Dano offered no sympathy. ‘Still glad you didn’t take the flitter? Still think this is a romantic adventure? Ah, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Romance. I saw the way you looked at Bicansa. Did she remind you of gentle comforts, of thrilling under-the-blanket nights in the Academy dormitories?’

‘Shut up,’ she gasped.

‘Didn’t it occur to you that as she was only a Virtual image, that image might have been edited? You don’t even know what she looks like.’

The fluid tasted of milk. Even when the feeling of drowning had passed, she never learned to ignore its presence in her belly and lungs and throat; she felt as if she was on the point of throwing up, all the time. She slept as much as she could, trying to shut out the pain, the pressure in her head, the mocking laugh of Dano.

But, trapped in her body, she had plenty of time to think over the central puzzle of this star-world - and what to do about it. And still the journey continued across the elemental landscape, and the astounding, desolating scale of this artificial world worked its way into her soul.

They drove steadily for no less than forty days, and traversed a great arc of the star sphere stretching from the equator towards the pole, across nearly a million kilometres. As gravity dominated the diminishing centrifugal forces, the local vertical tipped back up and the plain seemed to level out.

Eventually the effective gravity force reached more than twenty standard.

The car drew to a halt.

Pala insisted on seeing for herself. Despite Dano’s objections she had the suit lift her up to the vertical, amid a protesting whine of exoskeletal motors. As the monstrous gravity dragged at the fluid in which she was embedded, waves of pain plucked at her body.

Ahead of the car was another light lake, another pale glow, another splash of dimly lit green. But there were no trees or mirror towers, she saw; nothing climbed high above the sphere’s surface here.

Bicansa appeared in the air.

She stood in the car’s cabin, unsuited, as relaxed as Dano. Pala felt there was some sympathy in her Virtual eyes. But she knew now without doubt that this wasn’t Bicansa’s true aspect.

‘You came after me,’ Bicansa said.

‘I wanted to know,’ Pala said. Propped up in her suit, her voice was a husk, muffled by the fluid in her throat. ‘Why did you come to the equator - why meet us? You could have hidden here.’

‘Yes,’ Dano said grimly. ‘The Navy’s careless scouting missed you.’

‘We had to know what kind of threat you are to us. I had to see you face to face, take a chance that I would expose’ - she waved a hand - ‘this.’