Apparently they did. Arlek backed off, called forward two of his men. They approached Jazz and he showed them his teeth in a cold grin, showed them the gun, too.

'Let them have it,' Zek said.

'I was thinking about it,' he answered out of the corner of his mouth.

'You know what I mean,' she said. 'Please give them the gun!'

'Does your telepathy let you walk naked in lions' dens?' he asked her. One of the Gypsies had taken hold of the barrel of the SMG, the other's hand closed on Jazz's wrist. Their eyes were deep, dark, alert. Jazz was aware that crossbow bolts were trained on him, but still he asked: 'Well? It's your show, Zek.'

'We can't go back to Starside,' she quickly answered him, 'and the Travellers guard the way to Sunside. Even if we got out of this - got away from them - they'd find us again eventually. So give them the gun. We're safe for now, at least.'

'Against my better judgement,' he growled. 'But really I suppose there's nothing else for it.' He released the magazine and slipped it into his pocket, handed over the gun.

Arlek smiled crookedly. That, too,' he pointed at Jazz's pocket. 'And the rest of your... belongings.'

Hearing the language spoken, using it, was inspirational. Jazz's talent for tongues searched out and found him a few words. 'You're asking too much, Traveller,' he said. 'I'm a free man, like you. More free, for I make no deals with the Wamphyri so that I may live.'

Arlek was taken aback. To Zek he said: 'Does he read the thoughts in men's heads, too?'

'I hear only my own thoughts,' Jazz spoke first, 'and I speak my own words. Don't talk about me, talk to me.'

Arlek faced him squarely. 'Very well,' he said. 'Give us your weapons, your various... things. We take them so that you may not use them against us. You are a stranger, from Zekintha's world; so much is obvious from your dress and your weapons. Therefore, why should we trust you?'

'Why should anyone trust you!?' Zek cut in, as Arlek's men began taking Jazz's equipment. 'You betray your own leader while he's away seeking safe places!'

To give them their due, some of the Travellers shuffled their feet and looked a little shamefaced. But Arlek turned on Zek and snarled: 'Betrayal? You speak to me of betrayal? The moment Lardis's back's turned you run off! Where to, Zekintha? Your own world, even though you've said there's no way back there? To find yourself a champion, maybe - this man, perhaps? Or to give yourself to the Wamphyri and so become a power in the world? I would give you to them, aye - but only in trade for the safety of the Travellers - not for my own glory!' 'Glory!' Zek scoffed. 'Infamy, more like!' 'Why, you - !' He was lost for words.

Jazz had meanwhile been stripped of his packs, his weapons, but not of his pride. Strangely, now that he was down to his combat suit he felt safer; he knew he wouldn't be shot for fear of the havoc he might wreak with his awesome weapons. At least he could stand man to man now. Even if he couldn't understand all of Arlek's words - and even though many that he could understand rang true - still he didn't like Arlek's tone of voice when he spoke to Zek like that. He caught the Gypsy's shoulder, spun him round face to face. 'You're good at making loud noises at women,' he said.

Arlek looked at Jazz's hand bunching his jacket and his eyes opened wide. 'You've a lot to learn, "free man",' he hissed - and he lashed out at Jazz's face with his clenched fist. His reaction had been telegraphed; Jazz ducked his blow easily; it was like fighting with a clumsy, untrained schoolboy. No one in Arlek's world had ever heard of unarmed combat, judo, karate. Jazz struck him with two near simultaneous blows and stretched him out. And for his troubles he in turn was stretched out! From the side, one of the Gypsies had smacked him on the side of the head with the butt of his own gun.

Passing out, he heard Zek cry: 'Don't kill him! Don't harm him in any way! He may be the one answer to all your troubles, the only man who can bring you peace!' Then for a moment he felt her cool, slender fingers on his burning face, and after that...... there was only the cold, creeping darkness...

Andrei Roborov and Nikolai Rublev were lesser KGB lights. Both of them had been seconded to Chingiz Khuv at the Perchorsk Projekt - known as a punishment posting - for over-zealousness in their work; namely, Western journalists had snapped them beating-up on a pair of black-market Muscovites. The 'criminals' in the case had been an aged man-and-wife team, selling farm produce from their garden in the suburbs. In short, Roborov and Rublev were thugs. And on this occasion they were thugs in serious trouble.

Khuv had sent them to 'talk' to Kazimir Kirescu; it was to be their last opportunity to interrogate the old man before he went on a course of truth-drugs. It would be best if he could be persuaded to volunteer the required information (on Western and Romanian links) for the drugs weren't too good for a man's heart. The older the man, the worse their effect. Khuv had wanted information before Kirescu died, for afterwards it would be too late. This might seem perfectly obvious, but to members of the Soviet E-Branch things were rarely as obvious as they seemed. In the old days when a person died without releasing his information, then they would have called in the necromancer Boris Dragosani, but Dragosani was no more. As it happened, neither was Kazimir Kirescu.

Approaching the old man's cell to see how his men were making out, Khuv was in time to discover the two just making their exit. Both wore the clear plastic capes or ponchos of the professional torturer, but Rublev's cape was spattered with blood. Too much blood. His rubber gloves, too, where he stripped them from shaking hands. His face was deathly white, which Khuv knew was sometimes the reaction with this sort of man when he'd done a job too well, or enjoyed it too much. Or when he feared the consequences of a gross error.

As the two turned from locking the door, Khuv met them face to face. His eyes narrowed as they took in Rublev's shaken condition, and the condition of his protective clothing. 'Nikolai,' he said. 'Nikolai.'

'Comrade Major,' the other blurted, his fat lower lip beginning to tremble. 'I -'

Khuv shoved him aside. 'Open that door,' he snapped at Roborov. 'Have you sent for help?'

Roborov backed off a pace, shook his long, angular head. Too late for that, Comrade Major.' He turned and opened up the door anyway. Khuv stepped inside the cell, took a long, hard look, came out again. His dark eyes blazed their fury. He grabbed the two by the fronts of their smocks, shook them unresistingly.

'Stupid, stupid - !' he gasped his rage at them. 'That was nothing less than butchery!'

Andrei Roborov was so thin as to be almost skeletal. His cadaverous face was always pale, but never more so than now. There was no fat on him to shake, and so he simply rocked to and fro under Khuv's assault, rapidly blinking his large green expressionless eyes, and opening and closing his mouth. When Khuv had first met him he'd thought: this man has the eyes of a fish - probably its soul, too!

Nikolai Rublev on the other hand was very much overweight. His features were pink and almost babylike, and even the mildest reproof could bring him to the point of tears. On the other hand his fists were huge and hard as iron, and Khuv knew that his tears were usually tears of suppressed fury or rage. His rages, when he threw them, were quite spectacular; but he had more sense than to rage at a superior officer. Especially one like Chingiz Khuv.

Finally Khuv let go of them, turned abruptly away and clenched his fists. Over his shoulder, without looking at them, he said: 'Fetch a trolley. Take him to the mortuary...no! Take him to your own quarters. And make sure he's covered up on the way. He can wait there for disposal. But whatever you do, don't let anyone see him like... like that! Especially not Viktor Luchov! Do you understand?'