We lifted from the bauble, Trusko pushing the rockets all the way they’d go, the gees squeezing us into our seats, the engines roaring behind the aft bulkhead and the frame of the launch moaning and groaning like it was having bad dreams of its own. The ground fell away fast, the horizon bending into a curve that got sharper and sharper with every league we climbed. The one thing to be said for baubles was that it didn’t take long to put some distance from them. Only a minute after departure, we were already high enough for the field not to be a concern, even if it snapped back there and then.

Trusko eased back on the engines and began to lock us in for rendezvous with the Queenie. ‘I’ll squawk Drozna,’ he said, already reaching out to flick switches. He had taken off his helmet, but other than that he still had all of his suit on. ‘Warn him to start running out the sails.’

‘You can do that,’ I said, from the seat behind his control position. ‘But if you want to make it through to the end of the day, don’t say a word about it being Bosa. Don’t even sound as if you’re all that concerned – just that you’re coming back as a precaution.’

Prozor had slipped off her own helmet. She was sitting in the seat next to mine, across the narrow aisle that ran the length of Trusko’s launch. ‘Fura’s right,’ she said, squaring her jaw as if the words had given her toothache. ‘It’s fine to react – Bosa will have picked up Drozna’s squawk about the sweeper return. But you can’t let Bosa know you’ve any idea it’s her that’s coming in. She ain’t even crossed your mind yet. You’re still thinkin’ this is some other ship that wants a sniff at your claim and might not be too polite about it, but another part of you’s not even convinced that return wasn’t a phantom.’

‘We don’t even know it is Bosa,’ Strambli said, with a quivery desperation in her voice. ‘Do we?’

‘It’s Bosa all right,’ Prozor said, taking a kind of malicious pleasure in it, the way some people just love delivering bad news. ‘Ain’t it, Fura? Go on, ask the Bone Reader. She’s the one that called Bosa in.’

I slid my tongue over my lips. ‘I wasn’t planning on lying to you, Proz – any more than you were planning on lying to me about the auguries.’

‘What about the auguries?’ Trusko asked.

‘Call Drozna,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll talk. And remember – not a word about Bosa, or she’ll know something’s rum. We’ve got an edge on her now, but we’ll take the shine off it if we’re not careful.’