LITMIR.BIZ

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from the display. Elongated ovals indicated their estimated positions.

      A text message from Choy flickered across the map display. I am releasing all my reconnaissance birds. I gather I should consider this our last stand.

      “Pull out all the stops,” Sabor said. “Maximum effort. Do or die.”

      Birds whirred out of Choy’s cages. Symbols lit up on the map display. The hardbodies and their cats had formed a wide arc about seventy meters from Choy’s triangle.

      “I am being attacked by anti-material molecular missiles,” Sabor’s carrier announced. “My armor is responding.”

      “Our carrier’s shells will dissolve in about ten minutes,” Choy said. “We should counter-attack sometime before then. While our personal armor is still at maximum.”

      “Can we attack on the widemounts?”

      “For a few minutes. They still have some short-term energy reserves.”

      “Hold off for as long as you can. Colonel Jina is obviously taking his time. The longer he takes, the better for us.”

      The display monitored the effect of the invisible rain falling on the carrier shells. The widemounts munched on whatever nourishment they could scavenge from their immediate surroundings. Choy’s cats formed a tight formation between the widemounts and the snipers in the trees. Sabor shifted his attention between the display and the real world and tried to spot the hardbodies when they broke cover and fired.

      “We have to get very physical when we attack,” Choy said. “We have to break bones. We can’t possibly overwhelm their armor before they overwhelm ours.”

      “I understand,” Sabor said. “Try to avoid killing and irreversible damage. We’ll leave that possibility in reserve—as a retaliatory threat if Colonel Jina starts thinking you and our female companion are expendable.”

      “Get ready to move out. Our carrier shells will dissolve in about one minute.”

      Sabor’s widemount shifted out of the triangle. The three passenger widemounts formed a rough line and lurched toward the left end of the hardbody line.

      “I’m going to attack the two snipers on the far left,” Choy said. “The widemounts are our primary weapon. Concentrate on keeping low.”

      Sabor’s carrier shell disappeared. A fog of fine particles blurred his image of the forest before the remains of the shell dispersed. Dishes and pillows slid off the platform that had formed the foundation of the shell. He stretched out flat on the platform, with a pillow between his head and the hardbodies, and noted that Purvali had acted like a sane human for once and engaged in the same maneuver.

      Cats charged out of the trees. The three cats they had left screamed as they received the attack. A cat leaped at the head of Choy’s widemount. Claws ripped bloody gashes in the widemount’s skin. Choy raised his gun and fired into the animal’s mouth.

      Purvali yelled. Sabor turned his head and saw another cat pulling itself onto the back of Choy’s mount. His hands reacted while his consciousness was still assimilating the situation. Four shots streamed into the cat. It reared on its hind legs, with its front claws reaching for Choy’s head, and slid off the platform.

      A command flashed out of Sabor’s brain. His information system dispatched a message to Colonel Jina.

      “We are avoiding inflicting irreversible damage on your expensive assets, colonel. I would appreciate it you would render my assistants the same courtesy.”

      He had been bargaining and haggling all his life. The process apparently continued when you switched to non-monetary situations.

      Choy’s platform rose half a meter. Sabor turned his head and realized his own widemount was sinking. He checked his display and discovered the widemount’s armor had been overwhelmed. The hardbodies had apparently been concentrating their fire on their ultimate objective.

      “Get on my platform,” Choy said. “The extra widemount is right behind us. We’ll continue the attack.”

      Sabor scrambled onto Choy’s platform. He checked his personal armor and discovered he had only absorbed two hits. He had kept his head and stayed low when he had fired at the cat attacking Choy.

      “This is rather exhilarating,” Sabor said. “Isn’t there some saying about war being the continuation of diplomacy by other means? Should we assume the same maxim can be applied to financial activities?”

      They were now about five paces from the point they had been driving toward. The two hardbodies in front of them were holding their position and pouring moles into the four-legged fortresses bearing down on their position. On the display, symbols marked the places where the other hardbodies were firing from Sabor’s right.

      The fourth widemount pushed into the gap created by the loss of Sabor’s animal. Choy gestured at its back and Sabor slid off Choy’s widemount and flattened himself on top of the bin that hung from the cargo animal’s side. His right hand tightened around a braided cable.

      “You have a message from Heinrich Dobble.”

      “Run it.”

      Heinrich’s image rose between Sabor and the action at the front of Sabor’s visual field. “Dobryami has crossed the border, Sabor. My sources advise me she has forty soldiers advancing through Kenzan’s possession.”

      Sabor reacted without missing a breath. “Message for Financier Zara Nev. Apply simulation seven. Text: I believe it would be in your best interest to reconsider your position and join our common stand against Kenzan Khan’s attempt at extortion. Kenzan is doomed. Possessor Dobryami has taken advantage of Kenzan’s current weakness and invaded his possession. She is not in a negotiating frame of mind. The total destruction of Kenzan’s financial position is the most likely outcome.”

      Simulation seven was Sabor’s cheeriest, brightest communications facade. He usually used it when he distributed invitations to informal gatherings.

      Choy forced the three widemounts into a trot—a move that would probably drain any spare energy they still had left in their reservoirs. The two hardbodies started to fall back but they had waited too long. Choy and Purvali edged ahead of Sabor. Their widemounts lowered their heads. Broad skulls shoved against the two hardbodies. Choy and Purvali slid to the ground and leaped like a pair of dancers. They pulled themselves back on their widemounts—they couldn’t have spent more than ten seconds on the ground—and Sabor stared at the two figures writhing in the organic debris that covered the forest floor. Both hardbodies had legs that had acquired an extra joint. Their weapons had been tossed into the trees.

      Sabor’s widemount ripped a mass of leaves and blossoms from the lowest branch of a flowering tree. Sabor could feel its back trembling underneath him. The other widemounts had become as motionless as mounds of dirt.

      Five symbols raced across the map display. Jina’s human staffers had broken cover and initiated their final assault.

      Purvali and Choy jumped off their widemounts. “Use everything you’ve got, Purvali,” Sabor said. “There’s little point in trying to conceal your potential now. But please abide by the rules of engagement. No permanent damage.”

      He crawled onto the back of his widemount and fired half a dozen moles at one of the oncoming hardbodies. Purvali and Choy had dropped into on-guard crouches below him. The hardbodies were veering around trees and sailing over obstacles with a controlled, absolute silence that was a thousand times more unnerving than a chorus of battle cries.

      The hardbodies could have split their forces. Two could have gone after Sabor while the rest tried to keep Choy and Purvali occupied. Sabor could have held off his assailants for a few seconds while his dedicated staff demonstrated their ability to deal with three-to-two odds, and the three of them could then have joined forces and completed a final rout of Colonel Jina’s minions. Instead, the hardbodies clumped into a line as they approached the widemount and the entire group converged on Choy and Purvali. Jina’s

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