only felt a slight breeze. She flicked at her throat, toying with her crucifix, but kept typing, kept registering the codewords.
MENDACITY: MANDALA.
The Big Board was still lighting up.
'Just keep going,' ordered the Prezz. 'It's all a trick. Psychological warfare. Ignore it.'
VULCAN'S HAMMER: ROYAL FLUSH.
Fonvielle's heart was trip-hammering. The Dream was so close. His fists clenched.
Seawater tears coursed down Gus Grissom's still-rippling face.
'Grab the sky,' Fonvielle said to himself, 'grab the sky, and never let go.'
ESCUTCHEON: WABBIT SEASON.
'Never let go.'
Captain Marcus's column rolled through the fences easily. Colonel Presley had done his job well, and there was little resistance.
Shiba wasn't comfortable in the human-tailored seat of the amphibious vehicle. There was no room for his tail, and he couldn't stand up without bruising his thighs.
Marcus was laying down groundfire and advancing steadily. There was fighting going on hundreds of yards away, out on the concrete expanse of the launchpad.
Shiba ordered Marcus to press on. It was important to relieve Presley before his people were wiped out.
There should be a wave pouring in from the sea.
Shiba leaped out of the transport, and worked his way forwards on all fours, weaving between the explosions and the bullets.
He wished Inoshira Kube were here to see him distinguish himself in honourable combat.
A Josephite fell in front of him, and he got his jaws wrapped around its head, wrenching it free.
He could see Raimundo Rex standing tall on the field of battle, surrounded by fire and smoke.
Where was Colonel Presley?
Marcus's Wooden Horse transport rolled across the concrete plain, its guns rattling.
A row of bungalows set well away from the firing grounds were being fiercely fought over. Josephite snipers were using them as cover to pick off the sea wave as they advanced up the beach to the sea wall.
Marcus directed a few shells towards the bungalows, and one was reduced to burning rubble in an instant.
Scuttling to the top of a wedge of concrete, Shiba could see the beach. There were Suitcase People lying dead and dying on the sand, or being washed back and forth by the waves. It was a killing gallery.
Shiba saw Elvis, his black leathers scuffed, his thick hair hanging over his face. He was trying to pot the bungalow snipers with accurate shots at their darting figures. But the cover was too good.
Marcus blew up another building, and the fires spread.
Shiba saw an iguana man halfway up the beach spin around, blood spurting from his throat, and fall flat.
An indentee, one of Reuben's friends, hit the concrete next to Shiba, a canvas sackful of incendiaries slung over one arm.
'Give me those,' Shiba said.
The indentee gladly handed them over.
Shiba took the sackstrap between his teeth and slithered off the wedge, heading for the edge of the field. There was a crushed fence, and beyond that a thick tangle of swampgrass and cypresses. He thanked providence that the Josephites hadn't done too much clearing, and plunged into the grass.
His soft belly was scratched on the rusty ends of the smashed fence, but he ignored the trickles of blood.
He was near the bungalows now, and he saw three of the clone-faced creatures Elvis called Waltons. They were crouched low behind a three-foot high garden hedge, taking turns to snipe at the beach. They rose, fired, sank, expelled a discharged cartridge, and went through the process again. Synchronized like machine gears, they were firing constantly.
Shiba pulled the tag of an incendiary and tossed it at the snipers. It fell short, but rolled across a neat lawn, coming to rest like an egg against the legs of a pink plastic flamingo.
The Waltons kept firing, working like perpetual motion machines. On the beach, Suitcase People died.
The incendiary fizzled, and one of the Waltons half-turned, raising his rifle to his eye and searching for Shiba.
The bomb was a dud.
Shiba scrabbled back deeper into the long grass, but knew the Walton had sighted him well enough to fire blind.
The incendiary flared and exploded, and there was a curtain of flame between Shiba and the Walton.
Shiba took the rest of the bombs and rushed alongside the row of bungalows, tossing incendiaries at twenty- yard intervals. As the first bombs exploded, he sped up, hoping to get out of range.
It did not matter. This would be an honourable way to die.
He yelled his Blood Banner vows. The bungalows were a wall of fire now. Man-shaped flames screamed inside the inferno.
The beach was safe now, and Suitcase People, still wet, were getting over the sea wall.
Shiba felt the waves of heat on his back, but realized he had come through alive. He was surprised.
Something was crashing through the swamp towards him. Something big and mechanical.
He was out of bombs, defenceless.
He turned snout-on to the thing, and awaited the killing stroke.
He tried to sing the GenTech company song, but his throat couldn't manage it.
Trees fell, and the grass parted.
Shiba found himself looking at the snarling radiator grille of a pink Cadillac convertible.
A woman was behind the wheel. She swerved to avoid Shiba, and the beautiful body sped past, lurching up out of the swamp, its roadwheels bursting from its hull.
Shiba had never seen such a gorgeous car. It made the company's Toyotas and Sony LandMasters look like junkyard wrecks.
The driver waved to him.
'See you later, alligator,' she shouted.
The wash from the Cadillac rocked him in the water as he tried to follow the car.
'After a while,' he yelled, getting a bellyful of foul swampwater, 'after a while…'
BLANDISHMENT: DA-DO-RUN-RUN.
MELACHRINO: VOLARE.
MCMURDO SOUND: IOLANTHE.
VARGTIMMEN: SOLITUDE.
'…Krokodil!'
Elvis shouted as the familiar pink monster rolled across the Cape. He didn't have time for questions. He just knew who it had to be.
There was a wave of Suitcase People breaking over the seawall. Marcus's heavy guns were cutting even the Waltons down.
The topside battle was all but over as far as serious fighting went.
A Marie with a machine gun she should barely have been able to lift stood in front of the Cadillac and fired a burst.
Krokodil swerved out of the way and crushed the creature under the front wheels. The car squashed the Marie and cruised on.
Elvis was proud of the old girl. And Krokodil was doing pretty well too.
Marcus, who was visible in the tower of the armoured car, was making snap dispositions of the remaining forces. It was clear that the Josephites had abandoned the surface of the base to the Suitcase People. But that still left the underground complexes.
Whatever it was that Krokodil was concerned with, Elvis bet it was down there, under thirty feet of concrete and durium, guarded by heavily armed psycho clones.
Someone was up in the gantry, sniping at the invaders. One of his bullets ricocheted off the armourplate of
