‘She doesn’t like you much,’ Drusher whispered to Voriet.

‘Audla is very precise,’ replied Voriet quietly. ‘Inhuman levels of retention, processing and data comparison. She is offended when I question her efforts.’

They began to study the maps. Voriet uncased a portable cogitator and plugged its cables into a vox-caster signal amplifier that stood on the floor nearby. He began to type.

‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘The link keeps going down.’

‘We could drive back to Unkara Town,’ said Macks. ‘Use the hardwired system in the Magistratum building.’

Voriet looked doubtful.

‘I’ll keep trying for now,’ he said. ‘This storm’s got to ease back at some point.’

‘There’s nothing on the maps,’ said Garofar.

Drusher was peering over the deputy’s shoulder. He had quickly identified the symbols for ruin (standing) and ruin (site). Most of the latter represented sites that he doubted would be apparent to anything except ground-penetrating auspex, geophysical detectors or the high-gain scanning of fleet survey vessels. You could visit them in person, walk around and see nothing that suggested a structure had ever been there. He found Helter Fortress marked and saw there were several ruins (standing) and ruins (site) to the south and west within a hundred kilometres. But nothing to the north and east, where the spur of the range ran.

‘That must be the pass,’ he said, tapping the map with his fingertip to indicate a significant pass through the Karanine range that lay north of Helter Fortress.

‘The Karad Pass,’ agreed Garofar.

Down towards the pass… that’s what the ghost had said.

‘So he must have meant this area here,’ Drusher mused. He circled the tract of mountain country between their current location and the dramatic formation of the pass at Karad.

‘Who?’ asked Macks.

‘My source,’ said Drusher carefully.

‘Look,’ said Macks, ‘if it’s not a place, like Hadeed says. Not an actual place…’

‘It’s just a story,’ said Garofar. ‘Honestly.’

‘What? We’re wasting our time?’ asked Drusher.

Macks shook her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Like you said just now, it could be an old name for something else. Or a fanciful name someone gave to somewhere else. I mean, not official. Look, imagine Fargul had moved into this place and decided to call it Fargul’s Palace instead of Helter Fortress. That wouldn’t necessarily be recorded on a map or the title register. Likewise, he could have called it Elysium or Vaartuk. You know, ironically?’

‘Vaar-what?’ asked Drusher.

‘Vaartuk,’ said Macks. ‘It’s a local dialect word for heaven or paradise. Udaric, right, Garofar?’

‘I think that’s right,’ said the deputy.

‘You mean, he calls it that because it’s a nice place to retire to?’ Drusher asked.

Macks looked at him patiently. It was a look he knew well.