liquefied substance
in a rough, irregular pattern, blending it in with
the surrounding surfaces. The excess that reached
the floor quickly hardened to match the rubble
strewn about.

Flume, back against the opposite wall, weapon high
and ready, peered tensely about. Finally satisfied,
Patch switched off his fuser and tapped Swat on
the shoulder. Swat glanced at him, switched off,
and they stepped back.

"This'll do it," Patch said. "Load Angel in first.
The back of the hole is too small for the big guy."

He leaned over, grasped the open-eyed head by
a hank of hair and flung it into the hole. The head
disappeared with a soft thud. Swat joined Patch;
each grasped one of the body's arms and legs
and they heaved it in after the head. Patch leaned
into the hole and pushed the solid flesh as far as it
would go. Turning, he motioned Swat toward Ram.

For a moment Flume faced away from Hodak.
He did not see the boomerang before it twisted
around his throat and was gone.

Intent on Ram, Swat and Patch saw neither the
strike nor the weapon. They heard a gurgling sound
and whirled. Flume was on the tunnel floor, blood
pulsing from the neck of his headless torso. The
head, itself, had rolled against the opposite wall,
eyes open.

Panicked, they fired frantically down the tunnel
in both directions.

The boomerang back in his hand, Hodak waited. An
open assault was unacceptable, both for himself and
for Ram. He would be cut down with a single sweep
of the killers' heavy handguns, and with his identity
revealed, Scarf would track down the Sentinels with
a vengeance.

Snapping a quick peek he saw Patch and Swat back
to back in the middle of the tunnel, facing in opposite
directions and whispering to each other in terror.
Guessing the distance between the two he extended
the boomerang slightly and pressed the pip.

Stepping away from the wall Hodak threw the
boomerang around the bend.

One of the targets must have seen it coming.
There was the beginning of a scream.

Boomerang back in hand, Hodak walked around the
bend. Patch lay quietly; Swat's body still quivered.

Hodak took less than five minutes to enlarge the
hole, load the newly dead in with their companions,
and smooth the surface to match the tunnel's wall.

Ram, groggy, sat against the opposite wall and
watched.

Chapter THIRTY

The space was little more than two meters across,
a vault cut into the side of a tunnel to store
construc