So Nova Swing became a quarantine dog, and her crew found themselves sharing space with the remains of Martha, Bobby and Bella. They stowed the sarcophagus in a corner of the main hold. By then the contents had settled into a uniform transparent mass weighing slightly less than its original human components. It was liquid, superconductive at room temperature, and retained some memory of its former state: for instance, the little boy could sometimes be seen behind the armoured viewplate, half-formed, curled foetally with his hands between his legs. It made Irene sad. ‘Oh, his little penis,’ she said. She was not her usual self. She woke hearing dice rattle in the holds and passageways, soft laughter, voices. If a game was being played, Irene wasn’t in it. She opened doors and never found anyone there.

‘It wears you down,’ she complained to Antoyne.

Antoyne, thinner than ever, cultivated a stubble. He feared living hand to mouth. The ordered world being defined for him now by Liv and Irene, he was afraid he would fall out of it and return to his old ways. Irene thought him vague lately, especially since that afternoon at Mambo Rey, and wondered out loud if he was recalling some other lover. ‘Because that would be all right,’ she told him. ‘We all remember the other loves we had.’ Antoyne looked blank at this and didn’t seem to agree. Of course, it was quite a long list for her, Irene admitted, so each one had to work harder to stand out. She had a vision suddenly: men in an endless line, each one awaiting the opportunity to step up and impress her again. One thought he danced well. Another thought his cock was pretty big, but it would never bring tears to her eyes like the cock of that little dead boy. Of course, they weren’t really lovers.

‘Antoyne,’ she said in a rush, ‘what if this rocket was haunted?’

He touched her wrist. ‘All rockets are haunted,’ he said. ‘I assumed you knew that.’

Liv Hula could only smile at these naive exchanges. Tapped into the pilot systems while everyone else slept, she’d seen the way MP Renoko’s mortsafes clustered around the new cargo when they thought they weren’t being watched. They sniffed it like dogs, perhaps deciding it wasn’t quite their species. On the fifth day out from Basel Dove, Nova Swing had sight of New Venusport, a fully Earthlike planet in terms of biome, military presence and fiscal architecture. The Quarantine Authority hailed on all wavelengths. There were automated warnings. Vast shapes drifted in the void, blinking with dim lights. Antoyne dragged the sarcophagus to an airlock and consigned it to empty space, where it fell into the general hidden turmoil and vanished.

‘That poor little thing,’ Irene whispered.

‘Honey, there are two grown women in the casket with him,’ Liv Hula reminded her. ‘Ask yourself who put them there.’