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Both of the older women were down. So was the senior citizen, who had proven surprisingly agile but far from invulnerable. The street singer's severed head lay in one place and his body in another. The headband continued to pump out music. As for the young couple, they rose from the little available cover they had found to charge straight toward the counter. It was a suicide rush. Tse-Mallory's interest in their motivation did not prevent him from rolling to his right out of their line of fire and shooting them both down.

Rising slowly amid the carnage, he took stock of himself. A couple of close calls had resulted in wounds that looked bad but were in reality little more than bloody nicks. Good thing he had new clothing on order, he mused. That was assuming he could persuade the stunned proprietor to finish the job.

Stepping out from behind the counter, pistol gripped tightly at the ready, Tse-Mallory checked those bodies that still had their heads. If these people wanted him dead so badly, why had they not simply bombed the entire building? But a bombing on peaceful New Riviera would doubtless have attracted investigative attention from all across the planet. Therefore it was reasonable to assume they did not want to draw that kind of attention to themselves. Which left hanging the critical question—who were ‘themselves’?

A quick check of the pockets of the dead told him nothing. What information and identification he was able to access was consistent in its uniformity. Based on what he found, it seemed as if he had been marked for assassination by as mundane a bunch of citizens as could be found in the city.

That was when old memories gave birth to a terrible suspicion. Still holding the pistol, he lifted his left arm to his mouth and addressed the communit on his wrist. Sartorial replacement could wait. With luck, his fear would not be confirmed. As he spoke to the pickup he was heading for the door. Behind him, the stunned shop owner was trying to render aid to his badly wounded assistant and shell-shocked salesgirl. Tse-Mallory would have to let him get on with it by himself.

His own concerns ran much deeper.

They closed in around Truzenzuzex while he was in the park. Lacking the need for any additional personal supplies for the forthcoming journey, he had chosen to wait in more amenable and relaxing surroundings for Tse-Mallory to finish his business in the nearby shopping arcade. The philosoph was taking his ease on one of the many longitudinal benches set out in the park to accommodate his kind when he noticed the trio coming toward him.

Their approach was restrained—and they had probably rehearsed it thoroughly—but that could not keep them from occasionally glancing furtively in his direction. One or two glances he could appreciate. Nur/New Riviera was a human colony world. Thranx, while they could be found in numbers in the equatorial regions, were not to be encountered everywhere. But his presence in Sphene was not so extraordinary as to draw nervous, fleeting looks one after another.

Then there was the couple approaching from the opposite direction. Though ostensibly wholly absorbed in each other, they too cast sporadic glances in the direction of the elderly thranx sprawled on the bench. Raising his head, he idly surveyed the remainder of his surroundings. His peripheral vision, far superior to that available to any human, quickly detected several individuals coming toward him from still another direction. Taken together, it was clear to him that the trio, the couple, and the advancing individuals had one thing and only one thing in common.

They happened to be converging on the spot where he was lying.

Easing off the bench, he gathered all six legs beneath him and started off in the one direction that was not occupied by humans coming toward him. While this corner of the park was not deserted, neither was it crowded. The three and two and more who were closing in on him might be doing so with the intent of meeting