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His descriptive monologue faltered in full flood when he thought his eyes detected at the back of the hall a fleeting silhouette alarmingly like his rival, Castor. Having meticulously built his climax, however, Cherry dared not break the tension by signalling his alarm to Tez in the projection room. With considerable presence of mind the holo-illusionist forced his voice to retain its tone of rising crescendo, yet the quaver which rose in his throat was not entirely the product of the illusion that the tablet of the floor on which they rode was irrevocably trapped by the gravitational attraction of a voracious singularity.

  So realistic was the accompanying projection that he knew every member of his audience was mentally bracing himself for the moment when the great radiationless event horizon was breached and they discovered what was contained in the forbidden regions beyond. Knowing Castor’s potential for dressing his spite in theatrical garb, Cherry, too, was pierced by a broad shaft of apprehension at the thought of what might happen when the great black orb seemingly swallowed them alive.

  Seconds later he found out. As the wave of perfect blackness engulfed them, so a great cyclone draught of freezing air blasted through the interior of the bubble-hall, chilling them all dramatically. At the same instant the power supply failed, and whereas the projectors should now have been picking up with hologram images of Cherry’s idea of ‘otherspace’, the darkness remained absolute.

  Nor was this all: from the sensation in his eardrums which caused him to swallow frantically, Cherry decided that the cold air injection was being made at a pressure far above that of the atmosphere. Had he intended to introduce physical effects to heighten the illusion, Cherry could scarcely have achieved it more realistically. The trouble was, he had not designed the situation, nor was it under his control.

  A woman began to scream with hysteria, seeding an infectious panic which swelled alarmingly as the members of the audience, convinced that something was dramatically out of hand, began to fight their way through the darkness to find the exits. Sweating with apprehension even in the chill atmosphere, Cherry knew their worst moments were still to come. The doors of the bubble-hall opened inwards and had been carefully counterbalanced against normal air pressure. With the rapidly rising pressure inside the hall, there was little chance of the doors being opened without the use of crowbars. Cherry also knew and feared how the impasse would be resolved.

  He clung desperately to his lecture console, fighting off the dark melee whenever it pressed too close, and waiting for the final blow from the hand of Nemesis. Then it happened: the great bubble-hall, its fabric stressed beyond all reasonable endurance, burst with a sound like the unwinding of the universe. The sudden fall in air pressure was acutely painful to the ears, but it was a pain made welcome by the sudden influx of circus lights as the fabric dome flared open and fell on the startled crowds on the surrounding promenades. Members of Cherry’s thoroughly frightened audience shouted with relief at their deliverance, and literally fought each other to be the first to leave by the now over-abundant routes available.

  Shortly the house-lights came back on, and Tez, his face bloody from a split on his forehead, peered uncomprehendingly from the projection box at the scenes of ruin below.

  ‘Don’t you think you overdid the realism on that run, Cherry?’

  ‘Spool-it!’ said Cherry wearily. ‘Wait till I get my hands on that rat-faced runt Castor. That must be the lousiest stinking trick he ever pulled. I’ll shake that old skeleton until his eyeballs rattle in their sockets.’

  Hearing a sudden noise behind him, Cherry looked round, aware for the first time that a small proportion of his audience had remained. The imperious stranger, half-man, half-machine, was still waiting impassively between his bodyguards, looking as though he had detected nothing untoward about the events of the past few minutes. He beckoned the perplexed Cherry to come towards him.

  ‘That was a very impressive and imaginative performance, Magician Cherry.’ The timbre of the man’s voice fully matched his outer signs of superiority. ‘Suffice it to say that your conception of the Solarian universe is utterly wrong, but you have good mastery of the magicians’ craft. I thought the ending was particularly unforgettable.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll forget it in a hurry, either,’ said Cherry unhappily. ‘It wasn’t supposed to end like that. I was sabotaged.’

  ‘Nonetheless I was able to verify what my researches had already told me about your proficiency with holo-illusions. Soon I think we shall talk some more. I shall have a proposition for you.’

  ‘I would welcome the opportunity to be of service,’ said Cherry in his silkiest tone. ‘By what name should I know my patron?’

  ‘They call me Land-a.’ The merest movement of the stranger’s finger was the sign for one of the bodyguards to pass Cherry a card with a legend seemingly written in silver wire pressed flush into the whiteness of its surface. Cherry scanned it, but could decipher only the fact that it was written in a non-Federation language which he did not know. He was about to ask for clarification when the stranger wheeled about abruptly, and with his retinue deployed expertly on either side, ran swiftly and smoothly from the ruins of the hall.

  Still holding the white card, Cherry had watched the wheeled enigma depart, wondering what manner of proposition such a man would offer a circus illusionist. His reverie was shattered by the arrival of Chi Nailer, the circus-marshal, with his disaster team. Despite the grim lines on Nailer’s face, his eyes were awash with an amusement too powerful for suppression.

  ‘You’ve really excelled yourself this time. Cherry! I’ve known you pull some crazy tricks before, but actually bursting a bubble-hall is the wildest yet. How the hell did you manage it?’

  ‘I was sabotaged. At a guess somebody connected us up to a circus pressure main. To judge from the temperature drop, what we actually received was intended for the ice-maidens next door.’

  Chi Nailer walked moodily through the torn folds of bubble fabric to examine the area where the great flexible pipes of the circus service mains ran untidily along the surface of the sand. The illusionist’s guess was proved a fact beyond doubt – a pressure manifold had indeed been coupled to the input of Cherry’s fan.

  Nailer grimaced. ‘I can see what was done, but I don’t see how it was done. It must have taken best part of half an hour to adapt that manifold. How come nobody saw it?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Cherry. ‘Kill that big overhead light over there, then flood the whole area with a terrain hologram of the same scene but projected about a metre higher. You could work underneath the projected image any length of time and nobody would ever know you were there.’

  ‘Which expert knowledge suggests Castor was responsible. This vendetta of yours is becoming a public menace. My disaster team has better things to do than attend crises you’ve manufactured for each other. I’ll give you fair warning, Cherry – if there’s one more incident like this whilst you’re under circus jurisdiction, I’ll personally guarantee you’ll neither of you ever work in a circus again. Is that perfectly clear?’

  ‘Do me a favour, Chi. Allow me one last crack at that rat-faced buzzard – just to even up the score.’

  ‘You’ve had your warning!’ Nailer called his team together and listened to a summary of their reports. Then he indicated the ruins of the bubble-hall. ‘And you’d better get this lot cleared fast, Cherry. Gives the circus a bad image.’

  ‘One last thing,’ said Cherry. ‘You’ve worked right round Mars shell, Chi. Can you read this for me?’ He handed Nailer the card which had been left by his mysterious visitor.

  The circus-marshal took the card, scanned it, and went stiff.

  ‘Where the hell did you get this?’

  ‘A character who was in here earlier, half man, half can. Reckons he’s going to have a proposition for me.’

  ‘You entertain a proposition from Land-a?’ Nailer’s voice trailed into incredulity. ‘Cherry, you twisted old nut, you’re becoming the victim of your own illusions.’

/>   ‘Why? Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a notorious prince from Hammanite, one of the farside egions outside the Federation. For some reason, when his part of the shell was being terraformed, all the platinum in the total specification got dumped in one spot – a whole mountain range of it. He’s reckoned to be the richest man on Mars shell.’

  ‘So why does that upset you?’

  ‘Because he uses his money to buy people. He imagines himself a sort of super-scientist, always arranging strange experiments and expeditions.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too bad to me.’

  ‘Cherry – most of the people he hires are never seen again. Better you go down with a fatal disease than get involved with Land-a. Tell you what I’ll do for you. I’ll have Circus Admin replace your bubble-hall free of charge. After all, it was their mains which blew it.’

  ‘In return for what?’ asked Cherry guardedly.

  ‘Forget about Land-a. And if he comes back with a proposition, don’t even consider it. You may be the bane of my life, but I wouldn’t wish a fate like that on you. Believe me, Cherry, I’ve been all round Mars shell. I know what I’m talking about.’ He stopped to answer the communicator on his belt, then sucked his lip. ‘There’s a police hunter-killer squad asking permission to land on our pads. I wonder which of you brigands they’re after this time?’

  Tez, his head bandaged and his face cleansed of blood, came back to the illusionist just as the disaster team pulled out.

  ‘What are you going to do about Castor, Cherry? Chi isn’t fooling when he says he’ll have you out of the circus if he catches you having another crack at him.’

  ‘My boy,’ said Cherry amiably, ‘perhaps we needn’t worry too much about Chi. How would you like to work in a proper holo-establishment – everything fixed and permanent and computerised? How about our own holo-theatre?’

  ‘Sounds like heaven, Cherry. Did you get a crack on the head too?’

  ‘No. But I think I’ve got a patron – a big one. Somebody so powerful he even scares the pants off Chi Nailer.’

  ‘And he’d back us?’

  ‘I think he might. He owns a whole mountain of platinum. Chi’s warned me off, but I think it’s only jealousy. If it’s the last thing I do in circus, I’m going to have one last crack at Castor. If Chi gets unreasonable about it, then we’ve still this other possibility left to fall back on. Go get your scratchpad, Tez, and let’s get down to some planning. This has to be a real masterpiece of holo-illusion – just in case it should also be our farewell performance.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Enter Mistress Sin

  IN THE earlier days of the frantic race to construct more living space for a human population growing nearly exponentially, absolute control by Zeus had not yet been established. At that time, the first great shell of the Solarian system was starting to be built around the twenty-four terraformed worlds of Mars-orbit, and thirty-one new worlds were being constructed in the Asteroid belt. Yet despite these mind-staggering increases in available living space, the old lessons in the history of overpopulation had bitten deeply, and much unauthorised emigration took place even to new-made worlds not yet finished for human habitation.

  Some of these earlier ‘pirate’ colonies became cut off from all contact with mainstream humanity for many centuries, and their loss and eventual rediscovery gave rise to many legends. One of the more curious of these tales concerns a dissident political community which settled a new-made world in Mars-orbit, called Engel. Their communal policy of absolute equality for all living things blasted their society apart when they found themselves co-sharing the planet, so it is said, with some curiously aquatic creatures who were fully gene-compatible.

  Critics of the story can produce abundant proof that such a happening was a biological and evolutionary impossibility. Whatever the origin of the mutant strain, however, the results are consistent with the fact that a mere four generations of cohabitation so hopelessly entangled the bloodlines that the resultant hybrids had to be accepted as a new ethnic group. Their skins were tinged with green, their aquatic abilities were astonishing, and their rapacity, guile and lack of conscience became legends in themselves.

  The final construction of the Mars shell and the relegation of Engel to the status of a ‘caged’ world spread the wily green Engelians far and wide. As is often the case with descendants of unrelated gene-stock, many bore the dominant traits of both parental bloodlines. The men were frequently handsome and athletic, whilst most of the women were possessed of an outlandish, heart-stopping attractiveness which made them virtually impossible either to ignore or forget. Both sexes were characterised by a keen intelligence, and all shared the common traits of acquisitiveness and lack of conscience. And one of the more attractive of these deadly daughters was Sine Anura.

  The relevance of this digression is that not more than a mile from the scene of Cherry’s recent misfortune, on one of the minor ways where circus rents were cheap and the side-shows made little pretence at finesse, there was a hard-topped hall devoted to exploiting the talents of one, Mistress Sin, ‘The Sea Devil’s Daughter’, who, unexpectedly if her claimed parentage was true, had to fight naked under water three times daily with loathsome and dangerous sea creatures in order to make a living.

  That Sine Anura and Mistress Sin were one and the same is obvious. What was not obvious was the fact that the sea creatures she fought were perfectly genuine and fully as dangerous as the signs proclaimed, and that the elements of showmanship were here truthfully surpassed by the truly amazing aquatic and combatant abilities of Mistress Sin herself.

  A further fact which was concealed was that Sine Anura was wanted by the Federation police on no less than sixteen counts, and that she had chosen to run with the Solarian Circus as a way of achieving anonymity without limiting her freedom to travel, because her major talents were other than those she displayed on the creatures in the tank.

  It was directly to this unlikely venue that the silently-wheeled Land-a and his retinue proceeded. Their choice of destination was obviously no casual affair, and their arrival in the closed period between shows was no accident of timing. Treem Admel, Mistress Sin’s manager, and a man seemingly on the very edge of physical and mental collapse, was on a high stage effecting the transfer of some particularly dangerous sea creatures from security containers into the demonstration tank when one of Land-a’s aides smashed down the flimsy door of the hall. The shock of the surprise entry was such that the pallid and shaking Treem nearly leaped into the tank himself, a situation he would have had no capacity to survive.

  ‘We’re closed – go away! The next showing is at twenty-seven hours.’

  Land-a’s silent wheels bore him into the auditorium, and his team became neatly deployed around him. He looked at the wan and shaking Treem, and his expression was one of extreme disgust.

  ‘Where’s the hell-bitch Sine Anura?’

  Treem’s mouth was wide with fear and fascination. He had never before considered anything as daunting as a man with only head and arms, and with the rest of what was left of him completely enclosed in a wheeled container. He struggled to become articulate again.

  ‘Do you mean Mistress Sin?’

  ‘I mean Sine Anura – whatever alias she’s adopting this year. Fetch her, or I’ll have you fed to those filthy fish, and do the job myself.’

  The luckless Treem stole one despairing glance at the horrific occupants of the demonstration tank and descended hastily from the high staging.

  ‘I’ll try to wake her, but she’s resting. She’ll be very angry. Who shall I say wants her?’

  At a nod from Land-a, one of the aides handed him a card imprinted with silver hieroglyphics.

  ‘Give her that. She’ll understand.’

  ‘What will I understand?’ Sine had quietly come in from behind them. Taken by surprise, the whole group turned about to face the green-tinged hostility of the incredibly attractive girl who had them all covered by a broad-beamed photon
gun.

  Land-a nodded to an aide to offer her a card. She made no attempt to take it, and indicated that the fellow should keep his distance, though her sharp eyes focused narrowly on the silver legend.

  ‘The writing I don’t read,’ she said. ‘But the smell I recognise. Prince Land-a, who imagines he owns everyone on Mars shell.’

  ‘At your service!’ said Land-a evenly.

  ‘You’re way out of your territory, Land-a. What sort of carrion hunt fetches you this far into civilisation?’

  ‘Carrion like Sine Anura, I ask you to believe. I’m recruiting skills for one of my little projects, and it’s surprising what wild and deadly talents one finds in the shades of the Solarian Circus.’

  ‘Why call on me? There are … others.’

  ‘Few as totally lacking in conscience or as practiced in lies. None I think as skilled in seduction and erotica.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time, Land-a. I’m not interested in your schemes.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten my reputation. I always get what I want. I’ve even taken out insurance on the outcome. The Federation police have been informed of who and where you are. My information is that a hunter-killer squad is already on its way.’

  ‘You work with the hunters?’ For the first time the girl’s certainty seemed to crack.

  ‘A purely circumstantial arrangement,’ said Land-a smoothly. ‘And the circumstance is that I have the only ship on this part of the shell which the police can’t touch. Not only do I have diplomatic immunity, but I can out-talk, outrun and outshoot anything this forsaken sector of Mars shell has to offer. Your choice is simple – you know what the psyches will do to you if they ever get you pinned down in a police cell. Why take the risk, Mistress Sin. I’m here to offer you my protection in return for a few favours.’

  For one moment Sine Anura allowed her attention to waver. As the photon gun in her hand drifted from its deadly focus, so one of Land-a’s henchmen launched himself like a tiger in an attempt to smash the weapon from her hands. Land-a gave a little involuntary cry of alarm at the projected outcome of such an ill-advised assault.