As soon as this word was out, the dream faded to nothing, like lights going down. When they came up again, they came up in the magic shop window. Ruby-coloured plastic lips. Feathers dyed bright orange and green. Bundles of coloured scarves that would go into the magician’s shiny hat and then hop out as live white pigeons. All that stuff which, though sometimes pretty, was always fake: always made to mislead and dissemble. Seria Mau stood in front of the glass for some time, but the conjuror never came. Just as she was turning to leave, she heard a faint bell ring, and a voice whispered, “When will you come for me, Dr. Haends?” She looked around in surprise at the empty street. There was no doubt about it. The voice had been her own. When she woke, she thought for a moment that someone was bending over her: in the same instant, she saw herself marooning Billy Anker and Mona the clone in the shadow of the gas giant. The memory of an act that bad could only make you feel absurd.

“Why did you let me do it?” she said.

The mathematics gave its equivalent of a shrug. “You weren’t ready to listen.”

“Take us back there.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“Take us back.”

The White Cat shut her torch down and fell as silently as a derelict between the gas giants. Course changes were made in increments, using tiny, ferocious pSi engines which worked by blowing oxygen onto porous silicon compounds. Meanwhile, the particle-detectors and massive arrays, extending like veinous systems in a leaf, sifted vacuum for the track of the Krishna Moire pod. “Power up,” the mathematics instructed quietly. “Power down.” What was left of Seria Mau’s body moved impatiently in its tank. She had a need to see Billy Anker that anyone else would have described as physical. If she had remembered how, she would have bitten her lip. “Why did I do this?” she asked herself. The shadow operators shook their heads: sooner or later something like it had been bound to happen, they inferred. In the end the White Cat got close enough to examine the planet itself. Something moved among the feathers. It might have been whatever lived down there; it might have been ancient calculations crumbling into dust.

“What’s that?” said the mathematics.

“Nothing,” said Seria Mau. “Go in,” she ordered. “I’ve had enough of this.”