Jon Grimwood - Pashazade

'Car,' said Raf and seconds later the fat man's Cadillac rolled up to the kerb, white-walled tyres freshly washed. 'The precinct,' Raf told his new driver, 'and then home.'

'Whatever you say.' Skin like chocolate, eyes hidden behind mirror lenses, black cap balanced at an angle on his dreadlocked skull, Avatar nodded.

Zara's half-brother had recently got the Cadillac's shell sandblasted back to bare metal at a fly-by-night bodyshop out at Karmous. Then he'd had the twelve-cylinder super-tuned somewhere different. So now it roared like the devil and every surface burned with sunlight. The boy was arguing for a quad Blaupunkt sound system, flat speakers set into the leather door trim. To date Raf had been holding out, but it wasn't an argument he was about to win.

'You called my sister yet?' Avatar demanded.

Raf shook his head.

'You plan to call her?'

'We've got ten minutes to get to the Precinct,' Raf said firmly and pretended not to notice Avatar's grin.

It was only when the shining car overshot his turning and kept gunning down Iskander el Akhbar towards Glymonopolo that he realized the boy intended that Raf should make a meeting all right, just not at the Precinct. And not with the Minister.

Raf could live with that.

Thanks to

Pathology guy Ed Friedlander MD for answering idiot questions on exactly what happens if someone sticks a spike in your heart. Everyone at rec.arts.sf.science for endless tolerance in the face of questions about genetic manipulation, wheelworlds, gravity and the nasty side-effects of vacuum (okay, we're going back some years here). The now-nameless Islamic academic who provided information on Sufìsm. I'm sorry my Packard Hell P3 trashed all your details. New Scientist, just for existing. Dick Jude, ex head-honcho of Forbidden Planet, New Oxford Street for taking a punt on neoAddix and declaring that 'Weird Shit was a perfectly good publishing category. The Upper Street lunchtime crew, including but not limited to Pat Cadigan, Paul McAuley, Kim Newman and (Jay) Russell Schechter. John Jarrold, ace editor, drinker and quoter of Shakespeare. Maggie Noach (you said it would take four books and you were right ...) A tip of the hat to Martin (Thraxas) Millar, whose novel Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation acted as a roadmap to the late 80s. Peter Sherwen, who froze on Bergen bandstand and crashed my bike in Morocco, then decided to ride it back to London because the forks 'weren't that bent.' And finally to my parents. Hindu shrines, Buddhist temples, deserted Far Eastern beaches and yet another bloody chateau ... Much of these books I owe to you. (That's a compliment.)