The merry-go-round came slowly to a stop and was silent. The bird she was riding ended up on the far side of the ride from her father and the little girl. Sharrow waited for them to walk round to her. When they did, her father smiled and glanced down at the child whose hand he held.

“Look, my darling,” he said to Sharrow, “This is the surprise I promised you: a little sister!”

Sharrow looked down at the other girl. Her father stooped and caught the child under the arms, lifting her up so that her head was above his.

“Isn’t she lovely?” he asked Sharrow, his eager, puffy face peeking out from the little girl’s skirts. The girl turned her face away from Sharrow. “Her name is Breyguhn,” her father told her. “Breyguhn,” he said, lowering her a little so that her head was level with his, “this is Sharrow. She’s your big sister.” He looked at Sharrow again. “You’re going to be the best of friends, aren’t you?”

Sharrow looked at the other child, who hid her face behind her father’s head.

“Who’s her mummy?” Sharrow asked eventually.

Her father looked dismayed, then cheerful. “Her mummy’s going to be your new mummy,” he said. “She’s an old friend of mine… of your mummy and mine, and…” He smiled broadly, swallowing. “She’s very nice. So is Breyguhn, aren’t you, Brey? Hmm? Oh, don’t cry; what’s to cry about? Come on, say hello to your big sister. Sharrow; say hello to-Sharrow?”

She’d got down off the trafe bird and walked round to the ride’s controls. She glared up at Skave and pushed him out of the way.

“Now, now, Miss Sharrow…” the old android said, stepping back awkwardly and almost falling.

She’d seen the android work the controls. She pushed the brake lever up and swung the power handle across. The merry-go-round buzzed and hummed and started to move.

“Sharrow?” her father said, walking into sight, still holding the crying child.

“Now, now, Miss Sharrow,” Skave said as she pushed it further back through the assorted weyr-beasts, monsters and extinct animals of Golter’s real and imagined past. The old android’s hands fluttered in front of its chest as she kept on pushing it. “Now, now, Miss Sharrow. Now, now-ah!”

Skave fell off the edge of the ride, twisted with bewildering speed and landed safely on all fours, looking surprised.

“Sharrow!” her father shouted. “Sharrow! What do you think you’re doing! Come back here! Sharrow!”

The ride buzzed up to full speed, humming deeply like an ancient spinning top.

“Sharrow! Sharrow!”

She clambered back up onto the neck of the trafe bird and closed her eyes.

She stood on the piazza, leaning on the marble balustrade and looking down at the old blow-stone merry-go-round on the terrace below. The androids restoring the ride were trying to start its ancient hydraulic motors for the first time in centuries; mostly they were finding where all its leaks and inadequately secured seals and joins were, each attempted start resulting in a fresh burst of water from some new part of the furiously complicated, gaudily decorated old fairground ride. The terrace around it was covered with water.

She watched as one more creaking, groaning half-revolution of the antique roundabout culminated in another wet explosion and a hissing fountain arcing into the air.

She glanced at the others sitting, bored, in the pavement section of a cosmetically restored but closed cafe on the other side of the piazza, then she turned to Feril.

“We are going to the Embargoed Areas,” she told the android, “to try to find the last Lazy Gun.”

Feril looked down. “You did not need to tell me that.”

“I suspected you had already guessed.”

“Indeed,” Feril said, “I must admit that I had.”

She cleared her throat. “Feril, I’ve talked this over with the others, and we’d like you to come along with us, if you want.”

Feril looked silently at her for what seemed a long time. “I see,” it said. It looked down at the old roundabout on the terrace beneath, watching its fellows swarm over it, making adjustments. “Why?” it said.

“Because we feel you could be useful,” she said, “and because we feel we need another person along, and because I think you might benefit from the experience, and because… we like you.” She looked away for a moment. “Though it will be dangerous.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe if we really liked you, the last thing we’d do would be to invite you along quite possibly to get killed.”

Feril made a shrugging motion. “If I accompanied you, I would save my current personality with the city,” it said. “Should I be destroyed, I would only lose the memories of the experiences after I left here. I would continue to exist as an entity within the city AI cluster, and I would obtain a guarantee that I would live again when the next batch of androids is allowed to be built.”

She was silent, watching it.

“You are sure,” it said, “that the others in your team would not object to my presence?”

She glanced at Zefla, Miz and Dloan again. Dloan and Zefla were talking. Miz was watching her, chin on his uninjured hand.

“They trust who I trust,” she told the machine. “Any one of them could have vetoed the idea. We want you to come with us.”

The android tapped one steel and plastic finger on the marble, then nodded as it turned to her. “Thank you. I accept. I shall come with you.”

She put her hand out to the machine. “I hope you will not have cause to regret this,” she said, smiling.

It gripped her hand gently. “Regret is for humans,” it said.

She laughed. “Really?”

The machine shrugged and let go of her hand. “Oh, no. It’s just something we tell ourselves.”

20 The Quiet Shore

Trees stood in dense, dark-massed profusion from mountain-top to tideline. The ocean lay flat, black and still against the silent shore as though it had fallen under the heavy green spell of the forest. A bird flew slowly across the water parallel with the land, like a pale sliver of the soft grey clouds cast out of the sky and searching for a way back.

Half a kilometre out from the fjord mouth, the surface of the ocean swirled and frothed, then swelled and spilled from three dark, bulbous shapes.

The tri-hull submarine surfaced and floated stationary for a moment, water streaming from its fins and stubby central tower. Then a series of dull clanging noises chimed out across the water and with a swirl of wash churning round its smooth black flanks the central section and starboard hull slid slowly astern, leaving the port hull floating alone and facing the shore.

When it had dropped just behind the single hull, the submarine went ahead again, using delicate surging pulses of power from its bow to snick its rounded snout into the hull’s stern. A great slow stream of water washed out behind the submarine as it drove quietly for the shore, pushing the hull ahead of it.

The leading hull grounded in the shallows of a small sandy beach on the southern edge of the fjord’s mouth, its hemispherical black nose rising as it pushed a broad bulging wave across the few metres of water towards the crescent’s pale slope. Surf washed up the beach and along the rocks on either side.

“I do hope you understand; I have of course given much thought to this, but in the end I have the safety of my ship and crew to consider. Of course this is covered in our contract-”

“Of course.”

“- but it really would be asking for trouble to take you any further in. The fjord is quite deep-though there are underwater ridges in places according to our deep scan-but it’s just so narrow; a boat this size just wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre at all. With the obvious danger of hostile action, it would be foolhardy to venture further. As I say, I have my crew to think about. Now, if I could just have your signature… I mean, many of them have families…”