‘Yes, I understand the risks.’ Trusko felt his way around his chins, touching them delicately, as if they’d been grafted on without him knowing it. ‘Twenty-nine would be easier on the ship – I’d sooner not use the reserves, or risk burning the ions – but then that would cut my safety margin down to just three days, and that I wouldn’t be comfortable with, even if we could be in and out in half that time. I don’t think I’m being over-cautious . . .’

‘Not at all,’ I said.

‘We’ll chance the sails and the ions,’ he said, nodding in turn at Drozna and Tindouf. ‘And we’ll make all the arrangements we need for the bauble ahead of time. Fura’s intercept mentioned a central shaft, with no stairs. We encountered something like that at the Carnelion, didn’t we, Strambli?’

‘Aye,’ she said, with a little wince. ‘And it caused us no end of grief, rigging up them pulleys and winches.’

‘But we’ll be ready this time,’ Trusko said. ‘The equipment we lashed together then is still in the inventory. We’ll need an idea on the diameter of the shaft, and how far down we need to go, how many leagues of rope . . .’

‘I’ll see what I’ve got,’ Prozor said.

‘Handy for us all,’ Gathing muttered. ‘That you just happen to know all about this place.’

It was settled, then. We were going to the Fang.

We threw out sail and broke orbit from the second bauble, the ions humming for extra boost. If there was disquiet about this decision, only Gathing wasn’t keeping it bottled in. The others seemed content to go along with whatever Trusko decided. They hadn’t been pinning all their hopes on that last bauble, not after the dismal showings from the first two. A different bauble entirely, one that there was at least a whisper of a rumour about, now that was something they could get behind – but even then there wasn’t much sense of expectation or jubilation about what was ahead. This was a crew that had been ground down so hard by bad luck and failure that they couldn’t think beyond it. If I ever came close to pitying them, or even liking some of them, it was then.

But I knew something wasn’t quite peachy.

We were three days out, the ship settling into the drudgery of a four-week crossing, when it finally clicked with me. It was like a crossbow ratchet locking home, inside my skull: a big solid clunk.

Prozor wasn’t being straight with any of us about the auguries.

Not even me.

‘It’s tighter than you’re letting on,’ I said, cornering her on the way to the galley. ‘Ain’t it?’

‘Get you, with your ain’ts,’ she said.