The dark side of the sun - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,33

gold collar, or the whereabouts of Ig. It had warmed the surface and sent Isaac out because – because deaths on the Bank were rare and he disliked the subsequent investigations.

Dom switched off, and drummed his fingers on the console. His face was reflected in the empty screen.

It was dark green, mottled with leaf-green, because body memory took no account of tanning. He was naked in the stable ship temperature. The memory of recent pain still showed in his eyes, but he was thinking of a man in a gold collar, a smiling man who had haunted his dreams.

‘No one notices him,’ he said out loud. ‘He’s just a face in the crowd. He’s trying to kill me.’

Idly he picked up Korodore’s gift. He’d already experimented with it, putting the memory sword through its repertoire, and now he watched as the atoms reprogrammed themselves. A twitch, and it was a needles word ... a short knife ... a gun, that froze bullets out of atmospheric water and could fire them through steel hull metal … another gun, a sonic …

‘I don’t know how Grandmother chased me here,’ he said. ‘Though it is the logical place. But I know where the Drunk is heading now.’

‘Widdershins?’ asked Isaac.

‘Band. She’ll get the information out of Hrsh. I imagine she’ll threaten him with repatriation to Phnobis.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a threat, chief.’

‘To a phnobe it is. If he goes back to Phnobis he’ll be in swift conjunction with a ceremonial tshuri whatever happens. No, he’ll talk.’

Isaac slipped into the pilot seat.

‘You could go back to Widdershins. Your grandmother has your best interests at heart.’

‘I’ve got to go on. I can’t describe it, I just haven’t got a choice. Do you understand?’

‘No, boss. Band, then? I’ve calibrated the matrix computer. It should work.’

‘You’d better believe it.’

He hefted the memory sword. If someone else was waiting at Band …

Glowing walls. Ghostly, half-melting visions. The miniature stars and claustrophobic feel of a ship in interspace. And the visions.

‘Chel, what was that?’

‘It looked like a dinosaur, boss. Striped.’

He fingered the collar at his neck, and showed no anger. Anger clouded the faculties, and so he lived in a state of constant disassociation. But sometimes he thought, not angry thoughts, but little cold statements about what he would do if the collar was removed.

What he would do to Asman, in particular. And to the misguided genius who invented the collar circuitry.

The door opened.

Asman looked up, and froze. Behind him the long room became silent, just for a second. It usually happened like this. And Asman would point the gun …

Asman pointed the gun, and nodded towards the three dice in their cup. The gun was a stripper, with every safety device removed and a hair trigger. He knew that Asman would fire by reflex action if necessary.

He threw three sixes.

‘Again.’ He threw three sixes.

‘Again?’ he asked mildly. Asman smiled weakly, got up and shook his hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You know how it is.’

‘One day I’ll make a mistake. Have you thought of that?’

‘Ways, the day you make a mistake like that you won’t be Ways any more, and you know I’ll fire, because you’ll be an imposter.’

Asman rounded the table and clapped him on the shoulder.

‘You’ve been doing well,’ he said.

‘How else?’

Ways had seen his own specification, just once. He had been halfway down an inspection shaft at the time, one that was flooded with chlorine gas when not in official use, and gaining illegal access to personnel files was not official. He had never bothered to remember the precise purpose of his visit – it was just one of the many assignments that filtered down to him via Asman’s office – but while the little inspection screen was warming up his specification had appeared among the random images. He had memorized it instantly, even through the chlorine haze.

It was a standard requisition for a Class Five robot, with certain important modifications concerning concealed weapons, communicators, and appearance. Designing a completely humanoid robot was twice as complex as building even a high-grade Class Five. It involved intricate machinery for tear ducts and the growth of facial hair – and, if the robot was designed as a spy and might be faced with every eventuality, an intriguing range of other equipment also …

But most of Ways’ specifications had been in probability math. It took him some time to realize why. Class Five robots were legally human. They had been designed to be everything a man could be, and Ways