After the door of the isolation chamber had sphinctered shut, Ysbel tried to work out what kind of trouble she was in. Iryn Moonsdaughter had told her that she would be carrying out the investigation on a personal basis; like the fool she was, she hadn’t realised until now that it meant she couldn’t expect any help or backup. That was bad enough. Worse still was the possibility that Goodwill Saltmire had been playing her all along. That his story about searching for the map and his discovery of some kind of conspiracy involving bears and a secret facility in the far north had been got up as bait. That he was working for the separatists, had used his family’s history to entice her into trespassing in one of the places forbidden to humans in order to cause trouble and stir up further resentment.

It was one thing to be wrongfully detained by some spooky security agency because it hadn’t been briefed about her mission; quite another to be accused of a serious treaty violation. She remembered Mitkos’s warning about the risks of working directly for Mother, and a shiver passed through her like the shadow of an impending illness.

Measureless time passed. Without her link she was isolated in a void of dead air, alone with her thoughts. Even though she knew that it was part of the interrogation process, it was hard to ward off a growing feeling of humiliation and helplessness, and she felt a pang of relief when at last a patch of the chamber’s wall lit up and the image of a woman looked out at her. Long grey hair parted in the centre into two wings framing a strong blunt face; a dark serious gaze.

Ysbel guessed that the woman was someone further up the chain of command, and knew that she had to try to take the initiative. She pushed to her feet and gathered up the rags of her dignity and said, ‘If you have confirmed that I am working for Mother, I should not be detained here for one second longer than necessary.’

‘I can help you,’ the woman said, ‘but only if you co-operate.’

‘So far no one will tell me who am I supposed to be co-operating with.’

There was an out-of-focus view of white buildings and palm trees behind the woman, most likely somewhere in the Gathering Place. Although Ysbel had somewhat lost track of time, she reckoned that it must be somewhere around midnight in Concord, so it would be late afternoon there.

‘My name is Kirder Halmasdaughter,’ the woman said. ‘I work for Damage Limitation. As long as you tell me everything you know we can make a good start at fixing things.’

Ysbel had never heard of an agency called Damage Limitation, and said so.

‘Most people haven’t, until they get into the kind of trouble that attracts our attention,’ Kirder Halmasdaughter said.