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By Root 1853 0

of starships. They had contacted Enginemen and Enginewomen and offered them stints in the tanks at exorbitant prices - prices which, because Enginemen were so desperate for the flux, they would gladly pay. Mirren had made enquiries, toured the city, made contacts with members of the Paris underworld he would rather have had no business with. He'd found that, yes, there were such dealers in France, but that their services were over-subscribed, that Enginemen who were receiving flux-time were paying way over the odds to have more stints than were absolutely necessary. He'd heard other rumours to account for the unavailability of the service: that either the dealers had been caught by the authorities, or had emigrated off-planet with their earnings, and even that a group of Enginemen had killed a dealer and kept the tank for their own use.

At least it had given his life a purpose for a couple of months.

But if Hunter was a flux-pusher then why would he come touting for trade to him, Mirren, a menial flier pilot with an income that hardly kept up the payment on his apartment? And why the interest in the other members of his team? There were hundreds of Enginemen in Paris willing to part with hard-earned creds for the luxury of experiencing the flux again...

But, then, what else could the off-worlder be hinting at? What else could explain his interest in how his team was coping without the flux?

If Hunter was indeed a pusher, then Mirren didn't know whether to despise him as an opportunist - a low-life entrepreneur peddling a quick fix at an exorbitant price to those too weak to resist - or a saviour.

Even the mere thought that he might - just might - one day flux again was enough to lift his spirits immeasurably.

He reached his flier in the lot beside the terminal building, climbed in and engaged the vertical thrusters. He banked away from the spaceport, headed north and followed the sinuous curves of the tropical-green Seine as it meandered east through the city. Down below the suburbs rolled by, quiet in the morning sun.

Ten minutes later he eased the two tonne weight of the flier down onto the landing stage of the apartment block, climbed wearily out and took the clanking downchute to his rooms on the top floor. He switched on the hall light, adjusted the dimmer. The first door on the left was ajar; a recording of a Tibetan mantra seeped out. Mirren paused, considering whether to enter. He decided against it, fetched a beer from the kitchen and collapsed on a battered foam-form in the shuttered, darkened lounge. The only light, a comforting orange glow, issued from a long tank on the mantelshelf: within it, the miniaturised sun of Antares rose over a panorama of sand and a silver-domed city. The floor was littered with cushions, discs and old papers. Mirren lodged his feet on the coffee table and drank his beer. He took the pix of Hunter from inside his jacket and stared at the terrible yin-yang of his face, considering what the off-worlder might be selling... He reached for the cord attached to the vidscreen and was lowering it on its angle-poise boom from the ceiling when the base of his skull seemed to explode and a fiery irritation shot up his extended arm. The periphery of his vision shattered, and he could make out only a circular patch of clarity straight ahead, like a bullet hole in glass.

He was about to undergo an attack - his headache all morning had warned him, and he should have been ready for it - but he knew that there was nothing he could have done to prepare himself for the wrenching dislocation.

Hunter's photograph slipped from his fingers. He flashbacked-

And found himself once again aboard the Perseus Bound.

He was sitting on the slide-bed of the flux-tank, arms stanchioned beside him, head bent forward so that Dan Leferve could adjust his occipital console. He felt a sense of anticipation that he was about to flux, and at the same time a terrible pre-emptive sense of loss that this would be his last push.

Christiana Olafson sprawled in the lounger before the viewscreen which looked out