“I didn’t say that! That’s not what I meant.”

“Kill her. Kill her now. If you can’t, I will.”

“How can you say that! You’re her sister!”

Half-sister, Sharrow thought.

“Because I know what she’s like, that’s why!”

Shut up, shut up! she screamed at them.

“She’s coming round. I heard her say something.”

“No she isn’t. Look at her; lucky you didn’t blow her brains out.”

“I was trying to.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you.”

She was tied. Tied sitting to a seat, much like Geis had been. Hands and feet tied; no, taped. Tape over mouth, too. Head hanging forward. Sore. She wanted to tell them to shut up again, but didn’t. She raised her head and looked at them.

They stood in front of the table, arguing. Breyguhn was still joined by her chain to the wall. Sharrow didn’t understand the chain; Brey must have some sort of special place she could change over from the main system to some private line. At least they had given her a chain of steel rather than iron. Probably a really generous concession for the Sea House…

She had to let her head drop again. They didn’t seem to have noticed, anyway. Everything went grey again. Still had sound, though.

“Kill her, Geis. Please keep your personal feelings out of this; this is for-”

“Keep my personal feelings out of it? Well, that’s rich, coming from you!”

“I stayed here for you! My Fate; I came in here for you! Who was it found you this place? And I could have left; but I stayed for you, for you and the family. I won’t let her ruin everything. You know she will, Geis; you know what she’s like. She won’t forgive; she can’t forgive! Geis, please, kill her. For me. Please. Please…”

“I didn’t ask you to stay; you wanted to.”

“I know, but please, for me… Oh, Geis…”

“Get off me! You stayed because you wanted to, not because of me or the family. You’re more attached to that chain than me!”

She thought she heard a sharp intake of breath. She wanted to laugh but she couldn’t put her head back. Oh Geis, she thought, you were always too literal.

“How dare you! You’re frightened! All right, I’ll show you how it’s done!”

“Brey! No! Put that-!”

The sounds of a struggle. A shot was fired; she heard a ricochet nearby. The crack of a slap. Silence, then a cry, then lots of weeping, and some sobbed words she couldn’t make out.

“Brey…I-”

“Have her, then!” Breyguhn cried. “It was always her you wanted, anyway. Well, do what you want!”

Then the sound of her chain rattling, followed by a door slamming. A door in the place where there were not supposed to be any. But she had seen lots of doors here today. Lots and lots of doors… It all drifted away from her again.

Suddenly there was something under her nose and she was sniffing a sharp, noxious vapour and her head seemed to clear and there was an odd ringing noise somewhere.

Geis squatted in front of her.

“Sharrow?” he said.

She lifted her head and flexed her eyebrows.

“Sharrow,” Geis said, “I just want you to know that I always loved you, always wanted you to be happy and to be a proper part of the family. You belong with me, not that criminal Kuma, not with any of the others. They don’t matter; none of them mattered. I forgive you for all of them. I understand. But you’ve got to understand, too. The things that were done, they weren’t all done by me; there were people who thought they were doing what I wanted them to do, but they didn’t know. Sometimes I didn’t know what was happening. People can be too loyal, you know, Sharrow? That’s the way it was, I swear.”

Geis glanced at the man still tied to the seat next to hers, the man whose name she’d forgotten but who wasn’t Molgarin. He looked dead.

“These people did that,” Geis said. “They overstepped the mark, I’m not denying that. But they meant well. Like the crystal virus; that was put in on Nachtel’s Ghost, but I didn’t know how it would later be used. I didn’t know Molgarin would start trying to build his own power base and use you to do it. I didn’t know you’d been tortured.” Geis looked agonised. He’d put his tunic-top back on, she noticed. “At least I knew it was safe, though,” he said with an attempt at a brave smile. “I have one of those implanted in my own head; did you know that?”

She shook her head. Of course she didn’t know that.

“Yes,” Geis said, nodding. “A fail-safe; a way of taking every-thing with me until I choose to disable the system.” Geis tapped the side of his head. “If I die, the crystal virus lattice senses my death and sends a coded signal; everything I own destructs. All of it, it’s all wired to go: asteroids, ships, mines, buildings, vehicles, even pens in certain politicians’ and Corp execs’ pockets; they blow up. You see? Even if they get me, even if the Court gets me, they might start a war. The insurance claims and the commercial disruption alone could wreck everything. You see how important one person can become? Do you understand now?”

She made a little whimpering noise behind the tape. He reached up and gently unstuck the tape from her mouth. It still hurt.

“I understand,” she said, her voice sounding mushy. He looked pleased. “I understand,” she said, “that you’re as fucking mad as Breyguhn, cuz.”

She sighed and looked away, expecting to be slapped or punched. Her gaze fell on the table. The Lazy Gun lay there. It looked different. The lock had been taken off. Geis had had the key. Of course he had.

Something moved on the table a metre from the gun. She started to frown, then her chin was held in one hand while with his other Geis stuck the tape back over her mouth.

“No, Sharrow,” Geis said. “No; not mad. Just long-sighted. I’ve been preparing all this for a long time now, prepared your eventual role in this from way, way back.” Geis paused. He was looking very serious now. She got the impression he was considering whether to tell her something important. She shook her head slowly, as though trying to clear it.

There was something moving on the stone table behind Geis.

He gripped her knees. “We are the past, Sharrow,” Geis said. “I know that. All this…” He looked round, and she thought he might see the movement on the table, but whatever was moving there stopped just as Geis turned his head. “All this might help what I’ve prepared, might serve as rallying points, battle standards, bribes, distractions… whatever. But only a new order can save poor Golter, only some new message can win people’s hearts and minds. All you see here, however precious it might be to us, might have to be sacrificed. Perhaps we need a new beginning; a clean slate. Perhaps that is our only hope.” He was talking quietly now. The ringing in her ears was fading and she was feeling a little stronger and less groggy. She was able to focus on what was moving on the stone table.

Fucking Fate, it was the android’s hand!

Its forearm, the one that had been chopped off by the same stroke that had beheaded it. The arm had fallen to the table and that was where it was now, crawling over the surface very slowly and quietly, using its fingers.

She felt her eyes go wide, and turned the motion into what she hoped looked like another attempt to clear her head.

Geis looked concerned, then said, gently, “Sharrow, this is all a lot for you to take in just now, but you must believe me that I’ve made sure your name will live forever.” He smiled mysteriously. “Not as you might have imagined, but-”

Gods, the arm was heading for the Lazy Gun. She stared at Geis and smiled inanely.

“- well, but in a way you might be rather proud of, even if it was never a way you could have imagined.”

She looked for Feril’s head. It wasn’t under the table where it had fallen. Its body wasn’t lying in separate pieces on the floor, either. Then she saw it: both halves of the body were propped against what looked like a giant electrical junction box in one corner, near the door Breyguhn had come through. The head…