. Teddy pulled up beside a broad fast-flowing stream at the bottom of the slope, sugar cane had given way to thick reedy grass. Suzi braked beside him.

They all gathered together at the water's edge. "We'll use a diamond formation," Teddy said in a low steady voice. "Eleanor and Victor at the centre; you two will carry the Rockwell cannon and its power units, it's heavy, but we're gonna need its firepower to take out the manor's Bofors masers when we get within range. The rest of you are gonna provide us a three-sixty cover. Now you look out for those sentinel panthers, OK? You ain't never been up against 'em before, but I have. They're not simple modifications like police assault dogs, they're gene-tailored. Hazards don't come any bigger, they don't behave like animals, they're smart and sneaky with it. Your AKs can handle 'em, but it's gonna take more than one hit. OK, now remember, we stick to the water. The estate's got lotsa ground traps. They're listed, but in these conditions you're gonna have trouble matching the graphics to the landscape. The stream bed's safe, Jules, you stay out here, see to the receiver."

"Hey, screw that, Father."

"It's important, boy. Might all wind up depending on that receiver before tonight's out. Gotta be done properly."

Jules looked away across the fields, anger showing in the set of his shoulders. Eleanor wondered if he was blaming her.

"Radio communications to the manor are out," Victor said. "There's a jammer blocking all frequencies."

"Yeah I know, a Grumman ECM788," Teddy said. "We got us a tactical message laser, nothing gonna interfere with that. Jules'll take the receiver up to the top of the valley; Son says we'll have direct line of sight from there to the manor."

"Christ," Victor muttered in an undertone. "Walshaw's going to kill somebody when this is over."

"Anything else?" Teddy asked. "OK. We'll ask the Lord for his blessing."

The Trinities bowed their heads. Eleanor saw Victor look round in surprise. She lowered her own head.

"Lord, we ask for your guidance and protection in our task ahead. We're going to see if we can help our lost brother and sister, and we believe our cause is right and just. If in your wisdom you could grant us success we will remain thankful for such mercy for the remainder of our mortal life. Amen."

"Amen," the Trinities whispered in chorus.

"Amen," Eleanor added.

"OK. Tool up. Move out."

The Rockwell was a wound monolattice-filament tube one and a half metres long and twenty centimetres wide. It had a broad leather strap so Eleanor could carry it across her back. She lifted it up and realised just how dependent she was going to be on the Trinities for protection from the sentinels. She was confident she could carry it to the manor, but the weight was going to slow her down.

After she'd settled the cannon into place, Suzi clipped a Braun laser pistol on to her belt. "Twenty-five shots, or a five-second continuous burn," Suzi said. "Don't fret yourself none about getting it wet, it's waterproof." Five power magazines were added. Eleanor felt like protesting about the extra weight, but held her tongue. Suzi's normally infallible barbed humour had evaporated.

The seven of them splashed into the middle of the stream. Teddy and Suzi paired at the front, Roddy took up station on Eleanor's right-hand side. On her left was Victor, who was carrying a couple of high-density power units for the Rockwell along with the message laser. Nicole was on his left, and Des brought up the rear.

The graphics display had reproduced a perfect profile of the stream's winding course for her; a memory loaded straight from the security core Royan had burnt. It'd been built by the landscape team who had fashioned the manor's grounds; they had made the actual bed from fine, hard-packed sand, then layered it with long strips of worn limestone pebbles. The width was a near-constant four metres where she stepped in, with the water coming halfway up her shins. After a minute she managed to find the best rhythm for walking, not quite lifting her sole out of the water. At least they were going in the direction of the flow. Heat was draining out of her feet. Her toes were already numb.

Teddy held his hand up. "OK, people. Hoods on."

Eleanor reached back and pulled it over her head. A circle of skin around her eye sockets tingled briefly. The photon amp fed its monochrome image into her retinas, suit graphics confirming the neck seal's integrity. She breathed air through the filters, dry and metallic.

She took it as an offhand compliment that nobody checked to see if she'd fixed her hood properly.

The stream ran through a thick braided cassia hedge ten metres ahead, the dividing line between the sugar-cane fields and a broad tract of undulating meadowland. Eleanor saw a line of posts spaced seven or eight metres apart had risen up in front of the hedge, two metres high and featureless except for a small red light flashing away on top. The earth around them had been torn as they'd pushed their way up out of their recesses.

Her photon amp picked out a band of forest about eight hundred metres past the hedge. She didn't like to think about lugging the Rockwell all that way. And how far was the manor beyond the forest?

THREE HUNDRED METRES, the graphics told her, Oh well.

"Boundary," Teddy said. His voice was muffled by his hood filters. "Now is when it starts to hit the fan. OK, Suzi."

Both of them brought up their AK carbines. There was a bass stutter and the two posts on either side of the stream disintegrated. They switched their aim to the next pair.

In the end they took out eight before Teddy was satisfied. His arm signalled the advance.

Eleanor meshed the infrared into her image, alert for any sign of the sentinels. The function fuzzed the outlines a little, but she saw a couple of pink spots pelting away from the stream. Stoats, invisible before.

The meadowland here offered little or no cover. The grass was knee-high, laced with weeds and keck. Nothing had grazed on it for months.

Two hundred metres past the boundary markers and Teddy stopped them again. He plucked one of the smallest spherical grenades dangling from his waist and twisted the timer. "Down."

Eleanor squatted, her backside below the surface of the water. Growing cold. Teddy lobbed the grenade out across the meadowland. Crouching down. Five seconds later there was a barely audible thud.

Another line of posts rose out of the ground ahead of them. Eleanor could hear grass and soil ripping. This time there were no red lights on top.

Suzi and Teddy took aim with their AKs.

PRESSURE-SENSITIVE PICKET, said the graphics, when she asked. There were another two picket lines between them and the forest. The memory core didn't have any information about what they did if you walked between them. Presumably, if you were talented enough to be on this kind of mission you ought to know.

They yomped on.

The stream's banks were growing perceptibly steeper. Eleanor thought the water was getting deeper too. Her view across the meadowland was shrinking. Thick patches of watercress choked both sides of the stream. Roddy and Nicole had to walk through it, kicking away a tangled wrap of tendrils from their legs every few paces.

Eleanor was glad of the brief rest when they came to the next picket line.

Victor pressed his head up to hers. "You OK?"

The AKs demolished another set of pillars.

"Fine."

There was a quick squeeze on her upper arm.

Suzi and Teddy reloaded their carbines, jamming in fresh magazines with hard snaps.

The stream fell on harder rock. It was narrower now, deeper. The water came up to Eleanor's knees, Teddy slowed the pace, edging cautiously round the sharper turns.

"How about a couple of us walk along the side?" Suzi said. The banks had risen until they were level with Eleanor's head. She couldn't see much of the meadowland now. What was visible seemed to be small deep hollows, and ground-hugging bushes. There could've been anything hidden out there. Her breathing was coming faster.

"No," Teddy said.

Suzi didn't argue. Discipline, Eleanor thought it would've made a lot of sense to have someone who could look out over the meadowland.

They rounded a bend and saw the last line of picket pillars had already emerged from the earth. Five AK carbines came up in reflex. There was a moment's pause.

The sentinel came at them through the air like a guided missile. Eleanor saw it as a pink streak arcing overhead, forelegs at full stretch, an angel of death reaching for Des. All five AKs opened up, filling the air with a guttural roar. Des was falling backwards, still firing. The sentinel's heavy streamlined body juddered in mid-flight, its edges distorting as the slugs chewed it apart. Momentum kept it going. Des hit the water. Eleanor's image was suddenly degraded by a spray of blood painting her hood's photon-amp receptors. The sentinel landed almost on top of Des, already dead.

"Keep watching!" Teddy bellowed as they all began to move towards the carcass.

Des still hadn't surfaced. Eleanor felt vomit about to rise from her belly. Forced herself to hold it down. She'd drown if she puked with the hood on.

"Eleanor, Victor, see to him." Teddy's words became lost in a strident whistle; already piercing it was rapidly broaching her pain threshold. Eleanor jammed her hands over her ears and floundered towards the dark soggy hump which was the sentinel.

The four pillars nearest the stream had begun to glow violet. Eleanor's photon amp hurriedly faded them down. She felt her bones beginning to shake from the noise.

Victor was at her side, shoving at the bulky sentinel. She helped him, pushing its hindquarters. It began to move with desperate slowness. The sound from the pillars had turned to fire, drilling into her ears. Concentration was becoming impossible. The dead cat rolled over, and Des thrashed to the surface. Victor pulled at his hood, breaking the neck seal. Des was choking, squirting water, and gasping for air.

The hideous sound level had begun to reduce, Eleanor risked a glance round. Teddy and Suzi were blasting away at the brilliant pillars. Nicole and Roddy were poised in a half crouch, AKs held ready, scanning the top of the banks.

Des's desperate coughing subsided. The last violet pillar crumpled. Eleanor found she was trembling violently.

Silence closed about them.

Victor shook Eleanor's arm.

"What?" She couldn't even hear her own voice.

He was jabbing a finger at Des's arm. She saw the jumpsuit fabric was torn above the elbow, slashed by the sentinel's claws. Blood was streaming out of the wound.

The sight snapped Eleanor out of her daze. She made Victor clamp his hand around the wound, reducing the flow of blood. Nicole was carrying the field first-aid kit. She let Eleanor take it from her without ever breaking her vigilance.

Teddy fished the Rockwell and its power units from the water while Eleanor pulled an elasticated sheath up around Des's wound. It ballooned out as she touched the inflation stud, analgesic foam setting in seconds. She helped Des to his feet. Even with the photon amp's peculiar vague shading she could tell his face was chalk-white.

Teddy handed an AK to Victor and hung one of the power units on Des. He gave the second power unit to Eleanor after she'd lifted the Rockwell again, taking the message laser himself.

"Come on. Outta here."

Eleanor knew Teddy must've shouted it, but barely heard the sound over the occlusive ringing in her ears. The weight of the weaponry was tormenting her spine. Her mind chucked out stupid irrelevances like cold feet and keeping watch across the meadowland to concentrate on the important: thrusting one foot at a time through the churning water. Her flesh was going through the routine, disjointed from her mind. Solitude's anguish unravelling around her. Alone with people she didn't know, walking to a place she didn't want to go to.

They were fifty metres from the forest when Nicole opened fire, her AK a subliminal rumble. The sentinel was hunkered down behind a bush, a clenched shadow, coiled up waiting to leap. It managed a short jump before the slugs bit into its skull. Crashing down into the watercress.

Teddy never even broke stride.

Eleanor trudged past the sentinel, dimly acknowledging how stately its huge head was, humiliated by cracked bone and ripped flesh. There was no honour in death, and it wasn't even a true enemy.

We malign life, she thought, suborning its grace and majesty to our own purpose, mocking it. Even the reservoir dolphins were a sin, so far from their true home, tame, unable to return. She knew water would never be a refuge for her again, not after tonight.

The stream's banks dipped down as they reached the forest, but the water remained knee-high. Tall acacias and virginciana trees threw boughs right across the stream; black heart leaves interlaced above Eleanor, blocking even the ashen phosphorescence of moonlit clouds. The trunks were knotted columns coiled by ivy and ipomoea vines; grape-cluster flower cascades dangled down, brushing against her head. A thick carpet of fleshy flowers covered the forest floor, tiny star shapes closed against the night, light grey in her image feed. She imagined the air would be thick with their scent if she removed her hood.

The forest had to be a human concoction, a designer ideal of fey woodland wilderness. Eleanor was staggered by how much it must've cost.

"OK," said Teddy. And she could hear him better this time. "So far, so good. Now, we've got a couple of lasers overlooking the stream before we reach the lake. Suzi, you trailblaze, clean 'em out. The rest of you keep watching for sentinels. This here is prime ambush country. When you leave the tree cover remember to keep yourselves below the water before you reach the lake; means crawling, but make fucking sure you don't let more than your head show. Those Bofors masers will zap anything over fifty centimetres in diameter. If you do get hit, dive fast, wind up cannibal lunch otherwise."

"What about the people inside Wilholm?" Victor asked. "They've got to know we're here after the racket the pickets kicked up."

Teddy patted the message laser. "We put this on wide-beam and use morse code to rap with 'em."

"Morse code!"

"Sure, man. Walshaw's ex-military, isn't he?"

"Yes," Victor agreed.

"Then he'll know morse. Tell him to take a look at you. Means your hood's gotta come off, though. You be careful."

"Careful. Christ."

"OK, let's move," Teddy barked.

Suzi took the lead, walking down the living wooden tunnel a couple of metres in front of Teddy.

The forest was alive with creatures, picked out by the infrared as quick-moving pink blotches snaking around the trees. Squirrels, Eleanor guessed. More pink spots slipped across the ground, not even disturbing the flowers. It was faintly macabre, seeing the unseen. Distracting.

The stream began to change, big quarried rocks had been used to line the banks, similar to marble. Water was frothing around their rough-hewn edges. It was getting slippery underfoot. Eleanor's soles were sliding over loose oval stones. The water was climbing up over her knees.

Suzi stopped in mid-stride, her jumpsuit glaring an all-over claret, rising swiftly towards vermilion. Eleanor marvelled at the girl's cool as the AK carbine swung round slowly, picking out the laser hidden in the tree. She could never have done that, more like scream and run round in circles. Finally understanding what Teddy meant by discipline, far more than following orders. Curlicues of steam were rising from the stream around Suzi's legs, the water bubbling. The girl had found the laser, taking sight, pulling the carbine's trigger.

A sentinel landed on Roddy's back. Jaw clamped on his neck, hind legs raking his lower back with dagger-like claws.

Eleanor screamed.

Roddy pitched forwards, ridden down by the sentinel. Foaming water fountained up as the two writhed about beside her.

"Behind you!" someone yelled.

Victor began firing his carbine back up the stream.

Teddy was pointing his at Roddy and the sentinel, unable to shoot. The sentinel was tossing the man about as though he was a doll.

Eleanor yanked the Braun from her belt, leaning forwards. Saturated black fur twisted into view below her outstretched hand, she jabbed the laser down until it hit something solid and tugged the trigger. There was a blur of infrared energy, flash of singeing fur.

Hot pain smashed into her belly, ripping. Oblivion was smothering in soft black velvet—

"… coming outta it."

"Come on gal, up you get."

Swirling pearl-grey mists resolved into two figures wearing energy dissipater jumpsuits. Hard lumpy stone pressed into Eleanor's back. Water was gurgling round her feet.

"The sentinel," she cried.

"Dead," Teddy answered.

There was absolutely no sensation coming from her abdomen; no cold, warmth, pain. Nothing. That frightened her more than having a nagging pain. She glanced down: a cauliflower oval of analgesic foam was clinging to the front of her jumpsuit. "Roddy?"

"Giving St. Peter a hard time. Come on, gal. Up."

Strong hands gripped under her shoulders, lifting. She stood, fighting the dizziness which blanked out her vision for a moment.

"Can you carry anything?"

"I—yes, I'll try." Eleanor was curiously unmoved by Roddy's death. His body had been dragged out of the stream, lying on the rocky bank, limbs bent oddly, head kinked at an impossible angle. They must've infused her with something; and she didn't particularly mind, it was nice having thoughts this peaceful.

Teddy handed her the Rockwell again, Nicole taking the second power unit. Suzi took up position on her flank. When Eleanor looked round she saw Victor limping behind her, a ring of analgesic foam around his left thigh.

One dead, three walking wounded. If it wasn't for the drug she knew she'd have given up right there and then.

Teddy led them on.

The stream continued its inexorable advance up Eleanor's legs. Solid footing was hard to find, the fast current pushing insistently at the back of her knees. A raggedy curtain of pigtail ivy ribbons hung from the gnarled branches above her, long enough to trail in the water, an irritant she was constantly having to sweep aside. There were big boulders in the stream now, creating a turbulent white-water surface. The stone-lined banks were closing in, becoming steeper. She and Des were pressing together, Suzi occasionally bumping into her. The stream was being channelled for some reason.

Teddy made them stop, then walked on alone, struggling to keep his balance. The second laser found him, inflaming his jumpsuit to a lambent crimson. His AK sent a burst of slugs back along the beam. A pyrotechnic shower of sparks erupted from a big acacia tree.

"OK people, last stage. Easy does it." Teddy waited for the others to reach him, and they began to move off together.

Eleanor heard a low rumbling coming from somewhere ahead. Couldn't quite place the sound, her ears still had a residual ringing from the pickets. The water reached her waist.

"Hey—" Victor began.

Teddy snarled a curse and vanished from view. Eleanor took a step forwards, and found the stream bed falling away. Instinct made her tighten her grip on the Rockwell, she knew she'd never be able to fight the water, she had to let it take her. Her feet were swept from under her, dunking her below the water. She breathed out, expelling air from the filter nozzle until she broke surface. Bobbing around like a piece of driftwood. The stone banks were like cliffs whizzing by. Ivy fronds slapped at her. She shifted the Rockwell round, hugging it to her numb chest. The rumbling was growing steadily louder. Memory placed it: waterfall.

Eleanor twisted desperately, getting her feet out in front, locking her legs straight. Slaloming round the last bend she saw Wilholm manor dead ahead. The building was floodlit, its roof blanked out, hidden in shadow. Biolum lights glared from the windows of the top two storeys, the ground floor was a featureless slate-grey band. There was a vast expanse of flat exposed lawn surrounding it. Killing ground, she thought. Then she went over the lip.

The waterfall wasn't high, three metres. She seemed to hang in the air, floating down.

MASER ATTACK, shouted scarlet graphics. The photon-amp image dimmed. Thick fog exploded around her.

Eleanor hit the lake hard, her backside taking the impact. The Rockwell knocked the breath out of her. Don't drop it, her only thought.

The weight of the weapon and the jumpsuit held her down, Rising with terrible slowness, her lungs bursting. Water had defeated the photon amp, all she could see was a uniform powder-blue mist.

Eleanor surfaced, keeping the water level above her shoulders, bracing herself for the graphic warning again. It remained off. Treading water. Somehow she'd turned round to face the waterfall. A dark figure shot over the lip, arms flapping at the air. The curving torrent of water behind it boiled furiously again as the manor's Bofors masers fired.

"Check in," a voice called out.

"Teddy? Teddy, I'm here, it's Eleanor."

"Christ, gal. OK, you still got the Rockwell?"

Eleanor paddled her one free hand, cumbersome in the thick garment, turning until she spotted him, a small mound protruding from the lake's gently rippling surface. "I've got it."

"Thank you, sweet Jesus."

"Father, Suzi here."

"Victor held the power unit."

"Terrific."

Eleanor saw Teddy bring the message laser out of the water.

"Shit," Des's voice, high and panicky. "Being lasered."

There was a splash somewhere off to Eleanor's left.

"Nicole, 'nother unit."

The façade of the manor seemed to flicker, its brightness oscillating. Tiny points of bright-red light twinkled from the second-storey windows.

LASER ATTACK. The photon-amp image went completely white.

Eleanor drew a deep breath and sank below the surface. The photon-amp image reverted to blue with slashes of black. This time she could make slightly more sense of it; three intense dots of brighter blue above her, where the lasers from the manor were striking the surface, bubbles fizzing up around her. She kicked with her feet, moving away.

"— look you bastards," Teddy was shouting as Eleanor came up. "Christ," he ducked below the lake.

White. LASER ATTACK.

The blueness was speckled with red and green, throbbing. Her lungs burnt. Can't do this many more times.

Up again.

Droplets of water came in with the air. Eleanor coughed, swallowing some. It tasted foul.

"They've stopped," Suzi called out.

"Now what?" Des asked.

"Wait," said Teddy. "Eleanor, you and Victor come over to me, slow and easy. I wanna get that Rockwell sorted."

Eleanor rolled over, letting herself float on her back with the water lapping round her chin. Waving her feet, creeping towards Teddy. Will they think grouping together is hostile?

Eleanor was about five metres short of Teddy when a voice boomed out from the manor. "Who the hell are you people?" It sounded angry.

Teddy began to flash the laser again. Eleanor stopped moving. Whatever morse code was, it seemed incredibly ponderous.

"You want to come in and talk about Mandel? Who've you got as a guarantee?"

"Do your thing, Victor," Teddy grunted.

"Right." He submerged.

Eleanor felt insufferably weary. Just wanted it all to be over. The infusion must be wearing off, she thought.

Victor came up without his hood, hair plastered across his forehead.

"Smile, man."

"Victor," the voice blared, "Hell, it is you. Are these people genuine? We've got them covered if they try and force you. Nod for yes. Shake for no."

"Jesus wept," said Teddy. "Paranoid or what."

"All right," said the voice. "And just how do you reckon on getting across the lawn? We can't shut off the masers, and the ground floor's sealed tight."

The message laser flashed out a long complicated story.

"No way!" the voice called.

"Screw you, arsehole," Suzi shouted.

"Throttle down, gal," said Teddy, and even he sounded tired. The message laser flashed once more.

"All right," said the voice. "Listen good. Only Victor may use the cannon. If one of those plasma shots lands anywhere but on a maser you are dead."

"And up yours, too," said Teddy. "OK, let's get the Rockwell together."

Eleanor started kicking again, her legs like lead. Teddy and Victor were moving forwards, towards the shore.

"Touching ground," Teddy said. He was five metres short of the lawn.

Eleanor came up beside him, toes prodding the viscous lake bed.

"Let's have it, gal."

Victor drifted up on the other side. He and Teddy started muttering at each other as they mated the Rockwell's cable to the power unit by touch alone.

With the Rockwell gone, Eleanor thought she'd be able to fly. She weighed nothing at all.

Victor stuck the Rockwell's targeting imager over his right eye, its cable coiling down below the water.

"Ready," he said.

Eleanor saw that Des, Suzi, and Nicole had swum up level with her. Unidentifiable, blind tumours of crêpe fabric. Behind them, on the shore where the trees bordered the lawn were two swift-moving red blobs. No, her mind cried. Enough, we've had enough. "Sentinels," she called out, voice rasping in her throat. "Sentinels, they're coming."

Victor fired the first plasma bolt. A solar-bright fireball tearing through the night, overloading Eleanor's photon amp. A near-ultrasonic whine ending in a stentorian thunderclap. One of the manor's chimney stacks exploded.

The sentinels were sprinting for the lake shore. Eleanor watched the two people closest to them churn about, trying to reach their weapons. Steam billowed up around one of them as the frantic motion lifted their shoulders out of the water. Eleanor started to swim breaststroke. Suzi had said the Braun was waterproof, although she had no idea if it would work in the water.

Both sentinels leapt together.

MASER ATTACK, Eleanor duckdived fast.

Surfacing, just in time to hear the second concussion as more of the manor's masonry was vaporised. Three more to go. A locust-swarm of slate fragments tumbled through the air high above Wilholm.

The sentinels were in the water, two whirlpools of surf. Des was screaming. Eleanor headed for the nearest conflagration. Couldn't even remember if she'd recharged the Braun.

MASER ATTACK. Plunging.

A sentinel shrieked in mortal terror, a keening that sliced right through Eleanor. The sound electrified, freezing her limbs. What in God's name could a sentinel possibly fear? She saw it disappear below the surface of the lake, sucked down backwards in a maelstrom of bubbles. Something was floating inertly where it'd vanished, undulating with the swell.

The third plasma bolt speared a small ornate rotunda, its detonation shockwave flinging smoking chunks of stone halfway across the lawn.

Eleanor was looking straight at a sentinel three metres away. Its jaws were open showing a double layer of shark-teeth, huge eyes staring at her. Powerful bands of muscle rippled along its back as it paddled towards her.

Cats can't swim!

Her feet sank into muck up to her ankles and she stood, MASER ATTACK. Counting off the seconds. One. A storm-cloud of steam raged around her. Two. THERMAL INPUT APPROACHING MAXIMUM SHUT CAPACITY. The sentinel was a metre and a half from her when its fur ignited. It yowled in pain, skin crisping, cracking, thick fluid oozing out. Three. Eleanor could feel her skin beginning to blister as a wave of searing heat poured through the jumpsuit insulation. The sentinel gave a convulsive shudder, its back was flayed down to its ribcage, skull exposed, eyes roasted. Blood gushed out of its mouth, splattering on her suit. Four. THERMAL SATURATION ALERT. Dead.

Eleanor collapsed back into the lake, her own body on fire. Somewhere inside her belly she could feel dampness. The sentinel's corpse sank as she floated up.

A plasma bolt flashed overhead. Part of a very distant universe.

Something shot up out of the water nearby. "Got the bastard!" Nicole.

The marine-adept woman swam clumsily over to the floating shape. "Eleanor, hey, Eleanor, give me a hand with Suzi. Think she's still alive."

"Go on, gal," Teddy called. "Masers are out."

Eleanor moved sluggishly. Between them they dragged Suzi on to the lawn. The girl's jumpsuit was in tatters, blood soaking the grass. Eleanor knelt beside her, and tugged her hood off, water flooded out. Suzi's tongue protruded.

Victor appeared and bent to breathe air into her. Eleanor was thankful, she certainly didn't have the strength left to resuscitate her.

"Lost the aid kit," Nicole said dully. Her forearms were lacerated, tatters of skin hung loosely.

"They'll have something for her in the manor," said Teddy.

Suzi spluttered weakly, liquids gurgling inside her.

There was no sign of Des.

"OK, let's move," Teddy urged. "Remember the ground traps."

Eleanor slowly pulled her own hood off, sobbing softly. Proper colours deluged her eyes. The foam across her abdomen was flaking off, blood mingling with water in her lap.

"Come on, gal," Teddy said. "You made it now. Jesus must really love you." He handed her his AK. "Safety's off. Cover us if any more sentinels show."

Rabbits, she'd shot rabbits back at the kibbutz.

Victor hoisted Suzi on to Teddy's back, and the big man set off towards the manor, message laser banging against his side. They followed in single file as he traced a path across the lawn, Wilholm's floodlights casting long spidery shadows as they wove round the traps.

Flat metal slabs had slid out of the manor's stonework to seal the ground floor's doors and windows. Teddy set Suzi down against the wall and unslung a small pack.

Eleanor and Victor watched the grounds, AKs held ready, as Teddy slapped a thermal-slice tape on the slab of metal covering a window. It was a thick flexible tube which hissed as it adhered to the slab.

"OK, don't look."

Startlingly bright blue-white light glared out, buzzing and sizzling. Eleanor saw sparks skipping along the paving slabs around her feet. She could feel its warmth on the back of her neck.

"Here it comes." The light dimmed, and there was a loud resonant clang, smashing glass. A fan of milder biolum light spilled out across the grass.

Eleanor kept looking over the lawn. Her nerves raw-edged. She expected to see a mass charge of sentinels coming at her. They'll never let us get in. Not those devils.

There was grunting and shuffling from behind her. "Don't touch the edge," she heard Teddy warning, He was shoving Suzi through the hole. "Got her? OK, for Christ's sake go easy. You next, Nicole."

Eleanor began to back towards the window, shivering uncontrollably.

"You make it with that leg, Victor? OK, I'll boost you." Silence. Eleanor knew she was alone. Sweeping the AK in wild arcs. Nothing moved on the lawn.

"Move it, Eleanor."

The jagged hole was roughly square, one and a half metres high, its lower rim a metre off the ground. She put a leg through.

"All right, lady, hands where we can see them, and moving real slow."

The room inside was huge, its floor an intricate mosaic of olive-green and cream tiles; there were chandeliers hanging on gold chains, pastel frescoes of waterfowl on the walls, Regency furniture, a grand piano. Smoke layered the air, two people were using fire extinguishers on the window frame, glass crunched under her foot. A small army was pointing Uzi hand-lasers at her.

Standing in the middle of the room was a dignified grey-haired man whose face was stiff with tension and suspicion. Had to be Walshaw.

Suzi was lying on the floor, chest a mass of gore, blood pooling on the shiny tiles. There was a woman kneeling beside her, working frantically. Medical gear modules were scattered round, red and amber LEDs flashing, their needle sensors jabbing through the remnants of the jumpsuit. The woman slapped a bioware mask over Suzi's face, a rubbery sac concertinaed out of it and began palpitating.

Nicole was slumped motionless against a wall. Two of the security people were covering her with Uzis while a third wrapped fluffy aquamarine towels around her shredded arms, blood staining them brown.

Victor was standing, hands on head, eyes red with pain. A grim-faced woman was frisking him with expert thoroughness.

Three security people surrounded Teddy. He was facedown on the floor, spread-eagled, his hood thrown back, an Uzi pressed against the back of his bare neck.

Right at the back of the room Eleanor saw a tall teenage girl with a pretty oval face, and long straight chestnut hair, wearing an expensive black dress. Julia Evans; shouldering her way past a big man and an imposing woman, arm rising to point a rigid accusing forefinger straight at Eleanor.

"SIT!" Julia barked in a voice so commanding that Eleanor's nerves went dead.

She heard a quiet sighing sound at her back, and turned to see a sentinel folding on to its haunches not a metre behind her. It licked its muzzle with a long pink tongue.

"Good girl," Julia enthused warmly. "Who's a good girl, then?"

Eleanor's legs gave out.