She became suddenly very aware of her place here, her position. She saw herself and the tower, both within and outside the ship; outside its main hull - distinct, discrete, straight-sided and measured exactly in kilometres - but within the huge envelope of water, air and gas it encompassed within the manifold layers of its fields (she imagined the force fields sometimes as like the hooped slips, underskirts, skirts, flounces and lace of some ancient formal gown). A slab of power and substance floating in a giant spoonful of sea, most of its vast bulk exposed to the air and clouds that formed its middle layer and around which the sun-line curved each day, and all domed with the long, field-contained pressure vessel of ferocious heat, colossal pressure and crushing gravity that simulated the conditions of a gas-giant planet. A room, a cave, a hollow husk a hundred kilometres long, hurrying through space, with the ship as its vast, flattened kernel. A kernel - an enclosed world inside this world - within which she had not set foot for thirty-nine of these forty unchanging years, having no desire ever again to see that infinite catacomb of the silent undead.

All to change, Dajeil Gelian thought; all to change, and the sea and the sky to become as stone, or steel . . .

The black bird Gravious settled by her hand on the stone parapet of the tower.

‘What’s going on?’ it croaked. ‘There’s something going on. I can tell. What is it, then? What’s it all about?’

‘Oh, ask the ship,’ she told it.

‘Already asked it. All it’ll say is there’s changes coming, like as not.’ The bird shook its head once, as if trying to dislodge something distasteful from its beak. ‘Don’t like changes,’ it said. It swivelled its head, fixing its beady gaze upon the woman. ‘What sort of changes, then, eh? What we got to expect? What we got to look forward to, eh? It tell you?’

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, not looking at the bird. ‘No, not really.’

‘Huh.’ The bird continued to look at her for a moment, then pivoted its head back to look out across the salt marsh. It ruffled its feathers and rose up on its thin black legs. ‘Well,’ it said, ‘Winter’s coming. Can’t delay. Best prepare.’ The bird dropped into the air. ‘Fat lot of use . . .’ she heard it mutter. It opened its wings and flew away on an involute course.

Dajeil Gelian looked up to the clouds again, and the sky beyond. All to change, and the sea and the sky to become as stone, or steel . . . She shook her head again, and wondered what extremity of circumstance could possibly have so galvanised the great craft that had been her home, her refuge for so long.