Killeen could feel a wordless excitement building in the sensorium net. The distance to home is the sweetest, yet the longest, as the mind leaps ahead.

They had gone halfway across the plaza. The Crafter went even faster, as if it sensed something.

A faint whoooong vibrated with reedy insistence through the sensorium.

Killeen turned. He could see nothing on this side of the Crafter that could have made the sound. There were no mechs bigger than a navvy within sight.

—See anything?— Hatchet sent.

“Naysay.” Killeen pulled Toby closer.

Shibo’s slitted eyes studied the high buildings. The plaza was so wide that the distance washed out the detail of the bioparts complex they were leaving behind.

—Keep your…—

—What’s that?— Cermo called. He was on the other side of the Crafter and Killeen could not make out anything.

Something went by—tsssssip!—overhead.

“Get over on this side,” Killeen called. “Whatever it is, the Crafter can give some shielding.”

—Right, let’s move,— Hatchet sent.

Shibo brought her weapon up. The Crafter plunged ahead. Its treads whined with exertion. Killeen thought he could hear them grinding against each other. If the treads froze up out here—

Whuuuung. Louder now The pulse frenzied the air around them.

Hatchet sent, —Watch out!—

—No!—

—ItgotVelez!—

—Get over here! Over the top! The top! Scramble!—

—What is it?—

—Just go!—

—Don’t look at it. That’ll open your ’ceptors, it’ll—

Whuuuuuung.

—Ah! Ah! My leg!—

—I’m blind! Gimme hand! Blind!—

—What is it?

Killeen did not need to look. He knew the sound of the Mantis.

FIVE

The Crafter swerved. Its engines rose to a clanking, roaring din. Treads howled over the slick plaza tiles. Killeen could hear or taste nothing through his sensorium but the snap and sputter of electromagnetic warfare as the Mantis and Crafter dueled.

The team clambered over the crest of the Crafter, dragging the two Kingsmen who had been hit. Killeen looked into the white-eyed, startled faces. “Dead,” Hatchet said.

“Suredead,” Killeen added.

The Mantis had extracted their memories, hopes, fears. It now knew of Metropolis, then.

And it had their Aspects as well. An immense corridor of human time collapsed now into vacancy.

The Crafter seemed immune to the hollow whoooooom bursts that drove livid tunnels through Killeen’s sensorium. It hammered across the plaza.

They clung to its side like fluttering kites. Their leggings and pelvic cradles rang against the humming hull.

“Toby!” Killeen grabbed just as the boy slipped.

He got a hold on Toby’s right arm, hauled upward—and lost the grip. The boy fell a meter and snagged on an outjutting pipe fitting. Toby wrenched around, his hands scrabbling for a hold. Killeen hung from a ledge and scissored his legs, stretching.

Toby reached up but lost his precarious hold. His right hand caught Killeen’s legs, gripping the niche where Killeen’s shock absorbers met the laminated boot guard. Toby whirled, spinning barely above tiles that flashed by below. Killeen swung him over to a vent collar and he grabbed it.

Then the Crafter skidded.

Killeen thought they were going to go over, roll with the Crafter on top. He sought a solid lip to brace his legs against. Before he could leap free the Crafter caught itself. It slid shrieking to a stop beside a monolithic slate wall.

“Off!” Hatchet cried. “Something’s after the Renny!”

Killeen called, “And us. It’s the Mantis.”

Stunned silence. For the first time Killeen saw an uncomplicated, true expression in Hatchet’s eyes—simple fear. “Damn-all!”

Shibo called, “We got no big weapons.”

“Hey! Can’t leave the Crafter!” Hatchet shouted as some of the team jumped to the plaza floor. “Hafta protect it.”

Killeen said, “Naysay. Shibo’s right. Our e-beams and cutters no use against Mantis.”

“If the Crafter disables it—”

“We’ll be better off spot if we can maneuver,” Killeen said.

Cermo called, “Yeasay, go! Use Crafter for cover.”

Hatchet hesitated, eyes darting to the crest of the Crafter, where the suredead hung among struts. Killeen thought the man was considering carrying them away. Kingsmen made a solemn point of never leaving dead behind.

But no—Hatchet was watching for a sign from the Crafter. None came. The mech was busy filling the air with echoing booms.

Hatchet grimaced and nodded. He led the team directly away from the motionless Crafter. They left the two suredead without speaking of it. Another Kingsman stumbled away with no control of his arms. He staggered grimly, eyes fixed.

Killeen made sure Toby could move well. They headed for an alleyway in the slate wall.

The Crafter’s antennae swiveled, sending sharp slaps through his sensorium.

Shibo called, “EM only.”

Killeen saw her point. He had heard only electromagnetic cracklings. Humans might not be vulnerable to the EM assault now raging. The Mantis was using no guns against the Crafter, though that would be the easiest way to immobilize it.

Hatchet panted as he trotted toward the alley, “Cermo, you go left.”

There was a loading dock for mechs left of the alley, covered with a jumble of yellow fan-shaped devices as big as a man. “Try hit the Mantis,” Hatchet ordered. He sent a Kingsman to a different angle from the right.

Cermo started firing rounds at once. Killeen ducked down the alley and kept going. He dodged around large steel conduit housings, waving to Toby to follow.

“Where you goin’?” Hatchet cried.

“Mantis can’t get back in here,” Killeen answered. “Too tight for it.” He did not slow.

“We got to help the Renny!”

Shibo called dryly, “Mice don’t help mountains.”

“Get your ass back here!”

Cermo said coolly, “Mantis comin’.”

The rest of the team glanced at one another. They had been readying their weapons. The Crafter had not moved since they jumped off. It blocked their view of the plaza.

Now they heard through their sensoria regular thuds, like logs rolling over rocks. As though a giant were walking across the plaza. They started edging away from the mouth of the alley.

Hatchet shouted, “Lay down some fire!”

“Dumb,” Shibo said.

Cermo came pounding over, yelling that the Mantis had disabled the Crafter’s treads.

Hatchet looked wildly at the Crafter, then back at the beckoning alleyway.

“Renny knows the way out,” he said desperately. “Back to Metropolis.”

The team saw his confusion and took the opportunity to fall back a few paces. The thudding noise got louder. Killeen had never heard the Mantis make such a sound. Hatchet hesitated, then spat and backed down the alley. He stopped beside Killeen. “If you hadn’t—”

“Look.” Killeen pointed.

The Mantis reared into view over the riveted crest of the Crafter. Its antennae swept all angles methodically. Killeen whispered, “Shut down your systems. Quick!”

His sensorium dwindled, a multicolored fluid sucked down a black drain.

The Mantis was a spindly network of moving rods. Like carbosteel bones, they jointed at gleaming chrome sockets. Thin cables gave it jerky, oddly swift agility. This time it struck Killeen as more like a framework for a building, a mobile lattice, than an integrated mech.

Its antennae swept past them without pausing. Did that mean it had not seen them?