Copyright 1986 by Walter Jon Williams Chapter One

before, that she's looked into those eyes in the rearview mirror, as this particular white man

drove Cunningham's car down the neon streets to her apartment. Cunningham's big assistant.

Then the panzer smashes the Subaru against the farmhouse and it crumples like a tin can,

the panzer bounding off, heading for the ridge, its speed building. Cowboy's voice is ringing in

her mind. "Get down inside, Sarah, you've done all you can." Sarah is still staring aft in shock,

staring at the smoking, scattered tableau where Cunningham's driver lies like a sack of meal.

The turret gun begins to moan again, able to depress now that the panzer's climbing the

ridge, and the unarmored ground-effects truck is riddled, the fuel tanks erupting in washes of

flame. No sign of the two men who drove it; they're probably both chunks of shredded meat on the

other side. Cunningham's man, she thinks. And the rocket. Daud.

The minigun is still firing as Sarah numbly climbs down the hatchway, trying to protect

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herself against the wild swings of the panzer. She dogs the hatch down over her head and dives for

the bunk. Seven-millimeter casings roll jingling across the metal deck.

"Time to hide, Sarah." Cowboy's voice comes both in her head and ears.

"Time to find a deep hole and hide."

You can't, she wants to say. You can't hide from them.

She pulls the headset off, closes her eyes, and tries to escape into blackness.

Chapter Seven

TAMPA'S TOTALS OVERNITE, AS OF 8 THIS MORNING: 22 FOUND DEAD WITHIN CITY LIMITS...LUCKY WINNERS

COLLECT AT ODDS OF 18 TO 1

POLICE DENY CHARGES OF FIXING (RELATED STORY ON PAGE 3)

The panzer waits for nightfall in a narrow fold of ground between the Blue Mountains and

the Tuscaroras, having followed a shallow creek between green bluffs into a quiet swale studded

with pine. Cowboy sips some orange-flavored electrolyte replacement and squats on a fragrant bed

of pine needles. His mind is cool and clear, but tremors are running through his limbs, the

aftereffects of too much adrenaline. Through the trees he can see a hawk flying against the sun,

wings spread to catch the thermals.

Lucky, he thinks. That the first rocket went for Andrei. That they assumed the panzer was

unarmed except for Sarah in the hatch. Otherwise the first rocket would have been aimed right in

his lap. Maybe it would have got through the armor, maybe not. His muscles tremble at the thought.

"Those people were trying to kill us," he says. "I figured if anybody's story survived, it

had better be ours."

Sarah looks out into a dappled meadow and frowns. Her hand is never far from the gun on

her hip. "Too bad about those truck drivers, though. They were just hired help."

"Then they shouldn't have tried to play with the likes of us," Cowboy says. He can feel

indignation prickling along his neck and shoulders at the idea of being ambushed by a collection

of shabby players like that. He frowns at the blue-green Tuscaroras. "This'll be all over the

screamsheets in another few hours," he says. "Those escorts Andrei hired for the panzer weren't

his people, right? Just some local escort service with a license from the police that'll be

revoked if they get into trouble. They'll have seen the panzer go down that turn and then heard

half the world blow up. No way they aren't going to tell the local laws."

"I've got to talk to Michael the Hetman," Sarah says. "This was a move against him, and it

was by one of the Orbitals. "

Cowboy feels shock prickling the hairs on his arms. He looks up at her. "How do you know

that?"

worked for the Orbitals. One of their...security units. For a man named Cunningham. Cunningham had

to have set this up." Cowboy stares at his silvered image in the mirrors over her eyes and wonders

what he's stepped into, how high this dirtgirl's profile is. And how much he's been soiled by

whatever it is she's mixed up with.

Sarah's voice turns soft. As if what she's saying is something so personal she can only

speak of it in whispers. "And they've used rockets before. Fired one at me."

And now Cowboy knows. He's covered with Sarah's mess, and the smartest thing he can do is

say adios and climb back into the panzer, stud into the eye-face, and fly away and never look

back. Whoever is firing those rockets wants this scar-faced dirtgirl and doesn't care who gets

splashed on the way to her. He represses an urge to look over his shoulder.

"Which Orbital?" he asks. "How strong are they on the ground here?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. They wouldn't tell me. "

"Wouldn't tell you when?"

She takes a breath and suddenly he can see the sadness in her, that in spite of the armor

and gun and shades and swagger she's very alone here, sitting in some dead-end Blue Mountain

valley and trying to think of a next move. A street animal lost and blind, running on adrenaline

and instinct and knowing there are footsteps right behind her, each one bringing the enemy closer.

"When I worked for them," she says. And she tells him a story about how she was trained

for a job and did it for them, and afterward they decided she was a risk and fired a rocket into

her apartment and hit her brother. Who, according to her, had nothing to do with the original

deal. Cowboy can tell there's a lot more to it than that, and tries to decide whether he ought to

press her on it. There might be a detail that could save them both. But he knows she doesn't trust

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him yet, and decides to wait. He's out of it anyway, once he can get the panzer clear.

"So I've got to talk to the Hetman," she says. "Let him know what's happened so that he

can make peace with those people." Cowboy watches her manner grow distant. She licks her lips.

"Too bad," she says, "that part of his price for peace will probably be turning me over to them."

Cowboy shakes his head. "Don't jump to those kind of conclusions so early," he says. "He

might not get his peace on any terms, and then you and Michael are in the same boat." He thinks

for a moment, not liking this business of trying to see into a war where he doesn't know any of

the players. His profile is suddenly higher than it's ever been, and he has no idea when or from

where the next blow might fall. He finishes his drink and stands, crumpling the plastic cup in his

hand.

hearts and he'll want them back. He'll have to keep you alive until he can locate his shipment."

He feels reluctant amusement bubbling along his spine. "In the meantime I'll call the Dodger-this

friend of mine-and he'll send some transport to get us out. Or maybe even set up a run across the

Line to Colorado with you as a passenger." He laughs. "Then the Hetman may have to pay me to run

his crystal back."

Sarah looks at him without expression. "You just can't run across tonight?"

Cowboy shakes his head. "I can't make a legal run, because the laws will be looking. And I

can't make a contraband run, because I don't have enough fuel, and also because that minigun's the

only weapon I've got and I used up most of the ammunition. So we'll have to get some people

working for us. Probably the best thing to do is hide the panzer here and arrange to pick it up

later."

hours," he says. "Best to spend our time resting. We won't get much sleep tonight."

Sarah shakes her head and takes a deep breath. "I doubt I could sleep if I tried," she

says.

He dumps the crumpled plastic cup in the trash and lowers himself into his contoured seat.

He jacks a stud into his forehead and scans the channels, hoping to catch a news broadcast.

When he does, it's a local video screamsheet, and it's his own face that's rotating in the

holographic presentation, a photograph he doesn't even remember being taken that's been enhanced

to 3-D.

And Cowboy realizes that it isn't Sarah these people are looking for.

They want him.

NEW VIRAL HUNTINGTON'S CASES REACH 100,000 IN U.S. EPIDEMIC CONTINUES TO GROW

The panzer sits in a midnight creek just east of the main rise of the Allegheny range.

Cowboy and Sarah have walked two kilometers into town and the only public phone they've found has

been disemboweled by what appears to have been a chainsaw. Now they're watching a tavern and

wondering if strangers would be noticed there.

Cowboy's been monitoring the newscasts and police broadcasts from the moment they turned

interesting, and it seems that he's the only one they're looking for. There's no mention of

another person in the panzer, and that means that even if the same people who are after him want

Sarah, it's just an accident that she's with him. His description and a description of the panzer

have been delivered to the police across the country, and he's so blazing hot that even though

he's wearing the dark wig the Dodger made him buy for his emergency pack, with a visored cap

jammed down low on his forehead, he can feel the crosshairs pasted over his heart. Sarah had to

talk him out of wearing a plastic belly gun, guaranteed to pass the detectors about 60 percent of

the time, pointing out that there was a 40-percent chance of the gun's getting him killed. But

still he wishes he had the comforting solidity pressed against his stomach.

Sarah, on the other hand, is invisible, and Cowboy wants her with him. The enemy will be

looking for a lone man, and she lowers his profile. She also knows at least some of the enemy's

faces.

Still, he figures the odds aren't good. The Dodger's got to get him away from this war in

The tavern is called Oliver's and it's breathing a late-night Saturday crowd in and out

with each pulse of the litejack music that's playing seven beats against sixteen from the inside.

Cowboy and Sarah watch the place for a while as neon-colored holograms waver in the windows and

the music begins to play eleven against four. The local cops pass by once without showing any

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interest in its clientele.

"Let's go before they come again," Sarah says. Cowboy nods but somehow he doesn't want to

move. Sarah gives him a hard-alloy glance.

"Think of me as your bodyguard," she says. "It's something I know how to do."

The tavern breathes them in. Fluorescent holograms burn Oliver's ceiling and walls with

cool, persistent fire. It is the only illumination except for a plain white spotlight trained on

an expressionless man standing on the stage with five instruments plugged into his head, his

monochrome shadow standing behind him like a male Medusa. He's playing all the instruments at

once, five against seven now. People ace dancing through his changes, even the zoned moving to his

complex, compelling rhythms. "My heart is alloy," he recites, "I live in boxes." The voice is a

breathless whisper that stands apart from the rest of the music, alone in ironic solitude.

Cowboy likes hearing old favorites, but mainly he's grateful for the fact that it's dark.

Sarah is shrugged down into her jacket and has turned off the challenging swagger, and Cowboy's

grateful for that, too. He and Sarah wander through the tavern without anyone seeming to pay any

attention. There is a pay phone in a hallway leading to the toilet. Cowboy changes some bills at

the bar into crystal money on a credit needle, and sticks the phone's optional audio stud into his

head. It has a thin mic that trails to the corner of his mouth for a speaker.

It is the Dodger's wife who answers. Jutz is a wiremuscled blond woman who runs the

Dodger's ranch while he's away, and she knows her end of the business well. She sounds as if

Cowboy's got her out of bed.

"Jutz," he says, "is the Dodger there?"

"Cowboy," she says, "don't tell me where you are. They're probably monitoring this line."

Her timbre chills his nerves like liquid helium. There is a tremor in her voice, a well-

controlled fear. Suddenly the little hallway seems very small.

"What's happened?" he asks.

"Listen carefully." Her words are carefully spaced and enunciated to avoid her having to

repeat them. Fear overtones quaver at the hard edges of her consonants. Cowboy closes his eyes and

presses his forehead to the comforting, solid reality of the metal phone.

"The Dodger has been shot. They tried to kill him in his car but he managed to get away.

He's in the hospital now and I've got guards around him. Don't try to visit him, and don't call me

again. Just find some safe place to hide and stay there until the situation clarifies."

The door to the toilet opens and Cowboy flashes a look over his shoulder, feeling his

vulnerability. A man with bright glazed eyes steps out and gives Cowboy a friendly smile as he

passes by. Cowboy hunches into himself and whispers into the mic. "Who's doing this?"

"Word is it's Arkady. That he's moving in on the other thirdmen and on the panzerboys. He

wants you in particular."

A distorted dark-haired stranger, his reflection on the bright metal phone chassis, stares

at Cowboy in cold-eyed anger. "He almost got me this afternoon," Cowboy says. "He's fighting his

war here now. And he's given my face and name to the laws." Cowboy feels as if gravity is

suspended, as if he were in a panzer soaring off the crest of a ridge that has turned into the lip

of a black and bottomless canyon.

A tone sounds on Cowboy's aural crystal. He studs a credit needle into the phone and lets

the machine take his money.

"Hide, Cowboy," Jutz says. "We don't know who to trust, and we can't set up a run to get

you back West. Arkady's dealt with everybody at one time or another, and we don't know who are his

men and who's on our side. So everyone's running for cover."

"Arkady's got a bloc behind him." Cowboy looks wildly to either side, afraid that his

whisper will be overheard. "Tell everyone that."

"Which one?" But suddenly there is a click and Jutz is gone. Cowboy knows who's listening

now. His lips pull back in a snarl.

"Too late," he says. "I'm gone."

He unjacks and steps out of the hallway. Sarah stands watching the dance floor. He gives

her the credit needle. "Call the Hetman, but make it quick," he says. "We're compromised here.

Your bloc has its thumb on communications. " He stands outside the short hallway and watches.

Plenty of time, he thinks. They probably traced the call, but the chance of their having any

people sitting within a few minutes of this particular bar are nil, and they've got no liaison

with the local cops. It'll take a long time to get through to anyone in this burg. But still he

feels rushes of fear speeding up his spine, and his eyes count the exits. If the laws come in,

he's got his escape routes planned.

"I have what you need," insinuates the voice from the singer, "I can keep the flames

away."

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already moving toward the exit. "He's in hiding somewhere. But I talked to one of his people." She

shakes her head. "It's chaos. There's a war going on, but the sides aren't very clear. Michael and

most of his people seem to be safe for the moment, because he put the word out to be careful.

Andrei was the only...casualty, aside from snagboys and the like. "

Cowboy swings a fire door open and steps into an alley. His eyes adjust quickly to the

light. There are rusting steel dumpsters complete with cats, and several people are sleeping

uncovered in the August heat that radiates from the old concrete, glowing in Cowboy's infrared

perception. Some drunk, some looking, some just lost. Like any small-town alley.

"They said to hide," Sarah says. "They'll pick up the computer hearts when things cool

down in this part of the world.

"No way for us to get home?"

"None where we won't get assassinated the second we show up in the Free Zone. No one knows

who to trust."

"Whom," says Cowboy.

He is walking fast for the far end of the alley, fists in his pockets, trying to keep his

bootsteps quiet. One of the sleeping men stirs on his threadbare blanket and calls a name. His

bulging, uncovered belly gleams pale in the night.

"We're on our own then," Cowboy says. He steps to the end of the alley and glances left

and right. A woman's laughter echoes from the curb. He steps across the street and into another

alley.

Sarah's voice behind makes him stop in his tracks. "I found out who Cunningham works for.

Cowboy spins in surprise. "The boy on the phone told you?"

"I told him the Orbitals were involved, and why. And he knew Cunningham, had dealt with

him on some security matter. "

The loathing in her voice is clear. Even in the darkness he can see the hatred plain in

her eyes.

"It's Tempel. Tempel Pharmaceuticals I.G."

Cowboy hears the name and feels his heart quicken. Deep inside him he feels a howl

building, a shriek of triumph like the panzer's jets as he opens the valves of pressured alcohol.

Because, however little good it will do him right now, he finally knows the name of the enemy.

WOHNEN SIE IN LEID-STADT? ERLAUBEN SIE UNS IHNEN NACH HAPPYVILLE SCHICKEN! -Pointsman

Pharmaceuticals A.G.

Tempel Interessengemeinschaft, Cowboy thinks. The Fellowship of Interests Tempel. A lot of

the Orbitals have I.G. after their names, and no wonder. It's such a perfect description of their

state of mind.

He and Sarah are back at the panzer, sitting on its dorsal armor while the creek ripples

across the ramming prow. Sarah is cradling the machine pistol in her arms, a cold and deadly

child. Clouds are moving across the stars and they are alone in the darkness.

"I don't have any money beyond pocket change," Cowboy says. "I usually carry some gold in

the panzer, to use if I have to buy some lawmen." He shakes his head. "But this delivery was

supposed to be legal. No reason to suppose the cops would be interested." He gives an unamused

laugh. "And I was supposed to be back in Florida tonight."

Sarah says nothing, simply shifts the weight of the machine pistol. She's got the long

suppressor on the barrel, and the thing won't make so much as a whisper if she has to use it. He

already knows she doesn't have a dime.

"I won't be able to access my portfolio," he goes on, thinking aloud. "If the laws are all

cooperating, Arkady and his people will be able to follow every transaction, or even freeze my

action. I've got gold cached back in New Mexico and Wyoming, but that's a long walk from here."

"We've got the matrices," Sarah says. Her voice seems loud after such a long silence.

"They're worth a fortune if we can move them."

Cowboy looks up at her. "Do you know anyone you can trust with that amount of merchandise?

I don't."

"We don't have to sell the whole cargo. Just enough to get us where we want to go."

Cowboy hears a mosquito dancing near his ear. His nerves are urging him to take the panzer

out of here, telling him they are too near the phone that they used to call two compromised lines.

But until he knows where they're going there doesn't seem to be any sense in moving. His fuel

situation is too critical for wandering in circles.

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Wait, he thinks. He looks up at the sky. Wait until the clouds move in.

He remembers the nights he flew the Pony Express through storm clouds, his crystal tuned

to the weather bureau so that he could track the bad weather and hide in it, the delta diving past

the rain that drummed on the canopy, through crepe blackness so complete, so tangible, that the

world of the hissing aircraft, the softly glowing instrument lights, seemed to be the entirety of

existence, the boundaries of the universe extending no more than an arm's length beyond the canopy

and all his memories of an earthly existence now some fond, distant, entirely irrelevant

hallucination, the only other thing existing in that world, besides Cowboy and the plane living in

their interface, the echo of Cowboy's own breath in the confined space of his helmet. Remembering

the sudden eruption of sheet lightning that turned the velvet sky brighter than day, the delta a

matte-black needle flung against the shimmering, streaming opalescent neverending electric

dream...A vision he could never share, never achieve anywhere else. A belonging, a completeness,

that he could never talk about. Not even to those who flew with him. Just a shining in his eyes, a

glow in his mind. And sometimes, he could tell, in the mind of others.

"Maybe I know someone," he says. "Maybe I know someone who's been out of the game so long

they won't be looking for him."

HEARTS AND MINDS

It is late afternoon. The world has paused to catch its breath, and the ice-cream streets

melt slowly in the sun. The people of Pennsylvania wait in the hush for the twilight that will

soften the tempered Gerber edges of their world.

The panzer is hidden in a half-flooded quarry, the old road leading to the place now

overgrown by brush so thick only the badgers know the crumbling pair of ruts. Cowboy and Sarah

walk down the half-rural street that is called the something-or-other pike, Cowboy with a

cardboard box propped on his shoulder, shielding his face from the traffic. Sarah treads quietly

behind, her footsteps smothered by the grassy verge. Another pair of refugees with their

rucksacks, not worth a second glance, not even bothering to stick out a hopeful thumb.

Since midnight they've been heading west, winding up the Alleghenies, following the

Youghiogheny River through the passes of the western Appalachians, switching afterward to the old

Penn Central roadbed as it loops northwest to the city. Pittsburgh is a boomtown now after decades

of decline, reviving as a transportation center and the new capital of Pennsylvania, one of the

places the blocs hadn't bothered to smash to ruins. Cowboy has seen pictures of the new capital, a