‘We’d like to speak to Cazaray,’ Adrana said. ‘Get him on the squawk.’

Triglav abandoned the game, leaned over to the galley’s squawk console, worked the heavy switches and dials. Static crackled out of the speaker grille. ‘Captain Rackamore? Triglav here. Yes, all’s well. It’s just that your shiny new Bone Readers would like a chinwag with Master Cazaray, if that isn’t too much trouble.’

Cazaray sounded agreeable enough. ‘Hello. Is there something I need to know?’

Triglav invited me to speak into the console.

‘This is Arafura, Cazaray. I’m here with Adrana. We’ve just come back from the bone room.’

‘And – is there something I ought to know?’

‘We’re not sure. There wasn’t anything wrong with the skull the last time, but now it seems to be . . . dead.’

‘Dead,’ Cazaray repeated. ‘And by dead you mean . . .’

‘We thought there might be something wrong with the connections,’ Adrana said. ‘I’m going to be honest: we tried connecting in on the same node. We wanted to see if we could amplify a faint signal . . .’

I heard an edge in Cazaray’s voice, but it was not the recrimination I might have feared. ‘No . . . that wouldn’t have done anything to damage the skull. There might be something wrong with the input, or the lines to the bridges, or the bridges themselves . . . but it’s hard to see why. Did you try the spare bridge, the one I used?’

‘No,’ I answered. It was an obvious thing to suggest, and I chided the both of us for not thinking of it.

‘Well, be quick about it. Try some of the other nodes. Only one of you needs to go – the other one can stay here.’

Adrana looked at me. Neither one of us relished being in the bone room alone, but if there was one of us who stood a chance of picking up a faint signal, it was my sister.

‘Adrana’s gone back.’

‘Good,’ Cazaray said, that edge still in his voice. ‘All right. There’s more than likely nothing wrong, just a loose connection somewhere. But let’s backtrack. You mentioned a faint signal . . . was that something you picked up now, since we spoke the last time?’

‘No, sir.’ I swallowed. ‘Whatever it was, it was there before.’

‘But you distinctly said that you hadn’t picked up anything.’

‘We hadn’t, sir.’ All of a sudden I felt as if I had only just joined the crew; that all the weeks that had passed since Mazarile counted for nothing. ‘It wasn’t anything clear. Not a message, not even a word. It was just . . . there. And then it wasn’t. And now most of the lights have gone out inside the skull . . .’

‘What did you say?’

‘Adrana looked inside it, when we knew it wasn’t working. The lights had gone dead, lots of them anyway.’