She dropped him, shot at the second and leaned through the shattered window for a shot at the fourth. Winged him. He spun with the shot and she shot again. Man-two got the door open and made it out as she raked glass from the window and threw a leg in, winced at a cut and hopped to both feet inside. She stumbled once, found her balance on one foot and ran.

She hit the door bodily, snapped the lock shut and shot the bolt.

" Jones!" Mondragon screamed.

She spun about, saw the man on his knees behind the couch; and blasted him over backwards.

Five, is that five bullets? No, six, dammit! She snatched at pockets, felt them desperately.

Nothing. Not a shell left. She flung herself to her knees by Mondragon as he dragged himself up agaist the bricks. His white face was all sweat-beaded and stained from a cut on his forehead. His hair was plastered against his temples and bloodstain spread through the sweat. "Jones," he said—Steps came thundering up the stairs inside. He grabbed with manacled hands at the collar-chain, jerked at it frantically where it connected to the brickwork. "Jones— shoot the damn chain!''

"I'm out!" She dropped gun and knife, jerked at the pry-bar at her belt, working it loose as blows hit the door. "I got this."

"Oh, damn, damn—give it to me, get out that window—"

" Shoot the lock!" someone yelled outside.

"Jones, get out of here! You can't help me!"

"Damned if I can't." She got the pry-bar free of her belt and jammed the hook-end under the edge of the chain-bracket while shots splintered away at the solid door.

"God," Mondragon said and twisted round on his knees to get his own hands on the bar, threw all his strength into it till the veins stood out and his face turned dark.

Bolts squealed loose from the mortar, one and two. The other two loosened. Blows hit the door again. More shots outside, deafening. She put her weight with his and the bracket flew free, pins and all.

"Come on!" She grabbed up the gun and sheathed the knife. "F' God's sake, get up!—"She pulled at him. He staggered up, reeled and kept his feet. " Come on!"

He was behind her when she got to the door. She fumbled desperately with the latch and lock. Behind them the inside door was giving way, crack after crack of wood splintering under repeated battering.

The door stuck in the frame. She jerked and it came free. "Jump," she yelled on her way to the rail.

And tried to vault it. The whole rail cracked and gave way, spilling her outward.

She yelled in shock at the rush of dark air, tried to compose herself for the landing, and went into the water somewhere toward rump-first, water driven up her nose in the tumble, her wits nearly knocked from her as another large impact whumped into the water.

They'll be on us, they'll have us in the water, they got guns up there—

Is he swimming? That chain could've knocked him cold, broke his neck, o Lord! Mondragon—

She hit the canal bottom on her back, righted herself and kicked off the mucky bottom for the surface. Her head broke clear of the water—she sucked a foul breath, spat Det-water and stared wildly at the side of a skip, at a ragged-canopied skip bobbing there in front of her. Mondragon broke to surface, lost it again. A hook came out in the hands of a raggedy figure on the skip-deck and snagged him by the sweater, hauling him up to air.

"Dammit!" Jones choked, spitting water.

"Damn near hit my boat," old Muggin yelled in his cracked voice. "Ye damn fools!"

An engine coughed from off in the dark. Coughed again. A third time. Took. And fire flared up across the water, off the walls, off Muggin's ragged canopy, flinging his features into demonic highlights.

She kicked and turned as a skip bore down on them under power, and Tommy was there in the bow trying to find them.

Explosions. Shots kicked up little plumes in the firelit water.

"Jones!" Tommy was yelling, waving one hand wildly as the bow came up toward her head and she kicked desperately out of the way, clawed her way up Muggin's side and got a hold on that rim as her own skip rode close, throttled back. "Mondragon—Damn, let him go, Muggin!"

Muggin shoved hook and Mondragon down, and Mondragon flailed out desperately with chained hands, turned and caught her skip in one wild lunge. She flung the gun aboard in a sweep of water, hurled herself for her skip rim. "Help him!" she screamed at Tommy, who abandoned Mondragon to sink. "Damn ye, help him, he'll go under the damn bow!" She bounced underwater, hurled herself up and got her arms over the side with the last of her strength as the skip started to move. A shot slammed into the well. Another kicked up water beyond. Tommy got

Mondragon in and Rahman put the throttle in full.

"Tom-mm-my!" Altair yelled, holding by bom arms over the rim. Water dragged harder and harder at her legs.

Her arms bruised themselves on the rim and muscle-strength faded. " Tommy, dammit!"

A shadow loomed up. Someone grabbed her sweater in the middle of the back, hauled, grabbed the seat of her pants and slipped her up and over the rim in a sprawl of his limbs and hers.

She clambered over the body, heard a grunt of pain, caught a firelit impression of All's sweating face as the skip sped around the comer of Amparo west. ' 'Boats!" she screamed at Ali as they rounded the turn. "Boats, dammit— go round again!" And in the protected interval as they raced behind Amparo: "Mondragon," she gasped, scrambling over the well-slats, where he lay sprawled on his face. "Mondragon—"

He moved. He got up on his hands and she scrambled aft again to get to the firebomb. Behind Amparo, echoing off the dike, another engine roared to life; one, and a second.

"Rahman!" She looked up where Rahman crouched by the tiller, hanging on for all he was worth. "They're going to cut us off!"

"Yey," Rahman yelled. The throttle was already in full.

"Get the damn chain off," Mondragon was saying. "Get the chain—"

"Ax." Wits came back. She abandoned the move for the bomb and dived instead for the ax at the edge of the well, laid hand on it and scrambled over the slats where Mondragon had positioned himself, manacled hands on either side of the boat-rim. Ali took the ax from her, brought it down with one great whack that parted the links and drove into the wood.

Amparo's brick-and-shutters gave way suddenly to West Canal, to a fancy boat roaring down on them broadside.

"Deck!" she yelped, and hit it in a tangle with Mondragon and Ali as shots whined over the side. Rahman gave a strangled sound, and the tiller swung over. "Rahman? Rahman!"

"Deck!" Rahman yelled hoarsely, and the high walls of

Southdike swung front of them, the sea-gate and the Old Harbor in the lightning-flicker. ' ' Damn, she' ll bottom!''

" Seawind!" Rahman yelled, naming his bet, and Altair hit the deck on her face, clung to the slats waiting for the shock to take the skip apart.

The engine roared off the dike, and sound receded into clear space.

She put her head up and saw harbor around them, the Dead Wharf, the chop of shallow water ahead in a moment of lightning-flash.

Ghost Fleet shallows. She scrambled to her knees and saw Rahman slumped on the tiller, the skip skewing wild. "Jones!" Mondragon yelled as she clawed her way up onto the deck. She looked, grabbed the tiller under Rahman's failing arm, wrenched the bar over as a black wall loomed up where none had a right to be. She slewed it, passed between high-prowed fisher-boat and its anchor-cable; and shots spanged and splintered off the stern, engine sound still behind them. Light flared. More shots. She got as low behind the engine box as she could, swung wild, over to the shallows, and veered off them—veered off where the wind-borne smell of dead weed and the drifting hulks of rafters warned her of shallower and shallower water. A bigger engine thumped to life. "It's that fisher!" Ali yelled. "That's the slaver! Get away from it, get out of here!"