kicking the wind out of me. I thanked Mary for the armor as I shoved the barrel of the shotgun right into the shimmering effect and pulled the trigger, hoping that if this thing had a mouth, that was exactly where he was going to get it. I don't know if I killed it. I don't know if it can be killed. But it didn't bother me anymore after that. Not liking the idea of being followed by more invisible spooks, I jogged for a while, hoping to be done with this part as soon as possible. I also kept both eyes open for a pair of light-amp goggles, but I'd used up my good luck quotient at the infirmary. To exit the labs, I had to enter the darkest room yet, black as coal. I wasn't surprised. This was at the north end of the installation, where, after groping in the dark by touch and even daring to use my tiny penlight, I finally found a small opening. This led down a narrow corridor to a tight, metal, spiral staircase going down--way down. I started to get very dizzy, spinning around so many times. Central Processing had more tight, narrow corridors than anywhere else on Phobos. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. The light was better than the labs; but that's like saying L.A. cab drivers are more polite than cab drivers in Mexico City. And at long, long last, I found another A.S.! I stared at it, overwhelmed by inappropriate emotion. She was alive! She got this far! Relief was a physical thing, perched on my back. The arrow pointed to a branching corridor that seemed small enough to give a midget a backache; but crawling down it was a good move. At the other end was a completely intact map of this section. The bad guys must have been getting careless lately. If this kept up, I might find a functioning radio. Central Processing was laid out in a rough triangular shape. Made me think of a robot riding a motorcycle. Maybe I was more wasted than I realized. The southeast corner was made up of four intercon- nected rooms. A warning note was attached that three motion detector triggers will close any door in the facility for a span of thirty seconds as a security precaution. I could just see myself getting caught in a room with wall-to-wall enemies while I counted off: "Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight . . . notify next of kin." Unfortunately, I couldn't take the map with me, unless I ripped it out of the wall and dragged it along, and my hand map still showed the labs above; if there were a way of changing the view, I couldn't find it. It occurred to me that we humans needed to learn everything possible about these bastards; otherwise, Earth was a sitting duck. We couldn't shoot it out with these things and expect to survive. We had to outsmart them--or die. I was surprised that I had survived this long. I was a pretty good Marine. There was no false modesty about that. But Arlene was remarkable; if I could survive, surely she could! Hoped she would keep it up. Hoped I would, too; but this nonsense couldn't go on forever. As I looked at the map, I knew, I just knew, that the thirty-second security rule about doors meant there was a welcoming committee waiting for me. Well, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fly. They'll get you in the end. But who were "they?" They weren't the pitiful wrecks that looked human though dead inside. They weren't the spinys or metal skulls or ghosts, either. The one making snuffling pig sounds gave me the creeps; but somehow I knew the creature was mentally no more than an animal. If I hadn't encountered the one monster who enjoyed talk- ing, I'd be tempted to conclude we were being invaded by an alien barnyard. But the intelligence was there; just well-hidden. Even without the talking demon, the alien technology itself was proof of a "mastermind." So why didn't the intelligence simply organize the monsters and zombies into a naval search pattern and be done with it? Why were Arlene and I being allowed to play Gypsy, entering one level after another, shooting it out with pretty much the same cast of characters, en- countering the same hazards . . . and beating them over and over and over again? Maybe it was all a pre-invasion test, or worse still, a sadistic game. But test or game, it had to be teaching the Enemy Mind something important. The important ques- tion for the survival of the human race was: What the hell was I learning? I hated to admit it, but so far the answer was not much. 13 One thing I was learning, though: speed. While I debated the finer points of philosophy with myself, a mob of zombies and spinys burst through the door at the back end of the corridor, the one I'd come through myself, as if they owned the damned place; they noticed me and tore down the narrow corridor. I did not take longer than a microsecond to resolve the question--I ran like a bat out of hell, a bat trying to get the hell out of hell. Although finding the commanding officer of the invasion was an important issue, I decided it could wait until later for review. Much later. With this many of the enemy breathing down my neck, the shotgun was useless. Maybe my new machine pistol would have worked . . . but what I already had in my hands was the rocket launcher. For an instant I considered the narrow corridor that might channel the blast right back in my face, the proximity of the nearest spiny ... for an instant. Then I dug my heel in and spun, ready to rock 'n' roll. The explosion was so loud that I didn't hear it. I felt it. A giant, invisible hand threw me to the ground. My eyes were open, and I saw the whole contingent that was on my tail vanish in a spray of blood and fire. The sight was something to think about; especially since it was the last sight I saw. I must have lost consciousness. An indeterminate time later, I began to hear a sound, too loud and annoying to sleep through. Like all the church bells the penguins ever rung at me, all the bells in the world in my head. I still couldn't see anything, just a bright afterimage. It was about fifteen minutes before the bells were replaced by a buzzing sound, then the slosh-slosh of blood in my ears. I would have been easy pickin's, as Gunny Goforth would say. Maybe I was saved by looking as dead as the rest of them. When I was able, I crawled along the corridor, drag- ging my feet. There was no time to examine my posses- sions. One thing for certain: if those glass syringes were still in one piece inside their supposedly shock-proof container, I'd be giving more product endorsements. Shaking my head clear and staggering to my feet, I finally made it to the one long, spacious corridor in the otherwise cramped, tight, ore-processing center. This one was well marked on the map I'd studied--the only route to what the map indicated were the stairs down. Judging from the red and gold and brown streaks on the rough walls, this corridor had been carved right out of the rock of Phobos. I liked it and hoped it wouldn't be reworked into something sickening. Halfway down the corridor, I suddenly felt light- headed and my stomach broke loose from its moorings. At first I thought I was experiencing more symptoms from the rocket blast. Then I realized what was happen- ing. No one goes to space without experiencing zero-g, and you never forget it. This was damned close enough! I should have studied the map more closely when I had the chance . . . the middle section of this corridor must pass outside the ancient, alien gravity-zone. A handrail was installed for the obvious reason. Grab- bing it, I pulled myself along; a single tug was enough to overcome friction in Phobos's minuscule natural gravity. I'd spent enough time on the ship to Mars that this was simple enough, unless I had the bad luck to be attacked right now; I'd never taken zero-g combat training. Pulling myself around a corner, I floated practically into the arms of a triplet of spinys. Luck has never been my long suit. But these leathery bastards were walking on the walls and ceiling, as if they enjoyed their own, personal gravity that followed them around, each ori- ented in a different direction. One more piece of evidence that they were unbeatable. Then one of them looked right at me and spoke: "Gosh --are we having a ball, or what?" It hocked a loogie into its hand, where the mucus immediately burst into flame. My hog leg was tucked in the webbing at my back, and there was no room to draw it in this corridor, no time to work it free. The demon raised the flaming ball of snot, grinning like a goblin. I threw my head back, rotating my body in the microgravity. I didn't bother drawing the shotgun; when I rotated my body so the barrel was pointing at that cracked and grinning face, I fired. A lucky shot. Blew its head clean off. Guess my luck's not so abysmal after all. The blast acted like a rocket, propelling me backward. When I stopped spinning, I grabbed the rail, drew the shotgun free, and pulled myself back where I'd left off. The two remaining monsters had forgotten all about me; they were fighting each other, claws dug into throats, bloody drool trickling down wrinkled chins and bursting into flame. Was it possible, just one "brain" to a set? Kill the mastermind, and the rest turn on each other? Evidently, the Mind behind the invasion had the power to manifest itself through only one or two individ- uals in a group. I tucked that one away in the hindbrain; I would use it later. I waited politely until one brain-dead spiny offed the other; then I rewarded the victor with the spoils: a twelve-gauge blast to the face, this time with my back braced against the wall. I hauled ass along the corridor to the gravity zone. At the far north end of the facility, I found a switch that opened a door leading to the stairway where I could process myself right out of Central Processing. Down one flight on the spiral, metal-grate stairway, the Computer Station welcomed me with a thin layer of green sludge. At this point I just didn't care. I was willing to jump into the ooze and slog through it as long as my boots held out. I wanted out of here! I ran without stopping until I discovered that whatever crap-for-brains idiot designed this playground set it up so you go around in circles before noticing you were going around in circles. The Computer Station was a haze of forgetfulness. It started out badly when I couldn't find an Arlene mark. I hunted along every passageway without luck; either she followed a totally different route and our paths did not cross, or more likely, she had a reception committee waiting for her when she climbed down the ladder, and she was in a running firefight until she found a bolt-hole. The damnedest part was, this was the lowest level, so far as I knew. If they finally ran her to ground, I should have found her ... or her remains. There was nowhere else for Arlene to go. There were few monsters on this floor; I shot a couple of spinys in the back--hey, I'm not proud--but mostly avoided the patrols. En route, I picked up two blue key cards and three yellows, plucking one off the "dead" body of a zombie. Something or someone had gnawed off its legs and one arm; it was still animate as I approached, and tried to bite me; but I was faster (and more ruthless). I blew its brains out, putting it out of misery, and took the key card tucked into its belt. I found two maps, both burned beyond recognition. But by sheer persistence, I finally found it: one of those big, metallic doors that like to stand between me and where I want to go. One of those key-card teases that demand you stick it in. But this bitch had a special feature--an irritating, unisex, nasally, parking-lot ticket-machine voice, the kind that says "Please take the ticket," as if you're a bumpkin from Mad Dog, Arkansas, who's never seen a car park before. No monster could ever create such a surreal torture device of art. It took a human touch. "Hello," it said, "to exit the Computer Station, please insert your gold security card now." All right; I supposed yellow was as good as gold. I inserted the card, and the cheap trick chirped "Thank you. To exit the Control Station, please insert your blue security card now." I began to hear screams behind me, up the corridor; the damned door had probably notified "security" while it deliberately delayed me. I fumbled the blue key card into the slot--but I knew exactly what was coming. "Thank you. To exit the Computer Station, please insert your red security card now." If there were a red key card anywhere on this level, I was a purple-assed baboon. And I didn't become a Marine to put up with this crap. Even the spinys were less frustrating than this! But I had a solution. Last time I'd fired a rocket, I'd made the mistake of standing too damned close. So I made sure I got far away from that smug bitch of a door, placing myself squarely behind a column and part of a staircase. I fired both rockets from the launcher simultaneously. Just to be sure. The result was outstanding, excellent, a credit to the Corps. As loud as it was, it didn't deafen me this time. At this distance, the head gear worked like it was supposed to. I walked through the smoking ruins of that bloody door with a sense of satisfaction greater than when I'd winged that toxin barrel and taken out a roomful of zombies with one bullet. I'd struck a blow against the True Evil, the chowderheaded humans who designed these installations! From now on I refused to worry about plastic cards and security keys. Nothing could stop me. Then I found the lift that should have taken me out of there--the lift at the very end of the facility, my reward for having all the stupid cards. The entire shaft was filled with human and animal remains, a hellish grain elevator. I don't know how long I stood there, staring stupidly. Then nausea overwhelmed me and I vomited for several minutes. Weak and shaky, I thought for several more minutes that I had climbed the farthest down I could go in the Phobos installation. A dead end. Nowhere to go but back the way I came. I knew I couldn't make it, but I was long past crawling into a corner and playing fetus. I'd go down fighting if I went, hoping somehow Arlene had escaped what was a death trap for me. Even though it was a long shot, I thought again of the possibility of blowing up Phobos. Better that than let these bastards win! Then I noticed a foul, bloodred, evil-glowing circle in the floor; it had not been there a moment ago. A ghastly stench arose from the orifice, like human flesh frying on the griddle. I once missed getting firebombed by a Kerifistani terrorist; I was on guard duty at the Marine Corps compound when the main barracks went up. Thirty-three buddies burned to death. You never forget that smell. They transferred me to Fox Company within forty- eight hours. This hole pulsed like a heartbeat. There was a "ladder" made of light pink, fleshy cords that appeared to sweat. I didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that no human ever made this baby. Besides, this wasn't a job for a rocket scientist; this was a job for someone rock stupid enough to be a Marine. Resigned, I slung my shotgun and rifle, bolstered the machine pistol, and started climbing down the sticky, wet, springy ladder. At the bottom there was plenty of light, at least; a sickly reddish light. The flesh-pit ladder dropped me into the largest corridor I'd seen yet. I would have said it was carved out of the rock of this moon, the same as Phobos Lab, but the inside of the walls seemed to perspire, like the ladder. Holding my breath and looking close, I saw hundreds, thousands, of small orifices opening and clos- ing to the same steady beat as the red circle above. I decided that I'd done enough close examination for a lifetime. Then, by God, I saw it--another A.S., biggest one yet! Even in the heart of hell, I was cheered to know I wasn't alone. I didn't exactly whistle a tune, but I smiled grimly. Arlene's mark was accompanied by a crude drawing of a skull and crossbones with an arrow pointing straight ahead. A second arrow pointed out a narrow slit in the wall, a slit that was a friendly hole-in-rock, not pulsating or anything disgusting; a slit into what looked to be the outside. We were hundreds of meters below the surface of tiny Phobos, but there was goddamn daylight coming through that opening. But that was one mother of a narrow crack. Could I get through that? Could Arlene, even? I touched the edge of the slit--tacky blood, a couple of hours old, tops. Mary, Mother of God... I had a vision. She had gone out, right there. She shoved herself so hard, tearing at that crack, that she flayed off huge strips of skin--but she didn't care. She wanted out; she wanted out bad; she wanted out right then, not five seconds later. Leading me to the obvious conclusion: Arlene had seen something up ahead that even she was too terrified to face. 14 I stared at the skull and crossbones. Whatever was up ahead was bad enough for Arlene to claw her way through a tiny crack in the wall rather than face it. Yet she wasted precious seconds leaving the warning for Yours Truly. Thank God I didn't have to solve the mystery of the skull and crossbones. Getting through that crack would be an achievement all by itself. Ahead I began to hear a low, slow pounding, almost like someone beating on a monster drum a mile distant. Well, I could take that--so long as it stayed there. I struggled out of my armor and pressed my right arm and shoulder into the crack. But there I stuck. I braced my foot against the floor and shoved; several minutes and several pounds of flesh later, I was utterly convinced I could never fit through that crack unless I dismembered myself and threw the pieces through one at a time. Wonder if I'll seriously consider that option when I see what's ahead? I thought. So now what? I sat on the floor, pounding my head with my hand in frustration. If I went forward, I was on my own. Arlene was no coward ... if the Thing ahead scared the bejesus out of her, enough that she forced her way through a crack several sizes too small--then what in God's name was it? Numbly, I stood, pulling on the armor again. As Mehitabel the cat said to Archie the cockroach, wotthehell, wotthehell I already roamed the halls of the damned; what did I have to lose? I suppose I could sit here and starve to death. Shaking, I moved forward at snail speed, loaded rocket launcher in hand; but what if I found myself eyeball-to- eyeball with . . . with whatever It was? A rocket up the nose might piss it off--but at point-blank range, it would also fry Corporal Fly! Ahead, I found an old-fashioned wooden elevator next to an old-fashioned rusted button. Somehow they seemed to fit right in here. In a place with living ladders, a few museum places were hardly out of line. I pushed the button. With a slow grinding sound, the Sift began to descend. So far so good. It reached ground level, and I clumped aboard. What the hell else could I do? There was one button, and I pushed it. The lift creaked and groaned, like it was a hundred years old, announcing my arrival to anyone inside. I braced, wondering whether to shift to the shotgun. Then it stopped up one floor . . . and my God, I saw what was inside! On a pair of iron thrones sat the largest, reddest, most horrible demons I could imagine, compared to which the other guys were fit for hosting kiddie shows on Saturday mornings. Giant minotaurs with goat limbs for legs, and curling, savage horns on the top of their flat, broad heads. The chests and arms were carved from pure muscle. Their claws were so vicious that there was no comparison to the puny stuff I'd seen up until now. Princes of hell. . . And they were looking directly at me. So far, so bad. I froze, whimpering like a Cub Scout. All I could think was, Oh Lord, the sisters were right all along! The hell-prince on the left rose, trumpeting a marrow- freezing roar of discovery. Come on, come on, come on, Fly! Snap out of it; get the hell out of Dodge! I hated every minute of every day of basic at Parris Island--and I bow at Staff Sergeant Stern's feet and kiss his shiny boots for every second of it: my training kick-started my paralyzed legs even while my brain was struggling to remember the Lord's Prayer ... all I could get was "Hail, Jesus," and I knew that was wrong. Faster than I thought myself capable, I bolted--but forward, right at the things--and skirted between the forest of red legs and into the black-dark beyond! If they'd been any smaller, they would have had my head for lunch. I ran across a long stretch of floor and heard the familiar pig snorts left and right. I ran through utter blackness until I hit a wall, banging my shins. I hardly noticed. There I spun, snarling, fishing for my riot gun. If the porcine sons of bitches wanted Fly Taggart, they could bloody well take him . . . but not cheaply! They were converging on me; I could hear their snufflings and hungry growls. What the hell; I was dead anyway, right? I raised the shotgun and pounded a shell straight in front of me. One of the pig-demons screamed in pain. Oh ... you mean they can be hurt? I'd been wondering. I scuttled right; the wall came to a point, folding back on itself. I slipped around and immediately barked my already-bruised shin on a barrel of that green, toxic mess. Staring into the sickly glow, I had a shimmer of an idea. Quickly, before I could think twice and decide against it, I heaved over the barrel. The goo spilled out of the 120-liter drum . . . and now my whole corner was lit by a hellish, green glow. I could see! I was in a pointy corner amid a forest of toxin barrels; but the monsters coming after me were still invisible. I was under attack by ghosts . . . and the ghosts and the pig-things were evidently one and the same. But Yours Truly, Flynn Taggart, never forgets a scam. I backed away from the flickering shadows, into the actual point. Maybe I couldn't see them, but they sure as hell could see me; they charged. I shot. Not a ghost; I shot a barrel. The explosion chain-reactioned, and I dived for the deck. Too late, I remembered the ten or eleven rockets in my bandoleers. Luckily, the explosion stopped just short of me. When the acrid rain of toxic waste stopped falling, I jumped to my feet. My entire body resonated, and my inner ear was confused; I balanced precariously on my hind legs, shotgun wavering up, down, and sideways . . . but my ghosts appeared to have died--again. At least, they didn't attack. Staring wildly around the room, now lit by the green glow of ten thousand droplets of toxin sprayed far and near, I realized to my surprise that the room was actually a huge, star-shaped chamber. That seemed right in line with everything else. If they could have swastikas, why not star-chamber proceedings? Alas, my restful reverie was short-lived; the hideous hell-princes had seen my explosion and come to investigate. But this time, I knew what to expect. Nuns or no nuns, I told myself over and over that these were alien life- forms, not demons. They couldn't be real demons, could they? Hell was a myth--wasn't it? I raised my rocket launcher and let the first hell-prince have it at forty meters. The blast blew the motherless bastard backward, but it got to its feet. I couldn't believe it! I fired a second time, pack-loaded with one smooth move, and shot a third rocket. The giant got up again and now it was joined by its comrade. This was not going according to plan. They pointed their clawed hands at me; but instead of the usual balls of flaming snot, these "demons" fired green energy pulses out of wrist-launchers. I hugged the dirt as the stuff crackled over my head and made every hair on my head stand on end. Not very demonic, but pretty damned deadly! My turn again; in desperation, I pumped rocket num- ber four at the first hell-prince, and at last it seemed to do some damage. It got to its feet slowly and seemed confused about where I was. There was no reason to even try bothering the new one if I couldn't find out what repeated hammering did to the first minotaur. Yeah, minotaurs. They weren't demons; that Greek, Theseus, killed one. Reload, rocket five, and finally that did the trick: number one went down and didn't get up again. But with behavior I was starting to expect from all godless crea- tures, it reached up a clawed hand and grabbed the other hell-prince. Number two struggled to free itself, and I seized my opportunity. Screaming like a banshee, I charged to just out of range of its reach. Enraged, it slashed furiously; but my prayers were answered, and it was too mad to think of shooting energy bolts. I leaned in to shove the launcher right down the creature's enormous, howling mouth. And Fly let fly ... I won't even try to describe its breath. The minotaur swallowed the little rocket, about the relative size of a multivitamin, and was literally blown away. I was knocked silly by the blast at such close proximity. I came to, surprised to be coming to. Losing conscious- ness in a place like this seemed like a one-way ticket to oblivion. I was lying on the floor of the same enormous, star- shaped chamber; but the walls had fallen, crumbling into constituent bricks outside, leaving the way clear to the outside. That whole concept of "outside" bothered me. Why wasn't I a corpse-side, floating in space? There was air to breathe. There was an overcast sky to watch, complete with low-hanging clouds; dark clouds before a storm. Wherever I was, it sure as hell wasn't Phobos. I found a platform behind the building. There was a switch. I pressed it and watched a stairway slowly rise. Wotthehell. Archie, wotthehell... I walked up the stairs. At the very top was a Gate ... a working Gate. It was marked by a flickering symbol that gave me a splitting headache when I tried to concentrate on the design. I approached it, eyes averted. And damn me if there wasn't Arlene Sanders's last mark, right next to the Gate, pointing directly at the symbol. She'd written a single word: OUT? I didn't know. But I didn't hesitate a moment. If that were the way Arlene went.. . Then that was where I was going. Without a glance back, I stepped aboard. 15 Time had no meaning for Fly Taggart--the memory of being Fly Taggart. He had no body but retained a consciousness somehow, somewhere. A sense of motion, but that might only be another memory. Remembering a hand created a hand. Remembering a foot resulted in the sensation of a foot, a painful sensation from where his ankle had been bruised. Memory of a backache condensed into a patch of flesh and blood that was a back. Memory of breath turned emptiness into a pair of lungs. Recollections of hot days on a summer beach left their imprint on a forehead slick with sweat. Then he had a whole body, floating in a warm current of air slowly cooling; an upside-down vertigo turning his stomach, which meant he had a stomach. The fall wasn't long, and he skinned his knees on a hard metal surface before falling forward on his face. The air was cold. He blinked eyes in an aching head. He couldn't see anything but white and red spots chasing each other across afield of darkness. The man panicked at the thought that he'd been blinded; but gradually vision returned. There wasn't much worth seeing. The light was dim. He wanted to breathe fresh air again, as he had before stepping on the platform. He'd been breathing the stale air of spaceships and the Mars station and the Phobos installations for so long he'd almost forgotten what fresh air was like. Even if it had been fake, he wanted it again. But when he filled his lungs, it was that disgusting sour-lemon smell he had first noticed when he killed his first zombie. He was a man again, but he didn't want to be back in hell. Yet he had traveled somewhere, hadn't he? He felt he'd come a very long way just to reach . . . I didn't know where I was. Instinctively, I reached with my left hand for the machine pistol, the weapon I could most quickly bring into play. My hand slapped bare flesh. There was nothing on my chest but air, I looked down and saw that I was naked. Jesus and Mother Mary. And after all that work gather- ing shotgun, Sig-Cow, and rocket launcher. Having lost my clothes during the strange journey didn't bother me, except for the drop in temperature; but I didn't want to turn into dead meat because I didn't have weapons. A naked man is an unarmed man. I wasn't going to waste another second before recon- noitering. If there were monsters anywhere near here, then I had to get my hands on a firearm right away. The sour-lemon smell was a dead giveaway--zombies lurked somewhere in the shadows. I'd come through a gateway with nothing but my body, but at least I was breathing. I wanted to keep it that way. The gravity was Earth normal. As my eyes adjusted to dim light, I saw I was in an oblong, rectangular building. Having had the experience of being "outside" before the transfer. I didn't look forward to roaming corridors again. I almost hated that idea more than the prospect of fighting monsters. Suddenly it didn't feel merely cool any longer. It had gotten downright cold. Being stark naked presented other problems; with all the disgusting ways to die I had recently discovered, I'd be damned if I wanted to catch my death of cold. Adrenaline pumping madly--my drug of choice--I ran in the most promising direction. A red light pulsed dimly in the shadows directly ahead; and the flat, slap- ping sound of bare feet against the metal floor seemed almost as loud as my boots had earlier. If this setup were anything like the one I'd left, I actually wanted to find a zombie! "Alive" or dead, they were armed with what I needed, and a lot easier to deal with than the spinys or ghosts. I found the source of the red light: an entire wall emitted crimson illumination; at the bottom was an inverted-cross cutout, just big enough to serve as a doorway. It was directly in line with a square platform on the ground. The platform was red, too. The symbolism was blasphemy--anyone walking through the "door- way" would have the privilege of being crucified. The religious imagery was starting to piss me off; whoever or whatever was behind this had learned things about human psychology that I preferred it not know. I slipped through, feeling dirty and corrupted. I felt an unholy chill as I walked through the inverted cross in the red wall, the color of communion wine, the color of blood from fallen comrades. How right I was to think of buddies lost in battle. Directly on the other side of the opening was the dead body of a UAC technician locked in mortal embrace with a soldier I recognized from Fox Company. I wasn't likely to forget Ordover. The youngest kid in the outfit, we'd bagged on him something fierce. He was patriotic to the "Corps" and easy to rag. As I looked at the remains of this friendly private, the boyish face that hadn't been altered even in death, I regretted the times I'd helped get him drunk. Finding out that Johnny enjoyed singing old ballads, badly off-key, when he was honed and capped was too much temptation. I thought that was as funny as every- one else did. "Sorry, kid," I muttered to his corpse, relieved that at least he'd received the gift of a clean death. He hadn't been reworked. Now it was Johnny's turn to provide Fly Taggart with a piece of serious artillery. He was lying on top of a Sig-Cow with a fifty-round magazine. Thanks to him, I might still be a naked savage, but I was back in the game. I was a Marine once more. As I examined my surroundings, I had the feeling I'd been dropped into a giant warehouse. There were huge boxes, or crates, all over the place with UAC stenciled on them. I began to explore and noticed a red, glowing square that emitted a curious heat. I avoided it for the moment, welcome though the heat would be. Having gotten in the habit of following Arlene's ar- rows, I started hunting. And looking for more weapons, as well as food, water, and an unbroken radio. I was so intent on all this that I barely noticed it when I turned a corner and was back in zombie country. I shouldered the rifle and fired while they wasted time roaring. The shot was good; the nearest head exploded like a ripe melon. That startled me; it was a single bullet, not a grenade! This zombie had to be especially ripe. The next one reacted more typically; the bullet made a normal hole and the creature fell to the floor, twitching. But I was already pounding a round into the head of number three, scutting sideways, firing two or three shots at a time. I lost count of how many zombies went down. A few had weapons, but none had taken a shot at me yet. It was all too easy; then something on the other side returned fire--actual fire. The damned, brown spinys were back, complete with their bizarre ability to toss flaming snotballs like warm-up pitchers for the devil. The easy zombie pickin's had made me careless. The first fireball was too close, far too close, to my face and neck. The stuff stuck to my skin like napalm, burning like hell and reminding me that I had no protection over any part of my skin or vulnerable parts. But I was pumped. With a roar to match a hell-prince, I charged the nearest spiny and let my bayonet do the talking. The blade split thick neck like a cantaloupe, and the demon dropped, bleeding a deep, ruby red. But even with a bayonet stuck in its windpipe and blood pumping out in buckets, it stretched a clawed hand up toward me. With a thrust and a yank, I tore the neck so badly that the head was hanging lopsided. It would take a lot more work than that to actually decapitate the mother, but at least it wouldn't bother me anymore. I needed the bayonet back. I had other fields to plow. A number of zombies had gathered around as I was busy taking care of the demon that I hoped had been the one who burned my face. More spinys loitered by the weirdest piece of wall I'd seen yet, with human skulls stuck all over it like raisins in a cake. A thin female zombie went first, a fat male second, an ex-PFC third. I used the bayonet on all of them because there wasn't room to shoot. Pivoting, slashing and stabbing, shouting gleeful curses--this was the way to kill! The feel, the smell, the blood pouring out of them beating through my veins, all linked. A world of blood. Some had to be mine; but this was no time to worry over details. Then there was one zombie left. I recognized its face. Recognition slowed me down . . . this was a good face, honest and stern, like the men who'd settled the frontier. Corporal Ryan. Dead eyes in a face I once respected were an invitation to do more than kill. I had to erase him from the universe. I pinned him with the bayonet; but he was made of stern stuff, even as a zombie. Squirming forward, he clawed my face with long, dirty nails. Damned rifle was stuck in him! He was far stronger than the others, stronger than me. Thank God I knew Ryan better than his reanimated corpse did. The corporal always carried a 10mm pistol in a back-draw holster. I reached behind him. The gun was there! I drew the piece, stuck the business end in Ryan's mouth, and squeezed the trigger. His death grip combined with the pool of blood underfoot pulled me to the floor. It was too slippery to get up easily. While I freed myself, I tried real hard to assimilate the latest data. If zombies were holding a weapon when they died, they still used it. But the intelligence required to remember a hidden weapon was beyond their reach. Slipping and sliding on the blood was distracting . . . and then I realized that I was sobbing. Having given myself strict orders to keep emotions under control, I felt betrayed. At least I held onto the pistol. Standing up, I realized with disgust that the real reason I was weeping was because I had temporarily run out of enemy. All the zombies were dead-dead, and the mon- sters who had been watching over by the wall of skulls had run off. This was worse than being interrupted in the middle of making love. I really felt that. I had good reason to be crying like a baby. "Pull yourself together," I ordered Yours Truly. "I mean it. Cut the crap, right now!" I wasn't going to put up with any insubordination. "Damn you all!" I screamed at the universe. "How long am I supposed to take this, over and over?" It was a good question, but nobody had any answers. I kicked a zombie's head, angry that he wasn't contributing his part to the conversation. Zombies weren't the only inanimate objects around; I found a metal cabinet that I tore off and flung at a console. Great sound effect. I would have moved on in search of glass to break--an even better sound--but I noticed my little tantrum had actually led to something useful. As the forest fire raging in my brain toned down to a mild fever-delirium, I vowed never to say anything bad about dumb luck again. A hidden drawer in the console sprang open. I investi- gated, hoping to find a weapon. Instead, I found another of those computer key cards, the very same cards I had sworn not to use again while I had my trusty rockets . . . the very same rockets I no longer had. Buck Rogers, back to square one. I picked up the translucent, blue computer disk. Waste not, want not. A rifle in one hand, pistol in the other, and a key card clenched in my teeth. Not having pockets was becoming a major pain in the butt. Why didn't I simply field-strip a corpse? I don't know; I guess my brain wasn't rolling on all tank treads. One direction seemed as good or bad as any other, so I went back the way I had come. As the frenzy of the battle wore off, I was starting to feel cold again. The red platform was appealing as the only source of heat I knew about around here, the next best thing to a roaring fireplace. It felt great as the heat warmed my cold, naked skin. Then, as idiots have asked themselves throughout history, I asked the magic words "Why not?"--and rubbed my hands over the thing. A million flashbulbs exploded in my face. By the time I finished blinking the world back into focus, I realized I was not in the room I just had been. My mouth dropped open. Fly, you gorm, I thought, I think you've just discovered your first teleporter! That square, red platform just had to be the "teleport" pads I had heard about when they posted Fox Company to Mars. They were just big enough for a man to stand on ... assuming he felt adventurous. I was dubious about the whole thing from day one, and so was Gunny Goforth. If I were surrounded by trolls and out of ammo, I'd decided, I might try one; nothing short of that would tempt me. The teleport pads were already there when humans first arrived, presumably built the same time as the Gates and gravity generators. Practical folk that w