If she had questions about the harness I was wearing, she put them aside. ‘Cazaray’s bridge didn’t make any difference. I tried all the inputs. It’s like it was never alive in the first place.’

‘Perhaps I should try . . .’ I started saying.

‘I said it was gone,’ Adrana said, and I nodded, accepting that the bones were beyond any use we could make of them.

Prozor was gathering up the girdles. ‘Never mind the skull. Help me with these. You can each carry one.’

When we got back to the galley, Triglav was just coming back in from the bridge. ‘Still nothing on the scope,’ he said, before setting his gaze on me. ‘I see we’ve just recruited our new gunner.’

Prozor moved to the console and worked the controls. ‘Cap’n?’

‘I’m still here. Do you have encouraging news for us?’

‘Triglav says the sweeper’s clear. But the bones are still dead.’

‘Are you certain?’ Rackamore asked.

Adrana leaned in. ‘Definitely. I tried everything I could think of. What’re you going to do now?’

‘We’re returning. Cazaray is concerned, and that’s reason enough for me.’

‘Hirtshal and I’ll put on suits,’ Prozor said. ‘We can get you in and out quicker.’

She snapped a switch and turned from the console. ‘Better hope this isn’t something simple, both of you, or you’ll have cost the Cap’n good hours in that bauble.’

‘What’s Cazaray so worried about?’ I asked, sensing more was at hand than anyone was willing to discuss.

‘Something like this has happened before,’ Triglav said, squinting a cautious eye at his colleagues. ‘A skull, a powerful skull – with a powerful Bone Reader – can freeze out another one that’s nearby. Jam it, if we were talking about squawking. Or kill it completely, like a bolt of lightning hitting circuitry.’

‘You think that’s what might be going on?’ Adrana asked.

‘My job’s to act, not think. Captain wants ions, I’ll give him ions.’

‘But the sweeper,’ I said. ‘It’s clear. There can’t be anyone near us, can there?’

No one answered.

Hirtshal pushed himself off from the table, the threads slipping from his fingers as if they’d never been knotted. Prozor patted him on the back, the first nice thing I’d seen between them. We remained in the galley, just us and Triglav for the moment. A little while later we made out the flash of fire as the launch fired its chemical rockets and began its ascent.

Triglav took us through to the bridge and showed Adrana how to use the sweeper controls, including the power-boost. ‘The instant you see so much as a twitch on the scope, give it everything. That’ll give us a hard fix with range and angular size. Doesn’t matter if we burn out Jusquerel’s wiring, so long as we get some warning and a clear idea where to shoot.’