"I wanted to show I wasn't squeamish," Gurgeh said, watching the second cub's head jerk up and the beast fall at the feet of its mother. "And I have hunted—"

He was going to use the word "Azad', which meant machine and animal; any organism or system, and he turned to Yomonul with a small smile to say this, but when he looked at the apex he could see there was something wrong.

Yomonul was shaking. He sat clutching his gun, turned half towards Gurgeh, face quivering in its dark cage, skin white and covered in sweat, eyes bulging.

Gurgeh went to put his hand on the strut of the Star Marshal's forearm, instinctively offering support.

It was as though something broke inside the apex. Yomonul's gun swung right round, snapping the supporting tripod; the bulky silencer pointed straight at Gurgeh's forehead. Gurgeh had a fleeting, vivid impression of Yomonul's face; jaw clamped shut, blood trickling over his chin, eyes staring, a tic working furiously on the side of his face. Gurgeh ducked; the gun fired somewhere over his head and he heard a scream as he fell out of his seat, rolling past his own gun's tripod.

Before he could get up, Gurgeh was kicked in the back. He turned over to see Yomonul above him, swaying crazily against the background of shocked, pale faces behind him. He was struggling with the rifle bolt, reloading. One foot lashed out again, thudding into Gurgeh's ribs; he jerked back, trying to absorb the blow, and fell over the front of the platform.

He saw wooden slats whirling, cinderbuds revolving, then he struck, crashing into a male animal handler standing just before the run. They each thudded to the ground, winded. Gurgeh looked up and saw Yomonul on the platform, exoskeleton glinting dully in the sunlight, raising the rifle and sighting on him. Two apices came up behind Yomonul, arms out to grasp him. Without even glancing back, Yomonul swung his arms flashing round behind him; a hand smashed into the chest of one apex; the rifle slammed into the face of the other. Both collapsed; the carbon-ribbed arms darted back and Yomonul steadied the gun again, aiming at Gurgeh.

Gurgeh was on his feet, diving away. The shot hit the still winded male lying behind him. Gurgeh stumbled for the wooden doors leading under the high platform; shouts came from the platform as Yomonul jumped down, landing between Gurgeh and the doors; the Star Marshal reloaded the gun as he hit the ground on his feet, the exoskeleton easily absorbing the shock of landing. Gurgeh almost fell as he turned, feet skidding on the blood-spattered earth.

He pushed himself off the ground, to run between the edge of the wooden fence and the platform edge. A uniformed guard with a CREW rifle stood in his way, looking uncertainly up at the platform. Gurgeh went to run past him, ducking as he did so. Still a few metres in front of Gurgeh, the guard started to put one hand out and unhitch the laser from his shoulder. A look of almost comic surprise appeared on his flat face, an instant before one side of his chest burst open and he spun round into Gurgeh's path, knocking him over.

Gurgeh rolled again, clattering over the dead guard. He sat up. Yomonul was ten metres away, running awkwardly towards him, reloading. The guard's rifle was at Gurgeh's feet. He reached out, grabbed it, aimed at Yomonul and fired.

The Star Marshal ducked, but Gurgeh was still allowing for recoil after a morning shooting the projectile rifle. The laser-shot slammed into Yomonul's face; the apex's head blew apart.

Yomonul didn't stop. He didn't even slow down; the running figure, head-cage almost empty, trailing strips of flesh and splintered bone behind it like pennants, neck spouting blood, speeded up; it ran faster towards him, and less awkwardly.

It aimed the rifle straight at Gurgeh's head.

Gurgeh froze, stunned. Too late, he started to sight the CREW gun again, and began struggling to get up. The headless exoskeleton was three metres away; he stared into the silencer's black mouth and he knew he was dead. But the bizarre figure hesitated, empty headshell jerking upwards, and the gun wavered.

Something crashed into Gurgeh — from the back, he realised, surprised, as everything went dark; from the back, not from the front — and then came nothing.

His back hurt. He opened his eyes. A bulky brown drone hummed between him and a white ceiling.

"Gurgeh?" the machine said.

He swallowed, licked his lips. "What?" he said. He didn't know where he was, or who the drone was. He had only a very vague idea who he was.

"Gurgeh. It's me; Flere-Imsaho. How do you feel?"

Flear Imsah-ho. The name meant something. "Back hurts a bit," he said, hoping not to be found out. Gurgi? Gurgey? Must be his name.

"I'm not surprised. A very large troshae hit you in the back."

"A what?"

"Never mind. Go back to sleep."

"…. Sleep."

His eyelids felt very heavy and the drone looked blurred.

His back hurt. He opened his eyes and saw a white ceiling. He looked around for Flere-Imsaho. Dark wooden walls. Window. Flere-Imsaho; there it was. It floated over to him.

"Hello, Gurgeh."

"Hello."

"Do you remember who I am?"

"Still asking stupid questions, Flere-Imsaho. Am I going to be all right?"

"You're bruised, you've got a cracked rib and you're mildly concussed. You ought to be able to get up in a day or two."

"Do I remember you saying a… troshae hit me? Did I dream that?"

"You didn't dream it. I did tell you. That's what happened. How much do you remember?"

"Falling off the stand… platform," he said slowly, trying to think. He was in bed and his back was sore. It was his own room in the castle and the lights were on so it was probably night. His eyes widened. "Yomonul kicked me off!" he said suddenly. "Why?"

"It doesn't matter now. Go back to sleep."

Gurgeh started to say something else, but he felt tired again as the drone buzzed closer, and he closed his eyes for a second just to rest them.

Gurgeh stood by the window, looking down into the courtyard. The male servant took the tray out, glasses clinking.

"Go on," he said to the drone.

"The troshae climbed the fence while everybody was watching you and Yomonul. It came up behind you and sprang. It hit you and then bowled over the exoskeleton before it had time to do much about it. Guards shot the troshae as it tried to gore Yomonul, and by the time they dragged it off the exoskeleton it had deactivated."

Gurgeh shook his head slowly. "All I remember is being kicked off the stand." He sat down in a chair by the window. The far edge of the courtyard was golden in the hazy light of late afternoon. "And where were you while this was happening?"

"Back here, watching the hunt on an imperial broadcast. I'm sorry I left, Jernau Gurgeh, but that appalling apex was kicking me, and the whole obscene spectacle was just too gory and disgusting for words." Gurgeh waved one hand. "It doesn't matter. I'm alive." He put his face in his hands. "You're sure it was I who shot Yomonul?"

"Oh yes! It's all recorded. Do you want to wa—"

"No." Gurgeh held up one hand to the drone, eyes still closed. "No; I don't want to watch."

"I didn't see that bit live," Flere-Imsaho said. "I was on my way back to the hunt as soon as Yomonul fired his first shot and killed the person on the other side of you. But I've watched the recording; yes, you killed him, with the guard's CREW. But of course that just meant whoever had taken control of the exoskeleton didn't have to fight against Yomonul inside it. As soon as Yomonul was dead the thing moved a lot faster and less erratically. He must have been using all his strength to try and stop it."