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“Is he dead?”

“Blast hit his generator,” an old man says I think his nao He kneels in thehis hands over the en down there Could be drowned”

“We got to get him out,” I say

“Anyone kno this shit works?” a woe

“Should be an eency release or somesuch,” Almor says He fumbles at the jawline “Here” With a hiss, the faceplate pops loose Water pours out The old man pushes the faceplate back till it bends into itself, revealing the knight’s face He’s no Obsidian, but he looks carved froranite A red beard covers his heavy jaw His head is bald and titanic And a sliht cheekbone His nose is sed with delicate eyelashes He’s a Gold The first I’ve ever seen with my own eyes The first any of us have ever seen

“Is he breathing?” Almor asks

No one utless I lean over the man and put my ear to his nose Just then, he spasms I lurch back in terror as he vomits water As he hacks, I sink back into the mud, bone tired Overhead, the sky is torn to shreds as more supersonic ships come from the sky and descend to save the camp

The Red Hand will retreat, but Ca

IN A SMALL CORNER BOOTH in a shady back roolasses like pervy old gargoyles They look up as I reen demondust smoke that wafts from the burners of two Red mechanics

South of Hyperion City Center, hundred sixty klicks from the maple-lined boulevards of the Promenade, towers the brutalist Atlas Interplanetary Docks There are seven main towers to the AID, each inhuh his halls every Earth-standard year But for every new oligarch and old-blood Gold that lands here, there’s a flood of space ers All these weary travelers crave restaurants, casinos, hotels, and whorehouses before taking transit to whatever their final destination on Luna ht be

It’s a tu; that’s why it’s called the Mass

Behind h-resolution digital flesh fishhook the eyes, pulling travelers fro into the vestibules of commerce to pump blood and cash into the veins of this hinterland city It’s the sort of place you go to forget about your life But, in the irony to end all ironies, it’s where an

The bar looked different back then I o years out of the legion and had come to the Mass to burn a few credits with some squaddies frolass of spikedaround to teach the prick soy suit, I started laughing so hard I couldn’t raise a fist The etic eyes Who the hell orders , siion from some Earth backwater We sat and talked in that corner booth and closed the place down Rest was history

He was er laugh Jove knohat he saw in me

“I beg your pardon,” I say to the slags in the corner booth They eyeif I’m lost