Berdle watched him go, then turned back to Cossont, who raised her eyebrows.

“All going smoothly,” Berdle told her through the earbud.

Parinherm was staring intently at a water feature ten metres away. The feature’s central fountain closed down suddenly, collapsing with a sort of relaxed decorum; the watery tinkling sounds filling the reception and waiting space quietened very slightly.

~Parinherm … Berdle sent.

The android turned to look at the ship’s avatar. ~Just testing, he replied.

~I trust the test has been completed to your satisfaction.

~It has.

~Then, if you’d be so kind …

~Certainly.

The fountain burst into life again, leaping higher into the air than it had before and causing some water to go splashing over the edge of the pool and onto the carpet.

~Oops.

The fountain settled back to normal.

The Executive Recoupments Officer returned holding a white half-metre cube. “Here we are,” he said, presenting it to Cossont with a bow.

“Thank you,” she told him, glancing at Berdle, who came forward and accepted the box as Cossont rose to her feet.

“Ms Cossont herself will need to open the …” the officer said, as Cossont opened the box, looked inside and lifted out a silver-grey cube.

“Also, the storage container remains our …” the officer said, as Berdle handed the white box back to the officer and Cossont slipped the cube into her shoulder bag.

“Thank you for your help,” Berdle told the officer. “We’ll be on our way.”

“My pleasure,” the Executive Recoupments Officer said, as the three walked towards the elevators.

“We still have two-thirds of an hour before the ship returns,” Berdle said through Cossont’s earbud as they stepped into the lift. “I thought we might leave the facility and find a hostelry of some sort on the lake shore, to wait there.”

Cossont nodded as the doors closed.

The car started its descent, then its soft lighting seemed to flicker delicately. It drew smoothly to a stop, settling, finally, with what Cossont heard as a single click and the two non-humans present both heard as three distinct snicking noises. A background susurrus Cossont had hardly noticed consciously ceased, suddenly.

The android and the avatar exchanged looks.

“Ah-hah!” Parinherm said, with a smile.

“This is,” Berdle said aloud, and then seemed to think about what it was, “un-promising,” he concluded.

~Is that you? he was asking the android at the same time.

~Facility mainframe / material systems / motile systems / general elevator control suite / basement-to-mid-section shaft complex / core-central / faults / fault notification / fault confirmation / fault over-ride / safe fault work-arounds …?

~Yes, all that. Please leave that to me. You’re getting in the way. And stop trying to remove the block on the car’s external AV feed; I did that nearly a quarter of a second ago.

~Very well. What may I do?