‘There’s truth in that,’ Rackamore said. ‘But some might point out that the Crawlies hadn’t been in the Congregation for very long before the crash. Fifty years. Maybe less. They were newcomers, just like the Hardshells or Clackers today. A coincidence, I suppose.’

‘What?’

Rackamore gave a shrug, as if none of this was worth dwelling on. ‘I mull on things overmuch. Search for patterns, and you’ll find them, as surely as sailors see old lovers in the billowing of photon sails. But I suppose it gives me a reason to keep looking for things, and sometimes what you turn up isn’t the thing you had in mind, but something better. Who knows what we’ll find, in this bauble or the one after?’

I didn’t ask him how far we still had to sail. I supposed I’d get my answer sooner or later. But I couldn’t stop thinking of the Crawly, of the whiskerlike appendage poking in and out of its proboscis, drawing molecules out of the lungstuff, catching the chemical stink of wealth.

Cazaray kept on with us in the bone room. There were two sessions per day, one in the morning watch, the other in the afternoon. The routine was always the same. We’d put on the neural bridges, plug in, flush our minds out, and try to snatch a whisper from the wind. The first day had been a failure, the two sessions of the second not much better. Even Adrana didn’t dare claim that she’d picked up anything, even when Cazaray told her that the skull was indeed receiving something.

On the second session of the third day, though, after trying five or six different input points, Adrana tensed up. I was watching her by then, certain that my own efforts weren’t getting anywhere.

‘Something . . .’ she whispered. ‘A voice. A word, really clear. As if someone just spoke it into my head.’

‘Which was?’ Cazaray asked.

‘Daxian.’

After a moment he said: ‘Have you heard this name before?’

‘No,’ Adrana answered.

‘It’s a world, I think. One of the settled ones. A wheelworld, pretty deep down.’

‘Maybe she read it in the Book of Worlds, and the name jammed in her memory,’ I said.

‘And maybe she didn’t,’ Adrana shot back.

Cazaray got her to try several other inputs, but nothing came through on them. When he stuck the neural bridge on himself, the only contact he found was on the same input where Adrana had heard Daxian. It was faint today, he said, looking at her with something between doubt and awe. ‘If you dragged some sense out of that, after only three days in the bone room . . .’

‘Let me try again,’ she said.