Crossing the meadow, weaving between the tables and the trees, he wondered if she would shoot him if he collapsed now. Black fur boiled at the borders of his vision. He glanced up at the hot white band of the Lado-Acheson armature and saw a giant butterfly banking gracefully against recorded sky. At the edge of the meadow they came to railinged cliffside, wild flowers dancing in the updraft from the canyon that was Desiderata. Michele tossed her short dark hair and pointed, saying something in French to Roland. She sounded genuinely happy. Case followed the direction of her gesture and saw the curve of planing lakes, the white glint of casinos, turquoise rectangles of a thousand pools, the bodies of bathers, tiny bronze hieroglyphs, all held in serene approximation of gravity against the endless curve of Freeside’s hull. They followed the railing to an ornate iron bridge that arched over Desiderata. Michele prodded him with the muzzle of the Walther. “Take it easy, I can’t hardly walk today.” They were a little over a quarter of the way across when the microlight struck, its electric engine silent until the carbon fiber prop chopped away the top of Pierre’s skull. They were in the thing’s shadow for an instant; Case felt the hot blood spray across the back of his neck, and then someone tripped him. He rolled, seeing Michele on her back, knees up, aiming the Walther with both hands. That’s a waste of effort, he thought, with the strange lucidity of shock. She was trying to shoot down the microlight. And then he was running. He looked back as he passed the first of the trees. Roland was running after him. He saw the fragile biplane strike the iron railing of the bridge, crumple, cartwheel, sweeping the girl with it down into Desiderata. Roland hadn’t looked back. His face was fixed, white, his teeth bared. He had something in his hand. The gardening robot took Roland as he passed that same tree. It fell straight out of the groomed branches, a thing like a crab, diagonally striped with black and yellow. “You killed ’em,” Case panted, running. “Crazy mother- fucker, you killed ’em all….”
The little train shot through its tunnel at eighty kilometers per hour. Case kept his eyes closed. The shower had helped, but he’d lost his breakfast when he’d looked down and seen Pierre’s blood washing pink across the white tiles. Gravity fell away as the spindle narrowed. Case’s stomach churned. Aerol was waiting with his scooter beside the dock. “Case, mon, big problem.” The soft voice faint in his phones. He chinned the volume control and peered into the Lexan face-plate of Aerol’s helmet. “Gotta get to Garvey, Aerol.” “Yo. Strap in, mon. But Garvey captive. Yacht, came be- fore, she came back. Now she lockin’ steady on Marcus Garvey. ” Turing? “Came before?” Case climbed into the scooter’s frame and began to fasten the straps.
“Japan yacht. Brought you package….” Armitage.
Confused images of wasps and spiders rose in Case’s mind as they came in sight of Marcus Garvey. The little tug was snug against the gray thorax of a sleek, insectile ship five times her length. The arms of grapples stood out against Garvey’s patched hull with the strange clarity of vacuum and raw sun- light. A pale corrugated gangway curved out of the yacht, snaked sideways to avoid the tug’s engines, and covered the aft hatch. There was something obscene about the arrangement, but it had more to do with ideas of feeding than of sex. “What’s happening with Maelcum?” “Maelcum fine. Nobody come down the tube. Yacht pilot talk to him, say relax.” As they swung past the gray ship, Case saw the name HAN- IWA in crisp white capitals beneath an oblong cluster of Jap- anese. “I don’t like this, man. I was thinking maybe it’s time we got our ass out of here anyway.” “Maelcum thinkin’ that precise thing, mon, but Garvey not be goin’ far like that.”
Maelcum was purring a speeded-up patois to his radio when Case came through the forward lock and removed his helmet. “Aerol’s gone back to the Rocker,” Case said. Maelcum nodded, still whispering to the microphone. Case pulled himself over the pilot’s drifting tangle of dread- locks and began to remove his suit. Maelcum’s eyes were closed now; he nodded as he listened to some reply over a pair of phones with bright orange pads, his brow creased with con- centration. He wore ragged jeans and an old green nylon jacket with the sleeves ripped out. Case snapped the red Sanyo suit to a storage hammock and pulled himself down to the g-web. “See what th’ ghost say, mon,” Maelcum said. “Computer keeps askin’ for you.” “So who’s up there in that thing?” “Same Japan-boy came before. An’ now he joined by you Mister Armitage, come out Freeside….” Case put the trodes on and jacked in.