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‘Shoot!’ she yelled.

Wilde jumped and turned, but it wasn’t him she was calling to. A volley came from the far side of the street, knocking the machine over. Tamara and Wilde ran to join the others.

‘Shit,’ said Ethan. ‘That one was sapient.’

‘I never hunt sapients,’ Tamara said, gasping and rubbing the small of her back. ‘Don’t mind killing the little fuckers, though.’

They moved on; over a bridge that gave Tamara an opportunity to point out to Wilde exactly why using the canals for transport in the machine domains was not a good idea; and on until they saw, in a wide park at the end of the long avenue, a scrap-metal stockade.

‘Talgarth’s court,’ Tamara said.

As they walked up they were swept by sonic scans that set their teeth buzzing, laser scans that made them blink and curse.

‘Ignore it,’ Tamara said. ‘They have to check.’

The park was bizarrely neat, and kept that way by tiny devices that roamed through the grass and among tree-branches. For the first time since they’d landed, Tamara enjoined care against stepping on any machinery.

‘Talgarth don’t like it,’ she insisted. ‘Fines you.’

They picked their way across the grass, their weapons holstered or slung – the bristling armaments on the stockade being more than enough to protect them from any feral gadgetry. Machine-guns, laser cannon, radar and whirling, ever-ready bolas…

The stockade’s three-metre-high gate swung smoothly open before them, and quickly shut behind them. About a hundred metres square, grassed like the park, with a dais in the centre, seating and media-equipment scattered around, and wooden cabins of varying sizes around the perimeter. Nobody else was present.

‘What do we do now?’ Wilde asked.

Tamara looked at her watch. ‘It’s one in the morning,’ she said. ‘We pick a cabin to put ourselves up in, and we sleep.’ She grinned. ‘It’s an old vertebrate custom.’

‘Well worth keeping up,’ Wilde said. He looked around indecisively as most of the others moved confidently off.

Tamara caught his hand.

‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you’re all right.’

He complied, a confused look on his face.

‘You watch out,’ Ethan called after him. ‘She follows old primate customs.’

‘Go fuck yourself!’ Tamara yelled back. ‘See you in court!’

‘So this is how non-propertarians do it.’

‘Yeah. Free love.’

‘Ha. I was faithful to my wife for seventy years…’

Wilde’s voice trailed off, then continued, more happily, ‘…and now I’ve been with two other women in three days.’

‘What! Who else?’

‘None of your business. Free love, right?’

‘Aw, go on.’

‘She’s probably dead by now.’

There was a silence. Then Tamara, her face lit only by a dim night-light and the glow of Wilde’s cigarette, spoke in a cautiously cheerful voice.

‘Hope it ain’t catching.’

Wilde gave her a lopsided grin and stubbed out the cigarette. Their eyes adjusted swiftly, and they spent a few moments looking at each other.

‘Could be,’ Wilde said. ‘I’m dead myself after all.’

Tamara investigated.

‘Well this bit’s definitely alive.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘How d’you expect me to stand up in court tomorrow?’

‘You’re standing up all right tonight.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Anyway – ah-hah-ha-ha-ah – you’ll get help from ah-ha-ha!’

‘I’ll give you Invisible Hand.’

‘Nah,’ said Tamara. ‘That’s for much later…’

‘It’s eight o’clock,’ Tamara informed him kindly. ‘You look terrible.’

‘Thanks.’ Wilde steadied himself on one elbow and reached for the mug of coffee she was holding out to him. ‘Oh, God. How long have I been asleep?’

‘Four hours.’

‘Thanks to you, you promiscuous anarchist bitch.’

Tamara smiled.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ve put a drug in the coffee. You’ll be more awake than you can imagine.’

‘Is that why I’m seeing things?’

‘No. You left your contacts in.’

‘Thanks again.’ Wilde reached for his cigarettes and rasped his face. ‘Does this anarcho-capitalist court by any chance have some rip-off, monopolistic enterprises associated with it?’

‘Funny you should ask.’ Tamara indicated a couple of packs