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so Cato began the process of bringing the shotgun around and hoped there would be enough time.
    The man on the cycle was guiding the one-wheeled vehicle with his knees, which left both hands free to fire identical pistols. Cato heard a bullet whisper past his ear and felt another tug at his sleeve as he fired. The buckshot hit its target, blew the rider out of his seat, and dumped him onto the pavement. The unicycle flashed past, hit a pile of rubble, and did a full somersault in the air before crashing to the ground.

    Trey Omo wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway, although he could feel his life’s blood draining out onto the pavement around him. He wasn’t especially surprised. Not after a lifetime of combat. Dying was disappointing, though, especially just one year short of the retirement he had promised himself and the peace that might have followed.
    Omo heard gravel crunch under someone’s boots, blinked to clear his eyes, and saw the man with the shotgun loom above him. So he ordered his right arm to move, was pleased when it obeyed, and the pistol came up off the ground. That was when the shotgun spoke, Cato “felt” Omo die, and the battle came to an end.
    Heart in his throat, Cato turned and hurried past the point where Livius was talking to one of the newly arrived security men. Limo one was pockmarked where hundreds of bullets had hit and covered with a thick layer of dust. Cato’s knuckles made a rapping sound as he knocked on the driver’s side door—and he could hardly believe his eyes when the window slid down. Because there, seated behind the wheel, was CeCe Alamy. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “You’re alive.”
    â€œYes,” Cato answered as he opened the door to take her into his arms. “And so are you.”
    Usurlus appeared out of the still-swirling dust as a chorus of sirens was heard, and an ITV media drone hovered above. He was unarmed but accompanied by three bodyguards. His face was drawn and serious. He nodded to Cato and Alamy as if meeting them for the first time. “Hello,” Usurlus said vacantly as he surveyed the destruction all around him. “And welcome to my world.”
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    It was dark by the time all of the wounded had been removed to hospitals, the dead taken to the district morgue, and the initial phase of the investigation completed. Legate Usurlus and his party were gone by then, leaving Cato and Alamy to find a hotel and get some sleep.
    Having rescued their trunks from limo one, Cato hired a local to transport them to an arterial about five blocks away, aboard what normally served as a vegetable cart. Then, having paid the man fifty centimes, Cato hailed a ground cab. The driver was somewhat less than pleased when he saw how much luggage he had to deal with, but he managed to cram most of it into the vehicle’s trunk while swearing under his breath. The final case went into the back with Alamy, which forced Cato to sit up front next to the driver. “Take us to the Fonta Hotel,” he instructed, hoping that the hostelry was still there.
    â€œGot it,” the driver said as he pulled away from the curb. Traffic was heavy, so it took the better part of twenty minutes to crawl past the brightly lit spaceport and cross the river that separated the south side of the city from the more prosperous north. District Four was generally referred to as Far Corner because it was a long commute from the city center, which was where all of the governmental and corporate office buildings were located.
    Far Corner was a lower-middle-class neighborhood, but still respectable, and the area where Cato hoped to find an apartment. Not so much for himself, because he could survive just about anywhere, but for Alamy. And that was strange because of the nature of their relationship. The truth was that, in the normal order of things, most slave owners wouldn’t care whether their property was comfortable or not. But