‘That would be completely against the ship’s rules,’ Peregrine said sternly. Then, before I could get too crestfallen. ‘It would also be a very useful way for me to check that certain of my operative faculties were still as sharp as they used to be.’

‘That’s very kind of you, sir. And I promise I won’t be doing anything I shouldn’t.’

I’d been right about the ship having a bone room, but that wasn’t too much to my credit. A commercial ship like the clipper might not be up to the same bauble games as the Monetta or the Courtesan but there’d no reason not to have a skull on board, and chances were it’d be a good one, the best that combine money could buy.

I wasn’t wrong about that, either.

The bone room was in a part of the ship where ordinary passengers weren’t meant to go, but it was only a short way down a private corridor off one of the main promenades. There was a message saying only crew were supposed to go beyond that point, but after I’d spent a day or two lurking nearby, I knew it wouldn’t be any trouble to sneak through. Hardly any one came and went and it was pretty clear that the bone room wasn’t in use most of the time. Since they weren’t interested in snooping on commercial secrets, the main use for the bone room would be sending emergency messages if the clipper ran into trouble. Once a day, as far as I could tell, they had someone go inside for an hour, just to make sure the skull was working properly.

I gave it another day just to make sure. Then I met Peregrine near the private corridor and after double-checking that the way was clear, we went to the bone room. The door had a wheel on it, just like the one in the Monetta. I tried it once, and it was as stiff as if it had been welded in place. But I knew that robots could speak to locks and doors, and I wasn’t surprised when Peregrine made the door click, the wheel whirred in my hand, and I was in.

‘The door will lock itself when you leave,’ Peregrine said. ‘But if I were you I wouldn’t spend too long in there.’

‘I’m not intending to. But if I needed to come back tomorrow, or the day after . . .’

‘You won’t need me. I made a small adjustment to the door’s settings – nothing that will get either of us into trouble. It will think your bracelet is a passkey.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, in gratitude and wonder.

‘It was a small thing. But it would probably be best for both of us to keep our distance from now on.’

‘You’ve been very kind.’