nowledge that Sid was
nursing a green light I couldn't even see, although my eyes had plenty
time to accommodate.

Then the green light finally came back very slowly and I could see the
dear reliable old face--the green-gold beard making him look like a
merman--and then the telltale flared bright and Sid flicked on the Place
lights and I leaned back.

"That nails them, lads, whoever and whenever they may be. Get ready for
a pick-up."

Beau, who was closest of course, looked at him sharply. Sid shrugged
uneasily. "Meseemed at first it was from our own globe a thousand years
before our Lord, but that indication flickered and faded like witchfire.
As it is, the call comes from something smaller than the Place and
certes adrift from the cosmos. Meseemed too at one point I knew the fist
of the caller--an antipodean atomicist named Benson-Carter--but that
likewise changed."

Beau said, "We're not in the right phase of the cosmos-Places rhythm for
a pick-up, are we, sir?"

Sid answered, "Ordinarily not, boy."

Beau continued, "I didn't think we had any pick-ups scheduled. Or
stand-by orders."

Sid said, "We haven't."

Mark's eyes glowed. He tapped Erich on the shoulder. "An octavian
denarius against ten Reichsmarks it is a Snake trap."

Erich's grin showed his teeth. "Make it first through the Door next
operation and I'm on."

* * * * *

It didn't take that to tell me things were serious, or the thought that
there's always a first time for bumping into something from really
outside the cosmos. The Snakes have broken our code more than once. Maud
was quietly serving out weapons and Doc was helping her. Only Bruce and
Lili stood off. But they were watching.

The telltale brightened. Sid reached toward the Maintainer, saying, "All
right, my hearties. Remember, through this Doorway pass the fishiest
finaglers in and out of the cosmos."

The Door appeared to the left and above where it should be and darkened
much too fast. There was a gust of stale salt seawind, if that makes
sense, but no stepped-up Change Winds I could tell--and I had been
bracing myself against them. The Door got inky and there was a flicker
of gray fur whips and a flash of copper flesh and gilt and something
dark and a clump of hoofs and Erich was sighting a stun gun across his
left forearm, and then the Door had vanished like that and a tentacled
silvery Lunan and a Venusian satyr were coming straight toward us.