Trusko applied more thrust. ‘She wants to talk. Why would she signal, if she didn’t want to talk?’

‘She knows what she wants and she’ll either take it or smash it,’ Prozor said. ‘Talkin’s just her way of tormentin’ you, makin’ you think negotiation’s an option.’

Now another voice sounded from the console. ‘Drozna here . . . did that you get that squawk, Captain?’

‘I did. We’re coming in.’

‘It can’t be Bosa Sennen, can it?’ Drozna asked plaintively. ‘Nothing we’ve done has earned us a visit from the Nightjammer. It’s someone else, trading on her name.’

‘Whether it’s Bosa or not, it was a declaration of hostile intent.’ Trusko looked back at us for a moment, searching out our forms in the splintered confusion of the Ghostie armour. ‘We’re capable of defending ourselves, Drozna, and we shall. Run out all coil-guns and break out the crossbows.’

I expected Prozor to chastise him for that, but instead she just nodded, what I could see of her face – what I could remember even being her face – dipping up and down. ‘It’s all right,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s what anyone would do, now she’s named herself. No harm in it.’

Bosa’s voice returned. ‘Is that you in that launch, Trusko? Bosa’s got her eye on you, you know. What’ve you dug out of that bauble for her? Something juicy? You know Bosa’s got exacting tastes.’

‘We’ve nothing for you,’ Trusko said. ‘The bauble was a bust. Why do you think we were coming home?’

‘That’s all right, Cap’n. It wasn’t the bauble that brought us here. Still, Bosa’ll make her own mind up about what is and isn’t valuable, if you please.’

‘I have nothing for you.’

‘Bosa heard you’ve a skull that’ll suit her needs. The skull’s all Bosa wants of you. Let her have it without fuss, and you’ll have a story to brag about to the other captains.’

‘No,’ Trusko said. ‘If I believed you’d keep to that promise, it’d be different. But you can’t be trusted.’

‘Has someone been saying bad things about Bosa? We can’t have that, can we?’