An hour later, the three of them stood on the loading platform, looking out across the damp cement of Carver Field towards the Port Authority buildings and over them to the city itself. It was raining. The new day had a used light all over it; a light which might be described as pre-enjoyed on its passage from Retiro Street to the Church on the Rock. In the crime tourism quarter, the hotel neons weren’t quite done, but they’d faded to pastels of themselves. Ed Chianese leant on the loading platform rail, his ragged lower half rattling faintly in the wind.

‘You’re sure you won’t come with me?’

Liv found him a smile. ‘You’ve walked through one too many walls, Ed. Look at the state of you.’

‘I’ve got used to a life,’ was all Antoyne could think of to say.

When Ed had gone the two of them were left on the cement, craning their necks as the Nova Swing groaned her way back to the Quarantine orbit on her tail of smoke. They watched until she was a fading green glow in the cloudbase. ‘Those fucking old engines!’

Liv Hula said.

‘But she was a boat.’

‘She was a dog, Antoyne.’

They laughed, then they turned towards Saudade City. The streets had a new excitement, they were packed with refugees and military police. Lightning flashed – a K-ship, splitting the sky, trailing thunder! She took his arm, folded it under her own, hugged it against her side, the way she used to walk with Irene.

‘Where to next?’ she said.

‘Some place where Crab Nebula is a main course not a destination.’

26 Lizard People from Deep Time

TWENTY SIX

Lizard People from Deep Time

Uptown Six took the dynaflow highway halfway across the Halo. It was a fast uncluttered trip. Viewed from inside, the dyne fields are just like a human being – a kind of bad-natured origami, accordion-folded to contain more than seems possible or advisable. Is this how the universe dreams of itself? Eels flickering in shoals through some velvet medium? Splashes of coloured light drawn sideways suddenly by the unimaginable stresses of not really being there? The assistant, who felt similar stresses herself, sat uncomfortably by the porthole in the human quarters trying to comprehend these phenomena.