“And the flouting of contracts is worse. You set a dangerous precedent, Prince Zabb.”

“I’m a dangerous man.” Zabb signaled to his escort, and they rose.

“Are these negotiations at an end, Prince?” Bounty asked.

“Let’s just say this session is.” And never turning their backs on the hulking Ly’bahr, the Takisians exited the room.

For most of his life Jay had been resigned to being average. Now he had the height advantage, and it was great. He could look over the heads of hundreds of milling, seething, and pushing Takisians and see hundreds more milling, seething, and pushing Takisians.

Jay hitched the luggage higher under one arm, and with the other gathered Hastet and the baby a little closer. “Something’s happened. Maybe we ought to get back on the train.”

“We don’t have tickets, and they’re turning people away.”

“Yeah, but money talks.”

“Not loudly enough to be heard over this. Let’s just get out of the station. The elevator is only a few streets away.”

“Okay, stick close.”

The problem was they were moving against the flow. Everybody wanted out of Ban. It hurt Jay to fly in the face of whatever conventional wisdom was impelling these crowds. A couple of times they got stalled, and Jay contemplated just popping bodies out of the way. But the last thing they needed was a panicked stampede. At last the stairs.

Inside the station proper, something wet struck his cheek. Jay looked up. The roof had been blown off the building. Rain was weeping down on the rubble and bodies. All the little shops were closed, a few barricaded. In one the Takisian version of hot dogs were cooking to a cinderlike consistency on the grill.

Off in the distance there was a rapid pulselike sound. It didn’t resemble gunfire, but it sure sounded like some sort of weapon. Jay hesitated. He was none too eager to sally forth into a war zone. On the other hand, he didn’t want to go back down into the ant farm. He decided he’d rather be shot than squashed like a grape in a wine press.

“I’m trying to decide if camping out here or looking for a hotel or hospital or something would be smarter.”

Hastet looked at him, startled. “We’re going to the elevator.”

“Honey, I don’t think this is the aftermath of a bad party. It looks like there’s a war happening here, and I suspect that normal service has been interrupted.”

“Not the elevators. They were built in common and owned in common. They’ll do everything to keep them running.” Hastet headed for a door.

“Okaaay,” Jay said dubiously to Haupi, who had;snuggled down among Jay’s spare shorts and socks with only her head thrusting out the top of the case. The creature spit at him and dived for cover. Jay couldn’t really find fault with the sentiment.

Outside, the street was blocked with burned-out vehicles. Jay had been concerned about locating this orbital elevator. Now he realized it wasn’t a problem. A thing that stretched from the surface of the planet twenty-seven thousand miles to a synchronous orbit could not be missed.

It was formed of two circular conduits of some glass-like substance linked by bridges and gantries. The highest bridges looked like white lace strung between ice pillars. Jay assumed that some sort of capsules must make the journey up and down, though none were in evidence now. He tried to cultivate Hastet’s faith in the inviolability of the elevator. Maybe the capsules were in transit. One would be pulling in any minute now. Or maybe not. A high, melodious keening sounded overhead. Jay jerked his eyes from the elevator and watched as seven of the living Takisian ships made a flyby. The sound was emanating from them, and as he listened, the detective could almost distinguish words.

“Singing the victory,” Hastet said.

“Yeah, but whose?”

The passage of the ships had reminded them of their vulnerability in the square outside the station. They darted toward a street and were brought up short by the sight of an old man swaying on the steps of a stalled tram. Half his face had been burned away, and he was groping with his credit spike for the pay slot. Over and over he thrust in the spike, as if it were a lack of funds that kept the tram from moving.

More by instinct than in conscious thought, Jay started for the old man, only to be brought up short by Hastet’s hand grasping his sleeve. No words were necessary. Jay fell into step with her as they headed for the elevator. It was the right decision. It still made him feel like shit.

So far they hadn’t encountered any ground troops. Jay was beginning to allow himself to hope. Maybe Hastet was right. The squaddies were off blowing up some other section of the city since the elevator was off limits.

This area seemed to be the showcase of Ban. Broad boulevards led like spokes on a wheel toward the elevator. The architecture differed from that in Ilkala; it was lower, boxier, with fewer windows, and a lot of frieze work on the pediments. The buildings were also constructed of cut stone in contrasting colors, all laid to form Escheresque patterns. Jay assumed the lower floors of the buildings had contained shops, for all the windows were busted out, and in one a forlorn little necklace lay on display.

Illyana had awakened, and her piercing shrieks echoed off the stone walls. Ahead they could hear a sound like a growling, restless sea. The final hundred yards, and the street debouched into a square that was the granddaddy of all squares. It was so huge that it even managed to diminish the effect of hundreds of uniformed people milling about the base of the elevator. With the predominant colors of the uniform being red, black, and purple, the crowd looked like an animated bruise.

The scene had a manic, festival quality. Despite the uniforms, the crowd didn’t act like professional troops. In the brief second before Jay spun them back around the concealing corner, he had seen a man passing a bottle, and another firing a shot at the scarred and pitted walls of the elevator.

“Vayawand!” Hastet said.

“I didn’t figure they were the Good Humor men.”

Now that they were closer, the growl became words. Most of them were Takisian, but dropped like harsh clanks amid the music of the alien language was another tongue altogether.

“Continuons la grиve! Le capital se meurt!” a voice was shouting shrilly.

“Nous irons jusqu’ au bout!” another sang back.

“Le pouvoir aux travailleurs!”

Jay’s high school French was really rusty, but it was good enough to give him the drift… and a headache. Blaise had been raised by a French communist. A man who had mounted the barricades in Paris in 1968. So the slogans marched on; Claude Bonnell to Blaise, Blaise to Takis, and Takis plunged into revolution. As they stood, backs pressed to the wall, a curious face poked around the corner. Gaped at the trio. Jay popped him. What came around the corner next was a particularly large and ugly gun barrel. Jay popped that too. Then he and Hastet ran like bunnies.

Tisianne was waiting for him when they returned from the station. As her hands closed urgently on his lapels, and she stared intently up at him, Zabb realized how very, very tiny she was.

“Gently, gently, merrida,” he said, disentangling her fingers from the fruit salad that adorned the breast of his uniform. “You’ll ruin my decorations.”

“Praise Ideal that you’re back.”

“What is it? What’s happened?” This was directed over Tis’s head to Mark Meadows.

Before the human could answer, Tisianne was off again. “Never, never give orders not to be disturbed. Your people are all such fools they took you literally.”

“What?”

“Blaise is, like, doing a Hitler thing,” Meadows said. “He’s simultaneously hit six Houses!”

“There’s heavy fighting in Jeban, Ss’ang, and Tandeh,” Tis amplified. “Lirat, Birjis, and Maz’tariq have all fallen. And come, you must see.”