white surface. It didn’t even get hot. As an illusion it was pretty solid.
He found the centre after ten minutes’ brisk walking. He had the memory sword still turned to the stripper setting, and his finger hovered on the stud as Ways turned round and smiled.
‘I see you were expecting me,’ he said pleasantly.
Dom fired. Ways gave him a hurt look, and extended a hand. A growing, light-bending sphere bounced towards Dom and disappeared.
‘Round One,’ said Ways. ‘Now I’ve a resonance-dampening matrix, but what have you got?’
‘Who are you?’ said Dom. He thumbed the weapon on its knife setting.
‘Ways of Earth.’ He stopped and tossed the knife back to Dom. ‘I’m afraid you have blunted the blade,’ he continued, ‘but that was a pretty smart throw.’
‘My next question was have you come to kill me, but that’s not intelligent, is it?’
‘No,’ said Ways, ‘I don’t seem to be achieving anything, but I must keep trying otherwise what is free will for?’
‘Do I get any explanations?’
‘Sure. You must realize that the universe is too big to hold us and the Jokers. Some people are afraid that the Jokers might turn up any day now.’
‘Do they expect some kind of big-brained monsters?’
‘I think gods are what they are expecting. You know where you are with big-brained monsters, but gods are another matter. No one wants to be a slave race. Oh, I’ve got a couple of things for you.’
The robot slid aside his chest panel and threw Ig at Dom. The little animal screamed vengeance at Ways from the safety of its master’s shoulder, then dived inside Dom’s shirt.
‘And there was something else …’ said the robot. He patted his carry-all, and felt around behind his chestplate. ‘Sorry for the delay, you know how it is, thing wanted never there. Ah, here.’
Dom caught the small grey sphere before he could stop himself. It was warm. Ways watched him closely.
‘That is a matrix engine without a coil,’ he said. ‘By now it should have blown your head off. Crude, I know.’
Dom hurled the globe over the nearest wall. It sparkled briefly under the light of the Chains before landing with a thud in the next avenue. Then Ways cannoned into him.
The robot had weight behind him. Dom rolled backwards and tried to throw his attacker, and had to jerk aside as a fist struck the Maze floor by his ear. The blow split the artificial skin. Ways turned the punch into a sideswipe, and a fingertip scored a cut across the boy’s head.
Ig erupted straight for the eyes. Ways brushed him off lightly, and leapt back, flexing his fingers.
‘I refuse to believe in invulnerability,’ he said. ‘Let’s get down to the real thing.’
The matrix engine exploded. The Maze thumped.
Ways was picked up like a doll and hurled at the wall, one flailing leg catching Dom across the chest.
And a long way overhead a ship was coming in to land.
10
‘On Laoth they cultivate with a screwdriver.’
Galactic Miscellany
‘Hark to the crash of
the leaves in the autumn, the smash
of the crystal leaves.’
Charles Sub-Lunar, Planetary Haiku
The bed was a relic, an ornate black affair that bore all the markings of the Taminic-P’ing Dynasty. Dom stared through thinning blue mists at the rest of the room.
He was in a treasure house. Or it may have been a museum. Someone had ferried furniture and ornaments across the galaxy and dumped them there with no regard for style and period. Memory tapestries hung from two of the walls, where forgotten heroes re-enacted pages from history like an ever-repeating recording. A set of tstame men in ceremonial costume stood stiffly to attention on a board set in a giant cultured ruby. There was a water sculpture, inactive, which lay in a pool at the bottom of its tank, and an Early Chrome display case displaying several pieces of bootlegged Phnobic temple pottery. Where the walls were free of tapestries they were hung with purple drapes.
Dom pictured the severely practical home domes on Widdershins. The only ornamentation really encouraged was the Sadhim logo and perhaps the One Commandment, suitably framed. Even electricity was allowed to come no further than the kitchen. And the Sabalos family was rich – so rich, in fact, that it could afford the simple life. Whoever owned this room was either poorer or would make them look like paupers.
He felt something warm by his ear, and turned to find Ig curled up in the sleeping field. The creature opened one eye and purred.
Dom swung himself clumsily out of