‘Here we go again,’ Hektor growled. ‘Pelle, I told you this was a waste of time. We’ve had conversations like this since he was five years old, and every time it finishes up the same. Us being reasonable, him getting angry and stubborn.’

Symat and Pelle spoke at once. ‘And you think that’s my fault?’ ‘Hektor, please—’

Unexpectedly Mela stepped forward. She said gravely, ‘No wonder you argue. You’re starting out from different premises. Different positions. You’re different kinds of people.’

Hektor’s eyes narrowed.

‘What do you mean, different?’ Pelle said. ‘He’s my son. How different can he be?’

‘The Scourge has been continuing now for three hundred thousand years. To the Xeelee the Scourge is a conscious project. To humans it has become our environment.’ Mela’s voice was neutral, her words not quite her own, Symat thought. ‘A steady force applied to a population for long enough becomes a selection pressure. In such an environment those able psychologically to accept the reality of inevitable defeat will prosper. And that is why you are prepared to walk trustingly into the booths, even without knowing what lies beyond. Your ancestors have learned to accept similar bolt-holes without question, far back into your history. You’ve been preadapted to accept the booths for ten thousand generations! Perhaps even that was part of the grand design of the Scourge.’

Hektor said, ‘You’ve got a wide perspective for a twelve-year-old. ’

Symat, troubled, thought he glimpsed the Conclave, the vast composite mind for which Mela was sometimes, it seemed, a mouthpiece. ‘She’s right, though, isn’t she? But why can’t I just walk into the booths with the rest?’

‘Because you’re different,’ Mela said, sounding almost amused. ‘Can’t you see that? You don’t even look the same.’

Symat glanced around at his family, his tall, elegant, long-boned Martian parents towering over his own squat, thick-boned form.

Mela said, almost mischievously, ‘The differences go all the way down to the genes. You could almost be called a throw-back, Symat. But you know what? You’re just as you’re meant to be.’

Pelle snapped, ‘What are you talking about?

Symat demanded, ‘Who meant me to be this way?’

Hektor turned on the girl. ‘You’re getting on my nerves. Why are you here?’

Mela seemed upset by the family’s brief unity in hostility to her, but she quickly recovered. Symat thought it was as if new data were continually being downloaded into her head. ‘Symat, you don’t want to follow your parents into the booths. The trouble is you can’t imagine an alternative. But there is another way out.’

‘There is?’

‘It depends on you. The Conclave wanted to reach you, Symat. That’s why I’m here. If you hadn’t found me, it would have been somebody else. Another Virtual. There is somebody who would like to meet you. Very much indeed.’