Goodwill stood and brushed off his hands, a curiously human gesture. ‘From the weeds in the vegetable garden, which have had time to sprout and wither and die. Juniper is calling to us. We should move on.’

After finding the first hut, they spotted others off through the trees on either side, all likewise abandoned. At last, the track ended in a clearing around a large round burrow roofed with dry turf. A vent in the centre of the roof was squeezing out a slow steady stream of small white balloons, one every thirty seconds or so.

‘What are they?’ Juniper said to Ysbel, as they watched a balloon rise uncertainly above the treetops and drift away on the hot breeze.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps some kind of bot. Perhaps nothing more than balloons.’

‘If they are flying eyes, where are they flying to?’

‘Anywhere the wind takes them, it looks like. I don’t think they are being used to spy on us,’ Ysbel said, but she was nervous and alert as they circled the burrow, watching the trees and the sky for movement, seeing only balloons popping out of the vent and drifting up and away, tags on twists of wire dangling beneath each one. They seemed as harmless as children’s toys, and suggested that this settlement had not been completely abandoned.

On the far side of the burrow, a narrow ramp slanted down into darkness between walls decorated with carvings of bears and globe-headed figures. The carvings gleamed as if they had been varnished and were slick to the touch; Ysbel told the others that they were most likely resin casts or 3D prints.

‘If they are copies of bear carvings, it suggests that we have come to the right place,’ Goodwill said.

‘But what kind of place is it?’ Ysbel said.

‘The cradle of something new and wonderful,’ a voice said.

Ysbel saw shadowy movement at the bottom of the ramp as a small bot began to climb into the light. It was got up from tubes and struts of black plastic and the ball of its head was crowned with a circlet of lenses.

Juniper’s aides had bunched around her. The largest stood in front; the two armed with pistols had drawn their weapons, aiming them at the bot as it halted at the top of the ramp.

‘Welcome,’ it said.

‘Who are you?’ Ysbel said.

She had seen pictures of similar bots tending to First Generation babies and small children in the gardens of Mother’s habitat on the Moon.

‘I am the one who invited you here,’ the bot said. It had a bright engaging voice, neither human nor native but somewhere in between. ‘You have been admiring my art collection.’

‘Where are the originals?’ Ysbel said.

‘In a safe place.’