Mela was a projection of a mass artificial mind that, loosely integrated, spanned Mars, and what was left of Sol system - indeed, once it had spanned much of the Galaxy. Mars’s Mist was just part of it. This interplanetary colloquium of minds, meshed together in an endless conversation, called itself the ‘Conclave’, Mela told him. And sometimes she and the other Virtuals could sense the deeper thoughts of that mind, the vast undercurrents of its consciousness.

How strange she was, Symat realised as she spoke, strange in layers. She looked like a rather serious twelve-year-old girl; most of the time she acted that way. But she was old - far older than him, centuries old. She had been twelve all that time, looking after these other ageless children. And behind her, looking at him through her eyes, were misty ranks of ancient artificial minds.

‘And the Conclave,’ she said, ‘is very aware of you, Symat.’

‘Me? I’m not important. I’m just a kid.’

‘Apparently you’re more than that.’

The water had almost run dry. Reefs of baking mud clogged the basin of the canal.

They slowed to a halt, and stood in a glum group.

‘We’re past the point where the recycling pumps take back the water,’ Mela said. ‘Nobody tries to grow things further west than this any more. It’s too hot and dry. And every year this point is pulled further back.’ She looked up at Symat. ‘So we can’t go on.’

‘Look.’ Tod pointed at the bare ground, a hundred paces from the canal. ‘There’s a flitter.’

Symat shielded his eyes from the sun to see.

Mela said, ‘It’s your parents, isn’t it? They’ve waited for you here, where you could walk no further.’

‘I have to face them,’ Symat said grimly. ‘Maybe now they’ll take me seriously.’

Another Virtual coalesced out of the dusty air. It was Symat’s mother, grave, soberly dressed. Symat was astonished to see the streaks of tears under her eyes. ‘Come home, son,’ she said. ‘We’re here. In the flesh, in our flitter. We’ve come for you. Please come back.’ She didn’t even seem to see the Virtual children with him.

Impulsively Symat opened his arms. ‘I’ve made friends. Let me take them back with me.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘One, then. Let me take one.’

His mother glanced sideways; Symat imagined her looking at his father back in the family flitter, listening to that gravelly voice. Give him a victory. What does it matter?

‘Very well,’ his mother said. ‘Which one?’

Symat turned to Mela. ‘Come with me.’

She hesitated. ‘What about the boys?’

‘I think I need your help.’

She looked at him, and again he had an odd sense that she knew more about him than he knew himself, that other minds watched him through her eyes. ‘Maybe you do.’

‘No!’ Chem grabbed Mela. ‘Don’t leave us!’