need to. I’ll lead the way. . . . Number Four will secure the hatch and bring up the rear.”
“And then?” Phan wanted to know.
“And then we head for the runner’s guild. . . . That’s where the runner, the sensitive, and the heavy are most likely to be. If not, we’ll check all of the hotels until we fi?nd them. Once that’s accomplished, the fi?rst objective is to confi?rm that they have Logos.”
Dyson “felt” a low-grade buzz as the thoughts generated by thousands of minds merged into something akin to static and drifted down through solid rock.
Phan hooked a thumb in her combat harness. “Works for me.”
“Good,” the operative replied, and turned to swing the hatch out of the way. Most of the shaft was fi?lled by the huge pipes that carried water up to the surface, and a ladder claimed the rest. One careless move, one slip, and anyone attempting to reach the top would plummet to the bottom. With that sobering thought in mind, Shaz stepped up to the edge, forced himself to ignore the drop, and turned his eyes upward. The top of the well was open to the sky, and thanks to the fact that it was daytime, the variant could see a tiny pinhead-sized circle of light. A single stomachturning step was suffi?cient to put the operative on the rusty ladder. The metal was cold beneath his fi?ngers as Shaz began to climb. Somewhere, if only in his imagination, the ancients started to laugh.
TWO
The city of Tryst, on the Planet Thara
—Excerpt from street lecture 52.1 as written by Milos Lysander, founder of the Techno Society, and delivered by thousands of metal men each day
There was something sad about the Circus Solara. Most of the performers were clearly middle-aged, their costumes were ragged, and the fi?rst fi?fteen minutes of the “most exciting show in the galaxy” were extremely boring. However, there was a signifi?cant shortage of things to do in the city of Tryst, which meant that the seats surrounding the circular arena were packed with people, some of whom had started to doze by the time two fancifully dressed clowns secured the local prefect to a brightly painted disk. But Rebo sat up and began to pay attention as the formally attired ringmaster strutted out to the center of the arena and stood next to the turntable to which the offi?cial was being secured. He spoke through a handheld megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen! Behold the wheel of death! In a matter of moments this diabolical device will be set into motion . . . Then, once the disk becomes little more than a blur, Madam Pantha will throw her hatchets. Yes! That’s correct! You could have a new prefect by tomorrow morning!”
The joke stimulated laughter, catcalls, and a round of applause. Madam Pantha wore a yellow turban, sported a curly black beard, and was dressed in a loose blouse and pantaloons. Her clothes might have been white once, but had long since turned gray and were patched in places. She waved a hatchet at the audience, tossed the weapon high into the air, and waited for it to fall. Then, having positioned herself just so, Pantha missed the catch. The hatchet generated a puff of dust as it hit the ground—followed by more laughter as the crowd entered into the spirit of the thing. The prefect was an extremely good sport, or that’s what Rebo concluded, as a pair of mimes put the platform on which both the wheel of death and the bearded lady stood into motion. Now everyone could see as the platform began to rotate, and a couple of acrobats began to spin the wheel of death. It took the better part of thirty seconds to get the disk turning at top speed. A drumroll began as Madam Pantha accepted a hatchet from a sad- faced clown, brought the implement back over her right shoulder, and let fl?y. Even the runner stared as the wheel rotated, the hatchet turned end for end, and the somewhat corpulent offi?cial continued to rotate. Then came the solid thwack of metal biting into wood, followed by a gasp of indrawn air as the crowd realized that a second weapon was on the way, quickly followed by a third. Fortunately, the second and third hatchets fl?ew true, both sinking into wood only inches from the politico’s body, even as both the platform and the wheel continued to turn.
The audience roared its approval as the clowns brought the much-hyped “wheel of death” to a stop and freed the prefect from his restraints. Though somewhat disheveled, and a bit dizzy, the offi?cial seemed otherwise none the worse for wear. He waved in response to a standing ovation and was escorted back to his seat.
The formally quiescent crowd was engaged, the ringmaster could feel it, and hurried to take advantage. “Thank you . . . I’m pleased to announce that this is the 3,672,416th performance of the famed Circus Solara. Some claim it originated on Sameron, more than ten thousand years ago, while others say it was founded on Cepa II some twelve thousand years ago. But enough of that!” the ringmaster proclaimed loudly. “The show continues. . . . Bring forth the beasts!”
There was a blare of horns and something of a stir as a man wearing a leather hood, vest, and pants led a column of pathetic-looking animals out into the arena. A white angen led the way. It had what Rebo assumed to be a fake horn secured to its forehead and was harnessed to a cage on wheels. An old dire cat could be seen lying inside the bars, tongue lolling, either too old or too sick to stand. A hairy tusker had been secured to the back of the cage and followed head down, its tail drooping. A dog rode on top of the mammoth and continually turned somersaults, as if trying to bite its own tail. The children loved that, but their parents were becoming restive, and a piece of overripe fruit sailed through the air. It hit the cage, exploded into fragments, and sprayed the dire cat with orange pulp. It snarled, and that generated scattered applause.
“This is absurd,” Rebo said disgustedly, as he whispered into Norr’s ear. “Let’s leave.”
The sensitive was about to agree when the animal that was supposed to be the main attraction followed the tusker out into the arena. Like all its kind, the L-phant had been bioengineered to perform a variety of tasks. Hauling mostly, which was why the ancient engineers had chosen to eliminate what had once been huge heads and thereby create more cargo space above their immensely strong spines. Of course it was important for the L-phants to see the road in front of them, so their eyes had been moved down under their prehensile trunks, forward of their chest- centered brains. But after more than ninety years of hard labor in Thara’s southern jungles, this six-ton beast was no longer useful. Everything from the slowness of his gait, to the way his tail drooped, suggested the same thing. The angen was sick, tired, and depressed. Something that Norr experienced as a vast heaviness. The sensitive was familiar with the breed, having ridden them on Ning, and had come to admire them. So now, as the L-phant plodded out into the center of the arena, she shook her head in response to Rebo’s suggestion. “In a minute. . . . I want to see what happens next.”
Rebo was about to reply, but a blare of trumpets overrode the runner as the beast master went to free the L- phant from his tether. “Look at this mighty beast,” the ringmaster commanded, “and imagine his power!”
That was the cue for a clown to carry a huge melon to the beast master, who ceremoniously placed the object
