But there was no breeze in the cabin.

‘Catchcloth,’ Drozna said. ‘And probably more of it than I’ve seen in my life.’

‘Then it’s worth something,’ I said.

‘Would be, if there was about a million times more of it. Then you’d be a looking at a pretty few quoins. Go on, Tindouf. Let her feel it. Might be the one time in her life she gets her mitts on the stuff.’

‘We don’t wants her ripping it, with them tin fingers of hers.’

‘She won’t rip it,’ Drozna said.

I took the rectangle from Tindouf. I pinched it between my flesh and alloy fingertips, but it was so thin that it didn’t feel as if it was there at all. It was cold, too – colder than anything had any right to be, given that it had already been handled by the master of ions. I could almost sense it sucking the heat out of my body, like it needed to drink it.

‘What is it?’

‘Catchcloth,’ Surt said sarcastically.

‘It’s old – very old,’ Trusko answered. ‘First or Second Occupations, assuming it wasn’t brought here by aliens. You see the way it ripples and dances, like it’s picking up a wind?’

‘There isn’t one,’ I said.

‘Not that you can feel,’ Trusko said. ‘But there is a wind all the same. It’s coming from the Old Sun, just like the photon wind that puts the billow in our sails.’

‘We’re inside,’ I said carefully, as if I was being led into a trick. ‘The sails catch the wind because they’re outside, beyond the hull. But we’re not. There can’t be a wind that the catchcloth feels and we don’t.’

‘Queer thing is that’s exactly what there is,’ Trusko said. ‘Another kind of wind, raging out of the Old Sun all the while, but it slips through the hull and the photon sails like they aren’t there at all. Dark-wind, some call it. Or ghost-wind or shadow-wind. Most don’t even know it exists, because it’s no use to us. But once upon a time they had a means to snag it.’

I passed the catchcloth back to Tindouf. The chill of it was still in my fingers, even the tin ones. The nerve sensors had picked it up, and I did not care for the message they whispered into my brain.

‘It’s not right,’ I said slowly. ‘That something like that should even exist.’

‘It’s got the shivery about it all right,’ Drozna said. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s evil or was made to give us nightmares. Coves use to wear clothes made out of catchcloth, so it’d ripple and dance around ’em, even when they were standing still. If we ever found enough of it to sew up a nice dress or gown, we could put a down-payment on our retirement with it.’