Syrinx found she rather liked the idea of a boy helping out like this, walking up to utter strangers with curiosity and awe, obviously never thinking they might be dangerous. It spoke of an easy-going world which had few cares, and trust was prevalent. Perhaps the Adamists could get things right occasionally.

They handed their passport fleks over one at a time for Andrew to slot into his processor block. The unit looked terribly obsolete to Syrinx, fifty years out of date at least.

“Is Drayton’s Import business in Penn Street still going strong?” Ruben asked Andrew Unwin, overdoing his wide I-want-to-be-friends smile.

Andrew gave him a blank stare, then his pixie face was alive with mirth. “Yes, it’s still there. Why, have you been to Norfolk before?”

“Yes, it was a few years ago now, though,” Ruben said.

“All right!” Andrew handed Syrinx her passport flek as his dog sniffed round her feet. “Thank you, Captain, ma’am. Welcome to Norfolk. I hope you find a cargo.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Syrinx sent a silent affinity command to the dog to desist, only to feel foolish when it ignored her.

Andrew Unwin was looking up expectantly.

“For your trouble,” Ruben murmured, and his hand passed over Andrew’s.

“Thank you, sir!” There was a silver flash as he pocketed the coin.

“Where can we get a ride into town?” Ruben asked.

“Over by the tower, there’s lots of taxi cabs. Don’t take one that asks for more than five guineas. You can get your money changed in the Admin block after you get through Customs, as well.” A small delta spaceplane flew low overhead, compressors whistling as the nozzles started to rotate to the vertical, already deploying its undercarriage. Andrew turned to watch it. “I think there’s still some rooms at the Wheatsheaf if you’re looking for lodgings.” He hopped back on his bicycle and pedalled off towards the spaceplane that was landing, the dog chasing after him.

Syrinx watched him go in amusement. Passport control was obviously a serious business on Norfolk.

“But how do we get to the tower?” Tula asked querulously. Her hand was shielding her eyes from the Duke’s golden radiance.

“One guess,” Ruben said happily.

“We walk,” Syrinx said.

“That’s my girl.”

Oxley went back into the spaceplane to collect the cool-box loaded with samples of food from Atlantis, and then rummaged through the lockers for their personal shoulder-bags. He sent a coded order to the flyer’s bitek processor as he came out, and the stairs folded away, the airlock closing silently. Tula picked up the coolbox, and they started off towards the white control tower that was wobbling in the heat shimmer.

“What did he mean about overpaying the taxis?” Syrinx asked Ruben. “Surely they have a standard tariff metre?”

Ruben started chuckling, He slipped Syrinx’s arm through his. “When you say taxi, I suppose you mean one of those neat little cars Adamists always use on developed planets, with magnetic suspension, and maybe air-conditioning?”

Syrinx nearly said: “Well of course.” But the gleam in his eyes cautioned her. “No . . . What do they use here?”

He just pulled her closer and laughed.

The bridge of heaven had returned to the skies. Louise Kavanagh wandered across Cricklade Manor’s paddock with her sister Genevieve, the two of them craning their necks to look up at it. They had come out early every Duke-day morning for the past week to see how it had grown during Duchess-night.

The western horizon was suffused with a huge deep-red corona thrown out by the Duchess as she sank below the wolds, but in the northern quadrant orbiting starships sparkled and shone. Glint-specks of vivid ruby light that raced through the sky, strung together so tightly they formed a near-solid band, like a rainbow of red sequins. The western horizon, where the Duke was rising, had a similar arc, one of pure gold. Directly to the north, the band hung low over the rolling dales of Stoke County, lacking the brightness of the two horizon arcs where the reflection angle was most favourable, but still visible by Duke-day.

“I wish they’d stay for ever,” Genevieve said forlornly. “Summer is a truly lovely time.” She was twelve (Earth) years old, a tall, spindly girl with an oval face and inquisitive brown eyes; she had inherited her mother’s dark hair, which hung halfway down her back in the appropriate style for a member of the land-owning class. Her dress was a pale blue with tiny white dots and a broad lacework collar, complemented with long white socks, and polished navy-blue leather sandals.

“Without winter, summer would never come,” Louise said. “Everything would be the same all year round, and we’d have nothing to look forward to. There are lots of worlds like that out there.” They looked up together at the ribbon of starships.

Louise was the elder of the two sisters, sixteen years old, the heir to the Cricklade estate which was their home, and an easy fifteen inches taller than Genevieve, with hair a shade lighter and long enough to reach her hips when it was unbound. They shared the same facial features, with small noses and narrow eyes, although Louise’s cheeks were now more pronounced as her puppy fat burned away. Her skin boasted a clear complexion though to her dismay her cheeks remained obstinately rosy—just like a fieldworker.

This morning she was wearing a plain canary-yellow summer dress; and, wonder of all, this was the year Mother had finally allowed her to have a square-cut neck on some of her clothes, although her skirt hems had to remain well below her knees. The audacious necks allowed her to show how she was blossoming into womanhood. This summer there wasn’t a young male in Stoke County who didn’t look twice as she walked past.

But Louise was quite used to being the centre of attention. She had been since the day she was born. The Kavanaghs were Kesteven’s premier family; one of the clanlike network of large rich land-owner families who when acting in concert exerted more influence than any of the regional island councils, simply because of their wealth. Louise and Genevieve were members of an army of relatives who ran Kesteven virtually as a private fiefdom. And the Kavanaghs also had strong blood ties with the royal Mountbattens, a family descended from the original British Windsor monarchy, whose prince undertook the role of planetary constitutional guardian. Norfolk might have been English-ethnic, but it owed its social structure to an idealized version of sixteenth-century Britain rather than the federal republic state of Govcentral which had founded the original colony four centuries ago.

Louise’s uncle Roland, the senior of her grandfather’s six children, owned nearly ten per cent of the island’s arable land. Cricklade Manor’s estate itself sprawled over a hundred and fifty thousand acres, incorporating forests and farmland and parkland, even whole villages, providing employment to thousands of labourers who toiled in its fields and woods and rosegroves, as well as tending to its herds and flocks. Another three hundred families farmed tithed crofts within its capacious boundaries. Craftsmen right across Stoke County were dependent on the industry it generated for their livelihood. And, of course, the estate owned a majority share in the county roseyard.

Louise was the most eligible heiress on Kesteven island. And she adored the position, people showed her nothing but respect, and willingly extended favours without expecting any return other than her patronage.

Cricklade Manor itself was a resplendent three-storey grey-stone building with a hundred-yard frontage. Its long stone-mullioned windows gazed out across a vast expanse of lawns and spinneys and walled orchards. An avenue of terrestrial cedars had been set out to mark out the perimeter of the grounds, geneered to endure Norfolk’s long year and peculiar dual bombardment of photons. They had been planted three hundred years ago, and were now several hundred feet in height. Louise adored the stately ancient trees; their graceful layered boughs possessed a mystique which the smaller aboriginal pine-analogues could never hope to match. They were a part of her heritage that was for ever lost among the stars, alluding to a romantic past.