She couldn’t quite see what it looked like, but she knew what it was. In this space it was mentally labelled for her, in the same way that something in a dream is instantly recognizable. He was pumping joy out of her. She had been full of happiness and she hadn’t known it. She had been full of joy.

Losing it now, she suddenly realized, was much worse than the physical feeling of it being wrenched out of her. It took her back to a sudden, pure moment of horror from her childhood, when she’d let go of a balloon that her dad had got her at a fair. She’d grabbed for it and missed and it had floated higher and higher and she’d started to scream, because it was going and she’d never get it back! Never! Never!

Bernie held her there as the terror of loss became too much to bear.

Then it passed and was gone, into memory. The last bit of joy was taken from her.

He put the device back in his pocket, and took out a big crimson handkerchief of absolute cleanliness, and wiped her face with the care of a father as she staggered, leaning against him. Then he put the cloth away in the same pocket, and she realized that it would be taken to the same place as the device. Her scraps were to be taken to the table too. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but you asked for it.’

*   *   *

She walked back into the room to find the audience waiting for her. She had only been gone, to them, an instant. They wanted to stare at her. They parted for her, their gazes examining her. She could still feel. She’d expected to be utterly numb, had looked forward to it, even, during her sacrifice. Instead she could feel annoyance at them looking at her, fear at what she’d done to herself, even a sort of calculating hope for what this would mean for her plans for her father … and there was Costain, not angry now, just terribly worried for her, and she felt a swell of relief, even, as … there was a reaction in her to his expression.

Perhaps the device had gone wrong.

No. She wasn’t that lucky. Perhaps this just wasn’t so bad as it was meant to be. Perhaps ‘happiness’, for this lot, was very narrowly defined.

No, something inside her said, this is grief protecting you. The full meaning of it hasn’t hit you yet. Relief is not happiness. Hope and lust are not happiness. Perhaps you are already losing sight of the thing you lost.