‘I hate robots. Smug machines living longer than the rest of us, acting like they own the place.’ He dusted his palms. ‘Did you get a read on the girl, Madame Gee?’

‘A partial, before you distracted her with all that clattering. She’s got potential, that’s plain. You think you can find employment for them?’

He scratched at his scalp. He had a very bald head, a lantern jaw, deeply sunken eyes, a pale scar running all the way from one eye to the edge of his mouth. ‘According to the newspaper I was so earnestly scrutinising before you disturbed me, Rack’s been docked at Hadramaw for a few days.’

‘Rack?’ I asked.

Mr Quindar pulled a chair from behind one of the shelves and eased his lengthy frame into it. The flaps of his coat hung down to either side, stiff and ragged like the drying wings of some enormous bird. ‘Rackamore, properly. Captain. Not the best of ’em, but not the worst you’ll meet, either. Word is Rack’s in the market for a new Sympathetic. That’s Bone Reader to you and me. He’d sign up one of you like that. Sign up two even quicker.’

‘Sign up for what?’ I asked.

‘Are you slow in the grey, girlie? For his crew. For his ship. For expeditions and so on. All above board. You sails out for an agreed term. Six months, maybe less. See some worlds. See some sights. I’ve seen a hundred worlds and that’s barely scratching what’s out there. More than just sphereworlds like this. Wheelworlds, spindleworlds, brittleworlds, laceworlds . . . more worlds than we’ve got names for ’em. You want to drink in some of that? Crack a bauble or two on the way, you’ll be golden.’ He cupped his fist, shook it as if it held a stack of quoins. ‘More than you’ll ever earn on this dungheap. Sign on a bit longer, you can retire on it.’

‘We couldn’t,’ I said.

‘Father’s almost beggared us,’ Adrana answered. ‘That’s why he got talked into that stupid investment, thinking it’d turn around our fortunes. Now we’re even worse off than we were before.’ She placed her hands on my shoulders, looking me square in the eye. ‘But we can change that. Go out, just for a while. A few months. Then come back home, and share what we’ve made with Father. Do something for him, for a change. Oh, he wouldn’t agree to it – I know that. But people don’t always know what’s good for them.’

‘Truer words,’ Mr Quindar said, ‘was never uttered.’

‘You know where to find Rack?’ Madame Granity asked him.

‘Near enough.’

‘Then take them there. They can still change their minds, can’t they? But you make sure Rack understands that he owes us both a finder’s fee, if they pass his tests.’