‘I ought to laugh,’ Prozor said, after a few moments. ‘But if I did, I think I might come to regret it.’

I took up Prozor’s suggestion to go to the bone room. It wasn’t out of any desire to become part of Jastrabarsk’s crew, though. They didn’t need me and I didn’t need them.

But I wanted to get to a skull.

Nothing in the bone room was the same as on the Monetta, but nothing in it was so different that I felt like I was starting from scratch. When Restromel let me slip on one of their shiny neural bridges and plug in, the skull came through as clean, sharp, and bright as a new whistle. It was smaller than ours, but it had obviously come down the ages with a lot less damage. The signals shone through. It was like they were rising above the background almost without effort, willing themselves to be intercepted and understood. They didn’t come through in garbled bursts, either. Once I had a lock, it was solid. I was able to transcribe conversations lasting many minutes, as if they were being whispered right into my brain.

‘You’ve got the knack,’ Restromel said, reading through the notes of what I’d picked up. ‘Need some training, but there’s no doubt in my mind that you could fit in here if you wanted to study under me.’

‘That’s very considerate of you,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure I want to sign on with another crew.’

She nodded sympathetically. ‘Perfectly understandable, given what happened to you. But give it some more thought, while we’re still sailing. There’s no need to make your mind up until we reach port.’

‘Thank you, Restromel. I’ll certainly give it some more consideration.’ I looked at the bones with a timid, doubtful expression. ‘Would it be all right to spend a bit more time in here, while I’m deciding things? I’m still getting used to the idea of connecting my mind to those horrible old skulls.’

‘If you can run routine intercepts with that level of accuracy, you’re more than welcome. And don’t feel too nervous about the skulls – they’re just old bones; no more and no less.’

What Restromel didn’t know – and never guessed – was that I only wanted to spend time in that bone room for one reason. I was hoping to pick up something from Adrana, some connection, some proof that she was still alive out there somewhere, plugged into the skull on Bosa’s ship. But there wasn’t anything. I got sniffs and snatches of a hundred other ships, all the talk and babble I could ask for, but never a hint that the Nightjammer was one of those ships, or that Adrana was in a bone room.