The other pressure suit emerged from the Library and jumped to join the fight. Good!

Rather's camera view shot down the corridor, through dust and bodies. Navy crew grabbed at him, clung . . . and let go. It began to look as if he might make it.

What was running through Discipline's receivers was a message from the State, from Earth.

Nothing in bis own memory matched. Kendy pulled it and ran it. It was brief.

Rather jumped down the corridor, arms raised to block the men who blocked his path. Impacts slowed him. A burst from the jets compensated. Somebody was riding him, legs around his hips ... a man impacted heavily against his helmet, slid across his chest, and was gone.

The silver man jumped him. The man who clung to Rather took the force of impact. They tumbled. Rather reached the door, kicked, swung himself around the jamb and was out in the sky. A burst of jets took him clear.

He paused then.

The silver man emerged and, twenty meters away and receding, stopped to put on his wings. Navy crew emerged behind him. Two flailed; they had no wings at all. The third couldn't get his on. Fringe spores must have reached their brains.

That left only the silver man.

Rather grinned. He put on his own wings and kicked away strongly. "Kendy? Jeffer? Are you watching?"

"Jeffer here. I can't get Kendy. He may be out of range."

"Well, watch. This is going to be good."

Mickl was catching up.

Rather's radio sounded calm and a bit supercilious. "Rather Citizen, you can't escape. Your wings are the right color, but they're not Navy wings. You know I don't want to hurt you. I had the chance to kill you and I didn't. But the crossbow is all I have, and it will penetrate- make holes in a Navy pressure suit. There's a hole in one of our suits because one of our Guardians turned mutineer once."

"Don't answer," Jeffer said."He's guessing. Don't give him a chance to test it."

Mickl was meters behind him, but the drugged Navy crew were nearly out of sight. Rather pulled his wings loose, pointed his feet at the silver man, and fired his jets.

He was head-down to the Dark. Mickl was kicking hard, falling rapidly behind. A scream of shock or frustration burst in Rather's ears; he found the volume control and turned it down fast.

The Dark was around him. He couldn't see the other silver man, he couldn't see the Market.

Jeffer spoke in his helmet: a tiny squeak until Rather turned the volume back up. ". . . due to rendezvous. I've got a ship moving north out of the Dark. Stand by ... There's a dark blob bigger than the cabin-"

"That's Logbearer. They've got their mud."

"Turn seventy degrees clockwise from where you were pointed and, oh, ten degrees north. Make your bum."

Rather obeyed. Jeffer counted off twenty seconds: seven breaths. The Dark thinned.