Not all the boys had assembled in the corridor in the first place, and now ones at the rear of the mob began to break away and retreat into individual rooms. A babble started to rise from them, and yells and cries. One dark-haired boy tried to dart past them to the corridor beyond the big double doors, and a trooper grabbed him in a standard arm-lock. He screamed in pain and surprise, and the sound and shock seemed to blow the others back in a wave. The boy struggled without effect in the trooper's iron grip. The trooper looked exasperated and uncertain, and stared at him as if expecting some direction or order.

"Get your friends and follow me!" he yelled desperately to the retreating boys. The blond turned on his heel and sprinted.

"I don't think they bought us," said Thorne. The hermaphrodite's face was pale and tense. "It might actually be easier to stun them all and carry them. We can't afford to lose time in here, not with that damned thin perimeter."

"No—"

His helmet was calling him. He jammed it back on. Comlink babble burst in his ears, but Sergeant Taura's deep voice penetrated, selectively enhanced by her channel. "Sir, we need your help up here."

"What is it?"

Her answer was lost in an override from the woman riding the float-bike. "Sir, there's three or four people climbing down the outside balconies of the building you're in. And there's a group of four Bharaputran security people approaching you from the north."

He sorted frantically through channels till he found the one out-going to the air-guard. "Don't let any get away!"

"How should I stop 'em, sir?" Her voice was edged.

"Stunner," he decided helplessly. "Wait! Don't stun any that are hanging off the balcony, wait'll they reach the ground."

"I may not have a clear shot."

"Do your best." He cut her off and found Taura again. "What do you want, Sergeant?"

"I want you to come talk to this crazy girl. You can convince her if anyone can."

"Things are—not quite under control down here."

Thorne rolled its eyes. The captured boy was drumming his bare heels against the Dendarii trooper's shins. Thorne set its stunner to the lightest setting and touched it to the back of the squirming boy's neck. He convulsed and hung more limply. Still conscious, eyes blearing and wild, the boy began to cry.

In a burst of cowardice he said to Throne, "Get them rounded up. Any way you can. I'm going to help Sergeant Taura."

"You do that," growled Thorne in a distinctly insubordinate tone. It wheeled, gathering its men. "You and you, take that side—you, take the other. Get those doors down—"

He retreated ignominiously to the sound of shattering plastic.