‘As if I would do such a thing,’ the ship said smoothly. It made a chuckling noise which contrived to be the most unsettling sound it had articulated so far. ‘I expect,’ it said, ‘it was just an effect caused by your neural lace bedding in, Genar-Hofoen. Nothing to worry about. If you don’t want to dream at all, gland somnabsolute.’

‘Hmm,’ he said slowly, and then; ‘Lights out.’ He lay back down in the darkness. ‘Good night,’ he said quietly.

‘Sweet dreams, Genar-Hofoen,’ the Grey Area said. The circuit clicked ostentatiously off.

He lay awake in the darkness for a while, before falling asleep again.

XII

XII

Byr woke up in bed, hopelessly weak, but cleansed and whole and starting to recover. The emergency medical collar lay, also cleaned, at the side of the bed. By it lay a bowl of fruit, a jug of milk, a screen, and the small figurine Byr had given Dajeil, from the old female ’Ktik called G’Istig’tk’t’, a few days earlier.

The tower’s slave-drones brought Byr her food and attended to her toilet. The first question she asked was where Dajeil was, half afraid that the other woman had taken the knife to herself or just walked into the sea. The drones replied that Dajeil was in the tower’s garden, weeding.

On other occasions they informed Byr that Dajeil was working in the tower’s top room, or swimming, or had taken a flier to some distant island. They answered other questions, too. It was Dajeil - along with one of the drones - who had forced open the bathroom door. So she could still have killed Byr.

Byr asked Dajeil to come visit her, but she would not. Eventually, a week later, Byr was able to get out of bed by herself and walk around. A pair of drones fussed at her side.

Across her belly, the scar was already starting to fade.

Byr already knew her recovery would be complete. Whether Dajeil had actually intended murder or just some insane abortion, she didn’t know.

Looking down into herself, in a light trance to further judge the extent of the damage that had been done and was now diligently repairing itself, Byr noted that her body had come to the decision, apparently on its own accord, while she’d been unconscious, to become male again. She let the decision hold.

Byr walked out of the tower that day with one hand still held over the wide scar in her abdomen. She discovered Dajeil sitting cross-legged and big-bellied on the egg-round stones a few metres up from the surf line.

The sound of the stones sliding under Byr’s unsteady feet brought Dajeil out of her reverie. She looked round at Byr, then away again, out to sea. They sat together.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dajeil said.

‘So am I.’

‘Did I kill it?’