Link-seed gymnastics again. Yes. One of the Freep archaeologists arrested years ago for smuggling out antique bric-a-brac was a Dr. Yasbad Iranu. Kowkow must have been Yasbad’s son. "Did you ever see Iranu carrying old rusty knickknacks?"

"Sure," Oh-God replied. "But he told me they were just window dressing in case he got caught by Demoth authorities. His father used them for the same thing. Cover for what he’d really found."

"And what was that?" Festina asked.

"You think he’d tell me? Not bloody likely. Took me years to learn what little I did."

"This last time you saw him," I said, "did Iranu go anywhere but Mummichog and Sallysweet River?"

"Nah. Those were the most important sites, I can tell you that much. Sometimes when he came to Demoth he went other places, but he always kept going back to those two."

Tic spoke from the far side of the room. "Olive oil’s ready." He held a small plastic cup in his hand.

I waved him over. Festina lifted Oh-God’s head while Tic put the cup to the man’s lips. Oh-God made a face, as wry as he could with so many muscles puttied out; but he drank and he swallowed. Thank heaven his throat still worked.

"That should help," I told him.

"Didn’t before," he grimaced. "Wipe off my mouth, will you?"

Festina dabbed with a corner of the bedsheet. Tic took my elbow and drew me away a short distance.

"His synthesizer was already set to Demoth recipes," Tic said in a low voice. "It didn’t need to be reprogrammed."

"You mean he’d been drinking our olive oil? And it hadn’t worked?"

Tic nodded. "Maybe it doesn’t have the same effect on his metabolism. If there’s some crucial ingredient that gets broken down by Freep stomach acids instead of being absorbed…"

That was one possibility. Neither of us felt like saying, "Suppose Pteromic B thumbs its microbial nose at olive oil. Suppose we’re back at square one with this disease, except that the new breed works a dozen times faster."

"We have to call an ambulance," I said. "A full emergency team."

"No other choice," Tic agreed. He fell silent for a moment, then muttered, "Uh-oh."

"What?"

"I can’t get the world-soul."

"But I just downloaded something a minute ago." I closed my eyes and reached out mentally. Protection Central, we need an emergency medical team…

Like shouting into a pillow. I’d felt the sensation before. "Christ. We’re being jammed again."

"By whom?"

I ignored the question. "Festina! Did the dipshits know Oh-God worked for you?"

"Maybe. It’s no secret we use a lot of retired Explorers."

"They could have mounted a watch on this place," I said to myself. "In case we showed up."

"But why?" Tic asked.

"Because they keep reading secret police reports. They know the Peacock is real, and it’s constantly doing me favors. The Admiralty doesn’t want to believe Sperm-tubes behave like that. It must drive them frothy well insane."

"Listen," Oh-God said. With his ear-lids slack open, he could hear better than the rest of us.

For ten seconds, we held our breaths. Then I caught the soft sound of stealth engines descending from the sky.

BLOOD-DROP ORCHIDS

"What’s going on?" Oh-God asked. His words were turning so mumbly I could barely understand.

"Unwelcome guests," I said. "Did you ever have dealings with dipshits?"

"Those pukes? I got standards, missy. No decent Explorer ever worked for the Admiralty." His gaze shifted over to Festina. "You don’t count."

"Smallwood!" a man shouted outside the dome. "We know you’re here, Smallwood. We want to talk."

Christ. It was the Mouth. Who the devil let him out of jail? But then, the Admiralty could afford good lawyers. It could afford bail. It could afford to bribe judges, or make deals with the government behind closed doors. For that matter, it could afford jailbreaks if it was desperate enough to learn how I got a Sperm-tube by the tail.

"Smallwood! You know we mean business. Come out before things get ugly."

Festina muttered, "Dipshits must take the same Bad Dialogue course as starship captains." She raised her voice, and called, "This is Admiral Festina Ramos. I order you sailors to stand down."

"No can do, Admiral," the Mouth yelled. "You aren’t in our chain of command."

Something hit the dome’s structure field. Maybe a sledgehammer. Maybe something heavier. The dome shivered and rattled like tinsel paper, but held solid.

"House-soul, attend," Festina said. "Dome field, one-way transparent, looking out."

The dirt brown color of the dome field started to thin, like smoked glass turning clear. Outside in the compound, Mouth and Muscle stood in tough-guy poses, staring at us… or rather at the blank dome surface, which would still be solid brown from their point of view. The Muscle held a whopping donkey-dick of a gun, one he had to prop over his shoulder to fire. A bazooka? Pity I couldn’t link to the world-soul and look up weapons so illegal not even planetary governments could own one.

"Don’t worry," Oh-God said weakly. "This dome’s as strong as they come. We can hold out…"

The bazooka fired. A finger-sized missile burst out of its muzzle, flashed through the air on a belch of smoke, and exploded against the dome’s shell. Boom. By which I mean BOOM. Blazing, blinding white. The dome field shuddered and snapped with electric crackles.

"No problem," Oh-God said. His voice sounded like gargling.

Tic moved close to Festina and me. "Even if the dome field holds, we can’t afford to sit out a siege. Oh-God’s condition is plunging by the minute. He won’t last much longer." Tic glanced at the dipshits outside. "Could we just drop the dome and rush them?"

Festina shook her head. "Look what he’s got," she said, pointing toward Mouth. Twilight made it hard to see, but the man was holding a pair of fist-sized matte silver balls, one in each hand. "Those are stun grenades," Festina told us. "Same principle as a stun-pistol, but with a good wide field of effect. If we try charging, those grenades will drop us in a second."

"What if one of us sneaks out the back?" I suggested. "Tic flies faster than they can run. If he gets clear of the jamming field, he can call for help."

"And if they notice him leaving," Festina said, "they drop him with a stun grenade. Then they’ve got a hostage."

"Do we have another alternative?" Tic asked. "Is it totally naive to throw ourselves on their mercy? For Oh-God’s sake?"

Damn right, I thought, totally naive. But was it? Yes, the dipshits had been ready to crack open my brain; and I was sure they wouldn’t mind roughing us up, maybe just in revenge for me breaking Mouth’s knee. But would they sit doing butt-nothing and let Oh-God die? That was as good as murder, according to the League of Peoples — the Mouth and Muscle would be branded dangerous non-sentients. Meaning they could never leave Demoth. Meaning if they tried to leave Demoth, their hearts would magically stop the second they got out of our star system.

Were these men really that devoutly loyal to the High Council? Loyal enough to strand themselves on Demoth for the rest of their lives, running and hiding from local police? Maybe. Or maybe they just didn’t think that far ahead — all thought focused on their brain-blinkered mission and let tomorrow take care of itself.

Muscle fired his bazooka again. The dome field jumped and crackled, fighting to hold its structure. At the point of impact the field broke into a crazy-quilt zigzag of colors, like a vidscreen with a three-year-old twirling its control knobs. The jaggies only lasted a second, then damped down, as the dome sucked up power to stabilize itself; but any fool could see the future didn’t look rosy.

"One more blast will do it," Festina muttered. "We’re out of options." She bent and scooped Oh-God from his cot. "Get to the back of the dome," she told us. "When the field collapses, scatter and run. If we spread out fast, maybe we won’t all be in the daze-radius of the grenades."