“It just seemed … drastic. Shocking,” Cossont said. “It looked like … like self-mutilation.”

“It’s my body to mutilate as I see fit, Cossont. And, from somebody currently possessing four arms, that’s an odd criticism.” Cossont opened her mouth, but then the voice went on. “This wouldn’t have been on a place called Cethyd, would it? In the Mountains of the Sound?”

“Yes.”

“Ha! Makes sense. Heard about that place quarter of a millennium or more ago; been meaning to go ever since. Good for me for taking it seriously enough to dedicate more than the standard proportion of sensory equipment to the task. I admire myself.”

Cossont, lying on her bed with the cube sitting on the pillow next to her, raised her eyebrows at that, but let it pass. “An old friend of yours called Tefwe went there,” she said, “to try and persuade you to talk about what had happened back when the Culture was coming together and the Gzilt nearly joined but didn’t.”

“Huh. So much for swearing old lovers to secrecy and respect for one’s privacy.”

“But what the hell were you thinking? Taking out your own eyes? Leaving them with Ximenyr?”

“Did I? I bet it seemed like a good idea at the time. Also, less obvious than leaving the data with all the other informational detritus orbiting Ospin. For example.”

“What were you – what are you trying to hide, though?”

“Who knows? Maybe I’m better without the memories. So: we’re heading for Xown?”

“Yes,” Cossont said quietly to the cube. “We’re going to see Ximenyr, in the Girdlecity, to try and get your eyes, your memories back.”

“Interesting that I didn’t want the memories destroyed, just … parked.”

“Whatever they may be.”

“Whatever they may be … Of course, just because the eyes are there doesn’t mean the memories are too. I could have had those wiped … It’s gone very quiet out there. Hello?”

“That would be a joke too far, Ngaroe.”

“All the same. I wouldn’t put it past me.”

“This. I love this, when you are over me, when I can barely see you or touch you but I know that you are there and just a breath away and I feel each exhaling is like a warm breeze across the land, when I can hear each beat of your heart over mine, when you are close enough that I can feel the heat of you on my skin. Then you are my presence, over and above me, like a promise. I live for these moments. I die at the thought they might stop in the Sublime.”

“You say the sweetest things to me. I wish I could say such things to you, so beautifully.”

“You draw them from me, you are their muse, their true creator; we make them between us. I am a hopeless stumbler and stutterer, always have been, with anybody else. So you must take half the credit. At least.”