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  ‘Because she’s been here before,’ said the woman. ‘Haven’t you, Adrana? A few weeks back, wasn’t it? And what’s your sister’s name, while we’re at it?’

  ‘This is Arafura,’ Adrana said levelly. ‘Fura. You should test her as well, Madame Granity.’

  ‘Test what?’ I asked.

  ‘Aptitudes,’ the woman said, sidling up and putting a finger under my chin. She elevated my face, peering into my eyes and frowning slightly as she did so. She had spectacles pinched onto her nose, huge circular ones with heavy brass frames, the lenses making her eyes swell up like a pair of worlds. She had a pinafore on over a gown, pockets stuffed with a glittery assortment of metallic devices. She had thimbles on all her fingers and thumbs, with fine wires running back up her sleeves. ‘The sort of aptitudes that interest the ships.’

  Adrana risked a glance through the opening of the tent. ‘Paladin’s nearly here,’ she called. ‘It’s scanning the other booths.’

  Madame Granity still had her finger under my chin. She stroked the other hand against the side of my face, up to the cheekbone, onto the temple. It wasn’t just the coldness of her thimbles I felt, or the sharpness of their tips.

  Something else was coming through: a shivery tingle just beneath the skin.

  ‘If it’s loitering, it knows you’re near,’ Madame Granity said. ‘Do you want it to find you? Both of you?’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ Adrana said.

  ‘I’d like a say.’

  ‘You’ll get one. Look, we’ll give Paladin the slip for now. Then we’ll have some more fun and find our own way home. I’ll cover for you.’

  ‘You’d better come into the back,’ Madame Granity said. ‘The robot won’t follow you in there.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Mr Quindar’ll see that it doesn’t.’

  Behind the desk was a gap in the fabric, cinched loosely shut. Madame Granity undid it and led us through another partition. There was a big chair, with a padded back and a high headrest, tilted back on a sturdy-looking frame. A man was lying in the chair, a hat jammed low over his face, snoring, a newspaper spread across his chest. Madame Granity did up the cinch in the fabric then went over and gave the man a shove.

  ‘Eh, eh?’ the man said, dropping the newspaper.

  ‘Wake up and earn your commission. I’ve got the Ness sisters here and there’s a robot on its way to take them home.’

  ‘A robot?’

  Adrana was lingering, one eye up to the gap in the fabric. ‘Yes, and it’s coming inside.’

  I didn’t need to be able to see Paladin to hear the crunch of its wheels, the hum it put out, the buzzy whine as it moved its arms.

  ‘Get off the throne, Mr Quindar. And you,’ Madame Granity said, pointing to me, ‘you get on it. I know your sister’s got the gift, and it often runs in siblings, however I’d still like to see it for myself.’

  ‘What gift?’

  ‘Just get in the chair,’ Adrana said.

  ‘What do you want me to do about the robot?’ Mr Quindar asked, bending himself off the throne.

  ‘Stop it coming in here for starters,’ Madame Granity said.

  Now that he wasn’t lying down, it was clear that the man was very tall and thin. He wore a long black coat, and the hem of it should have covered most of his legs, but they seemed to stick out more than was right, like black stilts. His feet didn’t quite seem to brush the ground, like a puppet that wasn’t being operated very well. He reached into the coat with his right hand and came out with a stubby black stick, gave it a flick, and it popped out to six times its original length.

  ‘ “Stop it,” she says. Vidin’ll stop it. Stopping things is what Vidin does, most of the time.’

  Without any great urgency, the man walked to the other side of the chamber, raised the stick, and began to smash it against the dividing curtain. After a few blows he stepped up his attack, reaching with his other hand to undo the cinch. The curtain dropped open, Paladin now fully exposed.

  ‘Come on. Show old Vidin what you’ve got, you wheely devil.’

  The robot whirred forward, or tried to. Mr Quindar – if that was his name – blocked its approach with a boot, jamming it against one of the leading wheels, and carried on smashing the casing. Paladin tried to defend itself with its arms, but its deep programming stopped it doing anything that might hurt Mr Quindar back.

  ‘Go on,’ Adrana said, encouraging the assault. ‘Hit the dome. Smash the stupid thing to bits!’

  ‘No,’ I said, struck by some lingering affection for the machine. ‘It’s just doing its job.’

  ‘Just get on there, Fura,’ Adrana snapped back. ‘I’ve got the talent, the aptitude. I found out weeks ago. Don’t you want to know if you’ve got it as well?’

  I hesitated, caught between curiosity and a sick horror at what was happening to the robot. But curiosity was the stronger of those two. I climbed on, thinking I’d regret whatever I was about to get myself into, and going ahead anyway, the way you do sometimes.

  ‘What do you mean, weeks?’

  ‘I sneaked out here on my own. That time I was supposed to go and get fitted for new boots. Well, I did that as well, but there was time to dodge down Neural Alley and I had to know. I’ve had an inkling, you see . . .’

  There was a plate at the bottom of the throne where I placed my boots, padded rests at the side where I settled my arms, and the plump embrace of the headrest. The more I relaxed into it, the more it seemed to enclose my skull.

  ‘What inkling?’

  ‘That I might be able to read the bones.’

  Madame Granity went to another device, some sort of apparatus hanging over the chair. It was like a lampshade, with a flexible neck. She stooped to touch some switches and the thing gave off a smell like burning toast.

  Lights glimmered around the base of the shade and the object leaned in over me.

  ‘I have been charged with locating Arafura and Adrana Ness,’ Paladin’s voice boomed out. ‘If you have knowledge of their whereabouts, please inform me.’

  ‘The only thing I’m informin’ you,’ Mister Quindar said, ‘is that you’re getting’ your tin head stoved in if you come any further into this shop.’

  ‘Make him stop!’ I called.

  ‘Stay still,’ Adrana said. ‘It’s mapping your brain. Working out how likely you are to be able to mesh with a bone.’

  ‘Reading a bone is a skill,’ Madame Granity said, speaking calmly despite the commotion beyond the partition. ‘But it only works if your brain is still forming and breaking connections. Still learning how to be a brain, in other words. Children can do it, but they haven’t got the wits to work out what the bones are whispering to them, so they’re no use to a captain. Adults are no good, once their brains harden up. Teenage boys and girls work well. You can push it into your twenties, but it’s a downward slope.’ She made a ruminative sound. ‘This is very good. Very good.’

  The scanner lowered itself as close to my head as it could reach. Again I felt that tingle, but this time it was coming from the machine, not Madame Granity’s thimbles. And it was beneath my scalp now, as if some small itchy thing were crawling around inside my skull.

  ‘Is she up to it?’ Adrana asked.

  ‘On the way,’ Madame Granity said. ‘Maybe not as sharp as you, but then she’s a little younger, isn’t she? You’ve both got the talent, and the fact that you come as a pair makes you very marketable.’

  ‘You are damaging me,’ Paladin said. ‘I must ask you to desist before I suffer irreparable damage.’

  I twisted around, clanging the lampshade aside. Through the gap in the partition I saw Mr Quindar swinging the rod at Paladin, raising it high and bringing it down hard, the end of the rod gripped double-handed.

  ‘Desist,’ Paladin said, and some fault in its coordination made t
he rear wheel jam, as it was prone to, and now the robot could only spin around, no retreat possible even if the man had permitted it. But he had no intention of giving in now.

  He tossed the rod aside, reached for one of the larger skulls on Madame Granity’s shelves, and began using it as a bludgeoning instrument, smashing it down hard on the dome.

  ‘Stop,’ I shouted. ‘Leave him alone!’

  ‘Him?’ Madame Granity asked, her eyes huge behind her spectacles. ‘It’s just a robot – one you were very keen to avoid only a while ago.’

  Paladin was gyring around frantically. The arms flailed. They caught against the shelves, scattering bones. Vidin kept bludgeoning. He’d begun to crack the dome. Finally, and it was a kind of mercy, Paladin’s rear wheel jammed against the base of a shelf. The jolt made the whole robot keel over, clanging against the ground. The forward wheels kept turning for a few seconds and the spindly arms on Paladin’s side whacked against the stones.

  The mechanisms inside the dome buzzed and clicked. Lights went out.

  Paladin was still.

  Vidin tossed aside the bone. He reached for the discarded rod, contracted it to its former length and tucked it back into his coat.

  ‘I hate robots. Smug machines living longer than the rest of us, acting like they own the place.’ He dusted his palms. ‘Did you get a read on the girl, Madame Gee?’

  ‘A partial, before you distracted her with all that clattering. She’s got potential, that’s plain. You think you can find employment for them?’

  He scratched at his scalp. He had a very bald head, a lantern jaw, deeply sunken eyes, a pale scar running all the way from one eye to the edge of his mouth. ‘According to the newspaper I was so earnestly scrutinising before you disturbed me, Rack’s been docked at Hadramaw for a few days.’

  ‘Rack?’ I asked.

  Mr Quindar pulled a chair from behind one of the shelves and eased his lengthy frame into it. The flaps of his coat hung down to either side, stiff and ragged like the drying wings of some enormous bird. ‘Rackamore, properly. Captain. Not the best of ’em, but not the worst you’ll meet, either. Word is Rack’s in the market for a new Sympathetic. That’s Bone Reader to you and me. He’d sign up one of you like that. Sign up two even quicker.’

  ‘Sign up for what?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you slow in the grey, girlie? For his crew. For his ship. For expeditions and so on. All above board. You sails out for an agreed term. Six months, maybe less. See some worlds. See some sights. I’ve seen a hundred worlds and that’s barely scratching what’s out there. More than just sphereworlds like this. Wheelworlds, spindleworlds, brittleworlds, laceworlds . . . more worlds than we’ve got names for ’em. You want to drink in some of that? Crack a bauble or two on the way, you’ll be golden.’ He cupped his fist, shook it as if it held a stack of quoins. ‘More than you’ll ever earn on this dungheap. Sign on a bit longer, you can retire on it.’

  ‘We couldn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Father’s almost beggared us,’ Adrana answered. ‘That’s why he got talked into that stupid investment, thinking it’d turn around our fortunes. Now we’re even worse off than we were before.’ She placed her hands on my shoulders, looking me square in the eye. ‘But we can change that. Go out, just for a while. A few months. Then come back home, and share what we’ve made with Father. Do something for him, for a change. Oh, he wouldn’t agree to it – I know that. But people don’t always know what’s good for them.’

  ‘Truer words,’ Mr Quindar said, ‘was never uttered.’

  ‘You know where to find Rack?’ Madame Granity asked him.

  ‘Near enough.’

  ‘Then take them there. They can still change their minds, can’t they? But you make sure Rack understands that he owes us both a finder’s fee, if they pass his tests.’

  ‘They will,’ Mr Quindar said. ‘Got a nose for these things, I ’ave. And these sisters ain’t slipping through my fingers.’

  I stepped back into the front part of the tent, where Paladin remained on the floor, silent and still, its dome partly smashed. Adrana, Madame Granity and Mr Quindar followed me.

  I knelt down by the ruined robot, gently touching the broken dome, then looked back at Quindar.

  ‘You didn’t need to smash it up like that.’

  ‘If he hadn’t,’ Madame Granity said, ‘the robot would be dragging you home by now.’

  ‘It wasn’t Paladin’s fault. It was just doing what it was told.’

  ‘That’s all it ever can do,’ Adrana said. ‘There’s nothing in that head except lists of instructions. We’re not like that, Fura. We’ve got something Paladin never had and never will have – free will. You go home now, it won’t be long before Father brings Moonface round. He’ll give you that medicine, the one that stops you growing older. And then you’ll never get this opportunity again, not for years and years. This is it, here and now. Our one and only chance to do something.’

  I looked at my sister, then at Madame Granity, then at Vidin Quindar.

  ‘We just talk to Captain Rackamore,’ I said. ‘That’s all. And when he tells us we aren’t suitable, which he will, we come home and never say another word about any of this. Is that a deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ Adrana said.

  2

  Rackamore rented an office on the side of Hadramaw Dock, so high that the elevator had taken long minutes to crawl its way up there. The office was small, sheeted over in grey metal, with one large window looking back out over Mazarile, and because we were above the skyshell now there was nothing beyond that window but vacuum. It seemed wrong that anyone could be comfortable in such a place. There was a desk in the room and three people around it. Two were seated on one side of it, facing us with their backs to the window, the third one was standing on our side of it, leaning over papers and still in low conversation with the other two.

  Vidin Quindar, who’d brought us from Neural Alley, coughed at the door.

  ‘Ah, Quindar,’ said the older of the two seated men. ‘These are the girls, are they?’

  ‘These is the lovelies, Cap’n Rack.’

  ‘Then show them in. I’ll take it from here. You can wait outside.’

  Vidin Quindar made a humble, grovelling motion with his fingers. ‘Usual percentages, usual terms, is it?’

  ‘Ever the cut-throat, Mr Quindar. Rest assured that if the girls satisfy – and it’ll be Cazaray who delivers the verdict on that, not I – then you’ll have your quoins.’

  We took our positions next to the standing man. It was pretty clear that some business was being concluded. The standing man gathered the papers on the desk, rolling them tight. Despite myself I couldn’t pass up a squint. They were drawings, white ink on a blue backing; complex diagrams full of scratchy lines and geometric shapes. ‘I can expect your word tomorrow, Captain? I cannot make you a better offer than this.’

  ‘Thank you, Mister Gar,’ the older man answered. ‘You’ll hear from us.’

  When the man with the papers had left, the older man looked at us and said: ‘We lost a hundred acres of sail out by Trevenza Reach. Have you any idea of the cost of sail? No one makes it now, despite what you may have heard. The wholesalers – men like Gar – gather up scraps, measure the shapes, sew the lot back together into useful acreages. Then they sell it back to us – the poor beggars who owned it in the first place – at about ten times what we made on the original deal.’ A cautionary note entered his voice. ‘But we cannot function without sails, and a poor sail is worse than no sail at all, because it inspires false confidence. Gar has a reputation.’

  ‘So, unfortunately, do his prices,’ said the other seated man.

  ‘Was there trouble by Trevenza Reach?’ I asked.

  Captain Rackamore looked at me with mild interest. ‘You’ve heard of the world?’

  ‘Read about it. It’s in one of the highest or
bits, and it’s very eccentric. It must have swung out of the Congregation a long time ago – a collision or something, sending it out into the Empty.’

  ‘Right enough,’ Rackamore said. ‘No, there wasn’t trouble – not the kind you’re thinking of. We just ran into some debris, and it peppered our foresail pretty badly. Had to limp back on ions. No weapons, no pirates. Does that disappoint you?’

  ‘Debris still sounds pretty dangerous,’ Adrana said.

  ‘It can be,’ Rackamore said, nodding at my sister. ‘Speed is our principal ally, and if we carried more armour we’d be too slow to be economical. So we take that chance. But I wouldn’t overstate the danger: we’re much more likely to lose a sail than to take a direct hit on the hull.’

  He was handsome, in a slightly too obvious way, like a picture of a prince in a children’s book. Square-jawed, piercing eyes, a distinguished nose. Fine cheekbones. Arched, aristocratic eyebrows. A cruel curl to his lips. His hair was long, but tied back neatly. He was tall, even in the chair, at least as long and thin as Vidin Quindar, but there was a refinement about him that wouldn’t have been out of place anywhere on Mazarile. The white of his shirt was spotless, the leather of his waistcoat polished up like a mirror, creaking as he leaned forward in his chair.

  In one hand he held a multi-bar quoin, tapping it against the desk.

  ‘See for yourselves,’ he said, moving aside some of the remaining papers to expose a handwritten sheet. ‘This is a breakdown of my losses over the last ten years – the crew who died, were injured, who never came back; set against capital earnings. Cazaray will vouch for it.’

  The younger man sitting next to him nodded at the ledger.

  ‘I’ve lost two Scanners, three Openers, one Assessor, one Integrator,’ Rackamore went on. ‘That’s a normal rate of attrition for the kinds of target we go after. We’ve hauled in to seventeen baubles in that time, and cracked thirteen of them. I lost the Integrator when a piece of Fifth Occupation technology turned on her.’

  I swallowed.

  ‘That’s rare, though,’ he went on. ‘Integrators normally stay on-ship when my teams are working a bauble, and on-ship is always the safest place to be. There’s no reason for a Sympathetic – a Bone Reader – to leave the ship.’ Rackamore drew a clean, manicured nail down one of the columns on the ledger. ‘See for yourselves. I’ve never lost a Bone Reader.’