press him. He was alien orange death, eight feet tall, with pointed teeth.
Seeker stood at bay with his black iron sword. Three men were down before him, and others stood back, and the sword dripped. Seeker was a dangerous, skillful swordsman. The natives knew about swords. Teela stood behind him, safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine.
Nessus was running for the Improbable, one head held low and forward, one high. Low to see around corners, high for the long view.
Louis was unharmed, picking off enemies as they showed themselves, helping others when he could. The flashlight-laser moved easily in his hand, a wand of killing green light.
Never aim at a mirror. Reflecting armor could be a nasty shock to a laser artist. Here they’d apparently forgotten that trick.
A man dressed in a green blanket charged at Louis Wu, screaming, waving a heavy hammer, doing his best to look dangerous. A golden dandelion with eyes…Louis slashed green laser light across him, and the man kept coming.
Louis, terrified, stood fast and held the beam centered. The man was swinging at Louis’s head when a spot on his robe charred, darkened, then flashed green flame. He fell skidding, drilled through the heart.
Clothing the color of your light-sword can be as bad as reflecting armor. Finagle grant that there be no more of those! Louis touched green light to the back of a man’s neck…
A native blocked Nessus’ flight path! He must have had courage to attack so weird a monster. Louis couldn’t get a clear shot, but the man died anyway, for Nessus spun and kicked and finished the turn and ran on. Then—
Louis saw it happen. The puppeteer charged into an intersection, one head held high, one low. The high head was suddenly loose and rolling, bouncing. Nessus stopped, turned, then stood still.
His neck ended in a flat stump, and the stump was pumping blood as red as Louis’ own.
Nessus wailed, a high, mournful sound.
The natives had trapped him with shadow square wire.
Louis was two hundred years old. He had lost friends before this. He continued to fight, his light-sword following his eyes almost by reflex. Poor Nessus. But it could be me next…
The natives had fallen back. Their losses must have been terrifying from their own viewpoint.
Teela stared at the dying puppeteer, her eyes very big, her knuckles pressed against her teeth. Speaker and Seeker were edging back toward the Improbable—
Wait a minute. He’s got a spare!
Louis ran at the puppeteer. As he passed Speaker, the kzin snatched the flashlight-laser from him. Louis ducked to avoid the wire trap, stayed low, and used a shoulder block to knock Nessus on his side. It had seemed that the puppeteer was about to start panic running.
Louis pinned the puppeteer and fumbled for a belt.
He wasn’t wearing a belt.
But he had to have a belt!
And Teela handed him her scarf!
Louis snatched it, looped it, dropped it over the puppeteer’s severed neck. Nessus had been staring in horror at the stump, at the blood pumping from the single carotid artery. Now he raised his eye to Louis’s face; and the eye closed, and he fainted.
Louis pulled the knot tight. Teela’s scarf constricted and closed the single artery, two major veins, the larynx, the gullet, everything.
You tied a tourniquet around his neck, doctor? But the blood had stopped.
Louis bent and lifted the puppeteer in a fireman’s carry, turned, and ran into the shadow of the broken police building. Seeker ran ahead of him, covering him, his black sword’s point tracing little circles as he sought an enemy. Armed natives watched but did not challenge them.
Teela followed Louis. Speaker-To-Animals came last, his flashlight-laser stabbing green lines where men might be hiding. At the ramp the kzin stopped, waited until Teela was safely up the ramp, then—Louis glimpsed him moving away.
But why did he do that?
No time to find out. Louis went up the stairs. The puppeteer became incredibly heavy before Louis reached the bridge. He dropped Nessus beside the buried flycycle, reached for the first aid kit, rubbed the diagnostic patch onto the puppeteer’s neck below the tourniquet. The puppeteer’s first aid kit was still attached to the ’cycle by an umbilicus, and Louis rightly surmised that it was more complex than his own.
Presently the kitchen controls changed settings all by themselves. A few seconds later, a line snaked out of the dashboard and touched the puppeteer’s neck, hunted over the skin, found a spot and sank in.
Louis shuddered.