Surface Detail

“Tsk!” the avatar said, slapping his forehead. “My manners, eh?” Demeisen waved one arm from Lededje to Veppers. “Doll, this is your rapist and murderer. Veppers, you ghastly cunt, this is Lededje Y’breq, back from the dead.”

There was a tiny pause. Lededje took only that moment to register what had just happened. Then she bounced out of the couch she had barely sat down on, scooped up the sharpest-looking knife on the table and threw herself at Veppers.

It was only later she understood how little chance she’d really had. The knife disappeared from her grip, plucked away by Demeisen, despite the fact he was on her far side from Veppers.

Jasken moved less quickly, seeming almost to hesitate for a fraction of a second, but even as Lededje got one hand on Veppers’ throat – he was shrinking back, eyes widening, as she threw herself forward – Jasken suddenly had her wrist in a grip like steel.

Meanwhile the drone Olfes-Hresh had snapped through the air to her other side, whipping a blue-glowing force field between her torso and Veppers’ and gripping her left arm, keeping that hand held up and away. Lededje heard herself make an anguished, strangling noise as she tried to close her fingers round Veppers’ throat.

She heard a brief, deep humming noise and experienced a sort of coldness wash over her, making her skin crawl, then – her hand still clutching at Veppers’ throat as he thudded back into the back of the couch – she felt herself being grabbed round the waist. She tried to kick, but her legs seemed to have lost contact with her brain; she felt hopelessly, childishly dizzy, her hand was forced back, and she was pulled away across the low table in a further scatter of food, crockery and cutlery to be plonked down on the couch, not where she had been but with Demeisen between her and Veppers, who was sitting back up now and rubbing his throat.

Demeisen had an arm across Lededje’s upper chest, pinning her against some flattened cushions. One of his legs was trapping both her legs under the couch.

“Gasslikunt!” said a small voice.

Kreit Huen glared at the avatar. “See what you’ve done?” she muttered. She cuddled the boy to her, patting the nape of his neck and back of his head with her hand.

“Motherf-!” Lededje began, struggling mightily to get out from under Demeisen’s limbs, then trying to reach the avatar’s face with her fingers, to tear his eyes out or scratch him or do anything at all to hurt him.

“Spirited little thing, isn’t she?” Veppers said calmly, waving Jasken away as the other man tried to fuss over him.

“Behave,” Demeisen said quietly, levelly to Lededje.

“I’ll f…!” she spat, heaving herself towards him. She got her back about a centimetre away from the couch before she was thrown against it again.

“Led,” the avatar said, a small smile on his face, “you were never going to get a clear shot at him. Now sit still and behave yourself or I will have to stun you again, and more than just your legs this time.” He loosened his grip on her a little, tentatively.

She sat still, looked at him with an expression of cold loathing. “You unmitigated piece of ordure in human shape,” she said, very quietly. “Why did you lead me on? Why did you give me any hope at all?”

“Things change, Lededje,” the avatar told her, sounding reasonable. He withdrew the arm and leg that had been restraining her. “Circumstances, and likely consequences. That’s just the way it is.”

Lededje glanced at Huen and her child. “Go and stuprate your-self,” she whispered to the avatar. He shook his head, made a tsk sound again.

Veppers looked at Huen. “Why is this psychotically rude man trying to convince me that this even more berserk young woman is the late, lamented Ms. Y’breq, and why are they even here?”

“He may believe that she is Ms. Y’breq,” Huen told him. She turned to the drone, handing the child up to it. “Olf, please take Liss to the playroom. This was a mistake. I’m an idiot.”

“Gasslikunt!” Liss repeated, cradled in ruby-red fields as the drone took the child and swept away towards the doors.

Huen smiled as she gazed after the boy, waving.

When the doors closed she turned back to Veppers. “I am not entirely sure why Av Demeisen thought to bring this young lady with him, but I wanted him here because he represents the most powerful vessel in the vicinity, with the power to overturn any agreement we might make if he doesn’t concur. We need him on-side, Joiler.”