The avatar’s gaze seemed fixed on one particular holo screen. Dajeil twisted on the couch to look in the same direction and discovered violent action in a couple of the screens displaying the views from the gas-giant environment; a school of the habitat’s food-chain-topping predators - sharp, arrow-headed things, finned like missiles, venting gas from steering orifices - were shown from different angles as they fell together out of some towering column of cloud and swept through clearer atmosphere down upon a group of vaguely bird-like grazing animals clustered near the edge of an up-welling cloud-top. The avian creatures scattered, some crumpling and falling, some beating frantically away to the side, some disappearing, balled in fright, into the cloud. The predators darted and spun amongst them, most missing their fleeing prey, a few connecting; biting, slashing and killing.

Dajeil nodded. ‘Migration time, up there,’ she said. ‘Breeding season soon.’ She watched a grazer being torn apart and gulped down by a couple of the missile-bodied predators. ‘Mouths to feed,’ she said quietly, looking away. She shrugged. She recognised some of the predators and had given them her own nick-names, though the creatures she was really interested in were the much bigger, slower-moving animals - generally untroubled by the predators - which were like larger, more bulbous relations of the unfortunate grazer flock.

Dajeil had on occasion discussed details of the various ecologies contained within the ship’s habitats with Amorphia, who seemed politely interested and yet frankly ignorant on the subject even though the ship’s knowledge of the ecosystems was, in effect, total; the creatures belonged to the vessel, after all, whether you regarded them as passengers or pets. Much like herself, Dajeil thought sometimes.

Amorphia’s gaze remained fixed on the screens displaying the carnage taking place in the sky beyond the sky. ‘It is beautiful, isn’t it?’ the avatar said, sipping at the drink again. It glanced at Dajeil, who was looking surprised. ‘In a way,’ Amorphia added quickly.

Dajeil nodded slowly. ‘In its own way, yes of course.’ She leant forward and put her goblet on to the carved-bone table. ‘Why are you here today, Amorphia?’ she asked.

The ship’s representative looked startled. It came close, Dajeil thought, to spilling its drink.

‘To see how you are,’ the avatar said quickly.

Dajeil sighed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we have established that I’m well, and--’

‘And the child?’ Amorphia asked, glancing at the woman’s belly.

Dajeil rested her hand on her abdomen. ‘It is . . . as ever,’ she said quietly. ‘It is healthy.’

‘Good,’ Amorphia said, folding its long arms about itself and crossing its legs. The creature glanced at the holo screens again.

Dajeil was losing patience. ‘Amorphia, speaking as the ship; what is going on?’