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‘No.’

Invisible Hand’s more sober declaration over-rode the news channel, instructing all parties in the case to appear at the Court of the Fifth Quarter by ten the following day.

‘Right!’ yelled Tamara above the hubbub. ‘You heard! Go go go!’

The deployment that followed was less frantic than Tamara’s efforts to organise it. Evidently the deadline for their appearance wasn’t expected to be hard to meet. People tooled up and strolled out, with Tamara, Wilde and Ethan Miller bringing up the rear. Tamara locked and armed the house – just to prevent any warrantless searches, she explained – and they all moved off towards the quay.

The sun was low in the sky, turning the city-centre towers into a tall tiara of gold and gems. On Circle Square’s central island, stall-holders were packing up, while the first roadies for the evening’s bands were rigging up sound-systems. The early-evening air was thick with the smells of cooking-oil and engine-oil and the sweet reek of cannabis. Around tables and outdoor bars, late departures or early arrivals watched the quiet-speaking, marching group with shadowed apprehension and hand-hidden comments among which the occasional encouraging smile gleamed like a flashed weapon.

‘What’ll happen to Dee and Ax,’ Wilde asked, ‘if they’re caught?’

Tamara grunted. ‘Depends how outraged whoever catches them is,’ she said. ‘Likely they’ll just be pulled in and charged, by whoever is claiming the damage. I guess this Anderson Parris would’ve had a pretty price on his head.’

‘Yeah, well…’ Wilde said. ‘I can relate to all that. But what gets done to them, like punishment?’

‘Punishment?’ Tamara sounded puzzled. ‘Oh, you mean penalties. Depends, again. Killing somebody can be quite serious, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Wilde dryly. ‘So what does the penalty depend on?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Tamara. ‘Shit, at least they’ve called witness to it. That counts for a lot, not trying to hide it…apart from that, it depends on the victim’s losses, right? Emotional distress, loss of life-experience, earnings, loss of society for those close to them – add all that up and multiply it by the down time.’

‘Ah,’ said Wilde. ‘Down time. I think I might understand what you’re saying a lot better if you explain to me exactly what down time is.’

They had reached the quay where Tamara’s dinghy bobbed. The others had piled into their own boats, a flotilla of skiffs and outboards and inflatables. Tamara descended to her boat, Ethan Miller passed down her kit, and she helped Wilde on board. He sat down where she told him, by the side.

‘Down time,’ Tamara explained, as she cast off and eased the engine into a gentle start, ‘is the time between gettin’ killed and coming back. Backups cost, see, and growing clones can take fucking months, ’specially if you want a good one, no cancers or shit. So like, if you’re just ordinary, like me say, you’ll have back-ups every year or so, and you’ll have a fast-clone policy. If you’re real rich, like this Parris bloke, you’ll take ’em weekly. But then, you have a slow clone, and your losses mount up faster ’cause of your earnings being higher. So it sort of balances out, but it’s still cheaper to kill poor folks.’

She smiled at him and gunned the engine. ‘Ain’t class society a bitch.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Wilde, noncommittally. ‘And what if somebody doesn’t have a back-up? What if they stay dead?’

‘Everybody has back-ups,’ Tamara said, amazed at his ignorance. ‘Nobody stays dead. Jesus.’

She concentrated on steering the boat in the reckless wake of their companions’, and missed Wilde’s look of sudden pain. Only the boat’s ’bot saw it, and it could only record, and not understand.

The low sun, reddened by desert dust, is in Dee’s eyes. She shades them with her hood, tugs the cloak closer about her. As her sight adjusts, a millimetre out of the direct glare, she can see the jagged black edge of the Madreporite Mountains far to the west, at the end of the Stone Canal’s shining slash. She’s sitting, hugging her