BLACK stared at Anneke, speechless. Then he moved - but too late. Anneke launched a spinning sidekick, catching him in the chest and knocking him to the ground. Her gun was on him in a flash.

‘We should stop meeting like this,’ she said.

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Black. ‘Next time, let’s make it in the morgue.’

‘Suits me.’ Black saw her finger hovering over the tab, yet she hesitated. Killing an unarmed man sitting on the ground was a little tough for the morally minded. Black, of course, would not have baulked.

As though reading his mind, she said, ‘I can’t say it’s been nice knowing you, Mr Brown.’

Even as her finger descended, pulse beams stitched the wall beside her head. Her shot went wide.

Black scrambled aside.

Anneke barely had time to duck and return fire on the approaching group of Quesadans and Kantorians, stalling their attack.

She cursed. Assisted by the ancient art form of parkour, she vaulted over a high retaining wall and dropped from sight.

I’m alive, Black thought as he regained his composure. He glanced at the towering wall and knew Anneke would be long gone. It was a shame she was loyal to RIM. What a team they would have made.

Black dusted off his coverall as Riktar instinctively placed himself between his boss and where Anneke had headed - the natural bodyguard. Oddly enough, the Envoy was nowhere to be seen. Black decided not to draw attention to his absence by reacting or by asking anyone about it. The Kantorians, and Roag in particular, had been acting strangely all morning, ever since they had started on the ‘Tour of the Great City’. The Trade Ambassador seemed to be fencing with Black. Why bring a security unit? Was that for Black’s protection or Roag’s? Or something else entirely?

‘Are you all right, Olak?’ Roag asked solicitously.

‘Apart from injured pride, I am unhurt,’ Black replied.

‘Do you know your assailant?’

‘She is the rogue agent I spoke of’

‘Ah. Our investigations appear to have flushed her out,’ said Roag, ‘though not in a judicious way, I might add.’

I doubt your investigations had anything to do with it, thought Black, but he refrained from saying so.

Indeed, he was wondering just what had flushed Anneke out, or if they were all misreading the encounter. The look on her face when she rounded the corner had been surprise, even shock.

Black would have sworn it was genuine. Except he’d been fooled before by Anneke Longshadow. Even now, he burned at the thought.

‘I see you are angry,’ said Roag, getting it wrong again. ‘I will have security scour the area. Roadblocks and other barriers will be in place in minutes. She will not escape.’

‘She is highly trained,’ said Black. ‘It will be difficult to apprehend her.’

Roag sniffed indignantly. ‘You doubt the capabilities of our security forces?’

‘No offence intended, Ambassador, but where Anneke Longshadow is concerned, I doubt the capabilities of all the security forces in all the known worlds.’

The ambassador did not seem assuaged by this. He issued his orders curtly then suggested they head back to the Trade Commission.

‘Ambassador, might I ask a favour?’

Roag pursed his lips, but all he said was, ‘Ask.’

‘Might my men and I join the hunt for this renegade?’

‘My people are more than capable -’

Black held up his hands placatingly. ‘Ambassador, you misunderstand me. I know your security forces are excellent, but we both work at a disadvantage. Your people do not know this agent or her training well. We do not know this city and its ways. Together, we might solve this problem with a minimum of fuss.’ Black’s face was one of subordinate pleading and he made sure his body language reinforced the image, without going too far. He must not appear weak, but boyishly enthusiastic. To a man of Roag’s age, Black must appear childlike, despite the false age his renovation projected. He tried appealing to the man’s vanity, to his need to mentor the young, if only to demonstrate his own superiority.

Roag mulled over Black’s words, and then nodded, breaking out in a grin. ‘I find myself intrigued by the notion, and especially by your use of the word “hunt”. So I agree to your request.’

Black held out his hand and they shook in the way of the old Roman greeting, clasping each other’s wrist, a martial handshake.

Black signalled Riktar to take point and begin a sweep of the area. Black then gave Anneke’s biosign to the Kantorian head of security, a woman named Avula, who transmitted it to the multitudinous towers and Ais that networked the city.

‘Let us begin,’ said Roag, rubbing his hands together in glee. ‘What will she do first?’

‘She will circle back to a spot from where she can observe us. We should assume that she is already watching us.’

‘So quickly?’

‘This agent was born on Normansk - a planet with nearly twice-normal gravity. Her speed and strength are exceptional, as are her skills. We should not underestimate her.’

‘So you think she is observing us right now?’ Black nodded.

‘Then how may we use this?’

‘We must outguess her. At the same time we can run a probability scan to identify the likeliest observation points.’

Roag spoke quietly to Avula, who patted her utility belt and nodded a response. ‘Let us proceed with all haste,’ Roag said to Maximus.

Black did the scans himself He identified three spots. Two high and one low. He fed these to Avula’s e-pad and she uploaded them to the towers which, linked to satellite sweeps, ran infrared and bio signature scans of the locations.

To Black’s surprise, Anneke was indeed in one of the spots. He could only conclude that it was a double feint. That being in a likely location, Anneke had assumed, rightly in normal circumstances, that Black would dismiss them as too obvious.

But her feint within a feint had failed.

‘Well done,’ said the ambassador, making sure his lips could not be read from where Anneke was hiding. He nodded to his head of security who spoke in sign language to her squad. ‘And now what?’ Roag asked.

‘We could blast the location, with your permission of course, or we could attempt a capture.’ Black knew, having sized up the man in subtle ways, which way Roag would go. For his own purposes, Black preferred they did not make contact with Anneke at all. He could see to that once she was apprehended.

‘Let us try to take this Anneke Longshadow. I confess that all you have said intrigues me. She sounds like a super woman. Perhaps we should indebt her, use her for training purposes.’

‘Unwise, Ambassador. Some people cannot be indebted or domesticated. Anneke Longshadow is one such creature.’

‘We shall see. Our forces have already surrounded her. We may move in.’

Black followed the ambassador. There was a commotion across the square. Black could see ten troopers swarm across the rooftop. There was the flash of a pulse rifle and a scream.

‘Perhaps there will be nothing left to indebt,’ mused the ambassador.

Black curtailed a smile. ‘I suspect that might be one of your people,’ he said.

By the time they reached the rooftop, all was quiet. The troopers parted to let the ambassador and his retinue through. Lying on the ground in front of them was a Kantorian trooper with third degree burns to half of his body. A medic was applying first aid.

‘What happened here? Where is the woman?’ demanded Roag, frowning in puzzlement.

Avula stepped forward. ‘M’lord, we were fooled by this.’ She held a small device in the palm of her hand. ‘It appears to create a false infrared and bio signature. I do not know how it works.’

Black took it, turned it over, and then handed it back. ‘A standard high-end product. I can sell you hundreds. It not only recreates a heat and body signature, but will produce an optical shadow if necessary, as well as heart beat, halitosis, voice replication, and - if necessary - it will leave traces of DNA.’

Roag looked at Black incredulously. ‘This is appalling. This woman could set up false signatures wherever she chooses, as many as she chooses!’

Black was bemused. ‘She can and probably will.’

‘Can you neutralise them?’

‘I can help your AI read a range of false signatures but not all. This technology is cutting edge. It has not yet been superseded on my world.’

Roag turned to Avula, indicating the wounded trooper. ‘How was this man hurt?’

‘The device was booby-trapped, m’lord. It set off an intense heat flash.’

‘But he is still alive.’

Avula was doubtful. ‘It was a non-lethal detonation.’

‘The . . . ah . . . agent in question, Ambassador, is flawed in this area,’ Black said. ‘It is a weakness of hers that will see her undone.’ He scanned the rooftops. ‘It is because of this Achilles’ heel that your people are still alive.’

Roag regarded him a moment, then smiled. ‘How quaint.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’

Avula whispered to Roag, causing the ambassador’s face to darken.

‘It appears your rogue agent is not without quirks. A body has been discovered. The remains of one, I should say.’

Black knew a nanosecond of uncertainty.

‘Unrelated, I assure you.’

Roag glanced at Avula. ‘In that case, let us resume the hunt, Olak.’

‘Solid, Ambassador. Real solid.’

As they moved off, the ambassador fell into step beside Black. ‘You still think she is watching us?

‘Indubitably, Ambassador. She circled back to this point, set up the decoy, and then took up a less obvious and more problematic position. She is therefore still watching us.’

‘And we cannot use this to our advantage?’

‘Doubtful. She will anticipate every move we make, every feint and counter feint.’

‘Then how do we catch such a slippery fish?’ demanded the ambassador in mild exasperation.

‘By forcing her to keep watching us - while we are on the move.’

‘Ah, I see. Then she will have to keep moving also.’

‘Making it more difficult for her to use static decoys.’

‘Brilliant. Let us proceed.’

Black did not tell the ambassador that Anneke would also find this tactic easy to counter. Nor did he bother mentioning that Anneke’s main objective on Kanto was not to spy on its government or follow Black. No. She had far more important puzzles to solve, like finding the lost coordinates before Black did.

Yet the encounter suggested that Anneke did not yet know the second clue. If she knew, she would not be wasting time observing him.

Right now Anneke Longshadow wanted to know just one thing: did Black know ...?

One of the Envoy’s talents was to remam stock still, frozen into an immobility that no mammalian creature could ever hope to reproduce, though many insects managed it effortlessly.

Another talent he possessed, and which even Black knew nothing of, was camouflage. Without his robe, the Envoy could alter the visual appearance of his body - even its topography - to match the background against which he lay or stood, or his general surroundings.

He had done both to slip away from the Kantorians. Or rather, he had simply slipped off his robe and ‘melted’ into his background, allowing the Kantorians - and Black - to ‘slip away’ from him. When they had gone, he donned his robe, pulling the cowl tightly over his head, and began to stalk Anneke Longshadow.

The chance meeting with her on the street had disturbed him. All his calculations, all his senses, had suggested no such meeting would occur. Black and Anneke did not, should not, meet until the final confrontation. The seemingly impossible had occurred.

This was both good and bad. The measurements of the caretakers, their sense-navigations of the manifold, the multi-layered multi-level nature of the universe, may be at fault - and they had not seen clearly; perhaps they were not meant to see clearly, an astounding thought. Their role as caretakers may be less significant than his leaders had suggested.

This was the ‘bad’.

The ‘good’ was odder. Perhaps Anneke, or Black was more - much more - than the caretakers imagined; indeed, one of them might be outside the calculations.

But that was like saying ‘outside the universe’ or

‘before time began’.

Nonsensical. Contradictory. Impossible.

But one thing that could be said of the caretakers as a species, was that they were all stark-raving mad. It was the nature of their gift as a species of Seers. How could they be otherwise?

The Envoy stopped and listened. Anneke was just ahead. His internal scanners had detected her biosign, her real one; his scanners were not as easily fooled as those of the Kantorians or even Black’s. That didn’t mean they were infallible, just different.

The Envoy inched closer. His family had been chosen for this mission - a mission that had consumed centuries and would no doubt consume more - because they were genetically and spiritually the sanest of the caretaker clans.

He had spotted her now, moving low across a rooftop one hundred metres below his position. Then she stopped, planting a device under the old stone parapet that bordered the roof edge.

The Envoy’s hand rose into view, seven fingers gripping his blaster.

Black was aware that Anneke was on the rooftop. He was also aware that Riktar had managed the impossible, he had got ‘downwind’ of Anneke and had found a shadow in her sensor landscape. Such shadows could be caused by interference, sometimes natural, usually technological. There were naturally occurring n-space fissures: minute cracks in space- time that leaked infinitesimal amounts of radiation, the kind that disrupted sensors and other modern devices.

But Black suddenly realised he did not want Riktar to shoot Anneke and he did not want the Kantorians to get hold of her unless he could get her off them. The likelihood of this was becoming remote. If his people failed to crack the code, Anneke’s death would mean that he was at a dead end. It was better having someone he could either follow or steal from at some future date.

And Anneke in the hands of Roag might be worse. Who knew what the Kantorians would do with the lost coordinates, if they guessed their purpose.

He needed to do something, and fast.

‘Ambassador, I tire of this. On my world, we would obliterate the biological life within a specified cube of space from orbit. Nice and neat.’ He stopped short of admitting that with biosign signature technology, such weapons could distinguish between hostiles and friendly forces.

The ambassador stared at him, only managing to regain his composure after a moment. Then he smiled crookedly. ‘That would certainly solve the problem.’

The man turned away. Black had no doubt he was furiously signalling Avula.

And, like clockwork, the attack came.

Unfortunately for Roag, Black had also been signalling his people.

The battle was over almost before it began. By the looks of it, Roag had been planning an attack on Black’s people from the beginning. Black recognised at once that the attackers were dressed in the livery of a trading clan.

The small plaza suddenly filled with yelling, charging men and women. Black heard the hiss of pulse weapons and saw a man fall. There were cries and shouts, then the deadly battle began in earnest. Though his squad was outnumbered three to one, they fought back with determination, boldness, and a grim disregard for life that quickly daunted the attackers.

Within minutes, twenty-five of the attackers lay dead or wounded to only five of Black’s guards. Black himself had accounted for four of the attackers, before the astonished eyes of the ambassador. Black silently congratulated himself on having set Riktar after Anneke. His position on the rooftops had been fortuitous. Alas, according to his covert sensor, Riktar had not taken out the woman. Furthermore, Riktar’s biosign had gone off the radar.

There was much blood and moaning. Black ordered his people to attend to the wounded - of both sides. It made good press and impressed the locals. He noted immediately that none of Roag’s men had been killed in the fray.

Black also checked on Roag. ‘Ambassador, are you hurt? Are you all right?’

Roag nodded, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I fear your presence has upset someone,’ he said. ‘That man there is a rival arms dealer.’

Rival arms dealer rrry .foot, thought Black. These are trained Kantorian Secret Police or rrry name isn’t Maximus Black. Not that it mattered. The fracas had distracted them from the hunt for Anneke. All well and good.

Except of course there would have to be an accounting for this exercise. Black’s hand had been forced. He had shown what they were capable of, not only as a trained fighting team, but in terms of weaponry that they had kept concealed from the ambassador.

And the slip about weapons that could annihilate human beings from space but leave untouched private property.

Necessary, but unfortunate.

And all to save the life of his nemesis. Black sighed. How oddly his and Anneke’s fates were intertwined. Which reminded him, where was that damned Envoy?

Oh, there he was. Standing there. Black frowned. He could not remember when the Envoy had reappeared or if he had been there during the recent fight. What was he up to, sneaking off like that?

Ambulances arrived as well as more military personnel. Black and his squad- minus the Envoy who had, once again, disappeared - were escorted back to their quarters, only their rooms seemed to have changed in their absence.

Black’s new room looked much like a Kantorian prison cell.