Exodus from the Long Sun

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An eerie silence overhung the ruined villa. Listening for the closing of a slug gun’s bolt, Maytera Mint heard only the groan of the wind and the irregular snapping of the flag of truce she held.

“On Phaesday they were in situ,” Patera Remora conceded. “The Ayuntamiento, eh?”

They had come abreast of a dead talus, its painted steel sides blistered by fire and blackened by smoke; she caught a whiff of fish oil, despite the wind.

“Might be repaired, eh, General?” Remora pushed back a lock of lank black hair that had fallen over his eyes. “Not like we biochemicals, hey? Still we — ah — dispatch their spirits to Mainframe. Not identical in the, um, revivified one, perhaps. Amongst the new parts.”

“Or they really haven’t any,” Maytera Mint murmured. She had stopped to wait for Remora, and was taking the opportunity to study the windows of the house that had been Blood’s.

Her remark bordered on heresy, but Remora thought it most prudent to return to his earlier topic. “If they’re not here, eh? Loris and the rest? Will, ah, Buffalo—”

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