He found it hard to break her stare; it was almost triumphant.

Rousseau vomited on the quay.

Althaea let out a despairing groan. «Oh, Ross!» She was close to tears.

«Bring him on board,» her mother said wearily. She slipped the disc and chain into her shirt pocket.

With Althaea's help, Eason manhandled Ross onto a bunk in the cabin. The old man groaned as he was laid on the grey blankets, then closed his eyes, asleep at once.

Althaea put a plastic bucket on the floor beside the bunk, and shook her head sadly.

«What's the pendulum for?» Eason asked quietly. He could hear her mother moving round on the deck outside.

«Mother uses it for divining.»

«On a boat?»

She pressed her lips together. «You can use divining to find whatever you wish, not just water—stones, wood, buried treasure, stuff like that. It can even guide you home in the fog, just like a compass. The disc is only a focus for your thoughts, that's all. Your mind does the actual work.»

«I think I'll stick with an inertial guido.»

Althaea's humour evaporated. She hung her head as if she'd been scolded.

«I'm Tiarella Rosa, Althaea's mother,» the woman said after Eason stepped out of the cabin. She stuck her hand out. «Thank you for helping with Ross.»

«No trouble,» Eason said affably. Tiarella Rosa had a firm grip, her hand calloused from deckwork.

«I was wondering,» he said. «Do you have any work available on Charmaine? I'm not fussy, or proud. I can dig ditches, pick fruit, rig nets, whatever.»

Tiarella's eyes swept over him, taking in the ship's jumpsuit he wore, the thin-soled shoes, his compact but hardly bulky frame, albino-pale skin. «Why would you be interested, asteroid man?»

«I'm a drifter. I'm tired of asteroid biosphere chambers. I want the real thing, the real outdoors. And I'm just about broke.»

«A drifter?»

«Yeah.» Out of the corner of his eye he saw Althaea emerge from the cabin, her already anxious expression even more apprehensive.

«I can only offer room and board,» Tiarella said. «In case you haven't noticed, we're not rich, either.» There was the intimation of amusement in her voice.

Eason prevented his glance from slipping round the Orphée ; she must have cost ten thousand fuseodollars at least.

«And the Orphée has been in the family for thirty years,» Tiarella said briskly. «She's a working boat, the only link we have with the outside world.»

«Right. Room and board would be fine.»

Tiarella ruffled Althaea's hair. «No need to ask your opinion, is there, darling. A new face at Charmaine, Christmas come in April.»

Althaea blushed crimson, hunching in on herself.

«OK, drifter , we'll give it a try.»

• • •

Orphée 's tail kicked up a spume of foam as she manoeuvred away from the quay. Tiarella's eyes were tight shut as she steered the boat via her affinity bond with the bitek's governing processors. Once they were clear, the sail membrane began to spread itself, a brilliant emerald sheet woven through with a hexagonal mesh of rubbery cords.