'Are you all right?'

'Get off me.'

He used one hand to assist her up. The other was instinctively on the hilt of the dagger secured to his right leg.

The harsh light continued to flicker over the crowd. As Maddy staggered to her feet she noticed a hole in the road and pieces of metal scattered along the way. The Nuncio's car was a burning wreck. The motorcycle guards and police held back some of the crowd: the rest of the mob was still clambering to their feet. Some had started to push back, ready to run from the scene. A number of bodies, both Sape and Sirian, lay still.

Beside her, Hera Rani stood and scowled at the destruction. The other Sasha female stepped up to the electric barrier and shouted something to the crowd across the street.

'Let's go!' Dorac yelled at his sister, but she just kept bellowing and waving her dagger like it would make a difference. 'Dorac Hera Rani!' he shouted. 'You will obey me in this!'

It was like spitting on a fire. His sister didn't even acknowledge he'd spoken. A couple of men who overheard just chuckled. Dorac Landa let go of Maddy's hand.

'I'm sending you home with Seth here.' He indicated one of the Sasha men, who was just as surprised as Maddy at the announcement. 'Things are going to get nasty.' Already the mood of the crowd could be felt. Medics had rushed to assist the wounded lying in the street. A clear space was made around the car that still burned furiously. Police shoved people back, who in turn tried to surge forwards. Paranoids could be heard planting their mechanical legs firmly on the road as their AI brains calculated and waited for orders. The heat of the burning vehicle smote Maddy's face.

Dorac was right, this was going to be out of hand soon.

'I'm not going!' she called back.

Seth emitted a harsh laugh. 'You are always a winner with the ladies, Landa!'

'Bite your arse. Look, Maddy, you haven't seen Sirians angry yet. You won't stand a chance if things heat up. And they will.'

She was jostled from behind as several Sirians from another clan pushed at the electric barrier. One of the stanchions emitted an electronic squawk and a paranoid nearby swung its gun on the Sashas. Maddy tried to shuffle out of the way closer to Dorac Landa.

'I'm staying!' she said, not really sure why. 'The safest place is with you.'

He ignored the compliment. 'I have to get Hera Rani to see reason. It could take some time.'

His sister was making what constituted openly rude Sirian gestures with her dagger now. Several women on the other side of the road, dressed in the colours of a different clan, were making gestures back.

The crowd around them heaved as police shoved from in front. A stanchion fell sideways onto the road and emitted a howl that shattered the surrounding noise. Paranoids herded towards the disturbance, attracted like flies to a corpse.

Maddy's view was totally obstructed as giant Sirian bodies pressed in. The police and paranoids activated the stanchions to become mobile; they now barked warnings as they formed a rolling blockade that crept forwards, widening the road between them. People were forced to leave the scene or be crushed up against the buildings on either side. Most chose to stay. Maddy was pinned in from all sides.

A hand grabbed hers and hauled so hard she cried out. Dorac Landa slung her across his shoulder and with his other hand hauled at Hera Rani's arm. His sister yelled an objection but the pressure of the crowd being forced back compelled her to submit to her brother's urgings and be led to the edges of the mob. Even there it wasn't safe as people were forced back further.

'This is stupid!' Hera Rani said. 'The Sapes have no idea...'

She was right. Pushing Sirians out of the way was something that could only be done for a moment. The crowd began to fight back. Every Sirian over the age of ten was armed with a dagger and knew how to use it. Family honours were at stake, too, and it would be humiliating for a clan to decline joining a resistance if one began. It would only take one onlooker to snap.

The bang of a gun halted the crowd temporarily. All eyes swung to the sound. A Sape cop was a dark silhouette in the middle of the road, lit from behind by the burning vehicle. A line of superheated air left a trail from the barrel of his plasma pistol up to the roof of the city, where it punched a neat hole through the solar panel. Dorac saw the mob start to rush towards the cop and continued to haul his sister away from the confusion, Maddy still slung over his shoulder.

'Let me go, Landa!' yelled Hera Rani. 'They started it! Now we have an excuse—'

That made Dorac stop outside a closed café. He pushed his sister up against a table and glared at her. 'It means nothing! We're going home! Our mothers would not want us interfering.'

Hera Rani laughed, twirling her dagger easily between her five fingers and thumb. Her enormous earrings sparkled and danced in the light of the ongoing fireworks. 'It isn't for you to decide, Landa. Take the weakling Sape home if she's your preferred company, but I'm staying to defend the family honour!'

Maddy slapped Dorac on the back. 'You can put me down, Landa! I can walk!' He lowered her to the ground and she stepped away from the two Sirians, who were standing face to face, preparing for an all-out itsu while the city descended into chaos.

The fire from the explosion had spread. Several buildings were alight. AIs arrived and sprayed the Nunicio's car with fire-suppressant, but if they didn't turn their attention to the surrounding city soon the conflagration would be much larger. People spilled out into the streets behind the motorcade route. From more distant streets, other police and Sirians ran towards the disturbance. And yet Maddy didn't want to go home. Somehow an outrage burned inside her, that whoever had assassinated the Nuncio had disturbed what little peace she had here.

While the other two argued, Maddy moved a few metres away between the café tables and watched the riot happen. So far they were still fairly safe in this back street, but it would be wise to keep an eye out while Dorac was distracted.

The main rioting was centred on the Nuncio's car. Although some of the more senior members of several clans set aside their differences to help fight the fire and treat the wounded, most of the hotspur younger people continued to hound the Sape police and each other. A severe argument seemed to have started between two clans; although they had not yet come to actual blows, there was a lot of shouting and taunting. Sirian police were lined up between the two sides, trying to keep them apart.

On the edge of the crowd a Sape police vehicle started up and slowly backed its way out, siren blaring. A few Sirians tried to block its path, but it kept reversing until they were forced to dodge. A couple of rocks were thrown at the vehicle as it stopped, started forwards and turned to leave. It headed down the street in which Maddy and the others had taken refuge.

It halted in front of Dorac and Hera Rani, who were still in the middle of the street in full itsu. For a second the car remained still, then it gave one fierce blare of its siren and a harsh female voice called, 'Out of the way!'

Both Sirians turned to look at the vehicle as if only just aware of it. Dorac began to shuffle out of its path, but Hera Rani raised a finger and stood her ground. She was so tall the roof of the vehicle was level with her belly.

'Out of the way, Sirian!' an officer called over the car's public address system. 'This is a police vehicle!'

'Oh, really?' Hera Rani crossed her arms. 'Then why are you driving away from the riot?'

Out of the car's path, Dorac hissed, 'Sister! Don't do this! Let them go!'

'If you don't move we'll be obliged to make you!' A door opened and a short cop emerged from the vehicle, hauling his gun out. 'This is your last warning!'

The riot in the other street started to trickle through to this one. A few Sirians were running away from the main crowd. From somewhere nearby came the sound of a breaking window.

Dorac stepped forward and grabbed Hera Rani's arm. 'We have to go!' he shouted, and nodded to the officer.

Hera Rani broke Dorac's grip and put both hands on the hood of the vehicle, which caused it to sink on its suspension.

'Get off our planet!' she called.

There was a pause, then the door of the vehicle opened again and a female officer stepped out. Maddy could see a third officer remain in the driver's seat. The female officer walked to one side of the two Sirians as the male placed a small plastic sphere on the road. It opened up into a mobile restraint, multiple hands extended.

'You are under arrest for interference with a police vehicle,' said the male officer as he hauled out his sidearm. The restraint AI gripped one of Hera Rani's wrists and neatly removed her dagger before she could react. Another of its appendages reached out and snared Dorac's arm above the elbow. Maddy backed away even further, sinking into the shadows outside a storefront, watching the situation carefully. So far the officers didn't seem to have noticed her.

The male officer looked at his fone as it read their ID implants. 'Well, well,' he said. 'Dorac Landa Elsilunda. It seems you're a wanted man.' The AI removed Dorac's dagger from its sheath and handed it to the officer.

'We have a schedule,' the female officer said to her companion. 'Let them go with a warning.'

The male officer ignored her and continued to check their ID's. 'Hera Rani Elsibala. No police file. Not yet anyway. It looks like you'll both have to come with us.'

'Jake...' the woman said, then paused. 'I'd advise caution.'

'I've done nothing wrong,' Dorac replied. 'I'm on my own planet. You have no jurisdiction here.'

The officer called Jake chuckled. 'Well you can argue that in court.' He touched a contact on his fone and the AI extended four more appendages to secure Dorac's arms and legs. It still held Hera Rani by a single restraint.

Maddy removed her fone from her wrist and placed it on a table outside the café. The fone's keydisc was a standard one, a circular plate which could enter information into the fone through a variety of means, including text, voice, logic jumps and reading the nerve impulses in Maddy's fingers. She opened a sub-routine and delved deep into the fone's operating system. She wasn't a computer scientist, just a communications engineer, so this was going to be tricky. The holo screen came up as she started searching for the police fones' command links.

The third officer stepped out of the car and opened up the rear door. The female glanced at him and seemed to shrug her shoulders.

'Which of you is the senior officer?' asked Dorac. He held his manacled hands out towards the woman when no one answered. 'I like your idea of letting us off with a warning. My sister is just being hot-headed.'

'If you arrest us,' stated Hera Rani, 'you will earn the revenge of the Sasha clan. We've done nothing.'

Jake shrugged. 'The Sasha clan? They sound really dangerous.' He smiled while his gun stayed pointed at Dorac Landa. 'Are you coming quietly?'

'It seems,' said Dorac, 'that we have little choice.'

The third officer had also drawn his gun. The woman started to walk back to the car. Dorac tugged at the AI restraints, but of course it was useless.

'Right this way, then,' Jake said.

Maddy pressed a contact on her fone and hoped her idea worked.

It did. The AI shuddered and let go of Dorac and Hera Rani. Immediately his hands were free, Dorac grabbed Jake's gun and wrenched it from his grasp. It discharged into the ground near his foot, leaving a hole in the tarmac. Dorac slammed his hand into the officer's jaw and felled him.

The other male officer aimed at Dorac but ducked when a plasma bolt ploughed into the vehicle beside him. A second shot from Dorac narrowly missed his head. The man disappeared behind the shelter of the vehicle's trunk. The female officer also dived for cover while trying to draw her own gun. Hera Rani, now also free of restraints, lashed out and punched her hard. The full force of a Sirian female's fist onto her chest laid the woman out.

Dorac felt a hand on his leg; Jake was trying to pull him off balance. He reversed the gun and slammed the butt onto the man's head. He went limp.

'Maddy!' he called, and she emerged from the shadows.

'We'd better leave.' Maddy stared down at the felled officers.

'Sounds good to me. Come on, Hera Rani.'

But his sister remained in place, holding her wrist where the restraint had gripped her. . 'What happened? Why did the AI let go like that?'

Maddy reattached her fone to her wrist. 'That was me.'

Dorac laughed. 'I won't ask how. Not yet. Let's go.'

He grabbed her hand and started to move away. 'Come on, Hera!' he called. His sister shook her head, but then moved as the female officer began to clamber to her feet and her companion emerged from behind the police car. Rather than follow them, the police officers started arguing between themselves.

The fire in the other street had spread further, licking now at several buildings nearby. They headed away, down the street, keeping to the footpath.

The riot was spreading fast. There were pockets of protestors for several blocks, but few Sapes; most of the imported police had been centred on the Nuncio, and were dealing with the disturbance there. Other areas of protest seemed to be between the clans themselves; several had decided rivals families were responsible for the assassination. Clashes were still mainly restricted to posturing and threats, but a couple of knife fights had broken out. Several Sirians were bleeding.

They skirted around an ambulance parked outside a theatre. Dorac's brother, Dorac Yama, was there as a paramedic. Maddy didn't greet him; although Yama had saved her life back on Lizard, Sirian etiquette did not require her to acknowledge him at chance meetings like this. She was in his debt, and until she could perform some service for him they were meant to act as strangers.

Yama grinned as he spied his siblings. 'I thought you two would be mixed up in this somehow!'

'Shut up, Yama,' muttered Hera Rani. 'Nothing's happened.'

Yama pointed at the police pistol in Dorac's hand. 'What's that then?'

'Shit!' Dorac hid the gun behind his back, pulled it out again, and dropped it into the gutter.

'I wouldn't leave it there,' said Hera Rani. 'We have to destroy it. He shot at Sape police,' she said.

The ambulance doors closed and Yama went around to climb into the passenger seat. For the first time, he looked grave.

'That was a bit stupid,' he said. 'Don't tell the Mother-of-all.'

The vehicle moved off. The crowd that had assembled around whatever knife fight had taken place dispersed, seeking either shelter from the riot or more entertainment in the form of watching further violence.

'He's right,' said Maddy. 'Perhaps you shouldn't have done that.'

Dorac sneered. 'Tell me what choice I had. If that AI hadn't let go, we'd be in prison now. Or dead. So if I go to prison as a result of this, what difference does it make?'

'Why did the AI let go?' said Hera Rani.

Dorac looked at Maddy's face. He smiled and took her hand once more. 'Well done, whatever you did,' he whispered.

That was praise enough for now.

'We have to get home,' said Hera Rani. She had recovered her dagger after the fight with the police and had it sheathed, indicating to those around her she had no interest in fighting. 'It will be a long night otherwise.'

'Whatever you say, Hera Rani,' said Dorac. 'You're the boss.'