From further up the ramp, on the far side of the van, two more stunner bolts snapped out in quick succession.

Silence.

After a moment, Ivan called cautiously, "Olivia?"

She responded from higher up the ramp in a breathless sort of little-girl voice, "Ivan? Dono?"

Dono spasmed on the pavement, and vented a moan.

Warily, Ivan stood up and started for the van. After a couple of seconds, probably to see if he would draw any more fire, Olivia rose from her cover and ran lightly down the ramp to join him.

"Where'd you get the stunner?" he inquired, as she popped around the vehicle's side. She was barefoot, and her party dress was tucked up around her hips.

"Goff." Somewhat absently, she jerked her skirts back down with her free hand. "Dono! Oh, no!" She jammed the stunner into her cleavage and knelt by the black-clad man. She raised a hand covered, sickeningly, with blood.

"Only," gasped Dono, "a cut on my leg. He missed. Oh, God! Ow, ow!"

"You're bleeding all over the place. Lie still, love!" Olivia commanded. She looked around a little frantically, jumped up and peered into the dark cavernous emptiness of the van's freight compartment, then determinedly ripped off the beige lace overskirt of her party dress. More quick ripping sounds, as she hastily fashioned a pad and some strips. She began to bind the pad tightly to the long shallow slash along Dono's thigh, to staunch the bleeding.

Ivan circled the van, collected Olivia's two victims, and dragged them back to deposit in a heap where he could keep an eye on them. Olivia now had Dono half sitting up, his head cradled between her breasts as she anxiously stroked his dark hair. Dono was pale and shaking, his breathing disrupted.

"Take a punch in the solar plexus, did you?" Ivan inquired.

"No. Further down," Dono wheezed. "Ivan . . . do you remember, whenever one of you fellows got kicked in the nuts and went over, doing sports or whatever, how I laughed? I'm sorry. I never knew. I'm sorry . . ."

"Sh," Olivia soothed him.

Ivan knelt down for a closer look. Olivia's first aid was doing its job; the beige lace was soaked with bright gore, but the bleeding had definitely slowed. Dono wasn't going to exsanguinate here. His assailant had sliced Dono's trousers open; the vibra-knife lay abandoned on the pavement nearby. Ivan rose, and examined the bottle. His head jerked back at the sharp scent of liquid bandage. He considered offering it to Olivia for Dono, but there was no telling what nasty additives it might be spiked with. Carefully, he recapped it, and stared around at the scene. "It seems," he said shakily, "someone was aiming to reverse your Betan surgery, Dono. Disqualify you just before the vote."

"I'd figured that out, yeah," Dono mumbled.

"Without anesthetic. I think the liquid bandage was to stop the bleeding, after. To be sure you'd live through it."

Olivia cried out in revolted horror. "That'sawful !"

"That's," Dono sighed, "Richars, in all probability. I didn't think he'd go this far. . . ."

"That's—" said Ivan, and stopped. He scowled at the vibra knife, and stirred it with the toe of his boot. "Now, I'm not saying I approve of what you did, Dono, or of what you're trying to do. But that's just wrong ."

Dono's hands wandered protectively to his groin. "Hell," he said in a faint voice. "I hadn't even got to try it out yet. I was saving myself. For once in my life, I wanted to be a virgin on my wedding night . . ."

"Can you stand up?"

"Are you joking?"

"No." Ivan glanced around uneasily. "Where'd you leave Goff, Olivia?"

She pointed. "Over by that third pillar."

"Right." Ivan went to collect him, seriously wondering where Pierre's car had gone. The thug Goff was still unconscious too, although of a subtly more disturbing limpness than the stunner victims. It was the greenish skin tone, Ivan decided, and the weird spongy lump on his head. He paused along the route, in dragging Goff to join the others, to check Szabo's wrist comm for Joris. No answer, though Szabo's pulse seemed to be bumping along all right.

Dono was stirring, but still not ready to stand. Ivan frowned, stared around, then jogged up the ramp.

Just around the next curve, Ivan found Pierre's groundcar sitting skewed a little sideways across the concrete. Ivan didn't know by what trick they'd lured Joris out of it, but the young Armsman lay in a stunned heap in front of the car. Ivan sighed, and dragged him around to dump in the rear compartment, and backed the car carefully down to the van.

Dono's color was coming back, and he was now sitting up only a little bent over.

"We have to get Dono medical attention," Olivia told Ivan anxiously.

"Yep. We're going to need all kinds of drugs," Ivan agreed. "Synergine for some," he craned his neck toward Szabo, who twitched and moaned but didn't quite claw back to consciousness, "fast-penta for others." He frowned at the heap of thugs. "You recognize any of these goons, Dono?"

Dono squinted. "Never seen 'em in my life."

"Hirelings, I suppose. Contracted through who knows how many middlemen. Could be days before the municipal guard, or ImpSec if they take an interest, get to the bottom of it all."

"The vote," sighed Dono, "will be over by then."

I don't want anything to do with this. This isn't my job. It's not my fault. But really, this was a political precedent nobody was going to favor. This was damned offensive . This was just . . . really wrong .

"Olivia," Ivan said abruptly, "can you drive Dono's car?"

"I think so . . ."

"Good. Help me get the troops loaded up."

With Olivia's assistance, Ivan managed to get the three stunned Vorrutyer Armsmen laid into the rear compartment with the unfortunate Joris, and the disarmed thugs hoisted rather less carefully into the back of their own van. He locked the doors firmly from the outside, and took charge of the vibra knife, the armload of illegal stunners, and the bottle of liquid bandage. Tenderly, Olivia helped Dono limp over to his car, and settled him into the front seat with his leg out. Ivan, watching the pair, blond head bent over dark, sighed deeply, and shook his head.

"Where to?" called Olivia, punching controls to lower the canopies.

Ivan swung up into the van's cab, and shouted over his shoulder, "Vorpatril House!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The great Chamber of the Council of Counts had a hushed, cool air, despite the bright dapple of colored light falling through the stained glass windows high in the east wall onto the oak flooring. Miles had thought he was early, but he spotted Ren? at the Vorbretten's District desk, arrived even before him. Miles laid out his flimsies and checklists on his own desk in the front row, and circled around the benches to Ren?'s place, second row right.

Ren? looked trim enough in his Vorbretten House uniform of dark green piped with bittersweet orange, but his face was wan.

"Well," said Miles, feigning cheer for the sake of his colleague's morale. "This is it, then."

Ren? managed a thin smile. "It's too close. We're not going to make it, Miles." He tapped a finger nervously on his checklist, twin to the one on Miles's desk.

Miles put a brown-booted foot up on Ren?'s bench, leaned forward with a deliberately casual air, and glanced at his papers. "It's tighter than I'd hoped it would be," he admitted. "Don't take our precount as a done deal, though. You never know who's going to change his mind at the last second and bolt."

"Unfortunately, that cuts both ways," Ren? pointed out ruefully.

Miles shrugged, not disagreeing. He would plan for a hell of a lot more redundancy in future votes, he decided. Democracy, faugh . He felt a twinge of his old familiar adrenaline-pumped prebattle nerves, without the promised catharsis of being able to shoot at someone later if things went really badly. On the other hand, he was unlikely to be shot at here, either. Count your blessings .