Gillian felt eager for another fight. The darkness of Sirak-Brath seemed an ideal place for one.

He followed Buff and the smuggler through the alley separating a pair of low-Tech industries -- a nuke breeder and a manufacturer of organic soak-dye -- the dank passage cutting between the towering buildings like a thin wafer sliced from a monstrous loaf. From the wet floor of the alley, the dirty vacu-formed walls -- slabs of reinforced plastic veneered in ancient brickface -- soared over two hundred feet up into the night sky. Shadowy forms interconnected the two buildings: a plethora of structural support shafts, conduits, and soggy flexpipes. There were no windows.

A sliver of pale, yellowish gray light was exposed at the peaks of the artificial canyon, and that illuminated snippet should have revealed the distant slabs of the colony's cosmishield glass, and beyond, the darkness of space. But the thirty-eight-mile-long orbiting cylinder had managed, over the two and a half centuries of its existence, to acquire one of pre-Apocalyptic Earth's nastier habits: air pollution. During peak manufacturing periods, the smog became so dense that Sirak-Brath's atmospheric circulators could not remove it faster than it was being generated.

Buff turned to the smuggler. "How much farther?"

In the dim light of the alley, she was the shorter and thinner of the two figures. Weeks of hiding out with Gillian in a Costeau exercise cone had enabled Buff to shed nearly fifty pounds. She remained stocky, but there was little fat; upper arms bulged with muscle, and her legs now boasted a strength and agility that she had never known at her former weight.

The smuggler grunted. His name was Impleton, and he pointed ahead and whispered words that seemed to dissolve in the dense air, even as Gillian leaned forward, straining to hear. But Buff had understood; the black Costeau's firm nod provided assurance that Impleton's response gave no cause for alarm.

Gillian's last visit to Sirak-Brath had been over half a century ago, and tonight's smog seemed much worse than any he remembered from that first sojourn, in 2307. Back then, the periodic onslaughts of dirty air had not seemed so conspicuous, the haze so impenetrable. He would have expected that during his fifty-six years of stasis sleep, legitimate technical improvements would have contributed to making the air invisible again.

But despite the imminent threat of the returning Paratwa starships -- a threat whose closing horizon lately had spawned bitter tensions throughout the populace of the Irryan Colonies -- day-to-day scientific and technical advancements were still under the control of E-Tech, the powerful institution whose tenets essentially served to limit the degree of change. E-Tech's two-and-a-half-century old idea -- to prevent wild permutations in the social structure, like those that had decimated the Earth during the Apocalypse of 2099 -- made it difficult for a colony to alter the status quo. Sirak-Brath's smog served to illustrate the downside of E-Tech's otherwise noble cause.

Sirak-Brath had other problems as well. It was popularly considered to be the black sheep of the Irryan Colonies -- the cylinder which the denizens of the other two hundred and sixteen orbiting space islands could point to with disdain. No matter how bad your home colony might be in a particular respect, Sirak-Brath was probably worse. The industrial cylinder boasted the highest crime rates, the dirtiest streets, and the most consistently corruptible politicians. Many non-mainstreamed Costeaus, black marketers, and high-Tech smugglers called it home.

The alley began to curve to the left, and a soft breeze brought an oppressive odor of untreated sludge. Gillian glanced over his shoulder, saw the pale remaining light from the side street nearly two blocks away slowly compress into nothingness, and the heavy barred gate, through which Impleton had led them into this service corridor, disappear. Now, only the smog-reflected light from above remained to guide their footsteps.

Gillian closed his eyes, listened to the night: the dull omnipresent hum of heavy machinery, distant sirens of local patroller or E-Tech Security vehicles en route to fresh crime sites, their own footsteps flapping across the wet pavement, an occasional echo of a human voice, amplified to prominence by the acoustic qualities of this artificial canyon. Sounds that were recognizable aspects of Sirak-Brath. Sounds that carried no threat of danger.

But there was still time.

The alley continued its steady curve to the left, on a sweeping tangent, until finally they were walking perpendicular to their original direction. Fresh bright light appeared up ahead; the canyon walls peeled back to reveal a cul de sac where nuke breeder joined organic soak-dye manufacturer, their common bulkhead a monolithic eruption of greasy pipes and spiraling twill tubes. It was power distribution machinery combined with an overworked pollution control grid. The entire conglomeration had been designed to serve both industries and probably others as well, whose sterns would be butting against the far side of the towering mech-wall.

Buff and Impleton became crisp silhouettes as they headed into the light, the fresh illumination provided by a series of globed lamps positioned ten feet above the dank floor. Buff's hairless pate, cosmetically scarred by a series of twisting blue and red lines --  the deliberate handiwork of luminescent crayons --  began to shine. In the daytime, the black Costeau often wore a hat, but when a colony's mirrors rotated into darkness, she exposed her shaved skull and the shiny photoluminescent streaks. Blue lines and red lines, crisscrossing the crown of her head, all freshly painted each morning, as important to Buff as any other aspect of her daily grooming. Blue lines and red lines, each bound by the faint perimeter of her natural hairline, each glowing, like a nest of wet snakes. Buff was of the clan of the Cerniglias, but the painted streaks remained universal Costeau symbols. Blue for mourning. Red for vengeance. With Costeaus, the two colors often went together.

Buff had painted herself every morning for nearly a month and vowed to continue the ritual until she found the Paratwa assassin --  the one who had been terrorizing the Irryan Colonies for the past five months. The one whose tripartite self -- three discrete physical bodies controlled by a solitary, telepathically interlaced consciousness -- remained unique among known Paratwa breeds. The one whose brutal massacres, throughout the orbiting cylinders, had been linked to the imminent return of the Paratwa starships.

The one who had killed her friend Martha.

Impleton -- fat, pale-skinned, wearing a knee-length pink corselet coat -- craned his neck and muttered something to Buff. She paused at the entrance to the bottleneck, waited for Gillian to catch up.

"He says Faquod's not here yet."

Gillian went hyperalert. Senses, normally diluted by a wide range of environmental stimuli, focused; muscles prepped for instantaneous response. His tongue slithered along the tiny rubber pads attached to his bicuspids and molars -- the activation circuitry for the hidden crescent-web hardware strapped around his waist. One snap of the jaw and the defensive field would ignite, form a near-invisible sheath along the front and rear contours of his six-foot frame, a barrier capable of deflecting projectile and energy weapons alike. And hidden in the sleeve covering his right forearm, gripped securely in a slip-wrist holster, lay a pale egg with a tiny needle protruding from one end.

His Cohe wand: a device infinitely rare and highly illegal, the original weapon of the Paratwa assassins from the days before the decimation of Earth, over two-and-a-half centuries ago. The Cohe was devilish to control, requiring years of training to become proficient in its more subtle capabilities. But once mastered, it was a weapon that bore no equal.

Impleton sucked in his gut and said loudly, "Faquod, he will be along shortly."

Two other figures were poised in the bottleneck. To Gillian's right, a well-groomed man with a sawed-off beard leaned against the wall, one hand tucked under his black coat. And across the alley, seated on a four-foot-high ledge, was a blond-haired muscle boy, grinning like a scuddie. The youth was stripped to the waist. Bulging pectorals bore tattoos of ancient motorized cycles and the cryptic phrase, I'm a Harley in Heat, was printed neatly above his navel.

Buff scowled. "You said he'd be waiting here for us."

The smuggler rolled his eyes. "Faquod, he does as he pleases."

The muscle boy laughed. Gillian approached the youth while casually scanning the mech-wall, already fairly certain of what he would find on it. He was not disappointed.

About twenty feet up, squeezed amid the filthy spirals of relay tubes and monstrous conduits, sat a hunched figure with a thruster rifle. It was a fairly good hiding place, though not good enough to escape Gillian's detection. Although he had met Impleton only yesterday, their brief encounter had provided enough raw data to establish a psych profile of the swarthy black marketer. Gillian had known that bold deceit would be Impleton's fashion; the presence of an armed backup, out of sight, fit the smuggler's profile like a glove.

Impleton licked his lips. "These high-Tech playthings you desire . . . Faquod, he says that they are not easy to come by. Faquod says they will not be cheap."

Gillian halted two paces away from the grinning muscle boy and leaned over the four-foot ledge that the tattooed smuggler sat upon. On the other side of the wall, a vertical drop plunged fifteen feet into a plodding river of sludge covered by a fine-meshed net. The harsh odor of untreated sewage, far more potent than it had been in the alley, assailed his nostrils. Gillian suspected that the open sewage channel was illegal.

"Very expensive," continued Impleton, his fat cheeks squirming as if his mouth were stuffed with unchewed food. "Faquod -- he will want at least half the money in advance, I am sure."

"You told us that already," Buff replied calmly.

"You have the money?"

"Not with us, of course." Buff sighed. "You don't think we're that foolish, do you?"

Gillian leaned against the ledge and relaxed his muscles, body poised for action. He was now fairly certain that Impleton was lying. Faquod's not coming. We've been set up for a knockdown. They're planning to rob us. Maybe kill us as well. He found himself secretly smiling as he began to consider ways to extend the duration of the upcoming fight. It was important for him to be able to relish every moment.

The smuggler with the black coat and sawed-off beard carefully withdrew a small thruster from his pocket. He made no threatening gestures, keeping the weapon aimed at the ground.

Impleton yawned. "My men . . . they're very excitable. I told them they would be paid tonight. I hope they will not be disappointed."

"Yeah," agreed Buff, with a sharp glance at Gillian, "I certainly hope no one gets pissed."

The fat smuggler stroked his chin. "I think that maybe you have some of the money, anyway. Down-payment money. Sign of good faith. You give it to us. We give it to Faquod."

Buff scowled. "You bring Faquod. Then we'll talk about money."

Impleton's pudgy face attempted a smile. "Your way . . . it is not good for business. Faquod . . . he likes to know that there is trust, that there is openness."

Gillian felt his chest begin to tingle -- the onslaught of the familiar desperate excitement that now directly preceded his fights. Buff referred to his eagerness for confrontation --  for violence -- as "full-body hard-on," and she was probably not far from the truth. Over the past month, his increasing desire to engage in combat had developed strange sexual overtones. Fighting had mutated into a distinct mode of self-expression; violence and lust had become intertwined.

But Gillian knew that at its core, the fighting remained a way for him to keep his turbulent inner forces at bay, a way to temporarily relieve the tremendous mental/emotional pressure that relentlessly strove to devolve his consciousness. He fought not only because it felt good but because it helped to maintain his sanity.

He turned to Buff. "We're wasting our time. These scuddies have been lying to us. I don't think they're smart enough even to know Faquod."

Impleton sneered. "Not smart? Smarter than you, maybe. Smart enough not to wander into an alley with strangers, maybe."

Gillian let out a harsh laugh, heard it echo up the canyon walls, heard his own heart beating with excitement, with the urgency of wild desire. A fresh assault of malodorous sewage drifted up from the sludge river. He inhaled deeply. The odor should have repulsed him, should have carried with it a hundred connotations: childhood naughtiness, genetically determined distaste, a manifest of internal responses, learned and innate. But it smelled good. The whole night smelled good.

He spun to face Impleton. "You're right. You should never allow yourself to be alone with strangers. It's not smart. It's not safe."

The smuggler with the sawed-off beard raised his thruster and pointed it at Buff. She held up her hands, pleading restraint.

"Look," she said softly, "we really don't want any trouble." She glared at Gillian. "We just want to meet Faquod."

"Then you pay," said Impleton. "Meeting Faquod . . . that is a privilege."

Gillian pointed his finger at the muscle boy, four feet away. "Can this ignor fight? Whenever I see someone like this, I'm reminded of the value of contraceptives. If his parents had only known."

"Oh shit," muttered Buff.

Muscle boy lost his smile. Saw-beard tightened his grip on the thruster and glanced at Impleton, waiting for orders. Impleton's mouth squirmed. The fat smuggler released a loud belch.

The belch was a signal. Muscle boy hopped down from the ledge and took a step toward Gillian. "I'm going to --"

His words ended in a choking gasp as Gillian's right foot lashed out, slammed into his belly. Muscle boy doubled over in pain.

Saw-beard pivoted, aimed his thruster at Gillian. He was far too late. Gillian, biting down hard, ignited his defensive web, heard the near-invisible crescents -- front and rear -- hum softly as they came to life. Saw-beard fired. Gillian, braced against the ledge, was hit by the discrete blast of energy, feeling it as a gentle nudge against his front crescent.

A single-tube thruster, thought Gillian. A one-second recharge interval before it can be used again.

All the time in the world.

Gillian flexed his right wrist and compressed his knuckles, launching the Cohe wand from its slip-wrist holster into his waiting palm. He squeezed the egg.

The twisting black beam whipped up the side of the mech-wall, the leading fifteen to twenty inches of the hot particle stream disintegrating everything in its path, the remainder of the beam merely a trail of harmless light. The fourth smuggler, perched twenty feet above the alley, screamed as twill tubes, relays, and conduits exploded, showering him beneath a mix of hot liquids and pressurized gases. Live wires arced, the alley's gloom vanished in a sizzling display of electrical madness. The smuggler -- along with a mélange of exploding flares -- was jolted from the mech-wall -- his arms flailing wildly, thruster rifle flying from his grasp, his crescent web turning the color of red wine as it soared to full power, trying to neutralize the thrashing high-voltage cables.

The smuggler was still in midair when Gillian twisted his wrist and turned the Cohe's deadly energy on Saw-beard. For an instant, the black beam seemed to coil in upon itself, lancing into an expanding spiral as it hurtled high into the air. Gillian squeezed the egg harder and jerked his wrist; the Cohe's deadly energy stream performed a U-turn, plunged toward the ground. Saw-beard opened his mouth in astonishment as the Cohe's devastating energy sliced off the barrel of his thruster.

Gillian released pressure on the egg-shaped wand. The black beam vanished just as the plummeting smuggler slammed onto the floor of the alley.

Muscle boy, still clutching his guts, reached into his pants' pocket. Gillian jerked forward, extended his left foot through the weak side-portal of his web, and slammed his heel into muscle boy's chest. The tattooed smuggler grunted hard, collapsed to his knees.

Get up, Gillian urged, feeling the excitement race through his body, unrestrained, as if his inner skin were being tickled, as if there were feathers in his bloodstream. His breath came in short intense gasps and he could feel tremendous waves of heat coursing up and down his chest. Full-body flush. Full-body hard-on.

"Cohe wand," whispered Impleton, the words echoing his fright. Buff grabbed the smuggler by the neck and yanked him forward so violently that he fell to his knees.

Saw-beard dropped the useless remnant of his weapon and backed away, his eyes wide with fear. The man from the mech-wall remained prone on the floor of the alley, moaning softly.

Copyright © 1990 by Christopher Hinz