‘It’s strange being trusted by strangers,’ Ramiro conceded. ‘But they know we won’t betray them for at least the next four stints, and we know we won’t have any reason to regret the deal ourselves or we would have sent back a warning. This is what life is like without surprises. I wouldn’t want it to last for ever, but at a time like this I can’t honestly claim a need for even more uncertainty.’

Tarquinia said, ‘What I’m afraid of is being certain, without being right.’

‘About what, exactly?’ he pressed her.

‘If I knew that there wouldn’t be a problem.’

Ramiro drew the tarpaulin away from his face and looked out across the room. ‘What’s the worst that can happen – short of a meteor strike? Vincenzo’s right and it’s all a set-up. Giacomo is secretly working for the Council. We’ll end up in prison, but with a clear conscience: nothing we were planning would have harmed anyone, while the Councillors lied to the whole mountain for years. Come the next election we’ll probably be pardoned, and the system will never be turned on again. Does any of that sound so bad to you?’

‘No.’ Tarquinia shifted uneasily.

‘So . . . ?’

‘We’ll go ahead,’ she said. ‘Nothing else makes sense. Maybe I’m just not accustomed to things slotting into place so perfectly. It used to be that anyone who knew from the start what to say to win you over was setting an ambush. These days, maybe all it proves is that they bother to read their messages.’

Giacomo handed over the data link, a shiny black slab of photonics about five scants across.

Ramiro inspected it. ‘That’s perfect,’ he said. He’d had no hope of getting hold of anything like this himself. ‘How do you get past the inventory checks?’

‘You can swap an inert mock-up for the real thing,’ Giacomo explained. ‘If you do it the right way no one will notice for years.’

Ramiro formed a pocket and hid the link. ‘Do you have the coordinates for me?’

‘Yes, but we should get the other business out of the way first.’ Giacomo paused expectantly.

‘Of course.’ Ramiro had sat down with Tarquinia for a bell the night before, refining the sketches from memory. They’d kept no records of the occulters’ design on paper or in photonics, and not merely to avoid discovery; they hadn’t actually anticipated any need for it.