There was really no point in it. It took her a long time to realize it, as her blood was up and she wasn't thinking straight. So she kept throwing punches, and they kept just missing, or hitting him harmlessly on the elbows or glancing off his shoulders. She tried kicking, and the kicks were always just a little off their target.

He never threw a punch. He didn't have to. After a time, she was standing there breathing hard. He wasn't even sweating. She straightened and held up her hands, palms outward.

I must have dozed off for a moment. Eventually I became aware of the Princess, Cricket, and MacDonald, three indistinct round faces hanging above me like a pawnbroker's sign.

"Can you move your legs?" MacDonald asked.

"Of course I can move my legs." What a silly question. I'd been moving my legs for a hundred years.

"Then move them."

I did, and MacDonald frowned deeper.

"His back's probably broken," said Wales.

"Must have happened when he landed on the railing."

"Can you feel anything?"

"Unfortunately, yes." By that time most of the drugs were wearing off, and everything from the waist up was hurting very badly. Deep Throat arrived and lifted my head. He had a painkiller in his hand, a little plastic cube with a wire which he plugged into the socket at the base of my skull. He flicked the switch, and I felt a lot better. I looked down and watched as they removed the splintered chair leg which had pierced my hip.

Since that wasn't a particularly diverting sight, I looked around the room. Already cleaning robots were picking up broken glassware and replacing shattered tables; Deep Throat is no stranger to brawls, and he always keeps a supply of furniture. In another few minutes there would be no sign that I had almost destroyed the place five minutes ago. Well, I had almost destroyed the place, in the sense that it was my hurtling body that had done most of the damage.

I felt myself being lifted. MacDonald and Wales had made a hammock with their arms. It was like riding in a sedan chair.

"Where are we going?"

"You're not in any immediate danger," MacDonald said. "Your back is broken, and that should be fixed soon, so we're taking you across the corridor to the NLF Studios. They have a good repair shop there."

The Princess got us past the gate guard. We passed about a dozen sound stage doors, and I was brought into the infirmary.

Which was jammed like Mainhardt's Department Store on Christmas Eve. It seemed NLF was doing a big scene from some war epic, and most of the available beds were taken by maimed extras patiently waiting their turn, counting up the triple-time salary they drew for injured down-time.

The room had been dressed as a field hospital for the picture, apparently doing double duty when not actually treating cinematic casualties. I pegged it as twentieth century-a vintage season for wars-maybe World War Two, or the Vietnam conflict, but it could easily have been the Boer War. We were under a canvas roof and the place was cluttered with hanging IV bottle props.