How in the name of hell?
'Jubal?' I tried the vox again. 'Anybody? This is Eisenhorn. Respond/
The hand vox answered this time. A man's voice, hard like stone. 'Eisenhorn. You are dead, Eisenhorn/
I went down through the staff quarters. It seemed like everyone had fled. Doors were open and a few chairs were overturned. Half drunk cups of caffeine, still steaming. A half-finished game of regicide in the butler's pantry. A pict-unit still playing a live broadcast from the arena at Dorsay. A fallen lho-stick burning a patch in the carpet.
I stamped out the embers.
Through a door into the west landing I found Urben. He was dead all right. He was sprawled with his back arched in the doorway. Laser fire had blasted him open.
I was bent over him when I heard footsteps.
Three men came in through the other side of the landing, but I only saw two of them. They were moving fast, with the fluid confidence of trained killers. They were wearing combat armour made of rubberised mesh, their faces hidden behind grotesque papier-mache masks, the kind you can buy in Dorsay's market for the carnivals. They had cut-down las-rifles.
They fired as soon as they saw me, their shots striking the doorframe. 1 barely had time to dive into cover. I heard the pip and chatter of their microbead communicators.
One, sporting a gilded carnodon mask, moved in, running low, as another in a mermaid mask gave cover.
From the doorway, I fired the needle pistol twice and put two tiny holes through the carnodon leer. The raider folded up and crashed to the floor, his knees buckling under him.
The mermaid fired again, repeatedly, and I switched to the other side of the doorway.
Cease! I commanded, using my will. No reaction. They were psy-shielded.
Someone had prepared.
I crouched and fired up at the chandelier. When it came crashing down, the mermaid dived to the side and I caught him squarely with three needles, any of which would have been a kill shot. The mermaid thumped backwards heavily and brought a console table over as he fell.
I moved through the door, not realising the third one was there. His shots grazed my shoulder and knocked me down hard.
There was a very loud bang.
I looked up.
'Gregor?'
It was Aemos.
'Gregor, I think I've jammed your bloody gun/ he said.
I got up. Aemos was standing in a nearby doorway, fiddling with my bolt pistol. The third, unseen raider had made a clotted dent in the plaster-work.
'Give it to me/ I said, snatching the bolt pistol and freeing the slide.
Thank you, Aemos/ I added.
He shrugged. 'It's most perturbatory/ he said. 'Guns and me, we don't seem to get on and I always-'