Two! I rolled away from behind the steps, crouched, and padded away on the balls of my feet. My boots had special sponge soles on them, but even so, a lance of blue slashed from down the street against my calf. I plowed into the sidewalk, furrowing my face and tearing meat off the knuckles wrapped around my gun. I tried not to catch my breath too loudly as I dragged myself behind the ornamental outcrop of the bannister on the next flight of steps. My leg felt like there was a railroad spike driven into it, and my knuckles were numb and stiff. I worked my fingers to keep them from freezing up on me, even though jolts of pain came up and hammered at the backs of my eyes. My face felt wet and itchy. I lay there, waiting. I got one more of them. He decided I was dead, and poked his pale face out against a black wall. The face vanished in a burst of red, and he sprawled back. I chuckled. There wasn't much I could do but chuckle. The one guy left had me cold. I had no idea where he was, but he'd seen the flash of my gun. I couldn't shift position fast enough or quietly enough to get away. All I could do was lie there. He took a chance and jumped me. I never heard him coming. A gun bounced off my head, and I went under--But not before I looked up and saw that it was Pat herself. III I remember lying on my back for quite awhile before I wanted to open my eyes. I knew I wasn't on the street. The air was warm, and heated, and I was on a bed, or something like it. My leg was giving me hell where it had been burned, but I could feel the pressure of a bandage. I couldn't tell about my hand and face--they felt as if something had been done about them, too, but I couldn't find out for sure without looking or touching them, and I didn't want to do that yet. _Why the hell had Pat jumped me?_ I couldn't figure it. I opened my eyes, and she was standing over me, a gun dangling from one hand. I threw a look at my watch, and saw I'd been out a half hour, at most. "What the hell--" I began. She cut me off with a gesture of the gun. "Shut up," she said wearily. "You'll have plenty of time to start lying later." She grimaced with tired disgust. I shook my head, but I knew better than to go on talking. There was anger working its way into the hurt look in her eyes. I got up, ignoring the feeling in my calf, and noticed several other things. I'd been lying on a low couch. My flying boots were unzipped, so that I couldn't move faster than a shuffle. The coveralls were loose around my waist where my harness had been. I pressed my left upper arm against my ribs. As far as I could tell, they hadn't found my insurance policy--a little singleshot burner hidden between two of my ribs under a strip of what looked like skin. There was collodion on my face, and tape on my knuckles. "Happy?" she asked. "Uh-huh. I'm Prince Charming, you're Snow White, and, as far as I can add up, somebody's fresh out of dwarves. What's going on around here, anyway?"