will remain in this area for processing by border-enforcement officials.’
‘Keep moving,’ Chama said again.
Chama had his own demon intent on blocking his progress: the blue one. Chama wasn’t stopping, though, and the demon was actually backing up, not letting itself get too close to what it undoubtedly registered as a warm, breathing, easily damaged human presence. The green demon was fixating on Geoffrey. None of them was paying any attention at all to Jitendra or Gleb, their figments all but undetectable.
But if the blue demon was unwilling to obstruct Chama, the other two had no compunctions about blocking the golems. Some governing intelligence had already determined that these were disposable machines. The monstrous face leered and glared as it anticipated Sunday’s movements, ducking and diving to either side like a keen goalkeeper.
Then, without warning, the demon-cloaks vanished.
A man was standing in front of her now, hands clasped behind his back, with the hovering drone at his rear. He wore a neat platinum-grey business suit of modern cut over a white shirt and pearl necktie. His shoes failed to merge with the soil, their soles hovering a centimetre or so above the dirt. He was young, handsome and plausible.
‘Good morning,’ the man said, agreeably enough. ‘I am Mister Pei, from the Department of Border Control. Would you be so kind as to remain where you are, until this matter can be resolved? Officials will be with you very shortly.’
Another copy of Mister Pei had appeared in front of Geoffrey, presumably reciting the same spiel. There might be a real human being behind these figments, or it might still be some kind of automated response.
‘I don’t think so, Mister Pei,’ Sunday said. Whatever trouble she was in now, she reckoned, couldn’t be made much worse by trying to keep up with Chama.
She made another effort to slip past the drone.
‘I must insist,’ Mister Pei said. His voice was firm but pleasant, his words tempered with a regretful smile.
‘Please let me past.’
Mister Pei still had his hands behind his back. ‘I must ask you not to compound matters by disobeying a perfectly reasonable request. As I said, the border officials will be here very shortly, and then processing and debriefing may commence. Would you be so good as to give me your name and location? At the moment we can’t localise you more precisely than the Descrutinised Zone.’
‘Then I don’t think I’ll bother, thanks.’
‘It would be in your ultimate interests. Your accomplice will be detained shortly. Any assistance you can give us now will be taken into consideration when we evaluate the penalties for your trespass.’ He smiled again, bringing his hands around to beckon for her cooperation. ‘Who are you, though, and where are you chinging from? We will discover these things in due course, so you may as well tell us now.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to join the dots yourself, Mister Pei.’
‘Is that an unequivocal statement of non-cooperation?’
‘It sounded like one, didn’t it?’
‘Very well.’ Mister Pei looked over his shoulder and nodded. The drone shot through him, straight at the golem. It tore off an arm and blasted the rest of the golem into the soil, where it lay twitching and useless. There was no pain, just an abrupt curtailment of sensory feedback. For a moment Sunday was looking up at the sky, until Mister Pei loomed into view again, bowing over her.
‘I regret that it was necessary to take this action, but you gave us no choice.’
The drone pushed through him and spun until its gun barrel was pointed straight down at her useless body. The muzzle flashed, then everything went black.
She expected to return to the stack-module. Instead her point of view shifted to Chama’s, looking down at a pair of gauntleted hands scooping aside Lunar soil with the plastic-handled garden spade. Chama was kneeling, breathing heavily. He had commenced his excavation in the middle of the area of disturbed ground and had already cut a trench big enough for a body. The suit would be assisting him, but it was still costing Chama much effort.
A duplicate Mister Pei was standing by the dig, remonstrating with Chama as another drone loitered nearby. ‘I must ask you to desist. You have already brought trouble on yourself by trespassing on our territory, and by refusing to cooperate in your detention. Please do not compound matters by performing this unauthorised excavation of Chinese soil.’
Chama dumped a pile of dirt on the side of the trench. ‘Or what, Mister Pei? You’ll shoot me, like you shot the golems? I don’t think so. I’m being observed, you know. There are witnesses.’
‘We are well aware that others are participating in this severe breach of interplanetary law,’ Mister Pei said. ‘Rest assured that the full weight of judicial process will be brought to bear on all offenders. Now please desist from this activity.’
‘I’m still here,’ Gleb said.
‘Me too,’ Sunday added.
‘So am I,’ Geoffrey said.
‘Present,’ Jitendra said enthusiastically. ‘Cosy, isn’t it, inside Chama’s helmet?’
Mister Pei looked aside as the two other drones caught up with the third and triangulated themselves around the digging man. There was only one Mister Pei now: the other figments must have been deemed surplus to requirements. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The border officials.’
A dragon approached, snaking its way through the vacuum as if following the contours of invisible topography. It was crimson and serpentine and abundantly winged and clawed, its face whiskered and vulpine. It belched flames. Some kind of suborbital carrier lodged inside it, a rectangular vehicle with six landing legs and downward- pointing belly-thrusters.
