‘They will,’ Mr Quindar said. ‘Got a nose for these things, I ’ave. And these sisters ain’t slipping through my fingers.’

I stepped back into the front part of the tent, where Paladin remained on the floor, silent and still, its dome partly smashed. Adrana, Madame Granity and Mr Quindar followed me.

I knelt down by the ruined robot, gently touching the broken dome, then looked back at Quindar.

‘You didn’t need to smash it up like that.’

‘If he hadn’t,’ Madame Granity said, ‘the robot would be dragging you home by now.’

‘It wasn’t Paladin’s fault. It was just doing what it was told.’

‘That’s all it ever can do,’ Adrana said. ‘There’s nothing in that head except lists of instructions. We’re not like that, Fura. We’ve got something Paladin never had and never will have – free will. You go home now, it won’t be long before Father brings Moonface round. He’ll give you that medicine, the one that stops you growing older. And then you’ll never get this opportunity again, not for years and years. This is it, here and now. Our one and only chance to do something.’

I looked at my sister, then at Madame Granity, then at Vidin Quindar.

‘We just talk to Captain Rackamore,’ I said. ‘That’s all. And when he tells us we aren’t suitable, which he will, we come home and never say another word about any of this. Is that a deal?’

‘Deal,’ Adrana said.

2

2

Rackamore rented an office on the side of Hadramaw Dock, so high that the elevator had taken long minutes to crawl its way up there. The office was small, sheeted over in grey metal, with one large window looking back out over Mazarile, and because we were above the skyshell now there was nothing beyond that window but vacuum. It seemed wrong that anyone could be comfortable in such a place. There was a desk in the room and three people around it. Two were seated on one side of it, facing us with their backs to the window, the third one was standing on our side of it, leaning over papers and still in low conversation with the other two.

Vidin Quindar, who’d brought us from Neural Alley, coughed at the door.

‘Ah, Quindar,’ said the older of the two seated men. ‘These are the girls, are they?’

‘These is the lovelies, Cap’n Rack.’

‘Then show them in. I’ll take it from here. You can wait outside.’

Vidin Quindar made a humble, grovelling motion with his fingers. ‘Usual percentages, usual terms, is it?’

‘Ever the cut-throat, Mr Quindar. Rest assured that if the girls satisfy – and it’ll be Cazaray who delivers the verdict on that, not I – then you’ll have your quoins.’