We found the village’s only hotel, overlooking the main square, and booked rooms for a week, using two pristine ID datachips from among the selection we’d brought with us from Vchira. As women, Tres and Makita were our charges and didn’t rate ID procedure of their own. A scarfed and robed receptionist nonetheless greeted them with a warmth that, when I explained that my aged aunt had suffered a hip injury, became solicitous enough to be a problem. I snapped down an offer of a visit from the local woman’s doctor, and the receptionist retreated before the display of male authority. Lips tight, she busied herself with running our ID. From the window beside her desk, you could look down into the square and see the raised platform and fixing points for the community’s punishment chair. I stared bleakly down at it for a moment, then locked myself back into the present. We handprinted for access on an antique scanner and went up to our rooms.

“You have something against these people?” Makita asked me, stripping off her head garb in the room. “You seem angry. Is this why you’re pursuing a vendetta against their priests?”

“It’s related.”

“I see.” She shook out her hair, pushed fingers up through it and regarded the cloth-and-metal masking system in her other hand with a quizzical curiosity at odds with the blunt distaste Sylvie Oshima had shown when forced to wear a scarf in Tekitomura. “Why under three moons would anybody choose to wear something like this?”

I shrugged. “It’s not the most stupid thing I’ve seen human beings commit themselves to.”

She eyed me keenly. “Is that an oblique criticism?”

“No, it’s not. If I’ve got something critical to say to you, you’ll hear it loud and clear.”

She matched my shrug. “Well, I look forward to that. But I suppose it’s safe to assume you are not a Quellist.”

I drew a hard breath.

“Assume what you want. I’m going out.”

Down at the commercial end of the harbour, I wandered about until I found a bubblefab café serving cheap food and drink to the fishermen and wharf workers. I ordered a bowl offish ramen, carried it to a window seat and worked my way through it, watching crewmen move about on the decks and outrigger gantries of the rayhunter. After a while, a lean-looking middle-aged local wandered across to my table with his tray.

“Mind if I sit here? It’s kind of crowded.”

I glanced around the ‘fab space. They were busy, but there were other seats. I shrugged ungraciously.

“Suit yourself.”

“Thanks.” He sat, lifted the lid on his bento box and started eating. For a while, we both fed in silence, then the inevitable happened. He caught my eye between mouthfuls. His weathered features creased in a grin.

“Not from around here then?”