Julia sat down on the barrel-like Copenhagen chair beside the bed, hand automatically sliding down the side of the cushion. Her fingers touched the hard plastic casing, reassuring her. She drew out the weapon. An ash-grey cylinder thirty centimetres long and three wide, a thin grooved handle at one end. It resembled a fat, long-barrelled pistol, weighing about one and a half kilos. The discharge end was solid, with a small circular indentation, gritted with minute carbonised granules. ARMSCOR was printed along the side in black lettering.

She'd stolen it from Greg after he'd brought Kats back to the finance division offices, slipping it off Walshaw's desk and into her bag as soon as the desolating revelation of his betrayal had sunk in. She'd been horribly afraid of him, what he might do.

When she'd got back to Wilholm she'd accessed the manor library's memory core, looking up what she'd got. A stunshot, capable of immobilising an adult at forty-five metres. Four shots would kill.

The power unit was charged to ninety-five per cent capacity, giving her almost two hundred shots. She'd spent the morning familiarising herself with it—safety catch, grip, aiming. Kept at it until she was satisfied she could do it by touch alone. It tended to wobble unless she used both hands. The library said there was no recoil.

And nobody knew she'd got it, not even Morgan Walshaw. Her last line of defence. Its solidity and weight injecting a primitive kind of confidence into a badly demoralised psyche. She wished it would be Kendric himself who came. There'd be no inhibition holding her back then. Sending all ninety-five per cent into his jerking, burning body.

But it would be some tekmerc hardliner, anonymous, a fast-moving shadow in the dark. Her one advantage was that he'd have to come to her; a slight advantage, but it might make the difference between life and death. The odds were impossible for the nodes to compute, too many variables, thank the Lord. That sort of foreknowledge was something she could do without.

Julia sat back in the Copenhagen chair, putting the Armscor on her lap, resting her chin on her hands. Looking at Kats she realised she'd even been emptied of envy, her friend's beautiful face meant nothing. In fact when Kats grew older she would've lost far more. You can't lose what you haven't got.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The water-fruit field stretched on for ever, a perfect example of perspective, parallel rows of creamy-white globes merging at some grey distance. Eleanor felt around underneath the next globe and cut the thick rope root with her knife. Inky sap puffed out, lost in the reservoir's slow current. She lifted the globe and steered it slowly into the neck of her net bag. There were another twenty water-fruit inside. Almost full. Turning back to the row.