“Good man.”

“You… think so?”

“Good for you, that’s what counts.”

“He… he held me when I had the dreams.”

Catkejen raised an eyebrow, said nothing.

“They’re… colorful. Not much plot but lots of action. Strange images. Disturbing. I can’t remember them well, but I recall the sounds, tastes, touches, smells, flashes of insight. Music, too. Sounds like a concert heard from down the hall.”

“I’ve never had insights.” A wry shrug.

“Never?”

“Maybe that keeps my life interesting.”

“I could use some insight about Kane.”

“You seem to be doing pretty well on your own.”

“But—I never do something like that! Like last night. I just don’t go out patrolling for a man, bring him home, spend most of the night—”

“What’s that phrase? ‘On the basis of current evidence, not proved.’ Australian justice.”

“I really don’t. Really.”

“You sure have a knack for it.”

“What do I do now?”

She winked. “What comes naturally. And dream more.”

She had nothing much to report to the Prefect, so was out in the corridor within ten minutes. Masoul had just nodded patiently, nothing more. Then he’d added mysteriously that “something is developing of perhaps interest to us, though not a Message.” Rachel was puzzling over that when her system buzzed. She had an appointment. Memory of it had slipped away on her tides of passion. Oh yes—Loonie squash with loony Ruby.

She had been missing her gym workouts, mostly because they were boring machine-pumpers to offset the effects of low grav, with irksome electrical methods to vibe her muscles, too. Not fun, more like a visit to a sadistic doctor. But she didn’t like the slab-of-flab look of some Loonies, either. Somehow they added mass even in a food shortage. The price of living in a buried box was steep, for some.

So here came… racqueting ball, they called it. Luna made exercise seem like a slo-mo movie—except when it didn’t.

With a sixth of a grav, you took six times longer to reach the top of a jump—and same for coming down. But you were higher and could rebound with your crouched legs from a wall, interrupting the whole pretty parabolic arc with a quick sideways dart, to intercept a ball coming down with fierce rebound speed from the flat ceiling.

That was the big difference from Earthside racqueting. Weird speeds—ball zooming fast, off the overhead circle wall of the cylinder. Rachel slowly falling, down the tall tube. Add the crazy spin on the small, soft red ball that slapped hard into the racquet and slipped off at uncanny angles, vectors working against each other.

Or, at least, against her.

Ruby was hitting hard spinners. They came off the forecourt ceiling with a humming energy. So Rachel jumped toward the next one. That was a calculated risk, but she had to do something to break up Ruby’s pattern. Old truth, learned as a girl: if you’re losing, change your game.

She had crouched to get more push and now rose up, turning to smack the ball—only it wasn’t there.