hole in the accommodation section as though it was about to enter a garage, when he heard firing.

He ran through the corridor leading to the rear of the section, readying his gun. “What is it." he said into his helmet mike.

“Laser. Down the tunnel, from the shafts," Yalson’s voice said. He ran into the open store-room area where the others were.

The hole they

had opened in the plastic boarding was four or five meters wide. As soon as Horza came through from the corridor,

flame splashed from the

wall alongside him, and he saw the brief airglows of lasertracks just to one side of his suit, leading

back through the gap in the wall and down

the tunnel. Obviously whoever was doing the shooting could see him. He rolled to

one side and came up by Dorolow and Balveda, who were

sheltering by a large portable winch. Holes burst through the wall of

plastic boards, burning brightly, then going out. The whoop of laser-fire

echoed down the tunnels.

“What happened." Horza said, looking at Dorolow. He looked around the storage area. The rest were all there, taking cover

where they

could, apart from Yalson.

“Yalson went—" Dorolow began; then Yalson’s voice cut in:

“I came through the hole in the wall and got shot at. I’m lying on the ground. I’m OK, but I’d like to know if it’s all right

to fire back. I won’t

damage anything, will I."

“Fire!" Horza yelled, as another fan of glowing tracks spattered a line of burning craters over the inside wall of the store

room. “Fire back!"

“Thanks," Yalson said. Horza heard the woman’s gun snap, then the dopplered echo of sound produced by superheated air. Explosions

crashed from down the tunnel. “Hmm," Yalson said.

“Think that’s got—" Neisin said from the far side of the storage area. His voice cut off as more fire slammed into the wall

behind him. The

wall was pockmarked with dark, bubbling holes.

“Bastard!" Yalson said. She fired back, in short, rapid bursts.

“Keep his head down," Horza told her. “I’m coming forward to the wall. Dorolow, stay here with Balveda." He got up and ran

to the edge of

the hole in the plastic boards. Smoking holes in the material showed how little protection it afforded, but

he knelt there in its cover anyway. He

could see Yalson’s feet a few meters out into the tunnel, spread on the smooth fused

floor. He listened to her gun firing, then said, “Right. Stop

long enough to let me see where it’s coming from, then hit it

again."

“OK." Yalson stopped firing. Horza stuck his head out, feeling incredibly vulnerable, saw a couple of tiny sparks far down

the tunnel and off

to one side. He brought the gun up and fired continually; Yalson’s started again as well. His suit chirped;

a screen lit up by his cheek, showing

he’d been hit on the thigh. He couldn’t feel anything. The side of the tunnel, far down

at the elevator shafts, pulsated with a thousand sparks of

light.

Neisin appeared at the other side of the gap in the boards, kneeling like Horza and firing his projectile rifle. The side

of the tunnel detonated

with flashes and smoke; shock waves blew up the tunnel, shaking the plastic boarding and ringing in

Horza’s ears.

“Enough!" he shouted. He stopped firing. Yalson stopped. Neisin put in one final burst, then stopped, too. Horza ran out through

the gap,

across the dark rock floor of the tunnel outside and over to the side wall. He flattened himself there, getting some

cover from the slight

protrusion of a blast door’s edge further down the tunnel.

Where their target had been, there was a scatter of dull red shards lying on the tunnel floor, cooling from the yellow heat

of the laserfire

which had torn them from the wall. On the helmet nightsight, Horza could see a series of rippling waves of

warm smoke and gas flowing silently

under the roof of the tunnel from the damaged area.

“Yalson, get over here," he said. Yalson rolled over and over until she bumped into the wall just behind him. She got quickly

to her feet and

flattened out beside him. “I think we got it," Horza broadcasted. Neisin, still kneeling at the gap in the

boarding, looked out, the rapid-fire micro-

projectile rifle waving to and fro as though its owner expected a further attack

from out of the tunnel walls.

Horza started forward, keeping his back to the wall. He got to the edge of the blast door. Most of its meter-thick bulk was

stowed in its

recess in the wall, but about half a meter protruded. Horza looked down the tunnel again. The wreckage was still

glowing, like hot coals

scattered on the tunnel floor. The wave of hot black smoke passed overhead, wafting slowly up the

tunnel. Horza looked to his other side.

Yalson had followed him. “Stay here," he said.

He walked down the side of the wall to the first of the elevator shafts. They had been firing at the third and last one, judging

by the grouping

of the craters and scars all around its open, buckled doors. Horza saw a half-melted laser carbine lying in

the middle of the tunnel floor. He

poked his head out from the wall, frowning.

Right on the very lip of the elevator shaft, between the scarred and holed doors, surrounded by a sea of dull, red-glowing

wreckage, he was

sure he could see a pair of hands—gloved, stubby-fingered, injured (one finger was missing from the glove

nearer him), but hands without a

doubt. It looked like somebody was hanging inside the shaft by the tips of their fingers.

He focused the tight beam of his communicator, aiming

in the direction he was looking at. “Hello." he said in Idiran. “Medjel.

Medjel in the elevator shaft. Do you hear me. Report at once."

The hands didn’t move. He edged closer.

“What was it." Wubslin’s voice came through the speakers.

“Just a moment," Horza said. He went closer, rifle ready. One of the hands moved slightly, as though trying to get a better

grip on the lip of

the tunnel floor. Horza’s heart thudded. He went toward the tall open doors, his feet crunching on the

warm debris. He saw semisuited arms as

he went closer, then the top of a long, laser-scarred helmet—

With a rasping noise he had heard medjel make when they charged during a battle, a third hand—he knew it was a foot, but it

looked like a

hand and it was holding a small pistol—flashed up from the elevator shaft at the same time as the medjel’s head

looked up and out, straight at

him. He started to duck. The pistol cracked, its plasma bolt missing him by only a few centimeters.

Horza shot quickly, ducking and going to one side. Fire blew out all around the lip of the elevator, smashing into the gloves.

With a scream

the gloved hands vanished. Light flickered briefly in the circular shaft. Horza ran foward, stuck his head between

the doors and looked down.

The dim shape of the falling medjel was lit by the guttering fire still burning on its suit gloves. Somehow it still held

the plasma pistol; as it fell,

screaming, it fired the small weapon, the cracks of its shots and the flashes from the bolts

drawing further away as the creature holding it, firing

it, whirled, its six limbs flailing, down into the darkness.

“Horza!" Yalson shouted. “Are you all right. What the fuck was that."

“I’m fine," he said. The medjel was a tiny, wriggling shape, deep in the shaft’s tunnel of vertical night. Its screams still

echoed, the

microscopic sparks of its burning hands and the firing plasma pistol still flaring. Horza looked away. A few small

thuds recorded the hapless

creature’s contact with the sides of the shaft as it dropped.

“What’s that

noise.

" Dorolow said.

“The medjel was still alive. It shot at me, but I got it," Horza told them, walking away from the open elevator doors. “It

fell—it’s still falling—

down the elevator shaft."

“Shit!" breathed Neisin, still listening to the faint, fading, echoing screams. “How deep is that."

“Ten kilometers, if none of the blast doors are shut," Horza said. He looked at the external controls for the other two lifts

and the transit

capsule entrance. They had escaped more or less undamaged. The doors leading to the transit tubes were open.

They had been closed when

Horza inspected the area earlier.