‘Can I think about this?’ She didn’t want to agree to the project only to find that she couldn’t summon up the kind of focus and stamina that an undertaking of this scale required.

Lila said, ‘Of course.’

Agata hadn’t set out with any intention of going near the demolished workshop, but when her path took her to the boarded-up entrance she wasn’t surprised.

The floor of the tunnel outside was still covered in a layer of fine dust; she knew it was bluish by artificial light, but in the red glow of the moss it looked almost black. The last time she’d stood here the entrance had only been covered by a curtain, and she’d peered in through a gap. A string of coherers hung across the ceiling had illuminated a team of investigators at work in the rubble. They’d been photographing everything as they sifted patiently through the debris, hoping they might find fragments of the bomb.

As far as she knew, they never had. The Council had locked up all the anti-messagers who’d argued their case most vigorously in public, but as likely as not Medoro’s killers were still free. When the new team of instrument builders was assembled they’d have bodyguards around the clock, and no one would get within a stroll of the workshop without being searched. But if the bombers’ first choice of target became impossible to reach, they would find another one. Even if all of the system’s components could be built without another incident, when the whole thing was finally assembled it would be vulnerable to other kinds of sabotage.

The Surveyor mission wasn’t an act of appeasement; everyone would be better off with the two factions living apart. Agata didn’t know how many people would be prepared to abandon the familiar surroundings of the Peerless, but it was brave of Ramiro to be willing to make the journey to discover if migration was possible at all.

She leant against the wall, humming and shivering. Sometimes she missed Medoro so badly that she wanted to die, but everyone expected her life to go on as if nothing had happened. And now Lila was inviting her to spend the next few years struggling with some beautiful ideas that for all she knew might have no bearing on reality at all.

Agata stilled herself and stared down into the black dust at her feet. She felt as if she’d been waiting all her life for just one message from the future, telling her that everything would be worth it in the end – but the hungrier she grew for that scrap of comfort the further it receded, and the greater the cost. She would have given up all hope of it to get Medoro back, but no one was offering her that choice.