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Jockey stood, looking measured as all time, with hands in pockets, his head a little back. “And said—?”
    “Sounded this way: ‘Remember Akkilmar!’ ”
    Having fired the shot, Curdy watched for signs that the last word meant something already to Jockey. It didn’t show if it did. Maybe he should have hung on and pried around to bring in more details. Still.… He went on.
    “That stopped Lyken with all brakes, bang! He gets his bodyguard to disentangle this number from the crowd and put him in his cruiser. Went off. That’s the string spun.”
    Jockey didn’t react. He never reacted. He just turned the news over in his mind.
    “Is it hot?” demanded Curdy eventually. Jockey seemed to come back from a great distance.
    “Can’t say,” he answered, and gave a shrug. “As of now, I can’t say. But because
you
gave it to me, Curdy, I’m going to lay on it. I think you’re born lucky, Curdy. You better watch yourself, or you’ll get to thinking luck is everything in this world. Still, like I say, I’ll bet this time.”
    He gestured to Gaffles. “Give Curdy a Rate One, Gaffles,” he commanded.
    Tranks or no tranks, that was enough to shake anyone offthe measured way, Curdy decided. In Jockey’s scale Rate One meant a flat thousand—more than he’d got for his previous jobs put together. He said, “That’s gold, Jockey! Will take.”
    “Not so speedy!” said Jockey with a crooked smile. “Measure it! You didn’t earn a Rate One yet, Curdy. I’m going to lay on you, that’s all. I’m laying on your finishing the job. Now you go detect for me what that word means, that word—Akkilmar! You’re staked to expenses with that Rate One. Gold?”
    Curdy grunted. So okay, it was flattering to get the job. He took the thousand bill Gaffles passed him and folded it up small.
    “I thought it would mean something to you,” he said.
    Again the crooked smile. “You angle for clues, yonder boy? You’re a good boy as they go, so okay, so words of guidance. Now you start to ask who could be in a position to know something that means something to Ahmed Lyken. It’s free fall!”
    It didn’t sound that way to Curdy; it smelled of hard work into the bargain. He turned to go. Jockey called after him.
    “One thing too, Curdy! Like I say, you’re going to stretch that luck too far. Don’t stretch it with Tacket, that’s all.”
    Curdy spun round. “And how?” he demanded.
    “Word came the other minute that Lyken’s out recruiting—large scale. The way the filters let it through, they’re passing wooden credits. Not yet, I don’t know what’s brewing. I just guess. I guess poison. So don’t sign with Lyken, Curdy boy, not even if they offer you Rate One a day.”
    Some yonder boys weren’t measured; they dreamed of getting to be merchant princes and didn’t touch smaller stuff. Hands clean, pockets empty, they stayed where they were. Curdy was going where Jockey was; Jockey had shownthat could be done. He said so. Jockey’s smile came back without the crook in it.
    “Weigh and measure, boy!” he said. “And fall straight.”

5
    T HERE WERE ways of postponing the inevitable; Athlone used all of them up, and the inevitable still came upon him too soon. Arrangements for the dismissal of Benny, for the hypnolocking of his mind, for other routine precautions, absorbed a little time. But much too quickly postponement became impossible, and he had to go unwillingly, almost fearfully, to the penthouse on top of a lodging block where his nemesis sat in darkness.
    Only three people had access to the penthouse; one of them was a girl servant, one was himself, and the third was the greatest living doctor, Jome Knard. When he came into the foyer of the penthouse, Athlone found Knard awaiting him.
    The doctor was a small man with a barking voice who wore a sterile mask night and day; to the patients he treated, and especially the present patient, the greatest danger was from unfiltered human breath. Athlone