“Can I help you?” he said, putting the still-open hide bag down at his feet where he sat, and dipping one hand into it, feeling around. He made a waving, distracting gesture with his other hand. “For example, with your manners? We tend to knock first, here.”
“Mr. Joiler Veppers, my name is Prebeign-Frultesa Yime Leutze Nsokyi dam Volsh,” the figure said in an oddly accented voice that might have been female but that definitely didn’t appear to be entirely in synch with its lip-movements. “I am a citizen of the Culture. I am here to apprehend you on suspicion of murder. Will you come with me?”
“How can I put this?” he said, raising and firing the alien-tech gun in the same movement. The gun made a loud snapping noise, light flared in the dim study and the alien disappeared in a silvery shimmer. The doors immediately behind where it had been standing burst open against their hinges, swinging broken and hanging into the corridor beyond in a flurry of black dust, a semi-circular hole punched in each, circumferenced with glowing yellow-white sparks. Veppers looked at the gun – a present from the Jhlupian Xingre, long ago – then at the still-swinging, smoking doors, and finally at the patch of rug where the figure had been standing. “Hmm,” he said.
...
The fucking gun hadn’t worked! It had worked before but it had stopped! Was it some fucking stupid ceremonial piece of junk that only had one fucking shot in it? Xingre, the bastard, had told him it could stop a tank, bring down aircraft and keep on firing till you grew old. Lying motherfucking alien cunt!
- Surface Detail, Chapter 29
NOTE: after the first shot the gun had been disabled by a Ship.