Attanasio, AA - Solis

"Why are we stopping here?" Mei asks.

"I want to record the sunset over the Avenue of Limits. It's a good bridge shot for the first clip." He steps out into the simmering evening.

To one side, in the direction from where they have come, the citadel of Terra Tharsis dominates the highlands, the breadth of its vallation dark as a ruby in the long sun shafts, the skytowers silver-veiled and dazzling with laser points of gemlight. In streaks, flares, and fiery globes, the scarlet-plumed sky hoards the last of the day's sun, and the rooftops on the lava slopes shimmer with purple flames.

In the other direction, the wilds of Mars catch the twilight in gleams of

amber glass and crimson smears of slurry, a dim and barren badland that

stretches away into darkness. Shanty sheds crowded among behemoth warehouses and industrial barns front the wilderness. Lux wires and torch globes pour light

like magma through the tight lanes and burrows at the very brink of the hungry darkness.

"This is the Avenue of Limits," Shau announces, fortifying himself with a

sniff of ergal from a pinky ring. The stimulating olfact makes the stifling heat seem more bearable, even invigorating. With an expression of determination, he looks to Mei, who has gotten out of the car and strolls away from him. "From here, the journey to Solis really begins. Rabana's been in touch by cable phone to the local copy office in Britty, and they've relayed her messages on my

timpan-com. She says Softcopy has data on three caravans lading for departure from here to Solis. But two are sure losers, religious fanatics from the Outlands who expect divine help in crossing the wilds."

Mei listens absently. She stands at the edge of the terminus bed, staring down the slope of the skimway to where the concrete-block walls and derelict

buildings begin. No people are in sight. "it looks abandoned."

"It is," Shau says, stepping alongside her and pointing into the distance to where a devastated swatch of debris breaks the shoreline of packed-together sheds, ricks, storeyards, and longhouses. "A failback took seven whole blocks out a short while ago. The magravity border fluctuates. It usually extends into the wilds about a kilometer beyond here. But sometimes it falls back, and when that happens, whole sections of the Avenue are ripped apart by the abrupt gravitational shift. The clips I've seen are really spectacular-whole buildings launching into the sky and breaking apart. Some of the debris has been found a hundred kilometers away."

Shadow shapes stir within the crepuscular fields below, but when Mei looks closer they are only cane-grass stirring in the wind among piles of old scantlings. "What about the third caravan Rabana foundis that a more reliable group?"

The reporter juts his lower lip dubiously. "The trek captain is some kind of entrepreneur, but he's also an extraordinary mechanic. He's run a

wilderness-tour service out of Britty for years. A wealthy eccentric from the Honor of Giants has hired him to captain the trek and is putting up the credits for the equipment. She wants to donate all her energy and assets to Solis and is determined to get there in one piece. With her backing and his expertise, this caravan is our best shot. Softcopy will pay our passage in exchange for the exclusive news-clip and drama rights."

"Someone's down there," Mei says, pointing to the junkyard below them. "They've been watching us."

"I don't see anyone."

Mei fixes her focus on the ruddy yellow lux wires grid-ding the Avenue of Limits and with her sharper peripheral vision spies figures crouching, through the scrub of the eroded hills. "They're coming," she says, backing from the edge of the terminus bed. "Call Munk."

"I don't see anyone."

Mei slips into the car. But she has no credit codes to activate it and hops out again. "Come on, Bandar. Let's get out of here."

The reporter approaches the vehicle casually, orgulous with the olfact

sparking in him. "I've been here before. There's nothing to be afraid of. If you saw anyone, it's probably the traders who lurk around the storehouses, wanting

to barter."

"Just get us out of here."

Shau eases behind the yoke and taps his cuff onto the credit plate, but the car doesn't start. He adjusts the microswitch insets in his cuff and tries again. But the control panel remains dark. "I don't get it," he mumbles.

"Call Munk, dammit."

The reporter fidgets with his cuff switches and is shaking his head bewildered when the first figures shamble up the embankment. Against the sky's last opal cracks of light they are hunched, hooded silhouettes wielding pipes and clubs. Their sudden shrieks snap Shau's fixation with his cuff controls, and he rears

back in fright.

"Damn! They must have cut the power cables to the skimway."

Mei reaches across him and pulls down his door, slapping the lock into place. "Get Munk on the comlink, Bandar. Do it!"

Shau complies with trembling fingers. "Munk! Munk! Androne, are you reading?" Ten big mongrel morphs leap about the car, slamming their clubs on the plastic

dome. With the third blow it cracks, and with the next one it shatters into a splash of molecular dust. Whoops and hollers flap into the night, and large, splayed, four-fingered hands reach in and yank the passengers from the car.

Mei tucks her knees and kicks out with all her might, pushing free of her assailant. She twists to the ground and scuttles on all fours. But two other morphs seize her arms, and she's hoisted upright to see Shau flopped facedown on the hood of the car, the hulking bandits tearing off his jacket and his rings. His mouth is wide with pain and fear, his teeth black with blood. One of the morphs grabs the reporter's long braid of hair and jerks his head back. Another slides a curve of blade under Shau's straining throat.

"No!" Mei screams.

Delirious hollers carom shrilly into the night, warbling into howls at the sight of the slim jumper writhing between her captors.

Beads of dark blood appear under Shau Bandar's jaw, and his eyes swivel wildly in their sockets. He groans in thick guttural bursts, pleading for his life.

Up from the embankment where the morphs first appeared, a silver cowl rises, cloaking a darkness with no face. "S-ss-s-t!" the androne directs a hypercompressed packet of sound waves at the morph holding the knife, and the blade wrenches free and clatters into the car.

"Let them go," Munk commands in a thunderous voice.

The morphs drop Mei and release Shau, then rapidly scatter, dissolving into the darkness with tattered whines and aimless cries. A moment later, a pipe wings out of the dark, slashing toward where Mei has risen to one knee. The androne bounds forward in a chrome streak and plucks the projectile out of the air less than a meter from the jumper's head. With a deft wrist snap, the pipe whirls whistling back into the night and finds a mortal shriek.

"I came as quickly as I could," Munk says, helping Mei to her feet. "I heard your distress on the link."

"Help Bandar," she says. "He's been cut."

"I'm okay," Shau declares tartly. He holds a shred of his shirt to the superficial cut at his throat and glares wrathfully into the dark where the morphs retreated. "They slashed my dignity more than my flesh. Gruesome things! They're distorts, not people. They must be destroyed."

"Who are they?" Mei asks, rubbing feeling back into her wrists.

"I tell you, they're distorts," Shau croaks with anger. "There's no real law

in the Outlands. Rogues run their own vats out here and morph gangs of homicidal brutes-distorts--to protect their territories. Sometimes the distorts range wildly. The posses that hunt them down are always a popular run in the news clips."

Mei puts a hand on the plasteel capsule under the androne's arm. "Munk, where have you been? Why did you run away?"