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inevitably treated them badly and were loved all the more because of it. Perhaps Featherstone was right and that was the way to success. Surely not. Rhianna would never embrace a philosophy like that. Depression welled up in Smith. How long would it be before some smoother, less sincere operator got Rhianna instead of him?
    He stood up and checked his moustache in the mirror.
    It was inevitable that she would belong to someone else soon. A woman like that couldn’t stay single for long.
    Forget about her, he told himself again.
    ‘What the hell’s happened to my fishnet tights?’ Carveth cried from across the hall. ‘There’s a massive hole in the crotch!’
    Suruk peered out of his room. ‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘I used them as a T-shirt.’
    ‘Thank God for that. I thought I’d done some kind of gigantic fart. Has anyone seen my boots?’
    Smith strolled into the corridor and Carveth stepped out to meet him. She was wearing her blue dress, which made her look like Alice in Wonderland.
    ‘Hey, Boss, looking very dapper there!’
    ‘Thanks, Carveth. What’s that stuff on your face?’
    ‘Lichen-based facial cream. The pack says it’ll make you look five years younger. Which, seeing how long I’ve been functional, should give me a visual age of about minus three, but what the hell.’
    ‘It looks like a clown hit you with a pie. Step in here a moment, would you?’
    She followed him into his room. ‘What’s the prob?’
    ‘I want you to look out, Carveth. From what I’ve heard, this Hyrax is a serious chap to have as an enemy.’
    ‘Huh. I’ll be fine. Besides, isn’t a hyrax a girly bit?’
    ‘I really wouldn’t know. Now look, this casino sounds like neutral ground. Chances are that no weapons will be allowed inside.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘I want you to go in our car, with Suruk. Stash the Civiliser somewhere out of sight, and if there’s any trouble, be ready to go for it. Understand?’
    Her small face became serious, under the cream. ‘Loud and clear, Boss. When it’s time for action I grab your rod.’
    She saluted.
    Suruk wandered in. ‘How do I look?’ he asked.
    ‘Threatening, verging on macabre,’ Carveth said.
    ‘Excellent.’
    Smith examined the alien. ‘Any chance you could ease off the skulls a bit?’
    Suruk untied some of his more impressive trophies. ‘Cannot handle a few severed heads? Very well, if I must. La-de-da puny humans.’
    *
    ‘Mr Featherstone?’ the barman asked.
    ‘White Russian in a tall glass,’ Featherstone replied. ‘Single cream.’ He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and sighed. ‘. . . And a pint of mild in a jug. . . two pints of forty percent sucrose solution and. . . God almighty, “something that doesn’t taste of alcohol but will get me well wrecked”.’
    It was half nine and Casino Imperiale was in full swing. On the verandah, knots of drinkers watched a hundred people lose money. Businessmen and plantation officers mixed with policemen, criminals and servants of the government, and the air rang with the rattle of roulette wheels, the chink of glasses and the strident ringing of haughty laughter. At the head of a huge staircase, a man in a Nehru jacket stood quietly behind two bodyguards, his face in shadow, studying his domain.
    Smith felt uneasy here, far from deep space. He looked around the room, with its dapper inhabitants, and realised that he would have been happier in the void, or creeping through the jungle of some alien world with his rifle in hand, looking for artefacts to send back home. Odd, he thought: for a civilised man, he felt more comfortable in the wild than pretending to be a sophisticate.
    That’s where I should be, he thought, on the frontline, blasting hell out of Ghasts instead of swanking round like a particularly effete swan. I should just grab this Hyrax fellow, give him to the law and take the fight back to Gertie.
    ‘No sign of Calloway yet,’ Featherstone said at his elbow. ‘Here’s your