The next morning, after checking that his terminal still did not work and the lift door in the cellar remained locked and unresponding, Genar-Hofoen walked as far along the shingle beach as he could in each direction; a few hundred steps in each case, before he encountered a gelatinously resilient field. The view beyond looked perfectly convincing, but must be a projection. He discovered a way through part of the salt marsh and found a similar force field wall a hundred steps into the hummocks and little creeks. He came back to the tower to wash his boots free of the authentically fine and clinging mud he’d had to negotiate on his way through the salt marsh. There was no sign of the black bird he’d talked to the day before.

The avatar Amorphia was waiting for him, sitting on the shelf of shingle beach sloping down to the restive sea, hugging its legs and staring out at the water.

He stopped when he saw it, then came on. He walked past it and into the tower, washed his boots and came back out. The creature was still there.

‘Yes?’ he said, standing looking down at it. The ship’s representative rose smoothly up, all angles and thin limbs. Close up, in that light, there was a sort of unmarked, artless quality about its thin, pale face; something near to innocence.

‘I want you to talk to Dajeil,’ the creature said. ‘Will you?’

He studied its empty-looking eyes. ‘Why am I being kept here?’

‘You are being kept because I would like you to talk to Dajeil. You are being kept here because I thought this . . . model would be conducive to putting you in the mood to talk to her about what passed between you forty years ago.’

He frowned. Amorphia had the impression the man had a lot more questions, all jostling each other to be the first one asked. Eventually he said, ‘Are there any mind-state Storees left on the Sleeper Service?’

‘No,’ the avatar said, shaking its head. ‘Does this refer to the ruse that brought you here?’

The man’s eyes had closed briefly. They opened again. ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said. His shoulders seemed to have slumped, the avatar thought. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘did you make up the story about Zreyn Enhoff Tramow, or did they?’

The avatar looked thoughtful. ‘Gart-Kepilesa Zreyn Enhoff Tramow Afayaf dam Niskat,’ it said. ‘She was a mind-state Storee. There’s quite an interesting story associated with her, but not one I ever suggested be told to you.’

‘I see,’ he said, nodding. ‘So, why?’ he asked.

‘Why what?’ the creature said, looking puzzled.

‘Why the ruse? Why did you want me here?’

The avatar looked at him for a moment. ‘You’re my price, Genar-Hofoen,’ it told him.

‘Your price?’ he said.