'My liver has to sacrifice its life so we can get Dinlay through graduation, Kanseen complained.

'In the constables we stick together, Edeard said and raised his tankard. 'To the memory of our livers. Who needs 'em?

They drank to that.

'Don't worry, Macsen said. 'I've made arrangements. Our beer is watered. Dinlay's has two shots of vodka in each pint.

Even Kanseen had to laugh. She tipped her tankard to Macsen. 'You're so…

'Beautifully evil? Edeard suggested, giving his tankard a mortified stare. This is watered? I couldn't tell; it tastes the same.

'Spot on, she said.

'I thank you. Macsen put his arms round the shoulders of the girls and pulled them in; kissing Evala first, then Nicolar.

'Not just tonight we've got to worry about, Boyd said.

'Does our Boyd need to worry about tonight? Macsen asked Clemensa.

She gave Boyd a hungry look. 'He certainly doesn't. After what you did today, you're all heroes in my book. That needs a lot of rewarding.

'He's going to want to prove himself, Boyd said. 'Nothing the sergeant said is going to hold him back. Next time we come across a fight or a robbery, Dinlay will be at the front and aching to take on the bad guy.

'I figured that too, Edeard said.

'We'll have to be ready, Kanseen said. 'We can't hold him back, that would make it worse. But we can be up there with him.

'Everyone together, Macsen said. He raised his tankard. 'No matter what.

'No matter what, they toasted with a roar.

Edeard still couldn't taste the water.

The four ge-monkeys from Jeavons constable station walked slowly along the street, looking like pallbearers as they carried a comatose Dinlay home to his dormitory bed.

Kanseen kept looking back to check. 'Do you think he'll be all right?

'Not really, Edeard said. 'If Macsen was serious about the vodka, he's going to have the hangover from Honious tomorrow morning. He turned to inspect the ge-monkeys himself. Using them wasn't the ideal solution, but it was better than him and Kanseen hauling Dinlay along. Boyd and Macsen had stayed on at the tavern with the girls. There were private rooms upstairs which they'd no doubt be using that night. Edeard was trying to keep his envy in check.

'Macsen! she exclaimed.

'He's not so bad. Actually, I'd rather have him by my side than Dinlay.

'Some choice.

'And you're preferable to all of them. All that beer and now the balmy night air were making him light-headed. That must have been why he said it.

Kanseen said nothing for a while as they walked back along I lie long, nearly deserted street. 'I'm not looking for anyone right now, she said solemnly. 'I just broke up with a man. We were engaged. It… ended badly. He wanted a nice traditional girl, one who knew her place.

'I'm sorry. But I have to say it's his loss.

'Thank you, Edeard.

They walked on a while, shadows shifting as they passed under t he bright orange light patches on the outside of the buildings.

'I don't know what it is about you, she said quietly. 'I'm not just talking about how strong your third hand is. You stand out. You're what I imagine the sons of noble families are supposed to be like, or were like before they got so rich and fat.

'Nothing noble about me.

'Nobility doesn't come from a bloodline, Edeard, it comes from within. Where was your village?

'Ashwell, in the Rulan province.

'Doesn't mean anything, I'm afraid. I don't know any geography beyond the Iguru Plain.

'Ashwell was a long way past there, right on the edge of the wild lands. I'll show you on a map if I can find one. It took a year for us to travel here.

'Gift me.

'What? Oh. Edeard concentrated, trying to find a recollection that would do his home justice. Spring, he decided, when the trees were bursting into life, and the sky was bright, and the winds warm. He and some other children had gone outside the rampart walls and taken the long route round to the top of the cliffs where they looked down on the cosy buildings sheltering below.

He heard a soft pull of breath, and realized how heavily involved in the memory he'd become, lacing it with melancholy.

'Oh Edeard, it's so beautiful. What happened? Why did you leave?

'It was attacked by bandits, he said stiffly. In all the time he'd spent in the station dormitory he'd never told his new friends the truth about Ashwell. All they knew was that he'd lost his family to bandits.

'I'm sorry, she said. For once she dropped the veil round her thoughts, allowing him to sense the sympathy. 'Was it very bad?

'Salrana and I survived. And five others.

'Oh Lady! Edeard. Her hand held his arm.

'Don't worry. I've come to terms with it. Except for losing my Master, Akeem. I still miss him. The emotional currents welling up in his thoughts were both unexpected and alarmingly strong. He truly thought he'd put all this sentiment and mourning behind him. Now all he'd done was picture his old home, and the feelings were rushing back as strong as the day it had happened.

'You should talk to one of the Lady's Mothers. They give excellent council.

'Yeah. Maybe. He made his legs work again. 'Come on, I have a notion Chae isn't going to be too gentle with us tomorrow.

The ge-monkeys laid Dinlay out on his mattress and pulled a thin blanket over him. He never woke, just groaned and shuffled round a bit. Edeard couldn't be bothered to take his friend's boots off, he was suddenly incredibly tired himself. He barely managed to remove his own boots and trousers. The dormitory's ge-chimps scampered about, collecting his clothes for laundry.

Of course, now he was actually lying down, his mind was too restless to deliver the sleep his body craved. He sent a thought to the main ceiling's rosette pattern of illumination, and it dimmed to a nebula-glow. That was about the only reaction the city buildings ever did have to human thought. The ge-chimps quietened down. Faint sounds from downstairs whispered through the big empty room, the usual comings and goings of the night shift officers. Edeard had never really got used to the way walls in the city curved. Back in Ashwell, walls were laid out in straight lines; the nine sides of his old Guild courtyard were considered pretty adventurous architecture. Here in the dormitory, the oval bed alcoves were almost rooms in their own right, with arching entrances twice Edeard's height. He liked to imagine the dormitory was actually some kind of aristocratic bedroom, and that maybe the race which created Makkathran had more than two genders. Hence the six beds. That would make the station an important building. He couldn't quite assign a use for the honeycomb warren of little rooms below ground which were used as prisoner cells and store rooms. As he thought about it, he let his farsight drift down through the translucent grey panorama of the station's structure. The image was such that it seemed to surround him, engulf him. Gravity pulled at his mind, and he sank ghost-like through the floor of the basement. There were fissures in the ground beneath, smooth fissures that looped and bent as they wound deeper and deeper. Some were no wider than his fingers, while others were broad enough to walk through. They branched and intersected, forming a convoluted filigree that, to his quixotic thoughts, resembled the veins within a human body. He felt water pulsing through several of them, while strong winds blew along others. Several of the smaller fissures contained threads of violet light which appeared to burn without ever consuming the fissure walls. He tried to touch them with his third hand, only for it to slide through as if he were grasping at a mirage.

His farsight expanded, becoming tenuous. The fissures spread away from the station, burrowing under the street outside, knitting with other extensive hollow filigrees which supported the surrounding buildings. Edeard gasped in wonder as his farsight grew and grew, the more he relaxed the more he could perceive. Slivers of colour shone through his mind, as if this shadow world was growing in texture. He couldn't even sense the dormitory any more. The station was a small glowing jewel embedded in a vast whorl of similar multichromic sparks.