Prozor knew the way so I followed her. We went through a blank door to the right of the serving hatch, down a low, stooping corridor, then through another door into a cosy sort of room with no windows and just one flickerbox. A man was pouring himself a drink when we arrived. He was standing up with his back to us, so I didn’t get a look at his face until Prozor and I were sitting down, taking places in the comfortable padded chairs that ran around three of the walls. It wasn’t the man that caught my eye when I came through the door, though. It was the Crawly sitting in one of the chairs. Crawlies being the shape they are, sitting down the way we do isn’t really an option. But the chair had been cut or upholstered to suit the alien so that it could tuck its abdomen or tail or whatever they call it down into a hole in the back of the chair, with its legs and forelimbs jutting out in front like a dog begging for a treat. The Crawly had a gown on, or something like a gown, open at the front so the limbs could jut out, but tied under the neck, and with most of the head lost under a big drooping hood. The only part of its face I could see was a bunch of whiskery appendages that were moving all the while, twitching in and out and jerking from side to side. Crawlies could see and hear but I’d read that their mouth parts picked up a lot of information from molecules floating in the lungstuff, tasting our chemistry and knowing what kind of mood we were in almost before we did. The oddest thing, though, was what the Crawly was doing. It had a glass in one of its claws, a tall one stuffed with ice and different colours of fluid, and it was drinking through a straw, making a rude sucking and gurgling noise as if no one had taught it manners.

‘This is Mr Clinker,’ said the man who was standing up, turning around with his own drink. ‘Mr Clinker, this is Prozor and her friend from the Monetta. What was your name again, I’m sorry?’

‘I’m Fura,’ I said. ‘Fura Ness.’

‘Then it’s Prozor and Fura, Mr Clinker. And I’m Hasper, of course,’ he said, looking at me, ‘but I’m sure you worked that out for yourself.’