Sylvie stood up on the running boards at the rear of the bug and cued the coms jacket.

“Alright, listen,” she told them. “This looks pretty safe, but there’s no way to be sure, so we’re taking a new pattern. The bugs will cruise across to the far side and check the temple’s lower level. Say ten minutes. Then one bug backs up and maintains a sentry point while the other two work their way back round on either side of the plaza. When they get back to you safely, everybody comes across in a wedge and the foot sweepers go up to check the upper levels of the temple. Has everybody got that?”

Sullen wave of assent up and down the line. They couldn’t have cared less. Sylvie nodded to herself.

“Good enough. So let’s do it. Scan up.”

She twisted about on the bug and seated herself once more behind Orr.

As she leaned into him, I saw her lips move but the synth sleeve wasn’t up to hearing what she said. The murmur of the bug’s drives lifted fractionally and Orr drifted them out into the plaza. Kiyoka nudged the bug she and Lazlo were riding into a flanking position on the left and followed. I bent to my own controls and picked up the right flank.

After the relative press of the debris-choked streets, the plaza felt at once less oppressive and more exposed. The air seemed lighter, the rainsplash on the bug shield less intense. Over the open ground, the bugs actually picked up some speed. There was an illusory sensation of progress—and risk.

The Envoy conditioning, scratching for attention. Trouble, just over the perceptual horizon. Something getting ready to blow.

Hard to tell what gleanings of subconscious detail might have triggered it this time. Envoy intuitive functions are a temperamental set of faculties at the best of times, and the whole city had felt like a trap since we left the beachhead.

But you don’t dismiss that stuff.

You don’t dismiss it when it’s saved your life half a thousand times before, on worlds as far apart and different as Sharya and Adoracion.

When it’s wired into the core of who you are, deeper than the memory of your childhood.

My eyes ran a constant peripheral scan along the pagoda terracing. My right hand rested lightly on the weapons console.

Coming up on the wrecked scorpion gun.

Almost halfway.

There!

Flare of adrenalin analogue, rough through the synth system. My hand skittered on the fire control—

No.

Just the nodding flower heads on a stand of plant life sprouting up through the shattered carapace of the gun. Rain splatter knocking each flower gently down against the spring of its stalk.

My breathing eased back into action. We passed the scorpion gun and the halfway mark. The sense of impending impact stayed.

“You okay, Micky?” Sylvie’s voice in my ear.