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Elena and the constabulary, the European and the alien hive and his dead twin. It wasn't rational, it wasn't even coherent, but it was what he had to carry him through this, and so he cultivated it. He didn't have money for a lawyer. There would be no one to defend him besides himself. And what defense could he give? That he was so drunk he didn't remember doing it? Elena would be more than happy to flirt with the judge, say what she knew, and sink that story forever. That it was in his own defense? The defense of the straighthaired woman? He couldn't even remember what had happened, not in any real detail. He'd be better off claiming he hadn't been at the El Rey when it happened, no matter what all the witnesses said or the fingerprints on the gravity knife showed.

No, as far as he could tell, he was well and rightly fucked. By the time the door opened and the sound of voices at last cut the thick air, Ramon had just about decided that he might as well assault whatever poor pendejo they sent in to talk to him. At least he could do some damage going down. And he might have done it if a human had come into the room.

The Enye was like a boulder; its green-black skin the texture of lichen, oyster-silver eyes set in pale, fleshy, wet gouges. A tiny pucker of a mouth - lipless and round - marked where its beak lay concealed. The stink of acid and soil filled the room as the thing lumbered into the corner below the surveillance camera and hunkered down, its eyes on Ramon. The constable who'd visited him in the hospital and collared him on the street came in behind it. The man was less pleased with himself now, his mouth set in a professional scowl, his shirt freshly starched and ironed and looking uncomfortable. He carried a black cloth case in one hand and a cigarette in the other. A second man followed him; older and better dressed. The poor fucker's boss. Ramon looked up into the black mechanical eye of the camera and wondered who else was watching him.

"Ramon Espejo?" the constable said.

"Better be," Ramon said, then gestured at the alien with his chin. "The fuck is this?"

"We're going to ask you some questions," the constable said. "You are under warrant from the governor to answer completely and honestly. If you fail to do so, you will be charged and punished. Do you understand what I've just said?"

"I been arrested before, ese. I know how this works."

"Good," the constable said. "Then we can get straight to business."

He lifted the cloth case to the table, unzipped it, and pulled something out. With a flourish that the cabron must have practiced for an hour, he unrolled something.

Dirty rags, colorless where they weren't bloodstained, cut almost to ribbons in places. They might have once been leather or a thick cloth. It was his robe. The one he'd worn tracking through the northern wilderness, the one he'd wrapped around his arm in the final knife fight with his twin. The one Maneck's aliens had given him. He looked up into the Enye's glistening eyes and saw nothing he could understand. The alien hissed and whistled to itself.

"Se?or Espejo," the constable said. "Would you please tell us exactly where you got this?"

Chapter Twenty-Seven

They began God only knew how far away, how many hundreds or thousands - or, with time dilation, shit, maybe millions - of years ago. They came up from some alien sludge under some forgotten star; struggling and fighting and evolving just like humanity rose from small, unlikely mammals dodging the dinosaurs. And then the Silver Enye came, killed their children, and scattered them to the stars. Centuries in the darkness, fleeing blind. One group carried this way, another that. So many lost. And then here, to S?o Paulo, far to the north where they pulled the mountains up over them like a child with a blanket. Don't let the monsters see me.

So long, and so far, and then to have everything rest on some selfish fuck more than half in trouble with the law. Ramon almost felt sorry for them.

I will kill you all, Ramon had thought, back on that first day, the

sahael newly dug into his flesh. Somehow, I will cut this thing out of my throat, and then I will come back and kill you all.

And now here