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Sigmund Ausfaller was pulled into view by his hair. Sigmund's chest was shattered, a huge hole rammed through it.
Ander was holding Feather Filip's horrible ARM weapon, the gun that had blown a hole through my own chest. He pointed it at me. «Recognize this?»
For an instant I thought I was going mad. He couldn't have that. He couldn't. It was in the apt, Sharrol's apt, hidden — Ah. Sharrol left it for me. She left me a weapon in my backpurse. Not a bad idea, but Ander must have searched my room, searched by backpurse, found it there. When?
After dinner, when I was at the hotel desk getting my key.
Ander said, «Where are you, Beowulf?»
I was still looking through Outbound's huge window. High up in that glass slab I could see a tiny figure where Ausfaller had waved at me. The back of Ander's head and shoulders.
If he turned around and looked down, he would see me. I didn't turn away. The front of me now looked less like Beowulf Shaeffer than the back. And what could Ander see in his phone? The miniature bust of a tanned stranger and nothing behind it.
I said, «I'm in my room at the Pequod. Ander, nothing was said about killing the poor flat.»
«Beowulf, we can hardly sell our wonderful nanotech machine without Sigmund knowing where we got it. The room isn't registered to anyone, and the punchgun can go with me. You haven't used the punchgun, have you? Like for robbing a droud shop?»
«No.»
«Then at worst they'll track it back to the ARM. And then maybe to you.»
My head seemed filled with fog. Did I do this? Did I find the temptation that turned Ander Smittarasheed into a thief and killer? Or was he always that?
What do I do now? Play it out. «A dead man can't send us money,» I said.
«Sigmund brought local money. It'll be in that case. It may take me a while to break the security programs, and I don't really know how much he brought.»
«Show me the case.»
«What, you think I'm lying?» He bent out of view, then rose again with a heavy silver briefcase in his fist. «Now is when you tell me where the island is.»
I gave him a longitude, the right one. «Latitude when I've got half the money.»
«I'll be in touch.»
«Wait! Ander, get rid of the punchgun.»
Ander laughed. «I think I'll keep it.»
He'd seen how I feared it. He'd keep it to intimidate me. I tried anyway. «Ander, I was wearing a v-»
He flicked off.
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