He drew something from his robe. It was a HandCannon. “Allow me to introduce your clone, Lady Sharrow,” he said. He pointed the gun at the woman’s face. “Sharrow’s clone,” he said softly. “This is Sharrow’s HandCannon.”
The woman looked into the muzzle of the weapon, puzzled.
Sharrow struggled. “You fuck!” she screamed.
The clone glanced at her when she yelled, then looked away again. She gave no impression that she had recognised herself in Sharrow.
“Oh, I’m afraid we never really bothered to teach her any languages, Lady Sharrow,” Molgarin said. “Never showed her a mirror, either,” he added absently. He moved the gun right up to the woman’s eye. She drew her head back just a little.
“She’s sweet, isn’t she, my little day-fly?” Molgarin said, moving the gun from one of the woman’s eyes to the other. Her eyes crossed following the weapon’s movements.
“I’ve had her for a couple of years now,” Molgarin said conversationally. “I’m only sorry we didn’t collect the necessary cells when you were in that mining hospital on Nachtel’s Ghost, when I had you implanted with the crystal virus. Still.”
Molgarin continued to move the gun from side to side, then said, “Yes; I’ve enjoyed her company over the past two years or so. But I have the real thing now.”
He fired into the woman’s right eye.
Sharrow flinched, biting off a scream and feeling her eyes close on the image of the back of the woman’s head disappearing in a red cloud and the body being blown backwards into the darkness. She kept her eyes shut, feeling herself tremble uncontrollably; she tried to stop it but could not.
The young man behind her shook her. “Oops!” he whispered.
She opened her eyes, still trembling, her chest heaving. She choked the sobs back and listened to her own breathing, gazing through tears at Molgarin coming towards her.
“Oh, save your grief, Lady Sharrow,” he said, putting the gun back into his robe, a small frown joining the faint smile on his face. “She was a blank,” Molgarin said, spreading his hands. “A nothing; scarcely human.” He laughed lightly. “For whatever that’s worth.”
He stood looking down at her for a moment, then swivelled and returned to his throne. He sat back with one leg crossed over the other.
“What, Lady Sharrow?” he said after a pause. “No insults, no threats, no curses; no bravado?” He shook his head. “I warn you I shan’t be satisfied until you’ve called me something vile-doubtless involving that disagreeable word ‘fuck’-and come up with some unlikely and painful-sounding fate you may merely wish on me but which I have the means-and for all you know the intention-of inflicting upon you.” He contrived to look terribly amused with himself.
She was still breathing hard, fighting back her terror, trying to find strength from somewhere, from anywhere. She stared at him, not knowing how to express anything she felt.
Molgarin gazed at her with a look of tolerantly amused patience.
Then his expression changed. He frowned and looked up at the slit-views of the desert displayed in a wide circle around the chamber.
“What?” he said. He looked distracted. He peered at the screens, turning to stare at those behind him. “What?” he said again, and raised a hand to one of his earrings. “How?”
She looked up. The slit-views of the desert were no longer static sections of a peaceful panorama. Dots danced in the skies above the mountains on three sides. What looked like a cavalry charge was taking place on two of the screens; Keep guards were running from the mounted troops, throwing their guns away.
“Well, do it!” Molgarin said, still with his hand at his ear and looking away from her. “Now!” he shouted. “Anything!”
She saw the emissary in front of her looking worriedly at the one holding her arms. The one at her feet let go and drew a small laser pistol out of his uniform jacket.
There was sudden movement on several of the screens. A series of great grey explosions lifted slowly from the surface of the desert. They continued to expand and lift. They looked so immense she expected to hear them, no matter how deep they were, but then they started to fall back in silence.
Molgarin turned back. He glanced at the two emissaries, then smiled shakily at her. “We seem to be-” he began.
The floor trembled and a full third of the view-slits suddenly went dark. Feril was staring intently at the confused scenes portrayed in the ones that were left. Molgarin glanced at the dark screens. The emissary holding the laser pistol stared at them.
“We seem to be under attack, Lady Sharrow,” Molgarin told her. “Possibly from that irritating cousin of yours.” He seemed to have difficulty swallowing. “I promise you this will be his last piece of romantic melodrama, lady. He’ll suffer for this, and you’ll watch him suffer.” Molgarin looked at the two emissaries. “Mind her,” he told them, then put his head back against the throne and gripped its arms tightly.
The topmost step of the dais rushed upwards, taking the throne with it on a great gust of air and a thunderous rumble from beneath the chamber; the throne vanished into the ceiling ten metres overhead, leaving a single solid black column in the centre of the circular room.
Before the two emissaries could react, the whole chamber shuddered, the remaining view-slits went black and every light in the place blinked out, leaving utter darkness.
She hauled, twisted and ducked, bringing the yelping emissary holding her arms tumbling over her back. “No!” he screamed.
There was a sudden snapping noise and brief stuttering blink of light, then, as she threw herself to one side and the emissary rolled away from her, a scream that became a sizzling, gurgling noise. She lay, silent, on the steps. A smell of roasted flesh wafted over her.
“Twin?” said a tremulous, hesitant voice. It was answered by a bubbling noise. She started to move. “Twin?” the voice said again, an edge of panic in it now. Another bubbling, gurgling noise. She moved closer, correcting, anticipating. A tremor shook the bunker; there was a tremendous crack, and a crashing, tinkling noise off to one side. “Twin!” the voice screamed.
That last anguished shriek was enough. She stood silently, closing her eyes and lashing out with her foot.
“Tw-oof!” The voice cut off.
She stepped to one side; a blink of white laser light fired at where she had just been was enough to show her both of them, captured as though by a flash of lightning; the one who had held her, lying spread out on the floor at the foot of the steps leading to the black column, and the other one, crouched sideways on the floor in front of her, looking towards the steps, holding the laser in one hand and his lower chest with the other.
She swung her left foot at his head. The heavy, sensible shoe connected with a crack that jarred her whole leg. She fell to the floor.
The burbling sound came again from a few metres away, then a noise like a snore from nearby. The bunker shook once more and she heard what sounded like debris falling somewhere.
“Lady Sharrow?” said a distant voice. Feril.
She said nothing. “Lady Sharrow,” Feril said calmly. “I can see you. The laser pistol which the man you just kicked was holding flew from his hand and is lying approximately seven metres to your right.” Feril paused. “I do not believe either of the young men will trouble you for the moment,” it said.
She stood and walked quickly to her right, still silent.
“Just two steps further,” Feril said. “Stop. The pistol is now a metre to your left.”
“Got it,” she said, lifting the weapon.
“I believe one of the young men you disabled has the chip key to the explosive restrainer collar I am wearing,” Feril said as another tremor shook the floor beneath them. “If you intend to remove it from me, that is,” it said. It sounded apologetic.