The head, Feril’s head, had been set on an end-post of the weapons rack from the fjord tower, in the middle of the great stone table. From where it was perched-and assuming the android’s head could still see-it had a perfectly good view of the Lazy Gun and the hand that was now less than half a metre from the Gun’s open trigger mechanism.

Geis was still talking.

“- hate me for what I’ve done, initially at first, but I know, I really do know that eventually, once all that’s going to happen has happened, you’ll know I did the right thing.”

What was this idiot talking about? She tried to concentrate on her cousin’s face and ignore the android hand scraping its way across the surface of the stone table towards the matt-silver body of the Gun.

What could the hand do when it got there? The trigger wasn’t supposed to be especially stiff, but what about aiming? Would the half-metre length of arm and hand have the strength to turn the Gun, even if Feril could aim it with its head three metres away? What had the sights been set at? How wide a field? Feril would need to point the Gun at Geis; at the moment it was pointing at… at the casing of the Universal Principles.

She stared at Geis, not listening.

Holy shit, she thought; even if Geis considered the casing of the Universal Principles disposable, he wouldn’t think the same about the Addendum and his ludicrous Crownstar.

Fate, she might get out of this yet. She felt herself start to cry and was furious with herself. Hope could be more painful than despair.

“Oh, Sharrow,” Geis said tenderly, “don’t cry.” He looked sympathetic. She thought he might be about to burst into tears himself. Revolting. At least this performance was keeping his attention on her and away from the table. “- this could end well yet,” he told her. “We’re together, don’t you see? That’s a start…”

The arm and hand crawling along the table had almost made it to the trigger of the Gun. She was trying to watch it from the corner of her eye, staring wide-eyed at Geis and absurdly frightened that just by the intensity of her stare he might guess she wasn’t really listening to a word he said.

“- and I’m glad you came here, glad you saw this place; no, really, I am. Because this is my most private place, my sanctum, the one place where I am the real me, not surrounded by flunkeys and yes-men and-”

She found herself wondering where Feril’s brain was; if it was inside its head or some other part of its body. She assumed it was watching with the eyes in the head and telling its arm what to do by a comm link, but where from? Stop it, stop it, stop it, she told herself. It doesn’t matter.

“- we’ll be happy again,” Geis said. “We’ll all be happy. We have it in our own hands to matte it so, and you and I are going to make it happen. Even that criminal you thought so much of, even he’ll have something more than he deserved to commemorate him. Because we all have a criminal past, don’t we, Sharrow? That’s what poor old Golter’s had on its conscience all these ten thousand years, isn’t it? That first war, and the billions who died.

“Year zero, after twenty thousand years of civilisation. That’s what we’ve never really been able to forget, isn’t it? But our sentence is almost up, Sharrow. The deca-millennium. It’ll be just another day like any other, we all know that. But these symbols matter, don’t they? That’s what all this has been about, from the beginning; symbols. Hasn’t it?” He looked upset. He put his hand out to her tape gag, then hesitated. “Oh, Sharrow,” he said. “Just say you understand, just say you don’t hate me utterly. Please? Will you?” He looked as though he wasn’t sure whether to trust her or not.

She nudged her head forward in a series of little nods and made little whimpering noises.

Geis’s eyes narrowed, then he reached up and took the tape off her mouth again.

“Now,” she said, “take all the rest of the tape off me or the android wastes the Addendum, the Crownstar and the U.P. casing.”

Geis looked at her, uncomprehending. He laughed.

“Pardon?” he said.

“You heard;” she said. “Turn round very slowly and take a look; the android’s hand is on the trigger of the Lazy Gun.” She smiled. “I’m serious, Geis.”

He turned round slowly.

One of the fingers on the android hand gripping the Lazy Gun’s trigger-guard peeled away for a moment and made a little waving motion. Geis went very still.

“Count Geis,” a tiny voice whispered in the quietness of the chamber. It was Feril’s voice. “I am terribly sorry about this, but I am quite prepared to do as Lady Sharrow says.” The eerie, just audible voice from the head perched on the weapons rack sounded regretful.

Geis was still squatting. He swivelled slowly on his haunches to look at Sharrow again. He swallowed.

“Don’t talk, Geis,” she told him. “Just do it.”

He reached slowly round behind her and started to strip the tape away from her arms. Sharrow looked at Feril’s head, high above the table on the weapons rack.

“I had no idea you had quite such a degree of survivability built into you, Feril,” she said as one of her hands came free.

“It was never relevant before,” Fenril whispered, its voice almost drowned by the rip of tape being pulled away from Sharrow’s feet.

Geis stopped. Sharrow had one hand and one leg free. She nudged him in the shoulder with her knee. “Keep going,” she said.

Geis stood up, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No.”

He went round the back of the chair.

“What?” she said, glancing at Feril’s head. “Geis-”

He stood behind her, a viblade knife in his hand; he grabbed the rear of the small chair with his other hand. “No, I don’t believe it’ll do it, but if it does…” He put his hand on her collar, the knife to her throat.

“Geis-” she said.

“Breyguhn!” he roared. He started dragging Sharrow on her seat backwards across the flagstones towards the door. She put her free hand to his arm holding the knife, but didn’t have the strength to tear it away. She could only hold on. “Breyguhn!” Geis shouted again.

“Geis-” Sharrow said. She thought she could hear Feril saying something as well, but there was too much noise to hear what it was.

“Breyguhn! I know you’re out there! Stop sulking! Get in here! Brey!” Geis got to the door. Sharrow looked back at the table; Feril’s head couldn’t see them any more, but the hand and forearm holding the gun was jerking, dragging itself round in one direction, then whip-lashing itself back in the other like a skewered snake, gradually scraping the Lazy Gun round to point towards her and Geis. “Brey!” Geis roared.

There was a clinking sound from the other side of the door. At the same time one half of Feril’s body, propped up in the corner near the door, spasmed suddenly rigid, bringing the remains tumbling past the electrical junction box and clattering down at Geis’s feet. He yelled with fright as Breyguhn came back through the door looking sulky. She still had the gun in her hand.

Geis spun away, letting Sharrow’s seat drop sideways to the floor; he hacked at the twitching bits of android body with the viblade, then threw it away and lunged across the stone table, grabbing the sword he had used earlier. He swung it at the body parts moving on the floor.

The hand holding the Lazy Gun clenched. The junction box behind Geis flashed and boomed. The lights in the chamber blazed then went out. Emergency lighting globes glowed feebly. Geis hacked at the half of the android body writhing on the floor with the great sword, chopping through the metal and plastic and gouging trenches into the flagstones beneath. Breyguhn was screaming. Sharrow used her free left arm and leg to push herself under the stone table, then tried to roll, tearing at the tape still securing her to the chair and looking for the viblade Geis had thrown away.