Vidin Quindar had taken off his hat as he stooped down the corridor, and now he threw it onto one of the vacant chairs and sat himself down next to the Crawly. He threw a companionable arm around Mr Clinker’s cloak, around what would have been shoulders if aliens had shoulders. ‘That your handiwork again, you sneaky devils?’ Quindar was looking up at the flickerbox, still flickering away on the wall. It was showing the same financial news as the ones in the main room. ‘Black Shatterday, that’s what they’re callin’ it,’ he said, cocking me an eye. ‘The worst bank run in decades – worse than the one what forced your mummy and daddy to leave their old world and come to shoddy old Mazarile, before you was hatched. But you’ll be all right, Miss Ness. Coves like you always floats to the top, in the end.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Prozor said to me, and I nodded because after all that had passed between us, I knew she’d never be so low as to set this up.

‘No, but Hasper did,’ Quindar said. ‘Let’s clear the lungstuff, shall we, so we all know who is and isn’t to blame? I knew you’d be showing up on Trevenza Reach one of these days. Your father put down the money to send me here, and after that all I had to do was watch out for the ships. I also knew Prozor was with you, and it didn’t take much diggin’ to find out that Quell’s place was likely to be on your itinerary. So I had a chinwag with Hasper here, put some pegs on the place, and here I am – just in the nick of time, it seems.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘To stop you wasting good money on this bag of feelers.’ He uncurled his arm from the Crawly. ‘No need, you see. We can get you home and let you hand over those quoins to your father first-hand, and let ’im decide what to do with it.’

Prozor looked at Quell. ‘You’ve done me some favours, Hasper, and I’ve done you some. But if I see you after this day, on this world or any other, I’ll slice you open with a yardknife.’

‘It wasn’t anything personal, Proz. And where’s the harm? No one’s been hurt, have they? I was just asked to facilitate this meeting, and here we are. Show them the legalities, Vidin, like you showed me.’