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Ethnarch kicked the bedclothes down and picked
up his britches.
    'Yes,'
the young man said. 'Must be rather awful, thinking you're about to die.'
    'Not
the most pleasant experience,' agreed the Ethnarch, putting one leg, then
another, into his trousers.
    'But
such a relief, I imagine, when you get the reprieve.'
    'Hmm.'
The Ethnarch gave a small laugh.
    'A
bit like being rounded up in a village and thinking you're going to be shot...'
the young man mused, facing the Ethnarch from the foot of the bed. '... and
then being told your fate is nothing worse than resettlement.' He smiled. The
Ethnarch hesitated.
    'Resettled;
by train,' the man said, taking the little black gun out of his pocket. 'By a
train which contains your family; your street; your village...'
    The
young man adjusted something on the small black gun. '... And then ends up
containing nothing but engine fumes, and lots of dead people.' He smiled,
thinly. 'What do you think, Ethnarch Kerian? Something like that?'
    The
Ethnarch stopped moving, staring wide-eyed at the gun.
    'The
nice people are called the Culture,' the young man explained, 'And I always did
think they were too soft.' He stretched his arm out, holding the gun. 'I
stopped working for them some time ago. I'm freelance now.'
    The
Ethnarch looked, speechless, into the dark, ancient eyes above the barrel of
the black gun.
    'I,'
said the man, 'am called Cheradenine Zakalwe.' He levelled the gun at the Ethnnarch's
nose. 'You are called dead.'
    He
fired the gun... The Ethnarch had put his head back and started to scream; so
the single shot pierced the roof of his mouth before it exploded inside his
skull.
    Brain's
splattered over the ornate headboard. The body thumped into the skin-soft
bedclothes and twitched once, spreading blood.

    He
watched the blood as it pooled. He blinked, a couple of times.
    Then,
moving slowly, he peeled off the gaudy clothes. He put them in a small black
rucksack. Underneath, the one-piece suit was shadow-dark.
    He
took the matt-black mask from the rucksack and put it round his neck, though
not yet over his face. He moved to the head of the bed and peeled a little
transparent patch from the neck of the sleeping girl, then went back into the
dark depths of the room, slipping the mask over his face as he did so.
    Using
the nightsight, he undipped the panel over the security systems control unit,
and carefully removed several small boxes. Then, walking very softly and slowly
now, he crossed to the wall-sized pornographic painting which concealed the
door to the Ethnarch's emergency escape route to the sewers and the palace
roof.
    He
turned back, before he slowly closed the door, and looked at the bloody mess on
the curved carved surface of the headboard. He smiled his thin smile, a little
uncertainly.
    Then
he slipped away into the stone-black depths of the palace, like a piece of the
night.
     
     

    Two
    The
dam lay wedged between the tree-studded hills like a fragment from some
enormous shattered cup. The morning sunshine shone up the valley, hit the
concave grey face of the dam, and produced a white reflecting flood of light.
Behind the dam, the long diminished lake was dark and cold. The water came less
than halfway up the massive concrete bulwark, and the forests beyond had long
since reclaimed over half the slopes the dam's rising water had once drowned.
Sail-boats lay tethered to jetties strung along one side of the lake, the
chopping waters slapping at their glistening hulls.
    High
overhead, birds carved the air, circling in the warmth of the sunlight above
the shadow of the dam. One of the birds dipped and swooped, gliding down
towards the lip of the dam and the deserted roadway which ran along its curved
summit. The bird pulled its wings in just as it seemed it was about to collide
with the white railings which ran on either side of the road; it flashed
between the dew-sparkled stanchions, executed a half roll, partially opened its
wings again, and plummeted towards the