She raised her foot and kicked the We-ku in the forehead. He clattered to the floor, howling.

The Old Man pulled her back. ‘What did you do?’

‘He is a We-ku.’

‘Look.’ The Old Man pointed.

The We-ku was clambering to his feet and rubbing his head. He had been carrying a bag full of ration packs. Now the packs were littered over the floor, some of them split.

The Old Man said, ‘Never mind the food. Take her back.’ And he pushed at La-ba again, urging her into the cable. Reluctantly, following the We-ku, she began to climb down.

She felt a great sideways wash. The whole of this immense cable was vibrating back and forth, as if it had been plucked by a vast finger.

She looked up at the circle of light that framed the Old Man’s face. She was confused, frightened. ‘I will bring you food.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘Just remember me. Here.’ And he thrust his hand down into hers. Then he slammed shut the hatch.

When she opened her hand, she saw it contained the scrimshawed bones.

The cable whiplashed, and the lights failed, and they fell into darkness, screaming.

Hama stood in the holding cell, facing Ca-si. The walls were creaking. He heard screaming, running footsteps.

With its anchoring cable severed, the Post was beginning to sink away from its design altitude, deeper into the roiling murk of the hot Jupiter’s atmosphere. Long before it reached the glimmering, enigmatic, metallic-hydrogen core, it would implode.

Ca-si’s mouth worked, as if he was gulping for air. He said to Hama, ‘Take me to the Shuttles.’

‘There are no Shuttles.’

Ca-si yelled, ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’

Hama laid one silvered hand against the boy’s face. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Don’t you see that? It’s my job to love you.’ But his silvered flesh could not detect the boy’s warmth, and Ca-si flinched from his touch, the burned scent of vacuum exposure.

‘. . . I know what you want.’

Ca-si gasped. Hama turned.

La-ba stood in the doorway. She was dirty, bloodied. She was carrying a lump of shattered partition wall. Fragmentary animated images, of glorious scenes from humanity’s past, played over it fitfully.

Hama said, ‘You.’

She flicked a fingernail against the silver carapace of his arm. ‘You hate being like this. You want to be like us. That’s why you tried to death us.’

And she lifted the lump of partition rubble and slammed it into his chest. Briny water gushed down Hama’s belly, spilling tiny silver fish that struggled and died.

Hama fell back, bending over himself. His systems screamed messages of alarm and pain at him - and, worse, he could feel that he had lost his link with the vaster pool of Commissaries beyond. ‘What have you done? Oh, what have you done?’

‘Now you are like us,’ said La-ba simply.