Sharrol was dressed Shashter style, a fancy cloak over a body stocking with windows in it that would serve for swimming. She was small even by flatlander standards, beginning to bulge with our second child. Strong jaw, pale skin, straight black hair: the real Sharrol. On Earth she’d worn many fantastic images, in flatlander style.

For too long fear had lurked beneath her surface emotions. Sharrol wasn’t made for this world. But we’d lived beneath Fafnir’s world-spanning ocean for a year and a half, we’d conceived and birthed Jeena and started a sister for her, and we’d come to see this place as our own. Gradually the fear had been etched away. I saw no sign of it now. Sharrol was at home.

Light beams danced down through the water and played over the wonderful landscape of Sharrol Janss. But I’d missed brunch. I nudged her and said, “I’m going for provisions.”

She didn’t turn. “Good! Handmeal, red, yes on veggies. Popcorn. Juice, any.”

I left my backpurse in the seat. I glanced back when I reached the aisle. Sharrol was lovely in profile, and entirely absorbed in the game.

The stands didn’t include food stalls. You had to go under the stands and all the way across the Strand, by elevated slidebridge, and into a fair-sized food court.

Or you could walk twenty yards along the glass, use a transfer booth, and save fifteen minutes.

I flicked in on the second-floor balcony. I looked over the railing at several long lines. The longest was a window for handmeals. My attention snagged on a face below.

He caught me looking.

Or not. I didn’t wait to be sure. I stepped to the lone phone booth at the end of the row of transfer booths. Found a coin and dialed. I did not want this call registered on my pocket phone.

We might have had a whole lifetime, I thought. We’d been promised that, but it had been a lie. But we’d had our year and a half.

The glass at the back of the booth reflected the top of the slidestair if I held my head right. I watched while Sharrol’s phone chimed six times.

She was looking past her phone, watching the game. “Bey? What?” She showed flat in one of the walls. Her pocket phone wasn’t sophisticated enough to give me a hologram.

I said, “I saw a face.”

“Who?” Now she looked at me. “Not her. Tell me it’s not her.”

“No, of course not, but it’s not good. He was my ghostwriter—”

“Bey? Your what?”

“Dear one, I’m short of time. Ander Smittarasheed shouldn’t be here. I think he knew me—”

“Unlikely!”