Isabelle ignored that, saying, 'You said you were in trouble with the police?'

'One of them, anyway.'

'It is possible we can help you. And you, of course, may be able to help us. Think about it,' Isabelle said, and turned and started to walk back to the little camp under the overhang.

Lisa watched her go, wondering about that unexpected invitation. Wondering what she was going to do about it.

32. The Switch.

'I had a time of it, tracking you down,' Brandon Wiley told Tony. 'Anyone would think you don't care about your old friends any more.'

'Right now, I am hoping to sell something,' Tony said.

'Well, maybe I can help you with that,' Brandon said artlessly. 'Are you going to finish those, by the way?'

'The bean cakes? Help yourself,' Tony said.

The motel's maker hadn't done a very convincing job. The fried shells were too dry, the insides half-cooked and gluey.

'I had to skip breakfast. Too much work to do, too many people to see. These aren't bad, whatever they are. Spicy,' Brandon said, biting a bean cake in half. 'You should give me the recipe I could try them out on a few people I know in the food biz. Maybe they'll catch on. You never know.'

He was dressed in a shabby black jacket and blue jeans, a plump middle-aged man with an untidy halo of curly black hair and the manners of an over-indulged child, half obsequious, half petulant. He had quit his university post in Port of Plenty, First Foot after some vague scandal and had drifted through the fringe worlds before washing up in Freedonia. He worked now as a low-rent trader. Although he lacked the skill and nerve to ever make it big, he was surprisingly good at networking, keeping his contacts sweet by assiduously dispensing gossip, flattery and minor favours. Tony had done a little business with him, once transporting a gaggle of code jockeys who had been stranded after their ride found herself a better deal and booted without bothering to tell them, another time shifting stock confiscated from a bankrupt trader cheap trainers and cases of a soft drink, Vimto (the last in the universe according to Brandon), that Tony had managed to offload on Wellington for a marginal profit that had been considerably less than the trader had promised.

Brandon took a while to get to the reason for his visit. Tony listened patiently while he complained about the foibles and foolishness of other traders and freebooters, and boasted about his low-ball deals.

'People complain that times are hard,' Brandon said, blotting crumbs of fried beans with a wetted finger and sticking it in his mouth. 'They say trade isn't what it once was because worlds are becoming more self-sufficient, and too many are caught up in this so-called recession. But if you can make your own opportunities there is always a profit to be made somewhere. People like us, we roll with the lows and ride the highs for all they're worth. For instance, here's a nice little deal I'm putting together. An acquaintance of mine has a contract to ship seven hundred gross of prayer flags to Zungqu. You know the kind? They are set out for a year on certain places high on the spires, where they accumulate spiritual energy. Not much money in it, but this is the sweet thing, Tony there's a fellow I know on Zungqu who deals in desert rose. A drug distilled from the sap of a native flower. Genuinely native, not some Elder Culture introduction. Found only there. It gives a very fine high, a little like opium. It's legal in Freedonia, of course, but not in the Commons, which means there's a much better profit to be made there.

'So what I plan to do,' Brandon said, leaning in and lowering his voice, as if that would make any difference if anyone wanted to listen in, as if anyone else cared, 'is bring it back in the hollow bases of a consignment of those spectacularly ugly vases they make on Zungqu. You might ask why I would go to such trouble, as all drugs are legal here. The answer is simple. I plan to sell the vases to someone I know who deals in so-called illegal drugs in the Commons. He takes the risk, I make more money than I would if I sold the shit here, on the open market. It's an old trick, but if you know what you're doing, it's a profitable one.'

'It sounds as if you are getting ready to make a big score,' Tony said politely, thinking that it was the sort of deal that inevitably went bad in a hurry.

'I always have the modest hope that my efforts will be properly rewarded,' Brandon said. 'And what about you, Tony? I hear this thing you want to sell, it may be also something big.'

'It could be,' Tony said. 'If I can find the right buyer.'

'I also hear it has something to do with that adventure of yours on the slime planet.'

Tony pretended to be surprised that Brandon knew about it.

'Oh, I heard one bird twittering to another,' Brandon said. 'Something about a cure for sleepy sickness, am I right? If you don't mind me asking, Tony, how did that all work out?'

'We didn't find what we were looking for, but we found something else instead,' Tony said.

'Not in that so-called code of the ancients, I bet. No one has ever cracked it. Probably no one ever will. So what did you really find? Some junk left by some other Elder Culture, or a new kind of slime? Or perhaps something with no practical application whatsoever, except it gives the so-called wizards a hard-on.'

Brandon was trying for an offhand manner, but Tony could see an eager shine creeping into his gaze.

'Something unexpected,' Tony said. 'A Ghajar eidolon.'

'Hmm. Eidolons can be tricky. Harmless or dangerous, most of them. Not much good in either case.'

'This one is a kind of translator,' Tony said. 'I hope you will not take it the wrong way if I don't go into too much detail.'

'Not at all. You don't want to give away too much until you've found someone who has a genuine interest . . . Have you found anyone?'

'Not yet.'

'Just the usual chancers, I suppose.'

'More or less,' Tony said. 'But I am sure that I will find someone who will recognise the value of what I have to sell. Its uniqueness.'

Tony had already rejected the advances of several traders and brokers who, like Brandon, worked at the low end of the market, where it was often difficult to distinguish desperation from greed. So far the real players had kept away, either because they weren't interested, or because they knew about his contract with Raqle Thornhilde. Who, he hoped, had sent Brandon Wiley to sound him out, as pilot fish searched out prey for krakens, hoping to find scraps in the bloodied water after the kill.

'What about the wizards you took all the way out there?' the trader said.

'Oh, there is no need to worry about them,' Tony said. 'They are out of the picture. This is what you might call a personal project of my own.'

Brandon pretended to think about that. He said, 'I know someone who could help. If you like, I can provide an introduction.'

There it was. The first tentative tug on the hook.

'That would be extremely generous of you, Brandon,' Tony said, as casually as he could.

'We are old friends, Tony. And what are friends for, if not to help each other? Let me see what I can do about arranging a meeting. And meanwhile, don't talk about it to anyone else. There are too many people in this city who hope to take advantage of someone who has an unexpected difficulty in moving his merchandise.'

After Brandon had gone, the older of the two bodyguards asked Tony how he could be certain that the trader was fronting for Raqle Thornhilde.

'He asked if the wizards still had an interest in this thing, but he did not once mention Raqle's name, or the contract,' Tony said. 'He will come back with an offer to meet with this person who can help me, and it will turn out to be her.'

And then Tony would find out who had told her about the slime planet and the stromatolites, and all the rest. Trade information for information. He discussed the terms of the meeting with the bodyguards, told them it was possible that Raqle Thornhilde would try to strong-arm him.

'Brandon will suggest a meeting place. At the last moment, we will tell him we have decided to meet somewhere else. Somewhere public where we can talk without either of us worrying that the other will pull some kind of trick.'

The bodyguards said that they knew just the place. Brandon Wiley called the next day, and the negotiations about where to meet his client went down just as Tony had predicted. But after that, everything went to hell.

As the hired runabout trundled towards the rendezvous a cocktail bar on the top floor of an apartment tower the youngest of the two bodyguards palmed a black cylinder and screwed it into Tony's neck. A jolt of pain paralysed him; the older bodyguard slapped a surgical patch over his eye. He felt something press between his eyeball and its socket, and then his link with the ship's bridle fell over.

'Nothing personal,' the older bodyguard said, ripping off the patch. 'We just got a better offer.'

When the pain had mostly ebbed away and he could think straight again, Tony said, 'I'm going to make sure you never work in this city again.'

'We already have a new job,' the younger bodyguard said.

'A permanent one,' the older bodyguard said. 'No more scuffling for temporary contracts with off-world assholes.'

Tony pulled up his comms menu: most of its icons had turned red. He couldn't even make a simple phone call. The bodyguards would not answer any of his questions the younger one showed him the black cylinder, told him he would get another taste if he didn't shut the fuck up. Tony hoped that they were working for Raqle Thornhilde. He believed that he could still make a deal with her, but if one of her rivals was trying to muscle in he could be in serious trouble. Freebooters and traders caught in the middle of local disputes had a habit of disappearing.

They headed out of the city on the beetling freeway, turned off onto a service road that cut between huge fields where combines were harvesting catch crops ahead of the long night. Beyond the last of the fields, the service road gave out to a rutted dusty track. The runabout jacked up on its suspension and fattened its wheels and without slackening its speed drove straight on into the desert. They drove for more than an hour, at last rolling to a halt in a broad sinuous valley that might once have been the course of a river, vanished aeons ago.

The bodyguards helped Tony out into dry furnace heat and immense silence. Sculpted saddles of sand dunes; rocks thinly layered like old books. Long shadows lay everywhere. Red rocks and red sand glowed in level sunlight. The spires reared up at the horizon, clawing the sky.

A spark flared overhead: the bubble of a spinner floating down, dust blowing away in every direction as it kissed the ground. One of the bodyguards bound Tony's wrists with a cord that cinched itself tight; the other produced a black hood and pulled it over Tony's head. He was hustled forward, lifted up, dumped on soft padding. A moment later, the world fell away.

33. Death Mask.

After sunset, Little Mike built up the campfire against the chill of the desert night and the men sat around it, grilling hot dogs and passing a couple of blunts and a bottle of Jack Daniel's to and fro. Isabelle, sitting in the shadows outside the pulsing light of the fire, politely refused their offers to share; Lisa did her best to ignore the whisky, but took a couple of cautious tokes that levitated her, just a little, above her anxiety and grief.

Little Mike took a couple of hot dogs into the tomb for Mouse, who was keeping watch over Willie, and came back out and said that Willie was still asleep.

'That's a good sign,' Bear said. Firelight glinted on his glasses at he looked around at the others. 'I mean, isn't it?'

'If it helps the man conserve his strength,' Sonny said.

'We did everything we could,' Wolfman Dave said, staring at Isabelle. 'Fuck anyone who says different.'

'Willie and his dogs, man,' Sonny said, and raised the bottle of Jack Daniel's in salute and took a long drink and spat into the fire. Blue flames briefly flared.

Little Mike told Lisa, 'I got a blanket if you need one. Looks like the night air's getting to you.'

This rough kindness pierced Lisa's heart. She excused herself and walked off a ways and wept a little. For Willie. For Pete. For herself, because she believed that she saw in Willie a premonition of her own fate.

She returned to her seat by the fire, nodded off, and was jolted awake by the sound of angry voices. She knew, somehow, that Willie was awake, too. In the leaping firelight, the road dogs were crowding around Isabelle. She looked frightened but defiant, saying, 'My people need to know. If they are to save him, they need to know everything!'

'We should fuck up her ride,' Wolfman Jack said. 'Leave her stranded here.'

'Take her way the hell out into the Badlands, leave her there,' Mouse said.

The men were mostly drunk by now. There was a meanness in the air. They ignored Lisa the first time she asked what was going on, so she stepped between them and Isabelle and asked again.

Mouse was holding up a smartphone, saying that he'd woken to find that Willie was in a bad way, and 'this fucking French bitch' was filming him.

Lisa said, 'What kind of bad way?'

'He may have reached a crisis point,' Isabelle said.

'Like you fucking care,' Sonny said.

'I know how you feel-'

'I don't believe you do,' Sonny said, with a hard stare and a nasty smile. 'But I'll be happy to enlighten you.'

'Give me that phone,' Lisa told Mouse, and he handed it over. She held it up, saying, 'Willie's sick, and you're all out here, arguing about this? What kind of friends are you?'

The men looking at her as she tossed the smartphone, underhand, into the fire. Isabelle had the good sense not to say anything.

Mouse said, 'She's right. We need to go see to him.'

'Don't think we aren't done with you,' Sonny told Isabelle, trying to assert his authority.

'We need her help,' Lisa said, thinking of how strange it was, an actual fucking spaceship coming to save Willie.

Mouse said, 'I think it could be too late for that. I think you'd better come see.'

There was a fluttering agitation in the tomb's dark cool air: eidolons had been loosed from the tesserae scattered across the walls. Lisa felt their attention turn towards her as she hurried towards Willie's makeshift bed. He had pushed his blanket away and his fists were clenched by his sides and his chest heaved with each breath. It was as if he was trying to breathe through a narrowing straw. He turned to look at Lisa when she knelt beside him, and she saw that the blood vessels in his eyes had burst. His pupils were black pools floating on eight-ball haemorrhages.

'The bones in there,' he said. 'If they were bones. Woven, like wicker baskets. Chains of them. That Ghajar. Much bigger than a man, Lize. Much bigger. Wounded I think. In a bad way. Trying to help himself. Used some kind of nanotech. That's what got me. It's trying to fix me only way it knows how . . .'

Lisa took one of his fists in both her hands. It was fever-hot. She told him to hush, said, 'We'll get you fixed up soon. Isabelle's friends are on their way.'

'I won't be dissected, Lize. I won't be cut up. Analysed. Bits of me sold off. Promise me that.'

'Oh, Willie.'

'The things we meddle in. Not knowing what they are. Wonder any of us survive.'

His breath stank like a chemical lab. There was a faint silvery glow under his skin, a flow of unreadable information. She was only dimly aware of the road dogs behind her, and of the faint flutter of eidolons, now near, now far.

'I see it all,' Willie said, 'but I understand hardly any of it. Maybe you'll do better.'

'What do you mean, Willie? Tell me what you see.'

'A planet bigger than its sun. I think it's a planet. A city hidden in a sea of red sand . . .'

Willie started to laugh and it turned into a racking cough. Flecks of blood on his lips. Bubbles of blood in his nostrils. Blood welling from the corners of his eyes, pooling against his nose, slanting down his cheek in a quick red slick. Lisa was gripped by a freezing mix of horror and pity.

He was looking straight at her, saying, 'We don't know anything, Lize. We're like ants. Ants trying to understand algebra. But it's so beautiful, you know?'

Then he was looking past her. Looking past everything.

'Hush now, Willie. Save your strength. Hush.'

He breathed for a minute. Maybe two. It felt like all the time they'd ever had was compressed into that tall dark chamber. The eidolons were gathering close, eager witnesses to this all too human drama.

Willie suddenly started, tried to sit up. For a moment his reddened gaze fixed on Lisa.

'The Jackaroo aren't gods, Lize. That's the funny thing. They aren't even close . . .'