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“Flinx? What did you do to them?”

Bending to pick up the first of many hand weapons that had been set aside and forgotten by their owners, he smiled softly. “I challenged their thinking. And in so challenging it, I changed it. For the better, I think. It probably won't last. By the time the effect wears off, the most zealous among them, at least, will begin to recover their beliefs.” He looked over to where she sat encased in her volatile, dirty gray prison.

“By then I expect you and I and Pip and Scrap will be long gone from this place. By tonight we should be well away from this entire world.”

Without warning, something struck his right hand hard and hot. Flinching in pain and surprise, he drew his fingers back quickly from the pistol they had been reaching for and looked around to his left.

“Flinx …!”

Clarity's shout of his name was warning enough, but it was unnecessary. He had already located the new threat. As soon as he recognized and identified it he realized that the members of the Order, being aware of his unique abilities but ignorant of their extent, had anticipated their own potential inadequacies in dealing with him. So in the event their quarry somehow managed to overcome them despite their careful preparations, they had organized a backup.

The Qwarm was a brute, even for a member of the Assassin's Guild. Taller than Flinx, he outweighed the younger man by fifty kilos or more. Muscles bulged beneath the tight black suit he wore. The death's-head belt, the form-fitting skullcap covering the shaven pate, the crimson insignia: all served to identify the professional killer on sight. The black composite pistol he gripped almost disappeared in his huge fist. Flinx recognized the type. It fired a very focused, very narrow heat beam. Set to blister and not to kill, the perfectly aimed single shot had caused Flinx to pull back sharply from the pile of weapons he had commandeered from the members of the Order.

A loud humming filled the air. Alarmed, Flinx whirled and tried to warn Pip off—too late. Drawn away from Scrap's prison by the new threat to her master, she had soared ceilingward before launching herself at the Qwarm.

An ordinary assailant she would have taken out easily. There was nothing ordinary about the Qwarm. Reacting to her attack with lightning-like reflexes, the assassin raised his weapon. A desperate Flinx projected fear in the man's direction. It had no effect.

Like all the elite of his specialized, dedicated criminal Guild, the veteran Qwarm had trained himself until he was literally emotionless. Unable to feel anything, he did not respond to the emotions Flinx flung at him.

In all the years they had been companions, in all the brawls and scrapes and battles they had fought, Flinx had never seen anyone fast enough to intercept Pip with a weapon. That record was broken as a needle-thin beam from the assassin's gun ripped through her right wing. Though the shot missed her body, the partial loss of lift caused her to spiral to the ground. She landed hard, but alive and still full of fight. But she had landed too far away from her foe to reach him with her venom. Within his transparent prison a hysterical Scrap beat in a frenzy at the impervious walls.

As the Qwarm turned implacably back toward Flinx, Clarity cried out a fresh warning. Her alarm was hardly necessary. Flinx and his assailant were the only figures in motion within the circular chamber.

He studied his adversary. The man was big, powerful, and agile. Completely hairless, he looked to be about fifty. The suggestion of age was in itself unsettling. Unlike in popular fiction where professional killers tended to be youthful and attractive, the successful ones, the truly dangerous ones, were ordinary in appearance and lived to a respectable age. The handsome and reckless tended to die young. That this Qwarm was still alive and healthy told Flinx all he needed to know about his opponent's skill level.

He continued to try to force the