direction. We had a small detachment of men there six or eight years ago."Stark stared at the terminal in disbelief. "Why didn't the computer say that?""Perhaps your question was not specific enough.""Computer, list any human settlements or mining camps ever within two hundred kilometers southeast of the onscreen coordinates.""None," the computer said imperturbably."Dammit!""A malfunction," Karnaaj said."Yeah, a malfunction! That droud-head Scanner is the malfunction! He's deleted information from the files!" "Calm yourself," Karnaaj said. Stark came very close to telling him to go f.u.c.k a shrat, but managed to bottle it in time. "Why would they want to go to an abandoned mining camp?" the SDI officer continued. "They have to know we would check in that direction eventually."

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out!"

Even with power, they did not light the camp at night. Scanner had gotten a couple of battered hand lanterns powered up, and it was one of those Dain was using to search what had once been a military barracks. Raze had gone back to what had become their communal room to rest, and Juete followed Dain.

"What exactly are we looking for?" she asked.

Dain flashed the lantern's beam over the empty, stripped beds. The miners had left the mattresses, which had gone musty with mold, and the plastic frames, but little else in the long and narrow room. "I'm not sure," he said. "But I'll know it when I see it."

Juete looked. He had the light beam flared so that it threw a wide circle rather than a thin spot. "It doesn't look as though they left anything behind."

Dain walked the length of the room, shining the light into the dark corners. Something chittered and scrabbled away as they approached. She moved closer to Dain.

At the end of the barracks, Dain bent and poked the light underneath the bed there, looking under the springs and frame.

"What are you doing now?"

"I had a friend who was Confed Military for a while," he said. "He used to talk about things that they stashed for personal comfort. Sometimes it was a drug, sometimes other stuff."

"Wouldn't they have taken anything like that with them when they pulled out?"

"Probably. But it doesn't hurt to look."

Dain searched under another three beds before Juete spoke again. "It's Sandoz, isn't it?"

She saw him look at her in the dim reflection of the lantern where it bounced up from the floor. "Mostly, yes."

"If it's me-"

"It's not you, love. Sandoz is used to getting what he wants. He was willing to go along with me because I had a plan and he didn't know what it was. Now that we're out, he's getting antsy to do things his way. You're only a part of it."

A large part, she thought. She had not told Dain what Sandoz had attempted earlier, and had persuaded Raze to keep her mouth shut as well. Perhaps a confrontation between the two men was inevitable, but she did not want it to come any sooner than could be avoided.

Dain continued to look under the beds. Once he sneezed.

"d.a.m.ned dust. Anyway, whatever Sandoz wants, he usually gets. He doesn't like taking orders, and sooner or later, he'll stop. He's too dangerous to fight. Not without an edge-ah-hah."

"What?" Juete leaned down and peered under the dusty plastic frame. There was what looked like a small circle drawn on the plastic of the frame, nestled in one corner. As she watched, Dain pried it loose. The thing he held was disc-shaped, about the diameter of a quarter-stad coin, but four or five times as thick.

"Hold the light," Dain said.

Juete took the lantern, and Dain held the thing in one hand and twisted it with the other. A cap came off in his fingers. Under it, a pencil-thick rod in the center of the disc protruded a few millimeters up from the surface. He turned the disc over, and there were what looked like fuzzy, hair-fine wires bunched up on the back.

"What is it?"

"A slap-cap. This matted stuff is adhesive. It'll stick to just about anything." He pressed the wireside of the thing against the palm of his hand. "See?" He waved his hand, and the disc stayed in place. "Pry it away slowly and it comes, but it resists sudden shear forces."

She still didn't understand.

"The rod, here, is the trigger. If you slap something fairly hard with this, it sets off a cone-shaped charge, equal to about a fifty kilogram punch, but concentrated into a small area. Hit a man solidly on the head or over the heart, kidney, or spleen-any place really vital-and it'll deliver a hydrostatic shock wave that will kill him."

Juete stared at the device, feeling her stomach knot.

"Slap an arm or leg, and it will shatter the bone and pretty much jellify the overlying muscle."

"What does it do to your hand if you use it?"

"If you're careless in your placement, it can break a finger or badly bruise a bone, but that's about it. The charge is newton-bleak-vents a lot of the reaction, I don't know how, exactly."

"The soldier wasn't supposed to have it," she said.

"Right. That's why he matched the bed's plastic for the cover. You'd have to be looking for it to spot it. I was, and I almost didn't."

"Your edge against Sandoz?" Juete felt cold and afraid. Dain was talking about possibly killing a man, and if it came to that, he might be in danger of dying as well. She didn't want to even consider that.

"Yes. My edge. I won't use it unless I have to, but it makes up for a lot. If he gets close enough in a fight-"

Juete stared at the device stuck to her lover's palm. She hated it; more, she hated what it was in men that made such things necessary. And at the same time, she was glad Dain had found it.

"Let's go back to the room," she said. It was suddenly very cold in the deserted barracks.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

The radio's blare woke Maro. It took perhaps five seconds for him to make sense of what he heard. After that, all sleepiness vanished.

Raze sat up as Maro leaped out of bed. "What-?"

"Stark's men are on the way here! We've got thirty minutes."

Raze rolled out from under the covers and began dressing.

Juete said, "What's going on?"

Maro grabbed his orthoskins and slipped into them as he told her. In less than a minute he was outside the room, yelling for the others. It took another minute for them to gather around him.

"We've only got one of the carts fully operational!" Scanner said, still pulling on his coverall.

"How long to get the other one ready?"

"An hour or two-"

"We've got maybe fifteen minutes! We have to be gone when they get here!"

Sandoz glanced at Chameleon. The face-dancer nodded once and moved back toward the room he and Sandoz shared.

The rest of them ran to the two small carriers. Scanner snapped on one of the portable lanterns, but Maro threw the power switch that lit the building. "f.u.c.k it," he said. "We've got to move. If they get here before we leave, we won't have a chance. Can we all get into one of these things?"

"It'll slow the cart down, but yeah, it'll carry us."

"No it won't," Sandoz said.

Maro spun just in time to see Chameleon hand Sandoz the laser welder. Sandoz

shrugged into the unit's power pack and switched it on. The needle of coherent light lanced out, a hard brightness under the artificial lighting.

"I'm taking the cart," Sandoz said. "Chameleon goes with me."

Maro glanced at the mue. Chameleon shrugged. "Sorry. He's better at staying alive, and that's what I want to do."

"And the albino goes with us," Sandoz added. He grinned at Raze, moving the laser beam back and forth in a lazy arc. It hissed in the quiet air.

Scanner pulled a small box out of his coverall.

Sandoz spun and aimed the tip of the weapon at Scanner's throat. He was three meters away, but two quick steps and he could skewer the smaller man easily.

"Whatever you've got there," the a.s.sa.s.sin said, "drop it."Scanner grinned tightly and thumbed a control on the b.u.t.ton. There was a pop!

and spark from the laser welder's power pack. The red needle winked out.

Sandoz wasted no time trying to restart the laser. He shrugged out of the pack and dropped the ruined device. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you, wirehead?" He settled into a wide, low stance.

Maro reached into his pocket for the flare pistol. It wasn't there. He realized that it was still laying on the floor next to the bed, where he'd left it in case of an emergency.

"Never mind. I don't need the laser," Sandoz said softly. He smiled. It was the expression of a man who was about to enjoy himself to the fullest.

Maro knew the a.s.sa.s.sin could take all of them. Raze was strong and the smuggler was a fairly good fighter, but Sandoz was a master. Juete and Scanner would only get in the way.

The slap-cap, covered against accidental discharge, still adhered to his right palm. He twisted the cap off slowly and extended his hand to the side, palm facing Sandoz. He let the man see the cap, could tell by Sandoz's expression that he knew what it was.

"Where did you get that?"

"It doesn't matter. I have it and you know what it can do. You might kill me, but I'll take you with me. Or a big enough piece of you to keep you from leaving here under your own power."

The moment stretched. If Sandoz attacked, they were all likely to die. Maro knew it, and he knew that Sandoz knew it. They didn't have time for this.Sandoz said, "Into the cart, Chameleon.""Huh?""Do it. You drive. Move."Chameleon moved.Sandoz backed toward the cart behind him, holding his hands in a defensive pose.Maro's gut twisted. He couldn't attack-it would be much more dangerous than defense, and if he committed himself, Sandoz could probably kill him without

taking a hit from the slap-cap.

Sandoz continued moving backward. Maro edged forward in a shuffle step, the cap held ready.

Chameleon started the cart. The engine whined into life and rumbled unevenly for a moment, then smoothed out.

Sandoz's legs touched the back of the cart.

"Go," he said to the mue. "Punch it!"

Chameleon obeyed. The slunglas tires screeched on the plastcrete of the shop and the cart moved. Sandoz twisted and dived into the back.

Maro lunged after him, his palm raised to slap. Sandoz came up holding

something in his left hand. He threw it at Maro. It was a food container; the heavy plastic carton slammed into Maro's upraised arm, just above the elbow, and the force of it spun him away. His feet tangled and he tripped. He tried to turn the fall into a dive, half-managed it, and hit hard on his shoulder. He squeezed his hand shut on the slap-cap, a stupid move. Fortunately, it didn't go off.

As he rolled over, Maro saw Raze sprinting after the speeding cart. Sandoz laughed and hurled another can. Raze swerved to avoid being hit in the face. It slowed her long enough so that the cart reached the exit. There was no way to catch it now, not unless Chameleon blundered into a wall or one of the rusted machines-which he didn't.

They listened to the engine fade into the night.

Maro came to his feet. "Can you get this one going?" he said to Scanner, pointing to the other cart.

"The ground drive already works," the circuit-rider said. "I can maybe get the GE machinery partially done so we can get some lift. We'll have to have it on bad ground."

"Whatever you can do in ten minutes," Maro said, looking at his watch. "After that, it won't matter."

"How long?" Kamaaj asked.

Stark looked at the clock in the guard tower. The two men stood on the wall, staring out into the night. "Five more minutes. If they're still there, we've got them."

"Five more minutes," Scanner said. "That's all I need."

Juete watched Scanner work by the light of the lantern.