“So. Now they know we’re here," Aviger said.

“They were going to know soon anyway," Horza said. “I’ll try hailing them; everybody ready, in case they don’t want to talk."

Horza cut his AG and walked to the end of the tunnel, almost onto the level platform of the station. Another communicator

lying there

transmitted its single pulse. Horza looked at the great, dark train and switched on his suit PA. He drew a breath,

ready to speak in Idiran.

Something flashed from a slit-like window near the rear of the train. His head was knocked back inside the helmet, and he

fell, stunned, his

ears ringing. The noise of the shot echoed through the station. The suit alarm beeped frantically at him.

Horza rolled over against the tunnel wall;

more shots slammed down on him, flaring against the suit helmet and body.

Yalson ducked and ran. She skidded to the lip of the tunnel and raked fire over the window the shots were coming from, then

swiveled,

grabbed Horza by one arm and pulled him further into the tunnel. Plasma bolts crashed into the wall he’d been lying

against. “Horza." she

shouted, shaking him.

“Command override, level zero," a small voice chirped in Horza’s buzzing ears. “This suit has sustained system-fatal damage

automatically

voiding all warranties from this point; immediate total overhaul required. Further use at wearer’s risk. Powering

down."

Horza tried to tell Yalson he was all right, but the communicator was dead. He pointed to his head, to make her understand

this. Then more

shots, from the nose of the train, came bursting into the foot tunnel. Yalson dived to the floor and started

firing back. “Fire!" she yelled to the

others. “Get those bastards!"

Horza watched Yalson shooting at the far end of the train. Laser trails flicked out from the left side of their tunnel, tracer

shells from the right,

as the others joined in. The station filled with a spastic, blazing light; shadows leapt and danced

across the walls and ceiling. He lay there,

stunned, dull-headed, listening to the muffled cacophony of sound breaking against

his suit like surf. He fumbled with his laser rifle, trying to

remember how to fire it. He really had to help the others fight

the Idirans. His head hurt.

Yalson stopped shooting. The front of the train glowed red where she’d been firing at it. The explosive shells from Neisin’s

gun crackled

round the window the first shots had come from; short bursts of fire. Wubslin and Dorolow had come out of the

main tunnel, past the slab of the

train’s rear. They crouched near the wall, firing at the same window as Neisin.

The plasma fire had stopped. The humans stopped shooting, too. The station went dark; the gunfire echoed, faded. Horza tried

to stand up,

but somebody seemed to have removed the bones from his legs.

“Anybody—" Yalson began.

Fire cascaded around Wubslin and Dorolow, lancing out from the lower deck of the last carriage. Dorolow screamed and fell.

Hand

spasming, her gun blasted wildly over the cavern roof. Wubslin rolled along the ground, shooting back at the Idirans.

Yalson and Neisin joined

in. The carriage’s skin buckled and burst under the fusillade. Dorolow lay on the platform, moving

spasmodically, moaning.

More shots came from the front of the train, bursting around the tunnel entrances. Then something moved midway up the rear

carriage, near

the rear access gantry; an Idiran ran from a carriage door and along the middle ramp. He leveled a gun and

fired down, first at Dorolow where

she lay on the ground, then at Wubslin, lying near the side of the train.

Dorolow’s suit was blown tumbling and burning across the black floor of the station. Wubslin’s gun arm was hit. Then Yalson’s

shots found

the Idiran, scattering fire across his suit, the structure of the gantry and the side of the train. The ramp supports

gave way before the Idiran’s

armored suit; softening and disintegrating under the stream of fire, the gantry tubing sagged

and collapsed, sending the top platform of the

ramp crashing down, trapping the Idiran warrior underneath the smoking wreckage.

Wubslin cursed and shot one-handed at the nose of the

train, where the second Idiran was still firing.

Horza lay against the wall, his ears roaring, his skin cold and sweat-slicked. He felt numb, dissociated. He wanted to take

his helmet off and

gasp at some fresh air but knew he shouldn’t. Even though the helmet was damaged it would still protect

him if he was shot again. He

compromised by opening the visor. Sound assaulted his ears. Shock waves thrummed at his chest.

Yalson looked back at him, motioned him

further back down the tunnel as shots smacked into the floor near him. He stood, but

fell, blacking out briefly.

The Idiran at the front of the train stopped firing for a moment, Yalson took the opportunity to look back at Horza again.

He lay on the tunnel

floor behind her, moving weakly. She looked out to where Dorolow lay, her suit ripped and smoldering.

Neisin was almost out of his tunnel, firing

long bursts down the station, scattering explosions all over the nose of the train.

The air boomed with the rasping noise of his gun, ebbing and

flowing through the cavern and accompanied by a pulsing wave

of light that seemed to reach back from where the bullets struck and detonated.

Yalson was aware of somebody shouting—a woman’s voice, yelling—but she could hardly hear over the noise of Neisin’s gun. Plasma

bolts came singing down the platform from the front of the train again, from high up, near the forward access ramps. She returned

fire. Neisin

poured shots in the same direction, paused.

“—in! Stop!" the voice shouted in Yalson’s ears. It was Balveda, “There’s something wrong with your gun; it’ll—" The Culture

agent’s voice

was drowned by the noise of Neisin firing again. “—crash!" Yalson heard Balveda scream despairingly; then a

line of light and sound seemed

to fill the station from one end to the other, ending at Neisin. The bright stalk of noise

and flame blossomed into an explosion Yalson felt through

her suit. Bits of Neisin’s gun were scattered across the platform;

the man was thrown back against the wall. He fell to the ground and lay still.

“Mother

fucker,

" Yalson heard herself say, and she started running up the platform, enfilading the front of the train, trying to widen the

angle of

fire. Shots dipped to meet her, then cut out. There was a pause, while she still ran and fired, then the second Idiran

appeared on the top level of

the distant access ramp, holding a pistol in both hands. He ignored both her and Wubslin’s fire

and shot straight across the breadth of the

cavern, at the Mind.

The silvery ellipsoid started to move, heading for the far foot tunnel. The first shot seemed to go right through it, as did

a second; a third bolt

made it vanish completely, leaving only a tiny puff of smoke where it had been.

The Idiran’s suit glittered as Yalson and Wubslin’s shots struck home. The warrior staggered; he turned as though to start

firing down at

them again, just as the armored suit gave way; he was blown back and across the gantry, one arm disappearing

in a cloud of flame and smoke;

he fell over the edge of the ramp and crashed down to the middle level, the suit burning brightly,

one leg snagging over the guard rails on the

middle ramp. The plasma pistol was blown from his hand. Other shots tore at the

wide helm, fracturing the blackened visor. He hung, limp and

burning and pummeled with laserfire, for a few more seconds;

then the leg caught on the guard rail gave way, snapping cleanly off and falling to

the station floor. The Idiran slid, crumpling,

to the deck of the ramp.

Horza listened, his ears still ringing.

After a while it was quiet. Acrid smoke stung his nose: fumes of burned plastic, molten metal, roasted meat.

He had been unconscious, then woken to see Yalson running up the platform. He had tried to give her covering fire, but his

hands shook too

much, and he hadn’t been able to get the gun to work. Now everybody had stopped firing, and it was very quiet.

He got up and walked

unsteadily into the station, where smoke rose from the battered train.

Wubslin knelt by Dorolow’s side, trying with one hand to undo one of the woman’s gloves. Her suit still smoldered. The helmet

visor was

smeared red, covered with blood on the inside, hiding her face.

Horza watched Yalson come back down the station, gun still at the ready. Her suit had taken a couple of plasma bolts to the

body; the

roughly spiraled marks showed as black scars on the gray surface. She looked up suspiciously at the rear access

ramps, where one Idiran lay