“A very good point, Frances – these machine bodies are expensive to create. It was tried, but Master Woolstenbury found that newly harnessed qwortzite does not take to a machine body which has been inhabited previously.” Craftsman Primrose stood up. “Now, I’d like you all to choose a painting and I want you to spend some time looking at it. Read the plaque, think about the words, and then choose another.”

The paintings depicted many different animal types: for some, you wouldn’t know they were machines, but others looked more experimental and robotic with part-visible metal frames and cog work, perhaps the early models. Prue looked around and found herself gravitating towards a painting of a hound. She’d always liked the dogs on the farm, before money became tight after Francis and they’d had to give the last away. Mechanimal sheep dogs weren’t the same, but they didn’t need feeding. Prue imagined how wonderful it would be to have a personifate sheep dog that could talk. She smiled to herself and read the plaque:

Wilhelmina Blue-Moon

Companion

Capax Infiniti

She looked around. There were numerous other dogs, many cats too, which also read companion – they seemed a popular choice – and there were gardeners and messengers, and shop workers too. Then she noticed a painting of a storm-grey hare with intelligent eyes.

Carl Cold-Moon

Technician

Capax Infiniti

A technician was different to anything she’d seen so far. Technician of what? It certainly had paws that looked like they could manipulate machinery, almost person-like, rather like Edwin.

“Ah, one of my favourites,” said Craftsman Primrose, approaching Prue. “From before my time at the Guild, but I believe he was the first technician to be created.” Craftsman Primrose addressed the group. “What do you notice that the paintings have in common?”

They were all animals, of course, but Prue wasn’t sure that was what Craftsman Primrose meant. She read the hare’s plaque again and was about to speak when Cora said, “Capax infiniti.”

“Which means?” said Craftsman Primrose.

“Capax infiniti means ‘holding the infinite’ in the old language.”

“Correct. Thank you, Apprentice Duval.”

“And the names,” Prue jumped in. “They’re all something-moon.”

“Quite right. Do you know why?”

Cora’s hand shot up, but Craftsman Primrose ignored her and turned to Edwin. “Perhaps Edwin could tell us.”

“We take on the name of the moon under which we were brought into our second life.”

Prue thought that was nice, and quite poetic. Perhaps Francis could be Francis Harvest-Moon.

“Now, going back to the words below, Capax Infiniti; I would like you to think – and without giving me a textbook answer – tell me why we choose these words?” Craftsman Primrose looked at all of them in turn.

The meaning of Capax Infiniti rolled through Prue’s mind: holding the infinite.