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exploded. A little white contrail led away from it, wavering into the dark.
    He heard the tearing growl of a jet. It was headed away—no, it was coming back. The men on the cutter were scrambling for weapons, shouting and pointing. Something dove out of the cloud bank and suddenly everybody was shooting.
    “Damn!” The pilot cringed back and the men holding Chaison’s arms let go. The foundry workers were jumping behind whatever metal object was closest. Yet Chaison found himself still centered in the spotlight’s glare.
    Another bang and the light jerked to one side. Chaison and Darius dove for cover. Seconds later, Richard Reiss appeared to realize that he was the one remaining target on the foundry’s superstructure. With a yelp he too scrambled for a hiding place.
    An expanding oval of fire had appeared at the back of the cutter. Some of the policemen were squirting dead air into it from the ship’s tanks while others fired blindly into the red-lit clouds.
    “Over here!” That was a woman’s voice. Chaison looked behind him and spotted a dark figure in the air behind the foundry. The figure waved an arm. “Come on! What are you waiting for?”
    “This is that moment I’m told you’re supposed to seize,” said Richard Reiss. He leaped clumsily past the spiraling smoke spumes of the foundry. Chaison glanced at Darius, who shrugged. They hauled themselves hand over hand past the shacks at the foundry’s center then launched themselves off the structure.
    The dark shape became clearer: it was a slim figure dressed in black, sitting on a cloud-gray jet bike. The bike, a simple wingless jet engine with a saddle, was whining and spinning in a tight circle. Evidently it wanted to be moving. The woman kept her feet in its stirrups as she stretched out to catch Richard’s hand. She drew him in then grabbed the handlebar of the bike and steered it over to collect the other two men.
    “I shot one of their engines but it won’t slow them down for long.” The voice was definitely female, but Chaison barely had time to glance at her before she gunned the engine. He grabbed for something to hold onto, caught a metal ring on the side of the barrel-shaped bike and then found himself hanging off it by one hand as the jet opened up with a roar and they shot away from the foundry.
    They shot through clouds and jet-black air for ten long minutes while Chaison did nothing but try to keep his grip against the battering headwind. Little lights glinted in the distant skies, some solitary, some in the glittering circles of wheel-shaped towns. The night would have been beautiful were it not that Chaison was wrapped in exhaustion, anxiety, and pain from his strained muscles.
    Dawn was coming, an irregular pulse of red somewhere far below, when Richard Reiss finally let go and fell behind them. Instantly their unknown pilot throttled back. Idling, she circled them around to where Richard stood on the air, arms crossed indignantly.
    “See here,” he said. “How much of this abuse are we to endure in the name of liberty?” Faint rose light was touching the limbs of the clouds behind him, making him look incongruously angelic. “I demand a rest!” he continued. “And an explanation! Who are you? Did you break our prison?”
    Chaison climbed up the side of the now-drifting bike. The pilot was slim, dressed in a sharkskin leather coat with a flying helmet on her head. She reached up now to slide this off. Chaison heard Darius grunt in surprise.
    Her eyes were startling: huge blue ovals above a very tiny nose and mouth. Her hair was a black pageboy frame for this extraordinary face.
    Darius swore. “A winter wraith!”
    The woman showed white teeth in a wide grin. “I’m so much more than that.” She laughed. Her voice was a strong and confident alto.
    The bike was close enough to Richard now that he could reach out and grab Chaison’s hand. The admiral drew him in until he could get a grip on the bike again.
    “Surely you