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  Renton remembered from his school days just how horrible hydrogen fluoride was. If you were going to spill any acid on your hands, you made sure it wasn't this one. The one that didn't stop burning through tissue - and bone - until it came out the other side. HF didn't so much burn you as perforate you. And breathing it! And breathing elemental fluorine and bromine! Forget it. Your lungs would be shot within seconds.

  'We'll look for the tap. He'll be there,' said Meitchars. Then we'll go down.'

  'The tap?! Go down?! Land in a sea of hydrogen fluoride?! He couldn't be serious. Surely?'

  'It looks like a giant drawing pin,' added Meitchers.

  To Renton's alarm was added puzzlement. 'What looks like a giant drawing pin?' he asked.

  'The tap. Where they milk the hydrogen fluoride and bottle it up for shipment. It looks like a giant drawing pin stuck into the surface of the ocean. It's huge. About a kilometre in diameter. The "head" that is. And the "pin" bit - that's about fifty metres across. It's made from some fluoro-carbon compound that resists the HF. It's as tough as sceptre-sintered steel. Holds the whole thing up and carries all the pumping gear that sucks up the ocean. It's quite a construction. There aren't many like it anywhere.'

  Renton was now trying to grapple with a number of thoughts and questions all at the same time, and was getting nowhere fast. Big drawing pins sticking out of terrifyingly unpleasant seas. His partner's confidence in their ability to cope with a nightmare chemical environment. And then why he was so sure their quarry was down there. Maybe he could at least clear up this last little item. He ventured a question. 'Meitchars, how are you so sure Sereza's on this tap thing? It can't be completely automatic. There must be someone there who would spot the odd arsonist… Ah, I know. He's one of the crew, one of the workers. But how did you know?'

  'There are no workers,' replied Meitchars, 'because the tap's not finished yet. And it isn't finished because its entire construction team disappeared about six months ago. Without leaving a forwarding address. They just vanished without trace.'

  Renton felt his stomach tighten as he remembered the consequences of some other disappearances - in a previous adventure.

  '…And the whole place is now quarantined - while the investigation proceeds. You know the sort of thing. It'll have "no entry" signs posted all over it for a generation. And not too many investigators paying it too many visits in the meantime. Just about perfect as a hidey hold for the likes of Sereza… He'll be down there all right, and…'

  Meitchars paused as he examined the monitor before him, and then continued with a smile in his voice.

  '…and there it is! Sereza's home sweet home. Time for a bit of housewarming, I reckon.'

  And before he'd finished speaking, Renton felt their craft descending into A-402-C's atmosphere. A-402-C's rather unpleasant atmosphere…

  11.

  Meitchars continued to amaze.

  Any self-respecting fugitive arsonist would have an early-warning system in his ship on constant sentry duty - to announce the arrival of uninvited guests. Sereza did. But it didn't get too concerned about an approaching weather front. Even when the weather front was in fact a scudder fitted out with a Meitchars-concocted device giving it the electronic appearance of a weather front - rather than that of a scudder. Our heroes were within shooting range well before Sereza could have had any idea that he had more than an unseasonable cold front to deal with. The gargantuan drawing pin was now only a few miles away. Renton could see it clearly. It was a truly awe-inspiring construction, even in its unfinished state.

  The shaft of the “pin”, the huge column rising from the syrupy sea, looked to be complete. But the head it supported was certainly not. It was, in fact, a double head, two identical discs fixed to the shaft about thirty metres apart. And strewn about the surfaces of both discs were the bits and pieces of the constructor's work in progress - now work not in progress: various machines, various bits of equipment, and stacks of all sorts of material. In the next phase of the building process, some of this material would have been used to form a curtain at the circumferences of the discs. The space between them would then be an enclosed space, a safe, sealed haven to shelter the tap's workers from A-402-C's hostile environment. But now that space was still unprotected - as was the skipper within.

  And so Meitchars continued to amaze. He'd sent a small ion dart through the skipper's side before Renton had even registered what he was firing at. The dart appeared to do no more than punch a small hole in the side of Sereza's scruffy little vessel, but it did much more than that. Meitchars knew all about skippers, and he knew where their Achilles heel lay - the one point where a crucial part of a skipper's ignition system ran close enough to the craft's surface to be paralysed by a little old ion dart. And so it was. Sereza wouldn't be going anywhere now. He would have to stay on for his housewarming whether he liked it or not.

  And then the Ticklers' scudder was down - within the sandwich of the giant discs, no more than 300 metres from Sereza's own grounded space bucket. Meitchers was now closing in. The avenger was here for his kill.

  Renton was there too - so far as no more than a spectator. But maybe his status was about to change. And changing into a spacesuit certainly seemed to suggest this.

  Renton had only worn a spacesuit on three occasions before, once as part of his monoflight pilot training and twice on simulation modules in his Tickler training. They were not commonly used pieces of kit. Modern mankind inhabited atmospherically equipped worlds - whether of the natural or synthetic variety. And when travelling between them, tended to stay inside atmospherically provided spaceships. Donning a spacesuit was for most people akin to having to wear a life jacket; it meant you were in some sort of trouble.

  For Ticklers, however, it could also mean you were looking for trouble - in an atmospherically challenged environment. For them, spacesuits were just another tool of the trade. But Renton wasn't so sure. They were a bit too clingy for his liking. And the one he wore now just didn't have enough room under the armpits. But worse than that was the fishbowl. That's to say, the fishbowl helmet one wore on one's head. This was truly awful.

  The bowl itself was a perfect sphere made of a fantastic clear plastic called hardon. Fantastic because in this perfect-spherical configuration, the plastic was effectively indestructible. It somehow had the ability to deflect any amount of energy directed at its outer surface. So whether your helmet was the subject of an assault by a hammer or by the heaviest duty maser, it would remain unscathed - totally unmoved by the experience. However, in the earlier models of this apparently reassuring headgear, the same could not be said for the head inside the helmet. There were quite a few skulls that discovered that when the going got tough, they weren't quite as tough as the inside surface of the hardon bubble. Enter the present day model. The same external arrangement but now with a clear plastic inner hood, one designed to mould itself to the wearer's head at its top and its sides - an elegant cushioning system within that rock-hard hardon shell.

  Renton would not, however, have used the term “elegant” to describe the achievement of this safety improvement in the aesthetic stakes. Certainly not for his own appearance anyway. For we are now talking about Renton's bête-noir, the bane of his life: his hair. His poor tortured hair. The stuff up above that weighed down on his mind. Those far too fine, far too wavy, far too wayward strands of anguish that were rarely at peace and rarely in place. His complete-mess hirsute-ness that needed all the care and attention he could muster to make it look halfway reasonable. Always at the mercy of inconsiderate weather, inconsiderate handling and inconsiderate space-helmet designers! The sort who had concocted what was no more than a transparent hairnet, something to paste his carefully crafted locks to his head in the most unfortunate of manners, and then to display the ridiculous end product for the amusement of all. All except Renton that is. He really hated wearing a space-helmet.

  Nevertheless, on this occasion, he was more than a little relieved to have the of
fending fishbowl and the rest of his spacesuit firmly in place - as he followed Meitchars out of the scudder and into the extreme hostility of a halogen atmosphere. A hostility that was about to be matched by the sole inhabitant of this most charmless of charmless planets.

  12.

  Meitchers' plan was to reconnoitre and then devise a means of apprehending Sereza, depending on what they found. But at the same time, to be prepared for the unexpected. Which was just as well. For Sereza had his own plan. It took into account the crippled condition of his own craft, his being well and truly trapped on a giant drawing pin in an ocean of hydrofluoric acid, and the proximity of a Tickler craft and however many Ticklers it contained. In short, the hopelessness of his situation. He was going to charge at his persecutors with an Incandite bomb strapped to his chest. And when he could see the terror in their eyes, he was going to pull a little wire loop and envelop this man-made island in the biggest explosive fireball this planet had ever seen. And he was going to enjoy it. It would, after all, be quite a way to go!

  Renton and Meitchars had just crouched behind a pile of sacks - for reconnoitring purposes - when Sereza appeared. He was running towards the scudder - which meant he was running towards them. And although it didn't look as though he'd seen them yet, in about twenty-five seconds he'd be shaking their hands. Or maybe he wouldn't - for they could now see what was strapped to his chest.

  Meitchars' voice came through Renton's earphones immediately. 'Logic exercise, Renton,' he announced calmly. 'Answer the following questions.'

  'Right,' replied Renton, surprising himself with his own calm.

  'Man running at us in spacesuit, with bomb on chest activated by pull-cord. Can we use masers to shoot at head?'

  'No. Masers ineffective on helmet,' responded Renton crisply.

  'At legs?'

  'No. Likely to pull cord.'

  'At arms?'

  'No. Immediate detonation.'

  'Answer?'

  'Distract and overwhelm.'

  'Good. Go and distract now. Draw him towards the central column. I'll overwhelm. Go! Now!'

  And wow! The training was working. The logic module had borne fruit. But would his combat training be as fertile? Renton was about to find out. For he now had a principal rôle. And act one had already arrived. He leapt to the right, maser drawn - and immediately kicked into a metal drum and stumbled - but by design not by accident. It was just the opening line in his attention-grabbing prose, in his entrance as the master of distraction.

  And it achieved its objective immediately. Sereza flinched, checked his run for an instant, and then started to veer to meet his new target - in double quick time. He had a live Tickler to go at now. Just one. But one, it appeared, was enough. One pair of eyes would do fine.

  Then Renton sprinted towards another metal drum and this time fell before he reached it. And, as he rolled across the floor, he began to fire his maser - erratically, almost as if in panic.

  Sereza's dream of magnificent self-destruction evaporated in an instant. If this chap was a Tickler, he was a greenhorn Tickler or a washout Tickler. He was also mortal and on his own. Eminently stuffable. And then the scudder would be Sereza's, and things would be hopeless no more. They held out all sorts of promise. His plan had to change. He drew his own maser and, still running, began to fire at Renton - who was now struggling to rise to his feet.

  Maser blasts whistled past Renton's head, and for a fleeting moment he wondered just how well his fishbowl would cope with a more accurate shot. But then he was immersed again in his task of distraction. His feigned stumbling ineptitude was working wonders. But he had to keep up the act, and to do that he had to survive. He rose to his feet. And instantly he had to dive to his right - to avoid a maser tattoo on his chest. And even as he fell, more maser blasts thudded into the floor in front of him and behind him.

  He rose again and this time leapt not to the right but towards his assailant. And then, with his adrenalin in full flow, he did something he'd not done for an age: a forward roll, arse over tit - stupid but effective. Sereza's next rounds didn't even come close.

  But he was now on the floor and unsure of which way was up and of which way was Sereza. So instinct took over and he rolled towards a pile of girders. Then he sprang to his feet and found himself facing the mad arsonist - and the adrenalin dried to a dust. He saw that Sereza was standing - standing, not running around. For he was standing to aim with his maser. Carefully with both hands. It seemed that he'd tired of the game - and now wanted only to finish it - by winning it.

  But now was suspended - by a cartwheeling figure forty metres to Sereza's right. Then the cartwheel fired a maser. And the maser blast punctured a metal cylinder to Sereza's left - at about knee height. And a jet of searing acetylene flame, laser bright and laser thin, burst from the metal and stabbed at his legs.

  He'd been successfully distracted - and now he'd been comprehensively overwhelmed. And intense pain was the greatest of all overwhelmers. The acetylene crisping of his legs was bad enough, but it was as nothing compared with the action of the atmosphere on his skin, the ghastly blistering atmosphere that now rushed into his spacesuit through the holes in its knees. And he was alive to feel this. Because his head, isolated in the discrete confines of his fishbowl helmet, still had its own atmosphere and its air source intact. It was a terrible respite. He fell to the floor and began to writhe about uncontrollably, any thoughts of setting off bombs now clearly far from his mind.

  Renton and Meitchars approached, Meitchers now ready to kill him if necessary.

  Then Sereza's writhing took him closer to the central column. And then to Renton's surprise, he suddenly disappeared.

  If the tap had been finished, Sereza would now have been writhing, out of sight, down the steps of a steep flight of stairs. But it wasn't finished. And where there was intended to be a steep staircase leading down to an inspection chamber within the central column, there was now only a hole in the floor at the side of the column - and a ledge by the inspection chamber some twenty feet below.

  Sereza had fallen through the hole and onto this ledge - and was now convinced that life couldn't possibly get any worse. Not only was he in desperate agony from what had once been his skin, but by falling onto this damned ledge, he'd missed his chance of a speedy dispatch in a sea of hydrofluoric acid. And on top of that, he'd broken his back. His limbs didn't work anymore. So he couldn't roll off the ledge and, had he thought about it, he couldn't even have detonated his bomb, his most attractive finale of all. As clean, quick and dramatic as originally devised.

  But there you go. Some days are just like that, aren't they?

  Anyway, in the end his damaged air supply served the purpose. His oxygen and nitrogen diet became laced with an increasing proportion of HF, bromine and fluorine. And the last remaining bits of his scarred and broken body began to succumb as Meitchars and Renton were preparing to lower themselves down - to administer some bomb-defusing euthanasia.

  They aborted their work when they heard Sereza's death howl - when he was finally and comprehensively extinguished - never to light up or flare up again.

  Meitchars seemed to be very content. Renton, as usual, had mixed feelings. But somewhere in that mix, along with a reinforced admiration for Meitchars' skills, relief at Sereza's demise and an uncomfortable sort of satisfaction at the manner of his demise, there was happiness. Happiness with his own performance on the first occasion he'd been called upon to perform as a Tickler. Even if the rôle required was that of a clumsy incompetent. He'd done well. He knew it. And Meitchers would know it too.

  13.

  Meitchars was preparing food in the scudder's galley. It had been a very long day, and a meal was now a priority. The victors' evening was also A-402-C's evening, and they'd decided to eat and then spend the night on this planet, within the safety of their craft - and then return to the Pandiloop office in the morning.

  As Meitchars cooked, Renton talked. A lot. He'd had his first real skirmish
today, and he was now in his first post-skirmish high, a state a little like post-coital pleasure, except one didn't fall asleep quite so soon. And in Renton's case it also involved his becoming worryingly talkative.

  'Tell me, Meitchars. Where the hell did you learn to cartwheel and shoot like that? I've just never seen anything like it. In fact, I'm not sure I really did see it. I mean, it's just not possible. How can you aim… I mean, how can you even see what you're aiming at? And the cartwheels! They were huge.'

  'I have long arms and long legs,' was Meitchars' selective answer. And as Renton absorbed the significance of this rather too obvious statement, Meitchars moved the debate from the acrobatic to the culinary with the words: 'food's up'.

  But the food didn't stop Renton gabbling on. And he still wanted to talk about their adventure in arms.

  'What an incredible place this is. I mean, as a setting for the to-do with Sereza. It's so different from what I've been used to. And even now we're sitting over a friggin' ocean of hydrofluoric acid. It's like a dream. It really is. For me anyway. I suppose you've seen it all before. I mean, other weird worlds and the like. But even so…'

  Renton paused to shake his head. Then he went on.

  '…Hey, I've just had a thought. I don't know who our client is. Who was prepared to lay out the money - to catch this Sereza? I didn't think to ask.'

  Meitchars finished chewing a mouthful of food and then responded to Renton's first sensible question of the evening. 'IFOP. You know, the federal police setup. They've been after Sereza for ages. For years, in fact. But they'd run out of time. And that's why they called us.'