A Blink of the Screen

massacre?’ said Linsay.
    ‘And the sea’s a puddle.’ She spoke as if reading a script inside her eyeball. ‘I can’t even recall who financed it, the Middle Easts were a mess anyway, but what they did at Qom 23 was supposed to be a warning. Because all they left was—’
    ‘Why are you listening to this?’ Valienté demanded.
    ‘I don’t know what he told you his name was, but his real name – at least, as far as we know – is Martin Venhaus. He’s got a scar right down his back, starting at the left armpit. He’s skilled with most hand weapons, and nearly as ruthless without them. He—’
    Valienté looked up. Linsay’s gaze was as penetrating as an auger.
    Both men moved. But Linsay’s hand was first. It didn’t have so far to go. The gun came up smoothly and Valienté waited for the shot. He knew there would be impact, and numbness. No pain yet. Perhaps no pain ever.
    It didn’t come.
    But the pistol stayed up.
    Curled up round his gun in the tent that night, Linsay dreamt of falling. Then he woke up, and it was true. But there was grass a few feet below him, and he landed hard but unhurt.
    Overhead the cold stars sleeted their light through air untainted with the merest hint of pollution. Creatures of the night chattered and roared in the trees down by the dry river. It was as cold as a tropical night can be, just before sunrise.
    Linsay was up and running, moving swiftly to the nearest white painted marker post which would place him more or less in the centre of the compound.
    Time was when he’d thought this was all he needed. Just rig a simple beam inside the tent each night so that anything moving would trigger the belt unit, sending him back one world where a network of crude markers would allow him to position himself aright so that he could flip back and jump the intruder.
    Two leopards and one visit from Big Yin had discouraged him. Stockades were less taxing. The baboon had gibbered, when Linsay had levelled the gun a foot from it and fired, but it hadn’t run far: it had stopped and looked back
hard
…
    Tonight’s intruder must have come from inside the stockade. Linsay wondered which of them it was. Then he skidded, trod on a stone that skittered away, went down heavily, awkwardly, felt a snap, screamed, punched the belt.
    Back at the stockade, dawn was yellow-green and bright, with a fresh breeze blowing off the brackish reedbeds that were the Mediterranean. It stirred the papers on Linsay’s rough desk. They were black with tiny handwriting. Making paper was a time-consuming and messy job. A loner in the high meggas conserved paper like a medieval scholar, covering both sides thickly.
    There was also a Mellanier map of the local Earths, its finely printed concentric circles almost hidden by the red dots and shading with which Linsay had plotted the progress of the Fist.
    Shea peered at it, noting how the asteroid – no, the asteroids, because many Fists had pummelled the soft earth – had done more and more damage in each dimension. She had been too busy hunting and being hunted to notice it in the past dozen worlds, but even so it must have made the planet ring like a gong when it hit.
    Linsay watched her, the gun clutched at his side, his mind a grey fog through which the pain of his ankle pierced like tiny lightning flashes. There were only a limited number of Detril painkillers in his kit. He had already used a third of them.
    She looked up. ‘You ought to let me look at that,’ she said. ‘Paranoia is all very well. Gangrene is worse.’
    ‘It’s not that bad.’
    ‘Sue your face for slander, then.’
    Linsay shifted, and the white spear of agony shot through his leg. It must have shown.
    ‘Look,’ said Shea. ‘Even I can see the blood pooling. What have you got to lose? I’ve had training, I could—’
    ‘No!’
    ‘You know why I came to your tent last night?’
    ‘He said you’d got a knife.’
    ‘He would, wouldn’t he? I came to persuade you – by any means necessary. You won’t listen to the voice of reason. I wondered if you would listen to … older voices.’
    He made the mistake of laughing. Even laughing hurt.
    And it wasn’t well received.
    ‘If you’re so sure,’ she snapped, standing up. ‘I could kill you now, couldn’t I?’ She pointed to Valienté, dozing curled up beside the tent.
    ‘He couldn’t stop me and maybe you wouldn’t be able to,’ she snarled. ‘You’re running out of time, keeping us here. You’ve got the