Whatever Billy Anker had done, whatever he was famous for, he wasn’t doing much of it now. He lived in his ship, the Karaoke Sword, which Seria Mau suspected would never leave Redline again. The neon vegetation, bluish, pale and strong, grew over its half-mile length like radioactive ivy over a fluted stone column. The Karaoke Sword was made of alien metals, pocked from twenty thousand years of use and ten of Redline rain. You could only guess at its history before Billy found it. Inside, ordinary Earth stuff was hot-wired into its original controls. Bundles of conduit, nests of wires, things like TV screens four hundred years old and full of dust. This was not K-tech. It was as old-fashioned as nuts and bolts, though nothing like as kitschy and desirable. Also, there were no shadow operators on board the Karaoke Sword. If you wanted something doing, it was do it yourself. Billy Anker mistrusted the shadow operators though he never would say why. Instead he sat in what looked like an ancient fighter-pilot’s chair, with tubes of coloured fluid and wires going into him, and a helmet he could put on if he felt like it.

He watched Seria Mau’s fetch sniffing around in the rubbish at his feet and said:

“In its day this shit took me some weird places.”

“I can imagine that,” said Seria Mau.

“Hey, if it’s good enough it’s good enough.”

“Billy Anker, I’m here to tell you the Dr. Haends package doesn’t work.”

Billy looked surprised; then unsurprised.

A sly expression came to his face. “You want your money back,” he guessed. “Well, I’m not known—”

“—as a refund guy. I know. But look, that’s not—”

“It’s policy, babe,” said Billy Anker. He shrugged sadly, but his look above that was comfortable. “What can I say?”

“You can say nothing and listen for once. Is that why you’re alone here with all this historical stuff, because you never listen to anyone? I didn’t come here for a refund. If I wanted that I could have it from Uncle Zip. Only I don’t trust him.”

“Fair point,” admitted Billy Anker. “So what do you want?”

“I want you to tell me where you got it from. The package.”

Billy Anker pondered this.

“That isn’t usual,” was his reply.

“All the same it’s what I want.”

They regarded one another evenly. Billy Anker tapped the fingers of his good hand on the arm of his acceleration chair. In response the screens in front of him cleared, then began showing planets. They were big. They came in fast towards the viewer, swelling and blooming like something live then diving left and right in the moment they disappeared. They were layered with swirling bands of cloud, magenta, green, dirty brown and yellow.