‘We should fly over the antipode,’ Tarquinia joked. ‘Do a little reconnaissance.’

‘Fly low enough and you could occult all the channels at once,’ Ramiro suggested. ‘Maybe there’s a disruption earlier than everyone claimed, and all the later messages are just fakes.’

Agata said, ‘I’d rather not test the defences.’

Through the window, the mountain cast a sharp silhouette against the star trails. It had been visible through external cameras for days, but they’d had to wait until they cut the main engines to rotate the Surveyor around for a naked-eye view.

‘Ah, look at that!’ Tarquinia gestured at her console, which was displaying a feed from the telescope. ‘I think we’ve found a Councillor at home.’ The grey hull that the instrument had picked up was lurking in the void, far from the Peerless. It wasn’t quite identical to the Surveyor, but the overall design was eerily similar. Agata wasn’t shocked that anyone with the means to do so had withdrawn to a safe distance from the mountain, but it was dismaying to see that Ramiro’s guess had been right: even Verano had lost his powers of originality.

Azelio joined them, taking his seat and murmuring greetings. As subdued as he was, he seemed ready to make an effort to get through the formalities to come. Agata wished she could have assuaged his fears, but from a coldly pragmatic position she couldn’t help thinking that his forlorn demeanour might serve as useful camouflage. No one observing the whole crew together could imagine them possessing even the shyest hope of influencing the fate of the Peerless.

Tarquinia brought the Surveyor spiralling in towards the docking point, and as the mountain finally hid the stars Agata felt a rush of pure joy. She wanted to burrow deep into these old, familiar rocks again, to drift along the core of an ancient stairwell, to gaze across a field of wheat that stretched beyond the ceiling’s horizon. She glanced over at Azelio and he met her gaze with a look of shared relief, the sheer force of belonging overpowering his anxiety. How could they not feel safe here?

Tarquinia opened the link to the Peerless, and Verano appeared on her console. ‘We’ve brought your creation back in one piece,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you always knew we would.’

‘From the start,’ Verano replied. ‘No messages required.’