Even with the trucks, it still took a couple of hours to get back to the settlement on the far side of the hills.

Low, grey-coloured domes loomed out of the encroaching night as they pulled to a halt. Several of Stiless fellow workers had clearly waited up for their return, and they proved to be friendly but eager to find out just what had happened to the dropship.

Stiles shooed them away, then guided the three newcomers into a building which proved to be a communal refectory. By now, Megan had worked out that Stiles must be in charge of this research base, and her suspicion was confirmed when the woman told her, over hot coffee and freshly baked char siu, that she was project director for a long-term study of the canopy trees. They were trying, she explained, to find some way to adapt the same techniques the trees used to create their self-contained microclimates, as part of ongoing research into terraforming low-viability worlds.

Over the past several days, however, work had taken a distant second place to watching the news about the disaster that had struck the Demarchy. Most of her staff, Stiles explained, were in fact absent called away to aid in the various relief operations springing up and down the coast to deal with the few survivors. And, given that a clash between the Accord and the Freehold seemed inevitable, Stiles had been spending much of her own free time holding remote conferences with her funding body about whether they should all stay put or pack up and go home before things turned really nasty.

When Gabrielle pulled down her hood, revealing her freshly cropped hair and the traces of circuitry visible beneath the skin, Megan felt suddenly certain that Stiles knew exactly who she was. But, rather than saying anything, she merely glanced knowingly at Megan.

And what about your friend? asked Stiles, turning to study Bash. Megan had guided him to a seat and helped him eat one of the heated buns. I can see youre all machine-heads, but is there a reason why he doesnt speak?

By now, some of Stiless staff had joined them at the table. That, said one of them, is a persistent vegetative state, if I ever saw one.

Hes brain-damaged, Megan admitted, and then improvised: Im not sure who he is, or how he got that way. She flashed a taut smile. Its a long story and Im sure, after all that driving, you really dont want to

Nonsense, said Stiles, her gaze hawklike. Why dont you start from the beginning?

Megan sighed inwardly and gave herself up to the inevitable. I work as a commercial pilot for the AM refineries in the outer system, she began, then nodded at Gabrielle, whom she had introduced as her niece Beth. Beth lives well, lived in Port Gabriel. I myself was in orbit when the floods hit.