‘No, but there could be a reason for that as well. Many robots served people during the great troubles. But not all were rewarded as generously as others. In some instances, machines that had served well and been granted free will during the troubles had logic blockades installed in them, to rescind the capacity for free will, because there was a sudden need for unquestioning servants.’

‘That’s horrible.’

‘That,’ Peregrine said, ‘is civilisation. Not all who were rewarded deserved to be; not all who should have been were.’

I felt as if my world – my worlds – had shifted a bit, just as if the Old Sun had turned over in its long, lazy sleep. ‘Did you live through it all, sir? All the years since the Twelfth?’

‘No, even my repair systems would not have endured six hundred and sixty thousand years of interstitial time. I was trapped in a bauble. Time flows normally in such a place, no matter what you may have heard. I put myself into a state of extreme hibernation and waited for some new Occupation to arise and find me, as I knew it would.’

‘Do you ever think about it, sir? How we keep starting up over and over again, only it never lasts?’

‘All the time, Fura Ness – in my situation it is difficult not to.’ The robot paused, and I had the sense that it was anxious to be off on some other engagement but didn’t care to come across as too rude. ‘Will you be seeing this Paladin soon?’

‘He’s all broken, sir. He got smashed up in Neural Alley, trying to help the family.’

‘I am sorry to hear that. You must pass on my regards, if you get the chance. Tell him that Peregrine sends his best wishes, and asks if he remembers the Last Rains of Sestramor.’

‘Is that a world, sir?’

‘It used to be,’ he said, with a tone that was as close to sadness as I ever heard coming out of something that wasn’t alive. ‘Well, this has been very pleasant. Is there something you’d like me to do with that bracelet, Fura Ness?’

I thought of the things he might do, from breaking it to jamming it, and at that moment I couldn’t see how any of them would make things easier for me when we got to Mazarile. Sometimes it was better to accept one nuisance thing than open a whole can of others.

But there was something.

‘You know this ship pretty well, don’t you? I know it’s a commercial clipper, but there’ll be a bone room on it somewhere, I’m sure. I don’t mean to get you into hot water, but you must be good at opening doors and things. Would you be able to help me get into the bone room while no one’s around?’