CUT AND SEWN

Barreling down the showstairs, shoving the Handy Breeders, and Wayward Bug Ladies to the side, came seven men dressed in navy satin, brandishing long silvery sticks. Withor and Vit followed behind.

"He's the murderer!" cried my former boss. "I have the drapde-Berry yarn rip he took to prove it!"

"He's making it up," I protested, sprinting around one of the entervators. Jumping over a box of tools, I slid to a stop as one of the satins was coming at me. Turning, I reversed direction.

The only way out of here was the showstairs or the cables. Two satins guarded the stairs while the others played cat and mouse with me between the parked ships.

Behind a pink entervator, two men worked on an open panel of tubes.

"Can you take me up?"

They didn't meet my eyes. One shook his head.

"Please!" I had to rush away as one of the satins closed in.

"I sent him on an authorized and completely ordinary yarn acquisition errand," continued Withor louder as men with photo-cams and sight-cannons crowded around the stairs. "He killed the poor woman-who happened to be a member of the Fashion Board-for no reason at all. I tried to rehabilitate him. I have great sympathy for the prison class, but they're a nasty, ungrateful people!"

The satins moved in as I raced back and forth, desperate for a way out. Between a long silver entervator and the back wall, four of them cornered me.

Vit sneered. "He's a corn boy slubber."

"Indeed," Withor agreed. "This is unfortunately another example of that race's tendencies to irrational violence."

"I didn't do it!"

None of the satins spoke. Their grim expressions made me fear they weren't going to send me back. They were just going to kill me.

"There was someone else there! It looked like a ghost. I don't know who it was, but that's the killer."

One of the satins lunged. I jumped back, but slipped on the oily floor. Before I could get on my feet another rushed forward and punched me. His heavy, gloved fist felt like it cracked my ribs. I fell face down as if I had been run over. Another satin put his knee in my back. I couldn't move.

Withor stood far behind the satins, as if I were some dangerous beast.

"Okay," said one of the satins. "Bag him up."

"I didn't do it," I said with the tiny amount of air I left in my lungs. "He sent me. He knew! And there was someone else! Someone in an invisible suit." If the satins heard me, which I doubted, none paid attention.

An explosive roar came from overhead. I had to twist my head as far as it would go to see. Two hundred feet up, where Vada and Xavier had been headed, was a smear of black smoke hovering between the buildings.

"Two more Toue dead," muttered one of the satins.

Someone-maybe another entervator entertainer-gasped and said, "They shot down the Europa Showhouse."