Against A Dark Background (70 page)

Sharrow let her gun down.
Hello again,’ she said.
Feril; this is my half-sister, Breyguhn.’

Feril turned and bowed slightly.

Breyguhn dropped the books at the same moment, revealing a pistol. She fired it at Sharrow’s head as Geis half-stood and whirled round, whacking the back legs of the chair he was tied to into the legs of the android.

Sharrow felt something smack into the side of her head and spin her round. She slumped against the table, trying to bring the laser up to bear on Breyguhn, then fell to the flagstones, the gun bouncing out of her limp fingers.

She lay there. Her head was sore. As though through a fine mist she saw Feril staggering from the blow Geis had dealt it with the chair. Breyguhn fired at the android; Feril’s right leg blew off at the thigh. The android hopped round on one leg, trying to stay upright. Another shot cracked across its chest, raising sparks. It kept on hopping. It still held the laser rifle but it didn’t seem to want to use it. She tried to shout at it to shoot all the dirty bastards, but her mouth wouldn’t move. Feril kept on hopping and hopping, banging into the stone table and stumbling, the rifle still clutched in its hand.

Then Geis shouted something, and fell over on the floor still tied to the chair. Breyguhn came over and kept the gun on the hopping android while she pulled at the strips of shirt restraining Geis.

As soon as he was released Geis stood up, pulled the bluntbladed sword from its scabbard on the table, flicked one of its jewels so that its blade edges flickered with pink fire, and swung it at the hopping android.

It wasn’t a powerful stroke, but it separated Feril’s head from its trunk as though its neck had been made of paper. Feril had raised one arm over its head while trying to balance, and that was sliced off in the same blow. The head fell to the floor and rolled under the table; the arm fell onto it. The android’s headless body tottered on its single leg for a second. Geis raised the sword over his head and brought it scything down. Feril’s body parted down the middle and fell apart in halves, like something from a cartoon.

Sharrow made a last attempt to raise her hand, then gave up. She closed her eyes.

Are you all right? . . . Hello? I said, Are you all right?

1. 1. 1. You… You again . . . Now what?
         

This isn’t really going as we hoped, is it?

…No.

Well?

Fate . . . Who cares?

Nobody, if you don’t. It’s your life .

1. 1. 1. Exactly. Oh, I’m tired. Fuck it, just let me die.
         

No, I don’t really feel we’ve destroyed enough yet. One of us has to. We are each other, after all. We are the last of the eight.

Oh, fuck, yes, sure . . . We’ll see what we can do . . .

That’s right. Now wake up.

I don’t want to wake up.

I said, Wake up.

No, won’t.

Wake up!

No, wo-

Now!

No.

N-

People were arguing. Her head hurt and people were arguing. She hated it when people argued. She screamed at them, told them to shut up; it was bad enough the Gun wouldn’t give her any peace. Screaming just made her head hurt worse. They didn’t seem to hear, anyway.

`You have to kill her.’

`No! There’s no need; I almost had her convinced before you came in.’

`Oh, it’s my fault now, is it? I save your skin and-’

`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 everything 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 . . .

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 yesmen 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.