It caught Malach in the .back, a blow that should have cracked him in two.

Malach bowed over, the breath going out of him in a low animal grunt, like the last noises the dogs had made.

The small man let down the hammer, which was too big for him. He prepared to crow, to the other two, the man with elephant tusk holding back his thin tail of hair, the man with the frogskin shoes.

But then Malach straightened up again, he came around like a damaged engine, slow and entirely terrible. His eyes were all white, and he reached out and smote the hammer man across the head. The stroke sent him flying, screaming, back off the platform, sheer across the rails, into the farther tunnel wall, and into the gentle body of the girl swinging from the moon, which silenced him. He dropped with a rattle on the line.

The man with the ivory band held up his open palms. The other man whimpered.

"Okay. Okay."

"Not okay," said Malach. His face looked older than the skeletons they had once dug from the plague pit under the tunnels. But he smiled again a little, as if from courtesy.

The two dogs were finished, or seemed to be. One had closed its teeth in the other's throat. Both had shut their eyes.

The frogskin man started forward, and tripped over the dogs' bodies. He fell on them. And the dying dog turned its mutilated head and tore out his throat, suddenly and silently. He had no chance to cry.

"You're terrific," said Ivory. "You're amazing."

"Yes," said Malach.

"But you'll let me go. You've had enough."

"If you like," said Malach, "you can run a little way. The exercise will do you good."

"You see," said Ivory, "even if your spine held up when that guy hit you, your ribs are caved in."

"Are they?"

"Look, here's the money from the fight." Ivory cast over a shower, not red or black now, but blue and brown. "Don't feel too great," said Ivory, "I expect."

"No," said Malach.

"That's it," said Ivory. "You have the money. Bloody dog's useless anyway."

Ivory walked along the platform, to the place of exit, which had been carefully unbarred. A dull light shone beyond, less brilliant than the torches and the warning lamps.

Malach looked at the dogs.

The dead one still had its jaws fixed into the man. The other peered up at Malach, half-blinded. It growled.

Malach coughed, and wiped the blood which came off his mouth.

Then he moved quietly out of the exit, after Ivory.

The corridors were all white tiles, like some fundamental latrine. The little dull lights burned high up, and, under them, Ivory was walking quickly now, away.

Not hearing Malach, only sensing him, he glanced back. Then he ran, not for exercise.

Malach only walked.