to their ritual. The cavern walls echoed with the musical tones from the elven crystal, now joined by lesser voices from the smaller stones in their cages of silver wire. The song was an inviting, beseeching melody. At the edge of his awareness he thought he detected a sour tone, but he couldn't be sure. Light sprang forth from the elven crystal, flooding the chamber and overcoming the ambient reddish glow with its harsh green fire. A stronger, more coherent shaft arrowed out to the cavern wall, opening a path through the earth to the surface that was at once there and not there. The Dark One, arms held wide, walked through that tunnel of light to join Neko in the underground cavern.
The Light One was hard on his companion's heels. Remaining outside, but reflected in the elven crystal, the orks and the dwarf stood scattered around the ritual circle in the clearing, watching their patrons disappear into the hillside.
A sudden roar shattered the tableau. 'What is it?' Kham bellowed, as though he'd forgotten he had a radio link with the others still in the woods.
'It's another fraggin' dinosaur!' John Parker yelled back from somewhere in the woods. His voice was faint in Neko's ears; the ork might have been a half-kilometer away.
'Dracoform, you stupid tusker,' Greerson grumbled. 'Ain't no live dinos.'
'Don't matter what it is. Get it before it clears da trees,' Kham ordered.
The runners scrambled, converging in the direction of the new threat. Neko heard the beast's bellows, the runners' gunfire, and the single whoosh of the dwarf's rocket launcher. The dwarf boasted over the radio link that his shot had killed, but Kham heard other screams before the beast died, the kind that only mortally wounded persons make. Neko had heard such screams before and knew that one of the runners was dead, or soon would be.
The elves stood, looking back along their magic tunnel to watch the conflict. They did nothing to help. Unsure whether he could use the magic tunnel, Neko hesitated.
Silence returned as suddenly as it had gone. A few moments later, a bloodied Kham reappeared in the clearing. He peered into the tunnel and announced, 'John Parker's dead.'
The elves looked at him wordlessly for a moment, then the Dark One said, 'The large crystal must be removed from the chamber.''
Kham didn't take their cold attitude well at all; rage flamed in his eyes and he went rigid. In the magical light, Neko could see the whiteness of the ork's knuckles as he gripped his automatic weapon. Neko edged to one side, away from the line between Kham and the elves. To his surprise, the ork seemed to slowly master his emotions. The Light One, apparently oblivious to his danger, snapped an order.
'Well, ork. This is what you are being paid to do. Come within and remove the crystal from the frame.' Kham stood frozen for only an instant longer, then he slung his weapon in short, violent motions. Beckoning two of his gang forward, he strode into the tunnel, eyes focused on the great carved crystal to which the Light One pointed. Rabo and Sheila were the ones who followed Kham. Unlike him, they glared at the elves as they passed, their eyes full of disdain.
Kham rattled the frame when he reached it, assessing its strength. The highest crossmember was at the height of his shoulder, too high to lift the massive crystal over it. Rabo and Sheila joined him and they set to work. Neko gave the Light One a shrug of helplessness when the elf turned to him. The crystal was too heavy for Neko, and he'd just get in the way of the burly orks. He caught the bag the elf tossed to him, but its contents were neither hard nor heavy the way the satchel had been. In response to the elf's gestures, Neko dumped the contents out, making a pile of the straps and cloth inscribed with arcane symbols.
The orks worked in uncharacteristic silence, no talk, no jokes, only grunts of effort as they attacked the frame containing the great crystal. When their knives failed to cut the frame's bindings, they worked the structural members, pulling and tugging on the old wood. Under the assault of their brute strength, the wood cracked and the crystal rocked precariously.
'Careful!' shouted the Light One.
Kham glared at him, but said nothing.
As the orks increased the violence of their assault, one of the vertical supports broke with a crack, sending slivers of dark wood flying in a hundred directions. Neko saw one of the splinters pierce Kham's arm, but the big ork only grunted and tugged harder on the rest of the frame until the remains of the crossmembers that cradled the front of the stone broke away.
Neko stepped up and offered the straps, which the orks took and fastened into a carrying sling. The wrapping cloths Neko handed to Kham, with the comment, '' You 're bleeding.'
Kham looked down at his arm. A fragment of dark wood protruded from the wound. The ork snapped it off and tossed it away. 'Ain't nothing compared ta what happened ta John Parker.''
'A piece is still embedded in your arm. It could get infected.'
'Den let it! If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die.'
'I was just concerned for-'
'Look, catboy. I'm a big tough ork. I don't need any mothering from a half-pint Jap.'
Neko took the insult in stride. The ork was distressed at the loss of his friend; the lack of control was understandable. Still, Neko stepped back. There was no need to press; the ork might decide that a 'half-pint Jap' was a suitable target for the rage still boiling within him.
'Well, the hard part's over,' Greerson said to nobody in particular as the orks finished loading the crystal into the elves' vehicle. In the silence that greeted the dwarf's remark, the elves checked the bindings, satisfying themselves that their prize was secure.
Mr. Johnson called the runners together. 'Your services are no longer required.'
'What about an escort,' the blond razorguy began, and his companion finished, 'back to the plex?'
'Yeah,' Greerson seconded. 'Don't you want help getting that thing home?' 'No.'
Greerson slapped his rocket launcher. 'What if some more of the local wildlife want to play?'
With a disdainful stare, the ejf replied, 'My principals do not consider that a significant likelihood.'
From the back of the group, Rabo asked, 'Hey, Greerson, what was with those critters anyway? Why'd they attack like that?''
'How the hell should I know? What do I look like? A parabiologist?''
Neko took the opportunity and suggested, 'Maybe you've got an explanation, Johnson-saw.'
The elf shrugged. 'Magical operations sometimes rouse the local wildlife into an unreasoning rage.'
Rabo nodded as if he understood. 'And that's why you wanted all the firepower.'
'It seemed a reasonable precaution,' the elf agreed.
'An expensive one,' Greerson said. 'Cost-effective, Johnson?'
The elf's look of disdain shifted to one of distaste. 'That is not your concern. Our association is terminated.' He turned toward his vehicle.
'So you're just buzzing,' said the raven-haired cy-berboy.
'And leaving us here?' concluded his buddy.
The elf replied over his shoulder. 'Your companions' vehicle is large enough to get all of you back to Seattle in reasonable comfort, especially now that you've got one less ork.'
Neko sensed the reaction in the orks, saw their tenseness. He spoke before any of them could. 'A cold-blooded evaluation, Johnson-saw.'
'Practical, Mr. Neko. As anyone who works the shadows must be.' For no apparent reason other than that Neko had been the last to speak, Mr. Johnson tossed him a datadisk. 'If you are prompt in returning to Seattle, you will be able to reenter with your vehicle through the disrepaired section of the wall in the Ta-coma district. You may expect the Council border guards to be distracted at four-fifteen this morning, thus leaving several of the old roads open. I can't be sure how long that condition will endure, but you should have at least a thirty-minute window.''
Neko handed the disk to Rabo. 'We are supposed to trust your word on this, Johnsonian? '
'As you think prudent,' Johnson replied, his back to the group and not deigning to turn toward them.
'Wouldn't do his bosses' operation any good if we were picked up.' Greerson's comment was directed at the
