The other one nodded, and flicked a finger at the rump of the doll.
“No, please-” she heard herself say before the pain hit.
It was as though she’d been whacked on the behind by the flat of a sword with a blow fit to break legs. She felt her mouth gape as she gagged again, her face down against the cool metal of the tank floor. Tears squeezed from her eyes.
“Thank you for the necklace,” the young man said matter-of-factly. “We really do appreciate the efforts you and mister Kuma went to to secure it, I want you to know that. But we do feel you could do even better, you know? You see, we rather think you might be intending to look for another Antiquity. Can you guess what it is?”
She looked up, her breath quick and shallow. She had to blink hard to see them properly, still sitting there on their deck-chairs in their severe grey suits, their legs crossed, the bald pates gleaming. She couldn’t talk. She shook her head instead.
“Oh, come on now; you must be able to,” the young man chided. “I’ll give you a clue; you’ve already found one, it’s the last of its kind, and everybody but everybody who’s anybody wants one. Come on, it’s easy!”
She lowered her head to the tank floor again, nodding.
“It’s also,” the young man continued, “supposed to be the only weapon ever made with a semblance of a sense of humour.”
She brought her head up. “The Lazy Gun,” she said, her voice weak.
“That’s right!” the young man said brightly. “The Lazy Gun!” He sat forward in the deck-chair, smiling broadly. “Now of course we recognise that you have your own reasons for wanting to find this remarkable-and now unique-weapon, and will probably want to turn the Gun over to our friends the Huhsz, in the hope that they’ll stop trying to catch and kill you. An understandable desire on your part, of course, but one-sadly-that does somewhat conflict with the plans the interests that we represent have for the weapon.
“In brief, we would far prefer that you give the Gun to us. Now we’ll be letting you know the details of this little scheme nearer the time, but that’s given you the general idea. You give the Gun to us, or we’ll be terribly upset, and we’ll let you know it, too, via one of these small but perfectly formed mannequins.” The young man waved one hand towards the doll. “Got that?”
She nodded, swallowing and then coughing. “Yes,” she croaked.
“Oh, and may we counsel you not to run to that ghastly cousin of yours? Even the resourceful Geis won’t be able to help you against the people we work for, or protect you well enough to prevent us getting in touch with you through the mannequin. Besides which, we do have plans for old Geisy as well, actually. So all in all we really do think you’d be best advised to stick with us. What do you say?”
He paused, then put one hand to his ear. “Sorry?” he said. “Didn’t hear you there…”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “All right.”
“Super. We’ll be in touch again, Lady Sharrow,” he told her. “Every now and again we’ll make our presence felt. Just to keep you convinced this hasn’t been a dream, and we are quite serious.” He smiled and spread his arms wide. “I really would urge you to do your utmost to cooperate with us, Lady Sharrow. I mean, just think; supposing these started to fall into the hands of your enemies?” He looked at the doll lying in the hands of his twin, then gazed back into her eyes, shaking his head. “Life could become very unpleasant indeed, I’d imagine. You agree, I take it?”
She nodded.
“Jolly good!” The young man clapped his hands then pulled the sleeve of his grey jacket up and looked at a wrist-screen. He started to whistle as he watched the display for a while.
After a minute or so, he nodded a few times, then crossed his arms and smiled up at her again.
“There, my dear; that’s probably given all of the above time to sink into your memory.” He flashed his broad smile, then nodded to his image, who cradled the doll in both hands and carefully placed it on the metal deck between his booted feet.
“Twin,” said the other young man, “the lights, please.”
The one who hadn’t spoken raised the heel of his right boot over the doll.
She had time to suck in air but not to scream before he brought his foot stamping down on the doll’s head.
Something beyond pain detonated inside her skull.
She woke to a dim glow. The doorways to the adjoining tanks were still closed off by the metal shutters. There was no sign of the two young men, their deck-chairs or the gas cylinder. The naked plastic doll with the squashed, shattered head lay by her gun on the deck.
She drew herself up on her hands and stayed that way for a while, half lying, half supported by her arms.
She picked up the gun and the doll. The gun was still loaded; she put it in her jacket, then tested the doll, pressing it gingerly. It seemed to have stopped working. Circuitry foam sparkled dully inside the broken head.
She put the doll in her satchel and struggled to her feet, staggering. She reached into a pocket and pulled out the old heirloom timepiece. It had been smashed, the glass face broken. She shook it, then her head, then put the watch back in her pocket.
She rinsed her mouth in a puddle of relatively clean-looking water.
She couldn’t find any way to open the shutters over the doors, so she climbed the clanging metal stairway towards the tanker deck above, stopping to rest at each turn.
She hauled herself out onto the deck as the dawn broke pink and sharp above. She walked unsteadily along the deck, heading towards the tanker’s distant superstructure where a few lights burned. She breathed deeply and tried not to sway too much as she walked.
Then a man jumped out from behind a pipe cluster about ten metres in front of her. He was dressed like a refugee from the worst fancy-dress patry in the history of the world, clad in a baggy suit of violently clashing red and green stripes. He lifted what looked like an artificial leg and pointed it at her, telling her to stop or he’d shoot.
She stared at him for a moment, then laughed loudly and told him where to stick his third leg.
He shot her.
6 Solo
Continual noise and constant vibration. But something hushing, reassuring, comforting about these surrounding sensations, as though they were the acceptable successors of a womb-remembered external busyness, a comforting reminder that all was well and being attended to.
She became gradually aware that she was warm and prone and-when she stirred her tired, tingling limbs-naked under some smooth cloth. She tried to open her eyes but could not. The drone of noise called her back to sleep; the shaking all around her became a rocking, like the arms of somebody she had never known.
Her fingers and hands tingled.
She had been playing in the snow in the grounds of Tzant; she and Geis had been throwing snowballs at Breyguhn and the Higres and the Frenstechow children, a running battle that had gone on round the great maze and down into the formal gardens. It had been a startlingly cold winter that year; there were days when if you spat you could hear the spittle crack and freeze before it hit the snow, and the huge house smelled of the tape the servants had sealed the window frames with, to keep out draughts.
Geis was fifteen or sixteen then; she was eleven, Breyguhn nine. Geis and she end up in the gazebo, fending off the others as they close in. Geis looks into her eyes, his face glowing; a snowball whizzes over his head. To the death, cuz! he shouts, and she nods; and he tries to kiss her but she giggles and pushes him away and quickly gathers more snow together, while Breyguhn screams imprecations in the distance and snowballs thud into the wooden boards of the gazebo.
She woke slowly, turning over in the narrow cot. There were voices talking somewhere beyond the wall. An antiseptic, hospital smell came off the sheen beneath her. She remembered something about a puddle and throwing up into it, but she felt all right now, just hungry and slightly queasy at the same time. There was a light behind her; that was what she had turned away from. Her hair, beneath her on the thin pillow, smelled washed. Her eyes insisted on closing again. She let them; the view had been hazy anyway. The voices outside her head went on.