The staterooms were quiet around her, the thrum of the ship a low murmur swallowed by tapestries and cushions. She breathed hard for a moment, looking around at the shadows folded over the furniture by the single glow-globe mounted on a turned bronze stand. The cushions of the couch beneath her were damp, and her clothes clung to her skin.

‘Bad dreams?’ asked Nilus. The Navigator sat in an upholstered chair across the room, his long legs drawn up under him onto the seat, so that he looked like an old statue of a mystic that she had once seen in a Conservatory collection. He had found some clothes to replace his prison overalls: loose black-and-red fabric now hung from his spider-thin frame. He had a blanket half wrapped around him but he did not look like he had been sleeping.

‘The merchant’s sour-faced bodyguard left you some clothes,’ he said, nodding to a neat pile of fabric on a small table. ‘I don’t think she likes you much.’

Mersadie pushed herself up, scratching sleep from her eyes. There was a metallic taste in her mouth, like copper or iron.

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘Somewhere in the gulf between Uranus and the orbit of Saturn,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘At least that is what I would guess. You have been asleep for a while, but this is going to take days, even if this bucket of bolts and rust can make it. It’s really just an orbital hauler. I doubt it’s ever even done a full run from core to system edge.’ He smiled, and shook his head. ‘We may all die yet.’

Mersadie did not answer, but stood up and went to the pile of clothes.

The Antius had broken free of the cascade around Oberon and powered outwards towards Uranus’ outer orbits, and the gulf beyond. No one had challenged or tried to intercept them, but they were just another panicked small ship amongst many more. No reply had come from the signal they had sent, either, but she had expected none. For all her confidence in front of Vek, it was an act of desperation not certainty, a stone thrown into a pool in the hope that someone would see the ripples.

She lifted the folded clothes – loose, grey and red.

‘She said she would be back for you,’ said Nilus. ‘The bodyguard that is. I think she wants to talk.’

He stood, unwinding his limbs from the blanket, rolling his head on his neck and then moving towards one of the hatches that led to a different part of the staterooms.

‘I will leave you to your privacy,’ he said, and went out of sight.

She put the clothes on, the soft, clean fabric strange on her skin.