‘There was. But the belt was mined out long ago. And then when the sun started heating up many of the remaining icy bodies were destroyed. Sol system was a lot more interesting, once.’ She sounded wistful.

‘So where are we going?’

She smiled. ‘You’ll see.’

He studied her, curious. ‘What’s it like?’

‘What?’

‘When you get stuff downloaded into your head.’

She frowned, trying to find words. ‘It’s as if I lost my memory, then recovered it.’

‘It doesn’t sound very comfortable. Not if it feels like you’re sick.’

She sighed. ‘It’s not comfortable. And I don’t have any control over it. The stuff just pours into my head when it’s needed - when you need it. Sometimes even when I’m asleep, it comes.’

‘I didn’t know your kind slept,’ he said. She looked hurt, and he added hastily, ‘Sorry. And I’m sorry you’re having to put up with this, for my sake.’

‘It’s not your fault. And anyhow if I hadn’t been around when the Conclave decided it needed to speak to you, if they’d picked some other Virtual, I’d never have got to see all this.’ She waved a hand at the utter darkness beyond the enclosing walls of the flitter, and they both burst out laughing.

Symat clapped his hands to opaque the hull, and suddenly the flitter felt like a cosy room. ‘So shall we play a game?’

Mela smiled. ‘OK.’

No longer children but not yet adults, the two of them ran and laughed through the confines of the tiny ship, as it sailed on into the mined-out emptiness of Sol system.

After a day of silent transit, their destination came swimming out of the dark.

It was just a lump of ice at first glance, maybe a couple of hundred kilometres across. Tinted an odd red-purple colour, it was only vaguely spherical. It was impossible to tell if the scars on its surface were natural or man-made, for the ice had obviously been heavily melted, and the ridges and crater walls were softened and slumped. But this island of ice was occupied. Symat saw lights, defiant green and white, gleaming in crater shadows.

And as the flitter skimmed low a spindly tower, kilometres tall, loomed above the crumpled horizon. It was absurdly out of proportion on this little world. When he looked carefully Symat saw a ghostly purple bloom at the top of the tower: rocket exhaust.

Even given the tower, this worldlet was hardly spectacular. But he had to admit he was impressed when Mela finally told him the name of this place. It was Port Sol.

‘That’s impossible,’ Symat said immediately. ‘Port Sol is a Kuiper object.’ An ice moon, one of a vast flock drifting far beyond the orbit of the farthest planets. ‘We’re inside the orbit of Saturn. What’s it doing here?’