“Save your breath, Mister Werry — we’re going up to the roof. I can be sure of getting away from up there, and I’ll be in Mexico by tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that,” Werry said, beginning to pace in frantic circles in a manner which pained Hasson to watch. “Use your brains, man.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” the voice assured him. “For all I know, those other bombs don’t exist — but, even if they do, this is a pretty big place and I’ve got myself a pathfinder. Theo can go in front.”

Werry stopped pacing. “I warn you — don’t do this.”

“Now, I don’t want you to worry about a thing, Mister Werry.” The voice was elated, nervous, mocking.” Theo and I are going for a quiet little stroll up to the roof. With any luck, you can pick him up there in about five minutes. Just make sure nobody tries to pick me up, that’s all — I’ve got the fat guy’s gun and I know how to use it.”

Lutze! Lutze!” Werry squeezed the instrument on his wrist as though trying to force it to respond, but the radio link had been broken. May Carpenter covered her face and gave a low sob. Werry traced the outline of a CG harness on his torso with a finger and pushed Quigg away in the direction of his car. Quigg nodded understandingly and ran. Werry strode to the television unit and the group around it melted out of his way.

“What are things like on the second floor?” he said. “Can I still get in that window?”

“See for yourself, Al.” The technician in charge pointed at the image of the lower section of the hotel. All the visible windows of the first floor were blocked in with sheets of flame which were turning from orange to a searing white. “You could probably get in, but that second floor looks like it’s about to cave in at any second.”

“I better go in higher up.” Werry ran to a fire truck and returned some seconds later carrying the bayonet-like shape of a thermal cutter. Victor Quigg met him with his CG harness and handed it over without speaking. Hasson stood by, his mind lurching out over dizzy chasms each time he thought of Werry’s intention, and watched him pull the broad straps tight around his body. He felt weak-kneed and helpless, and — in some indefinable way — responsible for the other man’s plight.

Werry gave him a grim smile as he made the last connection. “Here it is again, Rob — no two ways.”

“1 don’t know,” Hasson said, donning the mantle of Judas. “It may not do any good to bull your way in. There are so many things that could… I mean, it might be better to wait.”

“The way you would do if it was your son up there?”

Hasson backed away, ashamed and afraid, as Werry switched on his lights, moved a control on the harness’s waist panel and made an easy leap into the air. He went up fast, falling into the sky, a dwindling light, a star being recalled to the rightful business of stars. Far above, as though making ready to receive him in battle, the black disk of the hotel building hurled out a streamer of yellow fire from its south side. The outburst, a solar prominence in miniature, faded almost at once and the watchers on the ground heard a dull powdery report. Quigg snatched his voice magnifier from his pocket.

“That was another bomb,” he announced, already an expert. “Watch out for glass!”

Hasson ran with the others and pressed into the lee of a fire appliance, and a surprisingly long time later there was a brief irregular pattering and whispering in the grass all around. As soon as it felt safe he returned to the television unit. The pyrotechnics which had accompanied the blast indicated that it had occurred on the blazing first floor — but he wanted to be sure that Al Werry had ascended safely through the wind-scattered hail of glass fragments.

Cec, the chief technician, switched on a microphone circuit. Terry, look out for Al Werry arriving up there. He’s got a cutter with him, and he’s about to try going in one of the upper windows. We’re gonna get some good network footage out of this, so stick with him. Right?”

“Right, Cec,” came Terry Franz’s reply and the image in the monitor well swung giddily. It centred on the figure of Werry who was silhouetted for an instant against the inferno on the hotel’s first floor before reaching the darker background of the levels above. Hasson felt an absurd constriction in his throat as he noticed that Werry, contravening police flight regulations, was wearing his ornate cap in place of a helmet.

Werry brought himself into the hovering mode about five metres out from a fourth-floor window and drew his pistol. He aimed it and fired, and the camera — with its superb low-light vision — showed a hole appearing in one of the square panes. Werry kept on firing always hitting the same small rectangle, until it had been cleared of glass. He put the gun back in its holster and worked at the controls of the thermal cutter, bringing a dagger of diamond-sharp brilliance into being at its tip. Without hesitation, Werry moved further out from the wall of the hotel, gaining a little extra height as he went. The headlights of the cars on the ground far below slid into view under his feet, tiny out-of- focus candle flames.

Werry altered a belt control and swooped in towards the window. As soon as he got within field interference radius he began to fall, but he had accurately compensated for the drop and he was able to thrust his left arm through the aperture he had created. His feet scrabbled for purchase on the horizontal divisions between tiles. He obtained a foothold, steadied himself and brought the cutter in his right hand into contact with the window frame. Its sun-white tip slid easily through metal and glass, tracing an orange-glowing line. Werry, clinging tightly to the sheer surface, began to extend the incision. The winds of altitude rugged at his uniform, producing a cold, welling nausea in Hasson’s stomach.

Hasson turned away, wondering if he was actually going to vomit, but checked himself as he noticed a flurry of movement in the dimness beyond Werry’s spread-eagled figure. A man in an unmarked flying suit was briefly seen, face a pale triangular blur, right arm extended. Hasson gave an involuntary shout as Al Werry tumbled backwards away from the window, the thermal cutter flying from his grasp and plunging out of sight. Werry fell a short distance, but his lateral impetus carried him out of interference range and his body began to float away on the night wind, limbs making feeble and uncoordinated movements. His cap fluttered down into the waiting darkness, like an escaping bird.

The menacing rectangular cavern of the window was empty once more.

For Hasson, there followed an agonised period of confusion in which he was only dimly aware of Victor Quigg leaping skywards, already paying out a plasteel line from the dispenser at his waist. Men shouted near him, but their voices were strangely distant. Myriad specks of brilliance wheeled in the overhanging night. Quigg reappeared, looking like an old man, towing an inert shape which many hands reached for as it neared the ground and became heavy, sagging down on to the grass.

Suddenly Hasson was kneeling beside Werry, staring in heart- thundering dismay at the bullet hole in the policeman’s left shoulder. The location of the wound — just above the armpit — made it look relatively harmless, the sort of injury which would have drawn scarcely a wince from a character in a holoplay, but the entire left side of Werry’s tunic was sodden with blood, glistening like a mass of fresh liver. Werry’s face was almost luminescent in its pallor. His drifting gaze triangulated on Hasson and his lips began to move. Hasson bent lower in response to the inaudible plea.

“It all piles up on you,” Werry whispered. It’s funny how it all…,”

“Don’t talk,” Hasson urged. “Don’t try to say anything.”

Werry took his hand in a fragile grip. “You’re not going to believe this, Rob, but I’m not even… I’m not even worried about…” A silence and a stillness descended over him, and his fingers relaxed their grip on Hasson’s hand.