Quindar reached into his coat. ‘Easy,’ he said, smiling at Prozor. ‘It’s only papers. We all likes papers. Papers make the worlds turn, ain’t it?’ He drew out a bundle of documents, spread them flat on the table. I didn’t need to lean in to see what mattered. Near the top was the name and address of a Hadramaw legal firm that I knew my father had used in the past. Beneath that came paragraphs and paragraphs of slowly shrinking text. Quindar tapped a dirty nail against the documents. ‘Nothing fishy about any of this, so don’t go getting your collectives in a twist. It’s all above board. It just says that I, Vidin Quindar Esquire, is assigned the right to act as temporary guardian for one Arafura Ness, daughter of etcetera and etcetera, until such time as she’s safe and sound back in her own bed in Mazarile.’ He gave me a crooked, broken-toothed smile, as if this was all a big treat. ‘I gets to shepherd you home, is the gist of it.’

‘And if she doesn’t want to go home?’ Prozor asked.

‘What she wants and what she gets is two different things, Proz. When she came on your ship, she wasn’t of age to make her own mind up about such things. But that older sister of hers, she pulled a slippery one on her dear old dad. Adrana made herself the legal guardian, and got Arafura to agree to it.’ He touched his nose in a gesture of respect. ‘Clever cove, she was. Slippery as the best of ’em. After that, there wasn’t anything Mr Ness could do about it. That’s all void now, though. Adrana’s – and old Vidin needs to beg your forgiveness here, Fura – but Adrana’s dead and gone. She can’t be dischargin’ her familial responsibilities from beyond the grave, can she?’

‘She isn’t dead.’ I told him. ‘And why you? Was there not someone sleazier Father could have found?’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Ooh, that stings. After I came all the way out here, and all.’

‘I’m sure the money made a difference.’

‘A man’s got to be paid, ain’t he?’ He cocked a nod at the flickerbox screens. ‘Especially in these tryin’ times. You wouldn’t have been banking with any of them concerns, Proz, would you? Might want to think about getting ahead of the lines, if you did. I hear they’re running low on reserves.’

‘You’re not taking her,’ Prozor said. ‘Not if she doesn’t want to go.’

He sighed out like a bellows. ‘Old Vidin didn’t make himself clear, I see. It ain’t yours to say, or hers. The papers is lungstuff-tight. She comes with me. There’s a ship all docked and ready to sail.’