‘Nothing.’ He had been reading, watching silly kids’ Virtuals, stuff he had liked years ago. Now he felt oddly self-conscious and shut it all down.

She asked, ‘You want to play a game?’

‘No, I don’t want to play a stupid game.’

‘What’s the matter with you? You’re not much fun.’

‘I don’t feel like fun. I feel—’

‘What?’

‘I’m sick of being pushed around. My parents wanted me to follow them into the booths. So I ran away. But then the Conclave got hold of me, through you. Now I find this stupid old woman, Luru, who says she planned me for some purpose long before I was even born. And I’ve ended up coming all the way out here, into the dark.’

‘Welcome to my world,’ Mela snapped. ‘That’s how I feel all the time. The Curator too, probably.’

‘You aren’t human.’

‘But we’re sentient,’ she hit back. ‘Is that how you think of me, just a part of some kind of trap?’

He flinched. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

She softened a little. ‘Anyway, Virtual or human, what difference does it make? Look around, Symat. Everything is old. Everything in the universe has been shaped by humans, or their enemies. Every important decision was made long ago. So we have very little choice about things. My mother used to feel the same way,’ she said, a little wistfully.

It was the first time she’d mentioned any detail of her parents. ‘She did?’

‘She said she’d always felt like a child herself, a child who had grown up in the halls of some vast and dusty museum, where everything was frozen and on display, out of her reach . . . Look, Symat, if you do have some purpose, it must be important.’

‘But if I’ve got no choice about any of this, what is there for me?’

She thought about that. ‘Dignity?’ She stood up. ‘Come on. Let’s go and wind up the Curator. I want to know what kind of underwear he has on under that stupid robe.’

Laughing, they left the cabin.

Saturn loomed out of the dark.

This wasn’t like approaching Port Sol. They had come swooping down on that much-engineered little worldlet in a flash. The largest surviving planet in Sol system, Saturn was majestic and stately, a misty disc painted red by the sun. Its size was obvious, oppressive.

The ship hurled itself through Saturn’s tremendous shadow. Symat saw lightning crackle purple and white across the clouds, as storms that could have engulfed the whole of Mars played themselves out. This was the power of nature, he thought, even now dwarfing humanity and its dreams. As he watched, Symat’s heart pumped in a kind of retrospective panic. To think that he might have lived and died on Mars, or even followed his parents into a booth, without seeing such wonders as this!