As she advanced along the tunnel, scanning the blackness ahead for another faint speck of moss-light, Agata realised that this was exactly the kind of task during which she once would have ended up pondering the questions Lila had berated her for neglecting. She had only ever made progress on her research when the problem she was tackling rose up unbidden to occupy her mind in idle moments – whether she was walking or eating, cleaning her apartment or lying in bed waiting for sleep, her thoughts would be dragged back to the same place, to chip away at the obstructions until they yielded. At her desk, at her console, she could analyse her own earlier work in detail, or carry out a lengthy new calculation, but entirely new ideas only came to her when she was meant to be doing something else.

Now, though, when her thoughts weren’t gravitating to the subject of Lila’s criticism or scrutinising their own dynamics, the only thing that occupied them effortlessly was speculation on the kind of news that the messaging system would bring. It wasn’t intrusive or disturbing – any more than her obsessive return to the niggling questions of curvature and entropy had been – but the entire space in which her creative work had once taken place had been thoroughly colonised by the interloper.

But the cure wasn’t far away: once the system was completed she could hardly remain in the thrall of revelations still to come. And was it so terrible if she found herself distracted for a while by the prospect of learning the future of the Peerless? She had less than two dozen stints to wait – and, thanks to the strike, she could still do useful work in the meantime. Even if Lila was right and some part of her was refusing to accept that she could expect no help with her research, once she’d seen the actual contents of her messages any hope of impossible cheat notes would soon dissipate. In most respects her life would return to normal, but her spirits would be bolstered by the news of the mountain’s safe return. She would resume her work with new energy and optimism, not because her future self had furnished her with theorems she was yet to prove, but because she’d know that her whole life, and the lives of everyone around her, were part of a great struggle whose end was in sight.

Agata felt the tremor in the rock beneath her and braced herself instinctively, her tympanum growing rigid, rendering her protectively deaf. She lost her footing and fell to the floor, disoriented, unsure if the shaking had been enough to unbalance her or whether she’d been struck down by a shock wave in the air.