'He's involved with the Navy?

'Yes.

'In what regard?

'Left-over artefacts and actions from the Starflyer War. His interest verges on the fanatical.

'So why would Marius pay him a personal visit?

'Good question. We will research him further.

'I can go home now?

'Yes.

'Excellent. If he got to Arevalo's interstellar wormhole terminus in the next ten minutes, he could be back home in time for tea with the girls.

It was a glorious summer evening, the bright sun tinting to copper over the Eggshaper Guild compound while Edeard walked across the main nine-sided courtyard. He took a contented breath as he watched the team of five ge-chimps cleaning the last patch of kimoss off the kennel roof. Their strong little claw hands were tearing up long dusty strips of the thick purple vegetation, exposing the pale slate. The kennels were the last of the courtyard buildings to be spruced up. Roofs and gutterings all around the other sides were clean and repaired. There were no more leaks down on to the young genistars, no more drains overflowing every time it rained. The walls had also benefited from the new chimp team renovating the Guild compound. The mass of gurkvine had been pruned back to neat fluttering yellow rectangles between doors and windows, allowing the apprentice stonemasons to restore the mortar joins in the walls. An additional benefit of the long-neglected pruning was a bumper crop of fruit this year, with dangling clusters of succulent claret-coloured berries hanging almost to the ground.

Edeard stopped to allow Gonat and Evox herd the ge-horse foals into the stables for the night. 'All brushed down and ready? he asked the two young apprentices. He cast his farsight over the animals, checking their short, rough fur for smears of dirt.

'Of course they are, Evox exclaimed indignantly. 'I do know how to instruct a ge-monkey, Edeard.

Edeard grinned good-naturedly, struck by the way he now sounded like Akeem in the way he presided over the guild's three new apprentices. He could sense Sancia in a stall over in the default stables, sitting quietly in a chair as her third hand flowed around an egg, subtly sculpting the nature of the embryonic genistar. The youngsters were talented. Impatient, naturally, but eager to learn. Two of the new ge-horses had been sculpted by Evox, who was inordinately proud of the foals.

Taking on the apprentices had been a real turning point for Akeem and Edeard. Evox had joined them barely a week after the fateful Witham caravan last year. Sancia and Gonat had moved in to the apprentice dormitory before winter set in; and now two more farmers were already discussing sending children to the Guild, at least for the coming winter months. After a hectic six months of initiation and adjustment, things had settled down in the compound. Edeard even found he had some of that most luxurious commodity: spare time. And that was on top of having the compound's ge-chimp team to start the desperately needed renovation. With the apprentices honing their instructional skills, the chimps had performed some internal restoration, whitewashing walls, cleaning floors and even preserving food in jars and casks. This coming winter season wouldn't be anything like as bleak as those past.

'How are the cats? Gonat asked.

'Just going to inspect them, Edeard said. So successful had the ge-cats been at extracting water, that the council had commissioned a second well to be dug at the other end of the cliff face behind the village. As well as producing replacements for the existing well, Edeard now had to supervise a whole new nest. In truth they didn't last as long as he'd hoped, barely two years. And they were still inordinately difficult to sculpt. 'Don't forget we have a delivery from Doddit farm in the morning. Make sure there's enough room in the stores.

'Yes, Gonat and Evox groaned. They mentally pushed and goaded the frisky foals into their stable before Edeard could heap any more tasks on them. The whole courtyard resonated to the hoots, snarls, bleating, and barks of various genera. With the apprentices now capable of basic sculpting, the Guild had suddenly doubled hatching rates. There were a full twenty defaults in the stables; Akeem had consulted with Wedard on building more. The majority of the animals still went out to the farms, but most houses in the village had cleaned out their disused nests and asked for a ge-chimp or a monkey. The demand for ge-wolves since the Witham caravan had increased dramatically. It was all kind of what Edeard had wanted, but he was still disheartened by the way the older villagers refused to let him give them a simple refresher course in instruction, gruffly informing him they'd been ordering genistars round since before his parents were born. True enough; but if you'd been doing it wrong since then nothing was going to change, and they'd wind up with a lot of badly behaved genistars cavorting round Ashwell annoying everyone. So Edeard surreptitiously tried to make sure that the village children had a decent grounding in the ability. The Lady's Mother, Lorellan, helped in her own quiet way by allowing Edeard to sit in on her own instructions to the village youth. Nobody dared protest about that.

Edeard reached the main hall, and sped up the stairs, pleased to be away from the courtyard. One further side effect of their Guild's rising fortune and greater genistar numbers was the stronger smell seeping out from the stables. He'd moved out of the apprentice dormitory the week Evox arrived, taking over a journeyman's room. 'I can't confirm you as a Master yet, Akeem had said gravely, 'no matter what you did beyond these walls, or how proficient you are. Guild procedures must be followed. To be a Master you must have served at least five years as a journeyman.

'I understand, Edeard had replied, secretly laughing at the formality. Lady help us from the way old people try to keep the world in order…

'And I'll thank you to take the Guild a little more seriously, please, Akeem had snapped.

Edeard rapidly wound down his amusement. Akeem seemed able to sense any emotion, however well-hidden.

His new room actually had some furniture in it. A decent desk he'd commissioned himself from the Carpentry Guild; a cupboard and a chest of drawers — needed to store his growing new wardrobe. His cot had a soft mattress of goose down. After some gruesome disasters, he'd eventually got the finer points of laundry ritual over to his personal ge-monkey; so once a week he had fresh sheets, scented with lavender from the herb bed in the compound's small kitchen garden — also now properly maintained.

He washed quickly, using the big china jug of water. The Guild compound wasn't yet connected up to the village's rudimentary water pipe network, but Melzar had promised it would be done by the end of the month. Both he and the smithy were trying to design a domestic stove which would heat water for individual cottages, producing various ungainly contraptions with pipes coiled round them. So far the pipes had all burst or leaked, but they were making progress.

Edeard scraped Akeem's ancient spare razor over his straggly chin hairs, wincing at the little cuts the jagged blade made. A new razor was next on his list of commissions — and a decent mirror. The ge-chimps had left a pile of newly washed clothes from which he chose a loose white cotton shirt, wearing it with his smart drosilk trousers. He'd found several weaver women in the village who would willingly make clothes for him in return for ge-spiders. Akeem called the unregistered trade enterprising, cautioning that it must not interfere with their official commissions. He still had the boots he'd bought in Witham. A little worn now after a year, but they remained comfortable and intact; the only problem was how tight they were becoming. He'd put on nearly two inches of height in the last year, not that he'd bulked out at all. His horror was that he'd wind up looking like Fahin as he put on more height without the corresponding girth.