He had the resinous, warm New Man smell, a little like creosote, but not entirely unpleasant. His cock was, after you had got used to it, just a cock. What Liv enjoyed was the surprising calm he made her feel despite his own anxieties, a kind of temporary erasing of her own life that had nothing to do with sex. It was an easing of the memory of herself. In the end, she thought, perhaps I came here for that. When she woke in the morning, the lava tube was empty. There was a trickle of water behind the curtain, which she used to wash in. She wandered along the flow shelves as if she was in a shop, picking up his things and putting them down. She left money on the table. The child reappeared and led her back down to the rocket port at da Luz, which she saw with proprietary amazement a long way off through cool air and soft, floury light. There was the Nova Swing, standing up on its fins like the flying buttresses of a brassy little cathedral! Under daylight the landscape wasn’t so barren as she had imagined. The gullies and lava tunnels were often full of cool green vegetation: shafts of sunlight fell on constant little rills and trickles of water. She soon outdistanced the boy, who seemed preoccupied.

Just  before  noon, crossing the cement field through the heat ripples, she saw Fat Antoyne and Irene outside L’Ange du Foyer, talking to a small, old-looking man she took to be MP Renoko. No one was sitting down. There was a lot of gesticulating and raised voices. Antoyne waved Toni Reno’s paperwork about and said something; the small man shook his head  no. He wore a shortie single-breasted raincoat over a yellowed woollen singlet and tapering red trousers which ended halfway down his calves; black loafers. His agreement with Toni Reno, he said, was that no one got paid until all the items were delivered to an as-yet-undetermined location. He had the second one here now. That was the way it was. Irene snatched the paper off Antoyne, made eye contact with MP Renoko and tore it in half. He smiled and shrugged. She put the pieces down on one of the aluminium tables with exaggerated care before walking off.

Liv Hula, unwilling to become involved, avoided everyone’s eyes and went into L’Ange, where she ordered frozen yoghurt.

Irene came in behind her and said, ‘I’ll have one of those too, but I’m getting vodka in mine.’ They sat down and watched Fat Antoyne and MP Renoko walk off towards the edge of the landing field, still arguing.

‘Who does that little shit think he is?’ Irene asked.

Liv said she didn’t know. ‘Well I do,’ the mona said, as if she had won an argument. ‘I do.’

‘I don’t like the beard he has.’