Greg walked along the crumbling sandy soil of the bluff.

There was a steady drift of families coming up the steps from the beach, carrying their bags and towels, small children with tired-looking faces.

Suzi stayed at his side, looking out over the bodies lying on the sunbeds. Rick and Charlotte were still together, locked at the centre of a protective triangle formed by the three hardliners. Greg was pleased with their unobtrusive professionalism.

Teresa Farrow was a psychic, equipped with sac implants; he could discern her espersense pervading the beach and the bars, alert for hazards. She had told him she possessed an empathy similar to his, but no intuition.

Jim Sharman was one of the crash team's tech specialists. All of the team members had one or two fields of expertise.

"Can you see him?" he asked Charlotte.

She was standing at the top of some stairs. "No, he isn't here. Sorry."

"I didn't expect to find him first time," he said, and gave her a reassuring smile.

They walked on.

Greg's cybofax bleeped. It was Lloyd McDonald.

"I think we've got something for you," the security chief said. "A couple of bobbies saw three people distributing leaflets outside the Trump Nugget casino. Two men and a girl. One of the men is in his late fifties, they say."

"Great," Greg said. "Tell the bobbies to keep watching, we'll be right over."

One of the bobbies was waiting for them in the station, barely able to keep his excitement contained. His name was Gene Learmount, a boyish freckled face and ginger hair; Greg thought he was about twenty, terribly naïve.

He told Greg how he and his partner had seen the suspected Celestial Apostles, and immediately taken a table in the casino's beer garden where they could watch without being seen. The search for the Celestials was the biggest deal for New London's police in months. Did it mean the Governor was finally going to do something about them?

Greg gave a noncommittal shrug as they rode the escalator up from the station to the park.

Victor had told him that the police were there principally for the tourists; company security handled the workers and possible tekmerc deals. He wondered how the police felt about that, but the kid seemed happy enough deferring to his Event Horizon card. It was his tradecraft, or rather lack of it, which was worrying. The Celestials must have developed some kind of watcher routine.

The escalator brought them out under a small marble rotunda. The Trump Nugget was fifty metres away, a three storey Disneyland fairy castle with tall circular turrets, a moat, drawbridge, and portcullis. Flags were fluttering idly at the top of turret spires. It was ringed with young apple trees in full blossom, white and pink petals coating the grass like dry snow.

Gene Learmount muttered into his cap's comset. "They're still in the quadrangle," he said.

"How do we go?" Melvyn asked.

Greg looked at the portcullis and drawbridge again, letting his espersense expand. There were a few people coming and going, it wasn't a busy time for the casino. Too early. He caught the watcher's steely wakefulness, completely out of phase with the passive thought currents around him. When he looked he saw a young man in scarlet shorts picking small yellow fruits from a bush above the moat.

"Bugger," he muttered. The watcher would have seen Gene Learmount walk from the casino to the station. "Is there another way out of the quadrangle?" he asked the bobby.

"Yes, certainly. If you go into the castle, there's a goods delivery subway, and a couple of footbridges over the moat."

"OK. Charlotte, Suzi, and Teresa come with me. The rest of you stay here, but be ready to move."

They walked out into the open. Greg kept his espersense focused on the watcher, waiting for any sign of alarm, but the man just showed a mild interest in their approach. He carried on filling his net bag with the fruit.

"Tell you, we're being watched," Greg said to Suzi.

"Yeah, I know," she said. "Stud in the red shorts. I clocked him when we came up the escalator."

"Oh. Right." He turned to Charlotte who was staring at the watcher. "Don't be too obvious."

She grimaced and looked away quickly. "Sorry."

"This is the way I want you to handle it," he said. "When we get into the quadrangle just look round and see if you can spot him. Take your time, make certain. If he's there, point him out to us, and walk over to him, say hello. We'll be with you the whole time. If he makes a run for it, don't try and follow. Leave that to Suzi and me."

"Thanks," Suzi muttered.

"Teresa, you stick with Charlotte the whole time."

"Yes, sir."

His cybofax bleeped when they were twenty metres from the drawbridge.

"Got another one for you," Lloyd McDonald said.

"Oh, Christ, now where?"

"Sports arena. There's a tennis exhibition tournament this week; the Jerome Merril and Lemark Pampa match. One of my people has seen a couple of Celestials talking to some spectators."

"OK, same procedure. Keep them under observation until we get there."

"Affirmative."

The castle really was made out of stone, one-metre cubes of a rusty-brown colour that had been quarried out of the asteroid somewhere. Greg had been expecting jazzed-up composite.

The quadrangle had three levels. A sunken corner given over to an ornamental water garden, the main lawn with several large brass and granite freeform sculptures from the organic school, and the beer garden running along one side, overlooking the other two. Greg squashed a groan when he saw the second bobby sitting at one of the tables, diligently observing the people threading their way round the sculptures.

Greg spotted one of the girls straight off, a smiling blonde in a halter top and long swirling skirt.

Teresa Farrow nudged Charlotte, and nodded to a man coming up from the water garden. He was about sixty, a thick sheaf of leaflets was sticking out of an open belt pouch. Greg wrapped his espersense round him, finding a peculiar mix of alertness and satisfaction.

"That's not him," said Charlotte.

"Shit," Suzi said. "You sure?"

"Absolutely."

Greg felt something being thrust into his hand, dry and light, cylindrical. He closed his fingers round it instinctively.

When he turned, there was a slim Oriental girl standing behind him, wearing a black string vest tucked into cutoff jeans.

"Your future lies among the stars. I hope you'll join us tomorrow," she said, deeply serious, then smiled and walked away.

He followed the denim-painted backside as she walked through the archway towards the drawbridge.

"Just your type, huh?" Suzi asked. She was smirking lecherously.

"Committing her to memory, that's all." He looked down at what she'd given him. It was one of the leaflets, rolled up.

Tomorrow a new dawn will rise.

Tomorrow the road to the stars will be thrown open.

Tomorrow man will not be made in God's image.

Tomorrow our suffering and fear will end.

Tomorrow we will no longer be alone.

Tomorrow the Earth will be cured.

Tomorrow we shall be free.

Tomorrow is now.

Join us in Tomorrow.

The Celestial Apostles will hold a Blessing.

Ushering in the age of Redemption.

The All Saints Church Hyde Cavern.

Noon Tomorrow.

All Welcome.

Greg showed it to Suzi. "Yeah, very deep," she said. "I didn't know copywriters ran away to be Celestials when they grew up."

"Tomorrow, Clifford Jepson is officially going to announce atomic structuring to the world," Greg said.

She sniffed, and read the leaflet again.

"Some of those connotations are pretty strong," he said.

"Could be," Suzi admitted grudgingly. "You want to snatch one of them and run your word-association gimmick?"