moving." He hauled at the engineer’s arm. Wubslin turned quickly

and hit Horza across the face with his free hand. Horza was thrown back over

the floor of the control deck, more amazed than

hurt. Wubslin turned back to the controls.

“Sorry, Horza, but I can get it round that bend and out of the way. You get out now. Leave me."

Horza took his laser rifle, stood up, watched the engineer working at the controls, then turned and ran from the place. As

he did so, the train

lurched, seeming to flex and tighten.

Yalson followed the Culture woman. Horza had waved at her to go on, so she did. “Balveda!" she shouted. “Emergency exits;

go down;

bottom deck!"

The Culture agent didn’t hear. She was still heading for the next carriage and the access ramps. Yalson ran after her, cursing.

The drone exploded out of the floor and raced through the carriage for the nearest emergency hatch.

That vibration! It’s a train! Another train’s coming, fast! What have those idiots done. I have to get out!

* * *

Balveda skidded round a corner, threw out one hand and caught hold of a bulkhead edge; she dived for the open door which led

to the middle

access ramp. Yalson’s footsteps pounded behind her.

She ran out onto the ramp, into a howling gale, a constant, gustless hurricane. Instantly the air around her detonated with

cracks and sparks;

light glared from all sides, and the girders blew out in molten lines. She threw herself flat, sliding

and rolling along the surface of the ramp. The

girders ahead of her, where the ramp turned and sloped down to one side, glittered

with laser-fire. She got half up again and, feet and hands

scrabbling for purchase on the ramp, threw herself back into the

train fractionally before the moving line of shots blasted into the side of the

ramp and the girders and guard rails beyond.

Yalson almost tripped over her; Balveda reached up and grabbed the other woman’s arm.

“Somebody’s firing!"

Yalson went forward to the edge and started firing back.

The train gave a lurch.

The final straight between station six and station seven was over three kilometers long. The time between the point the racing

machine’s lights

would have become visible from the rear of the train sitting in station seven, and the instant the train

flashed out of the dark tunnel into the

station itself, occupied less than a minute.

Dead, body shaking and rocking, but still wedged too tightly to be dislodged from the controls, Quayanorl’s cold, closed eye

faced a scene

through sloped, armored glass of a night-dark space strung with twin bright lines of almost solid light, and

directly in front, rapidly enlarging, a

halo of brightness, a glaring ring of luminescence with a gray, metallic core.

Xoxarle cursed. The target had moved quickly, and he’d missed. But they were trapped on the train. He had them. The old human

under his

knee moaned and tried to move. Xoxarle trod down harder on him and got ready to shoot again. The jetstream of air

screamed out of the tunnel

and round the rear of the train.

Answering shots splashed randomly around the rear of the station, well away from him. He smiled. Just then, the train moved.

“Get out!" Horza said, arriving at the door where the two women were, one firing, one crouched down, risking the occasional

look out. The air

was whirling into the carriage, shaking and roaring.

“It must be Xoxarle!" Yalson shouted above the noise of the storming wind. She leaned out and fired. More shots rippled over

the access

ramp and thudded into the outer hull of the train around the door. Balveda ducked back as hot fragments blew in

through the open door. The

train seemed to wobble, then move forward, very slowly.

“What—." Yalson yelled, looking round at Horza as he joined her at the door. He shrugged as he leaned out to fire down the

platform.

“Wubslin!" he shouted. He sent a hail of fire down the length of the station. The train crept forward; already a meter of

the access ramp was

hidden by the side of the train’s hull near the open door. Something sparkled in the darkness of the distant

tunnel, where the wind screamed

and the dust blew and a noise like never-ending thunder came.

Horza shook his head. He waved Balveda forward, to the ramp, now with only about half its breadth available from the door.

He fired again;

Yalson leaned out and fired, too. Balveda started forward.

At that moment a hatch blew out, near the middle of the train, and from the same carriage a huge circular plug of train hull

fell clanging out—

a great flat cork of thick wall tipping down to the station floor. A small dark shape dashed from the broken

hatch, and from the great circular hole

nearby a silver point came, swelling quickly to a fat, bright, reflecting ovoid as

the wall section hit the platform, the drone whizzed through the air,

and Balveda started forward along the ramp.

“There it is!" Yalson screamed.

The Mind was out of the train, starting to turn and race off. Then the flickering laser-fire from the far end of the station

switched; no longer

smashing into the access ramp and girders, it began to scatter flashing explosions of light all over the

surface of the silvery ellipsoid. The Mind

seemed to stop, hang in the air, shaken by the fusillade of laser shots; then it

fell sideways, out over the platform, its smooth surface suddenly

starting to ripple and grow dim as it rolled through the

rushing air, falling toward the side wall of the station like a crippled airship. Balveda was

across the ramp, running down

the sloped section, almost at the lower level. “Get out!" Horza yelled, shoving Yalson. The train was away from

the ramps

now, motors growling but unheard in the raging hurricane which swept through the station. Yalson slapped her wrist, switching

on her

AG, then leapt out of the door into the gale, still firing.

Horza leaned out, having to fire through the girders of the access ramp. He held on to the train with one hand, felt it shaking

like a frightened

animal. Some of his shots smacked into the access ramp girders, blasting fountains of debris out into the

slipstream of air and making him

duck back in.

The Mind crunched into the side wall of the station, rolling over to lodge in the angle between the floor and the curved wall,

its silver skin

quivering, going dull.

Unaha-Closp twisted through the air, avoiding laser shots. Balveda reached the bottom of the ramp and ran across the station

floor. The fan

of shots from the distant foot tunnel seemed to hesitate between her and the flying figure of Yalson, then

swept up to close around the woman in

the suit. Yalson fired back, but the shots found her, made her suit sparkle.

Horza threw himself out of the train, falling to the ground from the slowly moving carriage, crashing into the rock floor,

winding himself, being

bowled over by the tearing blast of air. He ran forward as soon as he could get to his feet, bouncing

up from the impact, firing through the

hurricane toward the far end of the station. Yalson still flew, moving into the torrent

of air and the crackling laser-fire.

Light blazed around the rear of the train, now heading at a little over walking speed from the station. The noise of the oncoming

train—