"You're not listening, Ken. A lot has changed. A lifter or two is nothing, it's background noise. But you start mobilizing too many resources at once, the wrong kind of people pay attention. And not everybody on this side is on this side, if you know what I mean."

He's talking about other lawbreakers, Clarke realized. Maybe it's Spartacus vs. the Trip. Or maybe all of them are off the leash by now.

"You'd rather keep a low profile," Lubin surmised.

"I've always preferred subtlety. And your rather blunt social skills notwithstanding, when it comes right down to it even you're more subtle than a fleet of fire-breathing killer blimps."

When it comes down to war, he means. Private war of the psychos, by invitation only. Clarke wondered how many sides there were. Could they even have sides? How do you form an alliance with someone you know will stab you in the back the first chance they get? Maybe it's just every sociopath for himself, she mused.

Then again, it wasn't Lubin who'd had difficulty choosing sides recently.

"I'm otherwise engaged," Lubin said.

"Naturally. You'd have to have a damn good reason to come all the way back here. The Mid Atlantic Ridge isn't exactly in the neighborhood."

"It might be before too long, judging by the recent traffic."

"Ah. Somebody pay you a visit?"

"Not yet. But they're sniffing around close by. It's an unlikely coincidence."

"Don't look at me, Ken. If I'd spilled the beans, they wouldn't have to sniff around."

"I'm aware of that."

"Still, you naturally want to know who's on the trail. Ken, I'm hurt. Why didn't you come to me at—oh, right. You thought I was dead." Desjardins paused, then added, "You're really lucky I came along."

"I'm even luckier," Lubin said, "that you need my help."

The botfly bobbled in a sudden gust of hot wind. "Okay then. You help me keep N'Am from dying a little while longer, and I'll try and find out who's stalking you. Deal?"

Lubin considered.

"Seems fair," he said.

Crash

The Crusade, thought Lenie Clarke, could go on without her.

It wasn't as though it needed her services. Saving lives and ending them were the only two causes worth pursuing now, and she had no great skill in either. Of course that wasn't exactly true, she realized even as the thought occurred. When it came to total kills, there wasn't a person on the planet who could match her score. But those deaths had been indiscriminate and untargeted, faceless collateral she'd barely spared a thought for. Right now, the greater good needed something considerably more precise: specific individuals, not whole populations. Isolated faces to be hunted down and—what was the word Rowan had used?—decirculated.