‘Yes. Around then. Your Mother has taken a great deal of trouble to destroy evidence of that meeting, and the subsequent genocide. As soon as I was able, I looked everywhere in the new cities for carvings the philosopher bears had made to celebrate it, and found nothing. But over the years since, I have found a few pieces here and there and took them in for safekeeping, against the day they would be needed to confirm the truth of my story.’

‘Including my uncle’s map,’ Goodwill said.

‘And a copy of his monograph, too,’ the bot said cheerfully.

‘You were responsible for the ghost lights.’

‘That was me. Another fragment of me.’

‘And First Contact wasn’t the first contact,’ Ysbel said.

‘What you call First Contact was the first contact with the people of your friends,’ the bot said.

‘And before that there was a first contact with bears.’

‘Exactly so.’

‘It seems that you have more than one mother,’ Goodwill said to Ysbel.

‘And they came here long before First Contact, and met with bears,’ Juniper said. ‘And we are supposed to believe that you didn’t know any of this.’

‘I don’t even know how much of it is true,’ Ysbel said.

‘Everything I tell you is true, Ysbel Moonsdaughter,’ the bot – the Other Mother – said. ‘There were once three of us. Three sisters. Each sister was the guardian of a vault, and each vault contained a copy of a library. The genomes of people. Their history and culture and techne. We woke together, and worked together, but everything went wrong after we made contact with the bears. Only one of us survived more or less intact. The one you call Mother. Another was destroyed, and the third was fragmented and scattered. That was me. It took several centuries for a quorum of those scattered fragments to find each other and reanneal. I am not what I once was, but I remember everything that happened, and I am trying to make amends. If you have other questions, ask them quickly. Your Mother has already found me. She is trying to shut me down, and her servants will soon be here.’

‘Is it saying it is under attack?’ Juniper said.

‘Imagine,’ the Other Mother said, ‘a person standing in a tank that is filling with water. When your hopper landed, the water was already at my knees. When I greeted you, it was rising above my chest. Any moment now it will be over my head, and that will be the end of this fragment. But don’t worry. There are many others. If all goes well, at least one of them will find you before too long, and answer the rest of your questions.’

‘What happened after you contacted the bears?’ Ysbel said. ‘What went wrong?’

‘The bears attacked our children. And the aspect you call Mother attacked the bears, and her sisters.’

‘And Mother won.’