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„And who‟d have thought it,‟ Sita mocked. „I had you down as a fat, sexist pig and here you are going all philosophical and noble on me.‟

„Don‟t you worry your pretty little head about that,‟ he said.

„We all make mistakes don‟t we? Big mistakes. Some bigger than others. Some even big enough to get us...‟ He waggled his thick wrists at her.

Sita said, „Yeah, yeah, and somebody‟s made a big fat fatal one right there. Trust me, when I get out of here, whoever they are, they‟re going to pay for their mistake. One painful way or another they will pay for it.‟

„Fact remains when you‟re heading for the skullcap,‟ he said as though he had not been listening to her at all, „there is no chance that I can have people saying it was me fingered you. Unemployment and death: not on my schedule just yet.‟

The skullcap? The skullcap? For a second the thought inflated like a sudden bubble that was too big for her mind to contain. The skullcap. She had known it was a possibility, a theoretical possibility, technically a possibility. But not a possible possibility. Never a possible possibility. The skullcap.

Until that moment she thought she had come to terms with the worst that could happen and was ready to tough it out. „I know my career‟s finished,‟ she said, frowning. „There‟s a chance I might even do some hard time. We both know competent interrogation controllers can make anyone look guilty of something and nothing. But they can‟t make you look guilty enough for that. Not if you didn‟t do it, and I didn‟t do it. In the names of all the gods I didn‟t do it.‟

For the first time since she had known him Sergeant Lars Driftkiller Ronick showed what looked to Sita like a genuinely spontaneous human emotion: it was pity. „You really believe that don‟t you,‟ he said. „Scuff me, where have you been living, girlie?‟

„Stop calling me girlie!‟ Sita snapped.

„Major Benovides,‟ he said, „you are dead meat unless you run.‟

Sita fancied she felt the restraints tightening up again. She looked around for the boundary indicators: getting too close would also trigger the bands. „It‟s been tried,‟ she said.

„Running becomes a problem when your hands and feet are chopped off.‟ The prison border limits looked to be a reasonable distance away across a wide expanse of elegantly close-cropped lawn but she turned back anyway. Could that be why he was here: to get her to commit suicide? Killed while trying to escape: she wouldn‟t be the first prisoner to have died that way...

Ronick stood for a moment staring out beyond the tranquil grounds of the lock-up to the traffic-filled motorway that ran close by. „Smug arrogant bastards,‟ she heard him say loudly but seemingly to no one in particular. When he caught up with her again he said, too loudly for comfort, „I could have wheels waiting for you on the shoulder of that motorway. You could be away before these scuffwits finish scratching their arses and fiddling with their zone focus.‟

„Thirty seconds after I cross that boundary,‟ Sita muttered,

„I have no hands and feet. I‟d bleed to death before I dragged myself within screaming distance of whoever was waiting.‟

With ponderous irony Ronick said, „Well scuffle my old boots - I hadn‟t thought of that,‟ then added flatly, „And it would be me.‟

„What would be you?‟

„Waiting.‟

Sita stopped walking and turned abruptly to confront him.

„Is that what they want me to do?‟ she demanded, too tired to try to be subtle any longer. „Is that why you‟re here? They want me to kill myself, is that it?‟

Ronick shook his head sadly. „You‟ve been undercover too long, Benovides,‟ he said. „You don‟t recognise a helping hand when it‟s offered.‟

„Shouldn‟t be hard to spot,‟ she said. „It‟ll be the one that‟s still attached: unlike mine.‟

Ronick almost laughed; almost, but not quite. It was a snort more than a laugh. „Beaten before you start.‟ His smile was open-eyed and mirthless. „Girlie is as girlie does, girlie,‟

he said, stepping around her and starting to shamble slowly on towards