Warlord

were wide with awe and a little uneasy as he backed his dog and loped off after the others.

Raj pressed a knee to Horace's flank to follow. Wait a minute, he thought, a knot of unease in his own stomach. If Center can predict the future-

probabilities-and show me things from long ago and far away, why couldn't it show me this route coming south in the first place? Why couldn't I get a scenario of the Colonists building that bridge without sending a patrol and risking lives? The echo of a pistol shot bounced through his memory, and the expression in Foley's eyes as he reholstered it on the third try.

observe.

* * *

— a glowing blue shield hung against a backdrop of a black more absolute than any Raj had ever seen, strewn with hard motes of colored light. White streaks moved across the blue, and the edges of the shield were blurred, as if there was a fringe of vapor around it. The sight was so alien that it was not until a flicker of hard light outlined the continents that he understood what he was seeing: Earth-

bellevue.

from orbit.

Paradise, he thought, conscious of his hand moving toward his amulet, with the dreamlike slowness that physical things took on when he communed with Center.

my data-sources, the angel continued, my eyes and ears. Specks of light moved across the shield. . the planet. . and his viewpoint sped towards one. An unfamiliar shape of panels and mysterious equipment, luminous with holiness. Then he was seeing inside it, and then through it, sight keener than any cruising dactosauroid's or birds, arrowing down to the line of the Hemmar River and East Residence. It was the lacy, spread-out city of the first visions Center had given him, the city before the Fall. Once more fusion fire bloomed across it, but this time his disembodied self snapped back, into the Celestial sphere. The drifting 'eye' of Center exploded soundlessly, pieces tumbling away in eerie unnatural motion, as if unslowed by wind or weight. Fingers of light reached out from the planet, and other satellites exploded as well.

You were blinded by the Fall? Raj thought, and shivered. That was close to heresy; sublunary humanity had been reduced, but perfection reined beyond the orbits of the moons.

to a certain extent, i have my database, and may extrapolate therefrom, and i have everything you observe or have observed, and the contents of the minds of all who touch my. . place of being, beneath east residence.

Then I was actually telling M'lewis the truth, Raj thought, amused for a moment despite himself. Wait, though, he mused, frowning. I couldn't have seen all these interconnections, it'd take a team weeks to map the gullies.

with your waking mind you perceive only a fraction of your sensory input, and forget much of this, observe.

* * *

— night, and the patrol was jogging south. Raj could recognize the time from the position of the stars and moons; a little before dawn, thirty or so hours ago. Again it was as if he were standing a little behind his own eyes, this time as he glanced west over Horace's neck, into the tangled country nearer the river. A casual look, but it froze in place as if it were a painting or an ordnance expert's perspective drawing. Networks of lines snaked over it to mark contours, and the painting turned three-dimensional and rotated to form a map.

* * *

Raj shook himself, and looked over his right shoulder again. The bright daylight seemed robbed of heat for a moment, cold and distant as a vision, until the smell of dust and sweat returned.

'Will we beat them to the ferry?' he said.

by a very little. A pause, very probably.

* * *

'Dust cloud coming, Captain!' the gunnery observer perched on the engine housing said. 'Two. Coming fast.'

The officer grunted, and moved to the two shrouded lumps that stood on either side of the ramp. The little Colonist hamlet was deserted, not so much as a chicken had moved all day while they sat there on enemy territory with the great wooden tongue of the ramp down on the dirt. .

'Messa Whitehall,' he said. 'You should get back to the engine house, under cover.' Your pretty butt should be back on the other shore, and if you get launched I might as well put my pistol in my mouth.

'No, thank you, Captain,' she said expressionlessly, puffing on a cigarette that had gone out some time ago.

* * *

'The ferry's there!' one of the troopers shouted. 'We made it!'

They were still two hundred meters ahead of the first Colonists, riding bent over to present as small a target as possible; carbines cracked and spat, but you would have to be dead lucky to hit a moving target from a galloping dog. Anyone you hit would be simply dead, of course, but the roadway prevented the pursuers from spreading out into the broad firing-line that would have brought their numbers to bear. Of course, once the platoon were bunched on the slow-moving ferry, nothing would prevent the better than three hundred pursuers from deploying and shooting their quarry to ribbons long before they moved out of range.

Not to mention the pompom that was bouncing along behind the Colonial cavalry; one reason the Settler's armies preferred the light quick-firers was that they really could keep up with cavalry. The quarter-kilo shells would be more than enough to deal with the ferry even without the carbines of the riders.

All of which was evident to the more experienced of the squad, as well. 'Shut yer gob, dickhead!' the enthusiastic trooper's corporal shouted.

'Rifles out and take what cover you can as soon as we get on board,' Foley was shouting, as he dropped back along the column of galloping dogs. 'Try and take out the pompom crew.'

He dropped into place beside Raj, twisting in his saddle to look at the nearest of the shouting bearded faces behind him.

'Well, I always wanted to be a social hit, and be chased after,' he said. Their dogs had fallen into step. 'But this is a bit much. . one thing I forgot to tell you.'

'What?' Raj said, drawing his pistol. Not yet, that's even more ridiculous than trying a carbine. Similar bullets, but the longer barrel gave a higher velocity.

'We wanted you to stand Starparent to the baby,' Foley said.

'I'm flattered,' Raj replied.

The buildings were blurring by, adobe and pole frames. The ferry bulked larger and larger, but the four-meter gap of the loading ramp was a small enough target for thirty-odd men on dogback, even without the vaguely rectangular sheeted bulks on either side. Raj grinned to himself as he thought of galloping toward it without pursuit; it would be terrifying. Collisions, dogs falling, men being trampled or thrown against wood and machinery with bone-snapping force. It was wonderful, how circumstances redefined the term 'danger.'

The chase had lasted all day, lasted until some portion of Raj's mind was ready to believe it would never end. The hollow thunder of the leading mount's paws on timber jarred him into realization, and he threw his weight back in the saddle. Horace slowed, just enough to avoid the massive pile up at the far end of the ferry; the big flat- bottomed craft was rocking and bobbing as tonne-weights of bone and muscle skidded and twisted on the planks of the hull. Dogs slammed and ricocheted of one another, twisting and scrambling to stay erect on the tilting surface, yelping shrilly in protest. A human screamed almost as loud, leg jammed against the railing at the end with axe force, but most had had enough sense to pull their feet out of the collision zone. The whistle shrieked from the enginehouse, and the paddle wheels thrashed at the water, whipping it into froth as they tried to drag the ferry out into the current.

Raj twisted in the saddle again, feeling his belly muscles tauten as they waited for the bullets. The Colonists were not even slowing; the lead element must be planning to leap whatever gap grew between gangway and ramp. There was no time to act, only to watch as Suzette-Suzette-stood on the walkway and chopped her hand downward in signal.