“So you’re figuring I’ll step in and de-fuse her for you, eh, Toby? Well, I’m sorry as hell to disappoint you, but somehow in the confusion I left my electropass behind.”

Mallon leaned toward me. “I told you we need each other, Jackson: I’ve got your pass. Yours and all the others. Renada, hand me my black box.” She rose and moved across to the desk, holding the gun on Mallon—and on me, too, for that matter.

“Where’d you get my pass, Mallon?”

“Where do you think? They’re the duplicates from the vault in the old command block. I knew one day one of you would come out. I’ll tell you, Jackson, it’s been hell, waiting all these years—and hoping. I gave orders that any time the Great Troll bellowed, the mob was to form up and stop anybody who came out. I don’t know how you got through them…”

“I was too slippery for them. Besides,” I added, “I met a friend.”

“A friend? Who’s that?”

“An old man who thought I was Prince Charming, come to wake everybody up. He was nuts. But he got me through.”

Renada came back, handed me a square steel box. “Let’s have the key, Mallon,” I said. He handed it over. I opened the box, sorted through half a dozen silver-dollar-sized ovals of clear plastic, lifted one out.

“Is it a magical charm?” Renada asked, sounding awed. She didn’t seem so sophisticated now—but I liked her better human.

“Just a synthetic crystalline plastic, designed to resonate to a pattern peculiar to my EEG,” I said. “It amplifies the signal and gives off a characteristic emission that the psychotronic circuit in the Bolo picks up.”

“That’s what I thought. Magic.”

“Call it magic, then, kid.” I dropped the electropass in my pocket, stood and looked at Renada. “I don’t doubt that you know how to use that gun, honey, but I’m leaving now. Try not to shoot me.”

“You’re a fool if you try it,” Mallon barked. “If Renada doesn’t shoot you, my guards will. And even if you made it, you’d still need me!”

“I’m touched by your concern, Toby. Just why do I need you?”

“You wouldn’t get past the first sentry post without help, Jackson. These people know me as the Trollmaster. They’re in awe of me—of my mana. But together—we can get to the controls of the Bolo, then use it to knock out the sentry machine at the Site—”

“Then what? With an operating Bolo I don’t need anything else. Better improve the picture, Toby. I’m not impressed.”

He wet his lips.

“It’s Prometheus, do you understand? She’s stocked with everything from Browning needlers to Norge stunners. Tools, weapons, instruments. And the power plants alone.”

“I don’t need needlers if I own a Bolo, Toby.”