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“Can I shoot him?” Sevro asks.

“Then we’ll have to carry him with this Terran grav,” Alexandar says.

“I’ll carry the shitheap,” Thraxa replies.

“He’s not supposed to be this big,” Alexandar mutters. “Bastard was supposed to be eating algae for the last six years. He looks like he’s been eating whole cows. Musta put on fifty kilograms of muscle.”

“I’m going to shoot him, Reap,” Sevro says. “He’s on to us. And he’s a pervert.”

“Don’t shoot him,” I say.

I close the remaining distance so that Apollonius and I are eye to visor. He’s slightly shorter than I am. “Six years is a long time for new men to make their mark,” I growl out of my mask. “I’ve been paid for your breathing body. And I will deliver it to your brother. Hardly matters to me if you’re unconscious and drooling or traipsing about like a gorydamn Pixie. So, shut up. Get dressed. Or I break your nose and drag you in like the Martian dog you are.”

He stares at me for three pumps of the heart and then breaks the spell with a pleasant laugh. “Venusian?” he asks.

“Venusian,” I confirm.

“I hate Venusians. Are you Carthii?”

“Saud.”

Beside me, Thraxa’s hand has settled on her hammer.

“Then you live the day.” He smiles. “How I’ve missed my people, even you clam eaters. Gold has an unyielding manner, no?” He sniffs the air, throwing the Obsidian a disdainful look, and turns to rummage through the pillows till he pulls out a white kimono brocaded in purple and gold. This he ties around the waist with a silk sash and bends to kiss his sleeping Pinks farewell. They do not stir, likely under the effects of some narcotic. He brings his violin with him and returns to us barefoot.

“Shall we?”

We prepare to leave the warden behind in the cellblock, having no more use for him. Alexandar and Sevro open the cellblock door and go through. Thraxa and I follow with Apollonius. Then he lunges backward away from us.

By the time I turn around, he’s already standing with the warden, his huge hands wrapped around the smaller man’s head, tilting it back and forth, exploring its contours with his fingers. The warden is frozen in his grasp. Apollonius looks over at me with the bor

ed insolence of a dog taking a shit on a carpet. The warden screams as Apollonius presses his hands against his eyeballs. Apollonius’s muscles ripple. His veins engorge. Before I can rush to separate the two, there’s a meaty squelch. Blood sprays Apollonius’s face as the warden’s eyes puncture and explode in their sockets. Alexandar gags. Apollonius lets the warden fall to the ground and looks blithely up at me as the man screams and paws at his face. The Gold brings a bloodied thumb to his tongue.

“Just like coins.”

I stare at the squirming warden, appalled.

“Sevro, shoot him.”

A fusillade of darts hiss past my shoulder. Two hit Apollonius in the face. He laughs and pulls them free from under his cheek. Sevro and Alexandar shoot again and Apollonius swats the darts with his hand, where they stick in the meat. Silent, he charges Sevro like a joyous, blood-soaked bison. I lower my shoulder and tackle him from the side, hitting him just under the ribs and lifting him off the ground, arms gripped behind his knees. We crash to the carpets. He’s a better wrestler than I am and I’m caught off guard by his immense strength. He rolls around me like an anaconda till I’m on all fours and the back of my head is against his sternum as he stands, pushing from the ground with his legs, cranking on my neck, straining my spinal cord as his thumb knuckles try to dig up into my Adam’s apple. I choke, unable to breathe, but claw up at his face and stick my thumb into his nostril and try to bury it up his nasal cavity. His grip doesn’t slacken. I’m going to pass out. Then the Obsidian guard is there. He hits Apollonius in the side of the head with a hookah and I manage to wrench myself free. My scarabSkin mask comes off in the Gold’s vise hold and he crumples to the carpet as I stand, winded and red-faced over him.

Looking up at my naked face, Apollonius begins to laugh again, slow drunken sounds from his diaphragm as the venom finally overwhelms his body. He spreads his arms wide on the ground, covered in dark blood like some evil primordial squid. Sevro runs up and punts him in the temple, more for good measure, and the man’s eyes roll behind his heavy eyelids as he drifts into blackness.

I stand panting over Apollonius.

“Thank you,” I say to the Obsidian. His eyes search my face, knowing now who I am. He shrugs in amusement and looks back at the warden. For a moment I think he’s going to take his revenge and bash the Copper’s skull in. Instead, he tosses the bent hookah to the ground.

“Bloodyhell,” Sevro says. “The warden?”

Thraxa’s standing over the man. “Unconcious, lucky for him.”

“Corrupt, now blind.” I grunt. “Something tells me he’s got the money for a new pair.”

“Goldilocks, you prime?” Sevro asks. Alexandar hunches at the door. He wavers, then lurches to undo his mask, managing to get it off before he throws up inside it.

Sevro jumps away. “Idiot.”

“Sorry,” Alexandar says, face pale. He avoids looking at the mangled warden and puts his mask back on.