We sidled in closer. Rackamore used the rockets like a miser, quickly tapping them on and off to cut our speed almost to zero.

‘See? She seems bigger now. As she should. Four hundred spans, prow to stern. Seventy-five spans across at the widest point. She could swallow twenty of these launches and still have room in her belly. Prow is the open mouth where we’re about to dock. Stern is the other end, where the ion exhaust fans out. She moves both ways, and up and down, and sideways if need be, but we have to agree on something – you never know when your life might depend on it. Do you like her?’

‘Still doesn’t look big to me,’ Adrana said.

It didn’t look big to me either, even up close, but now that she’d stated her mind I saw a chance to get one over on my sister.

‘It’s big enough. What were you expecting, a palace?’

Adrana glared at me.

‘She’s a good ship,’ Cazaray said. ‘Whatever you make of her now, she’ll feel like home before you know it.’

Someone on the Monetta’s Mourn must have been alerted to our arrival, for the jaw gaped wider, cranking open to reveal a red-lit mouth, a red-lit gullet, into which we slid like a fat morsel, no quicker than a walking pace, until the launch clanged against some restraint or cradle and all was still.

We stayed weightless. Rackamore and Cazaray came out of their chairs and indicated that we could unbuckle, but that we should move with caution until we were confident. ‘One kick in the wrong direction,’ the captain said, ‘and you’ll be nursing a bruise until Mournday week.’

Through my porthole, I watched the jaw close up again, squeezing out the last glimmer of the Congregation. Now all I saw were the red walls around us, ribbed with metal and strung with guts of pipes and tubes. Figures moved around outside, just beyond the launch. They wore brassy spacesuits with armoured parts and complicated hinged joints, their faces hidden under metal helmets with grilled-over faceplates.

‘We can pressurise the launch hold,’ Rackamore said. ‘But most of the time it isn’t worth the trouble. Easier to suit up.’

There was another clang, then some metal scraping and scuffing noises, conducted through the fabric of the hull, and then a squeal as the lock was opened from outside.

A small, wiry woman, not wearing a suit, popped her head into the launch.

‘Welcome back, Cap’n.’ Then a nod to the younger man. ‘Cazaray. These the recruits, is they?’

‘The Ness sisters,’ Rackamore said. ‘Treat them well, for they may turn our fortunes.’

‘We thought that about the last one.’

‘This is Adrana, this is Arafura,’ Rackamore went on. ‘And this is . . . well, why don’t you introduce yourself?’

‘Prozor,’ she said.