Terminal World

A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy.

At one time, the treatment for a certain kind of psychosis had been to push an ice pick up through the orbit of the eye, into the frontal lobe; the ice pick was then stirred around until it reduced the problematic brain tissue to non-functioning porridge.

Sooner or later everything boils down to trust. You just have to make that leap of faith.

The two men -- Fray and Malkin -- were standing near each other. They were not unarmed. They were quite seriously not unarmed. Both men were carrying -- or at least aiming -- what could only be categorised as small artillery pieces: two bulky gas-powered spinguns, so heavy that they had to be strapped to their bodies via thick leather girdles. Malkin was aiming at the angels, more or less.

There was a moment of absolute cosmic cold, as if a billion tiny doors had opened in every cell of his body, letting in the draught of creation.

My people are impressing on Tulwar's people the wisdom of surrender and a rapid shift of allegiance. I'm counting on most them being opportunist thugs who'll recognize a good thing when it's offered to them.

There's a vorg loose," Meroka explained. "In case that escaped your attention. Ricasso's doing his bit for Swarm, trying to kill the thing before it sucks someone's brains out. Now he might be able to find time in his schedule to file that paperwork you need, but I'm guessing it's going to be a stretch, what with a monster on the loose and the ship being in a state of fucking emergency and all." She smiled sweetly. "So, what's it going to be? You going to let them out, or do I have to get, you know, truculent.

But it was still a thing to be feared, even as it went through the paradoxical business of burning fuel in the hope of finding further reserves of the same dwindling commodity. It was a creature that had to keep moving or die, and that made it both awesome and ever so slightly tragic.

...' I want to make sense of the world, Doctor. I want to undo the screws, take off its elegant face, glimpse the glittering movement, poke around in the gears and then decide if it's broken or not. Then I want to know if there is anything we can do to put it back together again. There may not be, but at least we'd have the satisfaction of knowing.' ' We'd be satisfied by our own impotence?' ' We won't know until we try

Across the land, the semaphore towers stood deathly still.