The man himself seemed a bit nervous—more than a bit, after he spotted Lara looking at him—and Thandi once again had to stifle a laugh. Her Amazons, she knew, had their own notions of proper courtship ritual—which usually came as a severe shock to the males at the receiving end. Thandi didn't really approve, but... it was hard not to find a certain poetic justice in the thing. Thandi had run across some ancient mythology in her studies. She was quite sure that the fellow was feeling like Europa would have felt if she'd been a man named Europe instead, and the great beast whose lustful eyes were upon him was a giant cow named Zeusa.

She was a bit puzzled, at first, by the object of Lara's intentions. Whoever the man was, Thandi was sure he was a member of the Audubon Ballroom. Traditionally, the Ballroom and Scrags were the bitterest of enemies. But...

In its own way, she realized, it made sense. Lara's subculture, of which the woman had shed some but not all the attitudes, had always prized a capacity for violence. And however much the Scrags had hated the Ballroom, they'd also feared them. They might sneer at other "sub-humans," but those who were the lowest of the low had demonstrated often enough that they were the equal of any Scrag when it came to sheer mayhem. So it was perhaps not really so strange, that once Lara realized she'd have to find a man from somewhere other than the ranks of the Scrags, she'd find a hard-core Ballroom member... quite attractive. Thandi wouldn't be surprised if a number of her Amazons started making similar attachments.

Ginny Usher, on the other hand, seemed unhappy. Ginny's face, so expressive when Thandi had met her before, was now still and cold. Thandi wasn't sure why, at first, since the former Manpower slave would hardly be upset at seeing the four men shackled to chairs come to a bad end. They weren't simply the "representatives" of genetic slavery—they were the direct instruments of the evil itself.

But then, seeing the way Ginny was gazing at Victor, she understood. Ginny Usher didn't give a damn about Mesan goons—had even, if not perhaps to the same extent as Berry, managed to put her past life behind her. But she did care, and deeply, about the young man standing in their midst. And was probably wondering—as Thandi had sometimes wondered, about herself—how often a human being could assume a role before the role itself became the reality. Before a man, or a woman, became the golem of their own creation.

The eight men standing there, Thandi didn't know. But she was almost certain they were all from the Audubon Ballroom. Then, suddenly, she knew for sure. Cachat must have given some unseen signal—or perhaps it had simply been prearranged once he finished donning his black gloves.

All eight of them—with Ginny following suit a second later—stuck out their tongues at the men shackled to the chairs. Stuck their tongues way out, exposing the Manpower genetic markers.

The curtain rises. Thandi's thought was more grim than amused. We begin with the baddies in a very desperate situation. Manpower bigshots and goons, bound and helpless, surrounded by their victims. Eight of whom are killers dedicated to their destruction.

Victor Cachat lifted the pulser out of its holster.

And a very desperate situation just got worse.

Way, way, way, way worse.

Haicheng Ringstorff didn't doubt it at all. The black eyes staring down at him—then moving slowly across the faces of Diem and Lithgow and Flairty—seemed completely empty. It was like being stared at by a void. The pale, harshly cut face had no expression Ringstorff could detect beyond, perhaps, a certain clinical detachment. They weren't even the eyes of an executioner. Just the eyes of a man conducting an experiment, the end result of which was a matter of indifference to him. Whether positive or negative, it would be simply data to be recorded.

The voice, when it spoke, was the same. Nothing. Just words, sounding like surgical instruments.

"Here's how it will be. I require certain information from you. The information would be useful, but not essential. With the information, I can proceed with my existing plan. Without it, I'll need to develop another one."

The square shoulders shifted a little; it might have been a shrug.

"I'm very good at developing plans. Still, getting the information from you would save me some time and effort. Not much. But perhaps enough to keep you—some of you, or just one of you—alive. We'll see. I can't say I care, one way or the other."

Ringstorff could see Diem's face just as easily as he could the others. Lithgow's face seemed frozen—just as Ringstorff suspected his own did. The fanatic Flairty was glaring, although the glare was a washed-out sort of thing. Diem, on the other hand, was obviously on the verge of sheer panic. His eyes were swiveled as far over as they could be, staring at the five people sitting at the dark table some distance away. Ringstorff had spotted them himself, almost as soon as he'd been hauled into the room and forced into the chairs by security guards, although he'd never been able to recognize any features. The guards had departed, then, leaving it to the Ballroom terrorists to finish the work of shackling them.

"What the hell are you doing?" Diem shrieked. "Goddamit, I know you're Erewhonese, whoever you are! Imbesi—are you there? Why are you letting this maniac—"

There was the sound of a pulser firing, and the side of Diem's head was suddenly shredded. It wasn't a fatal wound—not even an incapacitating one—but his left ear and a goodly chunk of his scalp was now gone. Blood began spilling down his shoulder.

"I require information, not prattle."

Ringstorff's eyes jerked back to the man with the black gloves, and saw him lower the pulser. Perhaps a centimeter or two. The hand holding the weapon seemed as steady as a statue's.

"Prattle again, Unser Diem, and you are a dead man."

Diem stared up at him, his eyes wild and open, his face showing all the signs of shock. Other than being gory and disfiguring, the wound wasn't really a serious one. But Ringstorff knew Diem was a stranger to personal violence. Unlike Ringstorff himself—and Lithgow and Flairty—Diem was a man who committed his violence at one step's remove. He'd certainly never experienced mayhem visited upon him.

"Who the hell are you?" he whispered.

"Just think of me as the man who will be killing you, and very soon." The pulser in the hand made a little sweeping motion. "You'd do better to give the surroundings a good look, than to ask pointless questions. This is where your life ends, Diem. At the moment, I'd give it a ninety percent probability. If you don't control your panic, the estimate goes to one hundred percent. And the time frame drops to seconds, instead of minutes."

Ringstorff was amazed at the complete indifference in the man's tone of voice. He'd always thought of himself as "hard-boiled," but... this guy...

What demon's pit did they dredge him up from, anyway?

"First, I require the security codes to the Felicia III. It's possible my estimate is wrong, and the Felicia is not a slaver in the employ of the Jessyk Combine. In that case, of course, you won't know the security codes and will be useless. All of you will then die immediately. Beyond that—"

Again, he made that minimal shoulder twitch. "But there's no point wasting time with what might come 'beyond that.' We probably won't get there anyway."

He paused, and gave them all that slow, sweeping, empty-eyed examination.

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to use interrogation drugs or torture. Neither is really all that reliable, nor do I see where it's necessary. All that's necessary is for me to establish clearly in your minds that I have no respect at all for your lives, and will kill any of you without a moment's hesitation."

He raised the pulser, aimed, fired. A hole appeared between Flairty's eyes and the back of his head exploded. Flairty's body rocked back and forth for a moment in the heavy chair, and then slumped in the shackles.

"I believe that's now been established." The voice still had no tone at all. "But in case it hasn't—"

The pulser swiveled again, to come to bear on Diem's head. "Do I need to make another demonstration?"

Suddenly, a woman's voice interrupted. Ringstorff found that even more startling than the killing of Flairty. He'd forgotten anyone else in the universe existed except the terrifying monster in front of him.

It was the slave woman. "He will do it. Don't ever think he won't. He'll kill every one of you, and never blink an eye." The words were hard and bitter. "God, I hate you bastards. For that, more than anything."

Ringstorff didn't doubt her for a moment—and he was not a religious zealot. The words practically spilled from his mouth.

"I don't have the codes—neither does Lithgow—but Diem does." He swiveled his head and glared at the Jessyk Combine's representative. "Give him the codes, you fucking idiot!"

But Diem was already talking—babbling, rather. The man with no name had to quietly threaten him again, in fact, before Diem could slow down enough for the codes to be recognizable. Then he repeated them twice, each time more slowly, while the slave woman made a record.

"It seems you'll all remain alive," the man said. Much as a chemist might record the results of a minor experiment. "For a time. I'll require more information later."

He turned his head and spoke the next words to the Ballroom killers. "Take them out of here—give Diem some medical treatment, nothing beyond the minimum—and lock them up. If any of them gives you any trouble, kill him. The further information they can provide would be useful, but certainly not critical."

Moments later, rough hands were manhandling Ringstorff—still shackled, though no longer to the chair—toward one of the exits. It was all Ringstorff could do not to burst into hysterical laughter. Never in his life, not once, had he imagined he would be grateful to fall into the hands of the Audubon Ballroom. But he'd have welcomed the Devil himself, in that moment, if he'd just get him away from that empty, cold, human-shaped void. That golem.

The Ballroom killer who was hauling Ringstorff away was the largest of them. A great hulking brute, showing all the signs of a slave bred for heavy labor. Ringstorff felt like a child in his huge hands.