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Tani hauled himself back on to his feet. ‘You were ready to take that chance?’

It crossed my mind,’ Toos said. ‘What do we do now?’

‘Have you got any money on you?’

Toos gestured with her open hands and looked down at her ripped dress. ‘Where do you imagine I’d be carrying it?’

Tani snorted. ‘I’ll have to call in some favours.’

‘My credit is impeccable,’ Toos said, ‘but I don’t imagine that counts for much round here, does it?’

Tani shook his head and grinned. ‘Business transactions are strictly your money or your life.’

They started walking further into the complex. It would soon be full daylight but it seemed to Toos that everything was getting dimmer and gloomier.

‘Is it all as cheerful as this?’ she asked.

‘Only the richer and more exclusive parts.’ Tani said. ‘Still,’

he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, ‘at least you don’t have to share its joys with that thing.’

Prompted by the gesture, Toos glanced back for a last look at the thwarted killer robot. It was no longer standing by the buggy and the helpless fallen Voc. It had walked on past them and it was striding up the road into the complex. Toos froze. She whispered, ‘It’s still coming.’ Sudden blazing anger roared through her. There was no end to this. It was beyond bearing.

She turned on Tani in fury. ‘I’m going to die in the Sewerpits because of you,’ she raged. ‘It’s going to kill me here in the worst place in the world because you liked my arse, you horny moron!’

‘No,’ Tani said calmly. ‘It’s not going to get to you here. I know this place. It’ll never find you.’ He took hold of her arm with his good hand and pulled her along with him. ‘You’re safe here. Trust me.’

Once again they broke into a run. ‘Trust you?’ Toos scoffed.

‘I trusted you when you said it couldn’t get in here at all.’

‘I didn’t think it could,’ Tani panted. ‘Maybe it isn’t a robot.’

‘Maybe there is no boundary,’ Toos said dismissively.

‘Yes there is,’ Tani said. ‘There definitely is. But maybe now there’s a robot that can cross it.’

For the first time since he picked her up Toos thought Tani sounded as though he might be genuinely anxious.

Dawn was coming but the streets were still dark and deserted enough for the nightstalkers to be active, and they found it, and they had no idea it was a robot. It looked like the best kind of quarry as it hurried through the deserted alleys. Average size, well-dressed, lost and alone. Too tempting to pass up. But they were careful. Word was that there were quarry wandering about who looked likely but were killers, traps set for them. One of the chasers had been there and seen it when two easy girls had slaughtered four. No time for fun to be run with this one.

Straight business this one. Plenty of chasers, kill him with the stuns.

The robot was flexibly lethal. It had re-factored the options and was prepared to kill everyone who stood between it and the objective it had been given. The pursuit of the target was single-minded and relentless. When the people surrounded it the target had not been acquired. Captain Lish Toos was being searched out but they were not obstructing access to the objective. The robot was flexible but the concept of self-preservation in order to achieve its objective had not been factored in. It was fearless.

Killing the attackers was not an automatic response.

Six stun-kills set on maximum delivered a numbing power surge. Even if it could have recovered and re-factored, which was unlikely, the nightstalkers had already begun hacking the robot to pieces while it was standing twitching helplessly.

The report was prompt, unnecessarily prompt, but Carnell was resigned to that now. It was inevitable that if you told these people part of the plan they would either assume that it was all of the plan or that it was at least the most important element of the plan. He was feeling disposed to be tolerant. Perhaps it was the sleep. They were all so eager, for their various reasons, to be of use. It was