Jaycee’s pale skin started to flush. He gave her bodyguards a quick appraisal. “Fucking say that without your friends here.”

She smiled with predatory malice. “They’re not here for my benefit; they’re here to keep you safe from me.”

“Fuck off, bitch. I mean it. You don’t come in here like you rule the universe and try to steal my fucking girls away. Tiger Pansy’s mine. You fucking got that?”

Mellanie cocked her head to one side, pursing her lips as if she were mulling over what he’d said. “No.”

“I don’t care who the fuck you think you are, fuck off now!” Jaycee yelled. “And you”—he jabbed a finger at Tiger Pansy—“you don’t go fucking anywhere. Understand?”

“Yes, Jaycee,” Tiger Pansy said meekly. Her chin quivered as she fought back tears.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Mellanie said. She took a step toward Jaycee.

“Or what? You’ll give me a blow job?” He smiled around at the bodyguards. “Did Alessandra pass her around you guys? I hear that’s what she does: the Baron show’s whore.” His sneer turned triumphant. “Isn’t that right?” he asked Mellanie. “You’re just a fucking cheap media whore. What? You think I don’t fucking know that? Every fucker in the business knows what you are.”

Mellanie knew she should just grab Tiger Pansy and get out. Had it been anyone else but Jaycee she would have done just that. “I am not for sale,” she growled out as she took another step, putting her nose to nose. “I told you that before.” She brought her knee up.

Jaycee twisted with fast competence, bringing his own leg around protectively. Her knee skidded off the back of his thigh. His grin was mocking. “And we’ve done this befor—”

Mellanie slammed her forehead into his nose. Jaycee screamed as his cartilage made a horrible crunch. His hand came up automatically to cup his nose and stanch the blood. That was when Mellanie brought her knee up again, properly this time.

“Yeah, you’re right, this is a real déjà vu session,” she said amiably as tears flooded Jaycee’s eyes. His mouth opened in a silent screech as he fell to his knees, one hand clamped over his nose, the other over his crotch. Blood made the front of his black shirt glisten disgustingly.

The girls got out of the way fast as Mellanie walked over to Tiger Pansy. “This job, it pays so much you’ll never have to come back here. There’s a rejuvenation treatment thrown in as well. You can start over again.”

“Yeah?” Tiger Pansy asked. Her jaw worked hard on the gum as she looked at Jaycee. “Is he gonna be all right, d’ya think?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I don’t want to rush you, but I do need an answer.”

“He wasn’t last time you did that, y’know. He couldn’t get it hard for a week.”

“For which the human gene pool was very grateful. Tiger”—she put her hand on the porn starlet’s arm—“I need your help. I really do. A lot of people are depending on you.”

Tiger Pansy gave the bodyguards a resigned look. “Who do I got to fuck?”

“Nobody. It’s not like that. We’re going to link you up one-to-one for a special client. That way this client gets to find out what you feel. I came to you because you’re the best sensorium artiste there is.”

“Yeah?” Tiger Pansy grinned sheepishly. “You’re an all right girl, Mellanie, I knew it when you came in here that first day. Straightaway, I said to myself, I said, she’s class, Tiger, you should try and be more like her. I’m not, though.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Mellanie.” Tiger Pansy put her head down and whispered, “there’s this, like, medicine I need to get through the day. Special medicine. Jaycee used to get it for me. I can’t go nowhere without it.”

For some reason, Mellanie’s throat tightened to an almost-painful degree. She couldn’t remember feeling so much sympathy for anyone before. “We can get it for you, I promise. Better quality than Jaycee ever supplied. You can go anywhere, Tiger. And when you’re rejuvenated you won’t need it anymore.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Tiger Pansy produced a lottery-winner smile. “Okay then.”

***

The look on Nigel Sheldon’s face wasn’t exactly engineered to make Oscar feel welcome. Daniel Alster, who’d met him from the train, had been polite and upbeat. Oscar had thought that attitude would reflect from his boss. Now, in the senior management suite at Narrabri station, he realized what a mistake that had been.

“So what does Columbia want?” Nigel asked. “It has to be important and delicate to send you.”

“The navy intelligence Paris office has found a rogue officer called Tarlo, and needs to arrest him. However, there’s a problem. Tarlo is on Boongate.” Oscar braced himself for the outburst.

Amazingly, Nigel leaned back in his chair and gave a bemused little smile. “Tarlo was one of the people on Illuminatus, wasn’t he?”

Oscar had to think back quickly over the briefing he’d absorbed on the train journey over from the High Angel. “Yes, sir.” All he could think was how amazingly well briefed Nigel Sheldon was. Then again, he is the head of the largest Dynasty.

“What sort of rogue?” Nigel asked maliciously.

“Sir, we need to arrest him and read his memories to confirm who he’s working for.”

“So Columbia is finally starting to believe in the Starflyer, is he?”

“Uh,” Oscar managed to rumble.

“Don’t worry, Oscar, I know it’s real.”

“You do?”

“Me and several others, so you can relax now.”

Somehow, that just wasn’t possible. “Thank you, sir. The Paris office has put together an arrest team. We’d like to send them through to Boongate.”

“The War Cabinet decided to keep all the Second47 wormholes closed.”

“I know, but it’s only a team of five. The time the wormhole would be open for isn’t long enough to permit any kind of mass exodus from the Boongate side, especially if the planet is unaware the wormhole is open.”

Nigel drummed his fingers on the desk. “What is the plan should they capture Tarlo intact?”

“Direct memory read.”

“That’s what we’re doing here with Starflyer agents; if Columbia is coming around to our views we can share our information with him.” He screwed up his face, undecided. “If they get Tarlo, the arrest team will want to come back. That’ll mean opening the wormhole again. People on Boongate will know; damnit, my people there will know, and I’ve already forced them to stay. I don’t think so, Oscar, I’m sorry.”

“The arrest team have volunteered to go into the future along with the rest of the planet. They’re not asking for a return trip, sir, they just want the chance to get their man.”

“Oh.”

“Tarlo is a critical Starflyer agent; his position in the Paris office allowed him to cover up any number of its operations. His memories would be invaluable in exposing the whole Starflyer network. I cannot overemphasize how important he is.”

“Damnit.” Nigel let out a long breath. “All right, but we keep this very quiet. If and when Tarlo is hooked up to a neural download the data extracted from his brain is to be routed through to the operation we’re putting together here. Columbia can have full access, but we direct the procedure.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Nigel nodded acknowledgment. “You’d better hook up with Wilson. He can brief you on our operation.”

“Wilson’s here?”

“Yes,” Nigel said wryly. “Along with some others you may recognize. But that’s not to be shared with Columbia until we’re convinced he’s acknowledged the Starflyer. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Daniel, organize some transport for the arrest team.”

“I’ll get right onto it. What do you want to do about opening the gateway?”

“The Paris team goes through, and that’s it. If it’s open for more than a minute I’ll want to know why. Who’s on duty over there?”

“Ward Smith. I’ll get over to the gateway control center and liaise with him myself.”

***

There were eight Guardians working on the big engine. The old Ables ND47 sat on the single track that ran through the huge Foster Transport shed, its new ultramarine paintwork gleaming under the bright overhead lights. A cluster of mobile gantries surrounded it, giving the engineeringbots access to the entire superstructure. Under the supervision of the Guardian team they were installing force field generators and medium-caliber weapons in casings that looked like they were integral segments of the bodywork. Forty meters behind the engine, two long enclosed wagons sat on the shiny rails.