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said, face flushing pink. She began to walk back to her house. ‘I don’t know her name. I wish I did, and the name of the filthy scoundrel who attacked me.’
    ‘Couldn’t you even describe her?’
    Oquayan seemed to glower with rage. ‘If I give you an image will you never darken my life again?’
    ‘Never, I promise, by the mind of the Goddess.’
    Oquayan led Arrahaquen through the house and out into Blank Street, where she slammed the door. Two minutes passed by, Arrahaquen uncertain of what to do. Then a slip of damp paper was pushed under the door. Arrahaquen picked it up.
    She saw a tall, slender jannitta woman of striking beauty, complexion perfect, if a little tanned, with a haughty expression and mysterious eyes. She wore a nondescript jumpsuit splashed green. Most probably an independent, although she was possibly a priestess. The face, most peculiarly, seemed familiar – or was it the attitude of her body? If only the image could move...
    Suddenly Arrahaquen had a vivid mental image of Oquayan leading the woman through her garden. It persisted for some seconds, then left her mind. She blinked, stunned. The picture had seemed like a memory. But now she was certain she knew the woman.
    ~
    Back at her apartment, Arrahaquen went straight to her main rig. As it flickered with lights a movement in the corner of her eye made her glance away.
    Scorpion.
    A scorpion two feet long.
    It skittered at her, fast as a rat, and she screamed and kicked out. Luckily its claws did not cling to the leather of her boots. She rushed into the kitchen. The thing was so fast it was alongside her in seconds. Arrahaquen jumped on to the table, which skreeked across the tiled floor in response and almost made her lose her balance.
    It could not follow her. With futile stabs it tried to pierce her boots with its sting. Appalled, Arrahaquen stared.
    Wildly, she looked around the kitchen for weapons. She would not stand a chance if it got close.
    Knives – hopeless. Forks. Bottles of perry. A bucket. A bucket could be useful. She grabbed it from its hook.
    The scorpion was still jumping at her. She watched it, judged the moment, then dropped the bucket. With a clatter it fell over the scorpion.
    Terrific whacks made the bucket clang, and it jerked across the floor, but the scorpion was trapped. Arrahaquen ran into her bedroom, grabbed her laser pistol, and returned. She threw a book at the bucket then fired as the scorpion sprang out. Hit.
    Then pitch blackness. There was a rustle and the chirrup of a lock-breaker. So she had an enemy, and her enemy was no amateur. Arrahaquen readied a stun pistol and crouched behind the bedroom door. She saw a black shadow twist in the gloom. Had she been heard? It was difficult to see what was going on because now the outer door acted as a mirror, reflecting the image of the sea into her eyes. She pushed open her door and fired at random.
    There was a groan, then a thump. More rustling, then bootsteps on the stairs. Arrahaquen followed, firing down the stairwell at her quarry. People were now emerging from their own front doors. Arrahaquen caught a glimpse of a black-cloaked figure, a short woman it seemed, and she yelled for the escaping invader to be halted. But a gas bomb detonated, and then only coughs and sneezes were her answers.
    Arrahaquen thought fast. Rushing into her apartment she shook a rack of bacteria tubes to give light.
    Arrahaquen could not follow on foot, but she could use the Citadel network. Quickly she opened a link to the bank of camera images that the Citadel Guard used, and accessed a routine to control them. She focused on her block. Just as its front doors appeared on the sputtering screen she saw the short woman running out. It was not an unfamiliar woman: someone she knew, then. Fear and desperation began to well up as she realised that her enemy was a real person. Somebody really was trying to kill her.
    ‘I must follow her. Rosinante camera, you’re pointing the wrong