‘Hello.’ For a moment she was numb, then the sight of Pio’s gaunt frame became too much and she started humming softly. She was far from convinced of his innocence, but no one had come close to establishing his guilt. If he had murdered Medoro and the others then he deserved to be locked up until he died – but what did she know for sure? Only that he’d viewed the messaging system with the same degree of alarm and revulsion from the start as she now felt for it herself.

The guard watched as Pio climbed into the harness on his side of the desk. ‘You have three chimes,’ she told Agata. Then she withdrew into the corridor.

Agata composed herself, but she reached over and squeezed her brother’s shoulder while the gesture still had a chance of seeming innocent and spontaneous. In the flicker before her palm touched his skin, she formed the words: On your side. Tell me how to help. She tried not to worry about how long it would take him to read the message if he hadn’t been expecting it; the action had a natural timescale of its own, and if she over-thought it that would show.

Pio leant back and examined her appraisingly. ‘Detours really do work the way they taught us in school,’ he marvelled. ‘Twelve years in that box. How did you stay sane?’

‘The time passed quickly,’ she said. ‘After the first year.’

‘I can’t say the same, though maybe with the ratios it almost evens out.’ He buzzed suddenly. ‘Cira told me about your big discovery. The ancestors don’t burn, we don’t wipe ourselves out – what could be better than that?’

‘People acting on it,’ Agata replied. ‘I thought I’d come back to find that everyone had buried their differences.’

‘Not yet.’

Agata didn’t want to start interrogating him about his views on the disruption, but it would seem strange if they didn’t discuss it at all. ‘Do you think the Councillors are going to pull the plug?’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘They’ve seen the problems that the system’s created,’ she said. ‘We can’t spend the next six generations stuck with the same technology.’

‘But how would they explain the shutdown afterwards, without admitting that they’d planned it all along?’ Pio wondered.

‘They could claim that there’d been some kind of minor impact,’ Agata suggested. ‘With just the right size and trajectory to take out all twelve channels at once, but do no real damage elsewhere.’

‘All of which they’d more or less guessed, of course. But lacking proof, they couldn’t announce it officially.’ Pio inclined his head. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. We’ll know soon enough.’

‘Yes.’

Pio changed the subject. ‘Are you going to see Cira?’