Baronski was sitting listlessly in the settee, face morbid. "Please tell me, what has Charlotte done?"

"She hasn't done anything herself," Greg said. "It looks like she just got caught up in something a lot bigger. We're not angry with her, OK? But we do need to talk to her. Urgently."

"Yes. I'll tell her if she gets in touch. Thank you, Mr. Mandel."

Greg stood up. There was a sharp twang from his intuition, an intimation that he was being sold short. He glanced sharply at Baronski, a shrunken figure lost in his own anxiety. The curse of intuition was its lack of clarity, he was never quite certain.

"Anything you want to ask?" he asked Suzi.

"Nah."

"OK. If Charlotte does get in touch with you, ask her to call us, please. It will save everyone an awful lot of trouble."

"I shall," Baronski said. He put his glass down, and picked up a gold cybofax. Greg squirted his number over.

"Well?" Suzi asked as they left the apartment.

"Dunno. I get the impression he's cheating us somehow."

"So why didn't you ask him about it?"

"Ask him what? Sorry, Dmitri, but what haven't you told us? Fat lot of use that would be. You know my empathy is only good for specifics."

"Yeah. Skinny little fart, wasn't he?"

"It's not a crime." Greg saw Malcolm Ramkartra was still waiting by the open door of the lift. His espersense stretched out again. There were four observers in the well now, and that was just the ones within range. "I think it's about time we found out a bit more about the opposition."

"Suits me."

Greg walked out into the centre of the corridor, and beckoned Malcolm Ramkartra.

"What did the liaison officer say?" he asked when the hardliner reached them.

"He didn't know the surveillance team were here. There's no police operation on this floor."

"No shit?" Suzi said.

"OK. Malcolm, I want to talk to one of the observers. We're going back to the well; I'll physically identify one and we'll work a pincer on him. You go round the balcony clockwise, Suzi and I will take anticlockwise. If he backs off down a corridor, so much the better, he'll be isolated for a while. If you reach him first, then immobilize him, but make sure he's still conscious. Don't worry about visibility, tell you, this deal is important, OK?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Tyo explained that to us."

"Right, and the name's Greg."

Malcolm Ramkartra gave a quick smile, his thoughts tightening up. There wasn't any worry present, a true pro. Greg realized how little he knew about him, apart from the fact that he'd be the best. This deal was so bloody rushed.

"Let's go." They began to walk towards the well. "Two of them are sitting at a table in front of the window. The third is almost in the same place as the one Malcolm spotted earlier. The fourth is a woman, on the balcony above ours, hovering ten metres from the corridor on our left. So we'll take number three."

"How long do you need with him?" Malcolm Ramkartra asked.

"About a minute."

"Oh." This time there was a flutter of consternation in his thought currents.

"And no, I can't read your mind directly."

Suzi gave a wicked chuckle.

Two men stepped into the corridor from the well. The one in front had a pale face, wounded amber eyes, his ebony hair swept back and clinging to his skull. His suit was dark grey, baggy trousers and a black belt with a silver lion-head buckle. Everything about him shouted hardliner.

The other was an oriental, his hair in braids ending in tiny ringlets. He possessed a surly confidence bordering on egomania.

Suzi stopped dead.

The first man gave a start, and put his hand on the arm of his partner.

His mind was the perfect twin of Suzi's, Greg saw. The two of them flush with loathing and alarm, ricocheting back and forth, building.

"Suzi," said the man in the suit. "The oddest places. Yes?"

"Leol Reiger, still trailing way behind as per flicking usual."

"Depends what I'm after."

"Baronski," Suzi said firmly, and turned to Greg. "Was he?"

The initial confusion in Leol Reiger's had mind twisted to sharp alarm at the mention of Baronski's name.

"Yeah, he knows Baronski."

Leol Reiger's eyes never left Suzi. "Who's your friend, Suzi?" he asked softly.

"Never seen him before in my life."

"Chad," Leol Reiger said.

The younger oriental man grinned at Greg. "Hey, voodoo man, you do this?"

Greg was caught by surprise at the speed with which Chad's psi arose. Ordinary misty thought currents suddenly gleamed like chrome, rich with arrogant power. Chad's espersense unfurled, black daemon wings taking Greg into their implacable embrace.

The sensation was like a hot wet tongue slipping right through his temple, licking round his brain. Gone before he could harden his mind against it.

And he'd never even bothered to take the most elementary precaution. Jumped like a total novice. Chad must be loaded with sacs; themed neurohormones stored at critical sections through the brain, lifting the psi faculty from dormant to active like throwing a switch.

"Mr. Greg Mandel is a gland psychic," Chad said, his grin widening to mock.

"Really?" said Leol Reiger.

Greg could sense Suzi's annoyance, twined with a small thread of exasperation that she should be let down like this. He increased his gland's secretion, shame damping down as a cool anger surfaced in his thoughts; remembering the games the Brigade used to play in barracks. Squaddies' games, the kind played after days in combat, when life and dignity had been reduced to zero. The ones the Mindstar project directors had frowned upon, too dangerous for their valuable personnel to indulge in.

"And a Mindstar Brigade veteran as well," Chad went on. "A real top gun in his day. Like, a century ago."

"So what is this?" Leol Reiger asked. "You running a pensioner's outing, Suzi?"

"I'd hate to think you were treading on my turf, Leol. That'd piss me off real bad," Suzi growled back.

Greg tried to keep track of the observers' reactions. They were alert and interested by the confrontation. Nothing to do with Leol Reiger, then.

"Back off, bitch," said Leol Reiger. "And you," he flicked a finger at Malcolm Ramkartra, "keep your hand away from that shoulder holster. I'll chop you into fucking dogmeat, else. Got it?"

"That's enough," Greg said. "You two aren't going to see Baronski, he belongs to us now. Fuck off, the pair of you."

"Jesus, a geriatric control-freak," Leol Reiger sneered. "Chad, deal with him."

Greg thought of a knife, bright steel shimmering, needle tip pricking the skin on the bridge of Chad's nose.

Chad began to laugh, his thoughts flaring as the sacs discharged again and the neurohormone dose hit his bloodstream. "Gonna crack your mind open like an eggshell, war hero."

Greg tensed his mind behind the imaginary blade, and –

— reality flickered—

— and pushed. Chad's thoughts were too hard, too closely packed. The knife slithered across their congealed surface, denied an opening.

"Best you can do?" Chad asked.

"Yeah."

"Too bad."

"That's why I always bring my little friend along," Greg said, nodding at a point behind Chad.

Screams broke out in the well. People were pushing and shoving as they raced past the end of the corridor, terror in their faces. Display stands went crashing to the ground. One of the barrows was overturned, oranges and nectarines tumbling about across the tiled floor.

The beast was about the size of a lion, jet black, covered in an ice-smooth exoskeleton. Talons made skittering noises against the tiles as it padded round the corner into the corridor. Its head was a streamlined nightmare, eyes buried in deep recesses, razor fins on its crown, tapering reptilian muzzle.

Chad gaped at it, frozen in disbelief.