"A stand-off," remarked Galen conversationally as Miles halted, with a glance at Miles's stunner and his own. "If we all fire at once, it leaves either me or my Miles on his feet, and the game is mine. But if by some miracle you dropped us both, we could not tell you where your oxlike cousin is. He'd die before you could find him. His death has been automated. I need not get back to him to carry it out. Quite the reverse. Your pretty bodyguard may as well join us."

Galeni stepped around the bend. "Some stand-offs are more curious than others," he said.

Galen's face flickered from its hard irony, lips parting in a breath of deep dismay, then tightening again even as his hand tightened on his weapon. "You were to bring the woman," he hissed.

Miles smiled slightly. "She's around. But you said two, and we are two. Now all the interested parties are here. Now what?"

Galen's eyes shifted, counting weapons, calculating distances, muscle, odds no doubt; Miles was doing the same.

"The stand-off remains," said Galen. "If you're both stunned you lose; if we're both stunned you lose again. It's absurd."

"What would you suggest?" asked Miles.

"I propose we all lay our weapons in the center of the deck. Then we can talk without distraction."

He's got another one concealed, thought Miles. Same as me. "An interesting proposition. Who puts his down last?"

Galen's face was a study in unhappy calculation.

He opened his mouth and closed it again, and shook his head slightly.

"I too would like to talk without distraction," said Miles carefully. "I propose this schedule. I'll lay mine down first. Then M—the clone. Then yourself. Captain Galeni last."

"What guarantee . . . ?" Galen glanced sharply at his son. The tension between them was near-sickening, a strange and silent compound of rage, despair, and anguish.

"He'll give you his word," said Miles. He looked for confirmation to Galeni, who nodded slowly.

Silence fell for the space of three breaths, then Galen said, "All right."

Miles stepped forward, knelt, laid his stunner in the center of the deck, stepped back. Mark repeated his performance, staring at him the while. Galen hesitated a long, agonized moment, eyes still full of shifting calculation, then put his weapon down with the others. Galeni followed suit without hesitation. His smile was like a sword-cut. His eyes were unreadable, but for the baseline of dull pain that had lurked in them ever since his father had resurrected himself.

"Your proposition first, then," Galen said to Miles. "If you have one."