Oh well, they weren’t innocents any more, Fassin reminded himself, and the more you learned about the world, the galaxy and the Age they were growing up within, the more you realised it was all about hierarchy, about ranking and seniority and pecking order, from well, well below where they were all the way up to gloriously unseeable alien heights. Really they were like lab mice growing up together, rough-and-tumbling in the cage, learning their position in the litter, testing their own and the others’ abilities and weaknesses, working on their moves and strategies for later life, discovering how much leeway they might have or be granted as adults, mapping out the space for their dreams.

Taince snorted. “Probably not even daddy’s car, probably not even a company flier, more likely some complicated sale-and-leaseback deal and it’s owned by an off-planet, tax-opaque semiautomatic front company.” She growled and slapped the unresponding comms unit.

Sal shook his head. “Such cynicism in the young,” he said, then looked down at the butterfly shape of the control yoke. “Hey, this is vibrating! What—?”

Taince nodded at the ship ruins, now towering over them. “Proximity warning, ace. You might want to slow down, or peel and scrub.”

“How can you talk about exfoliating at a time like this?” Sal said, grinning. Taince punched his thigh. “Ow! That’s assault,” he said, pretending outrage. “I may sue.” She punched him again. He laughed, throttled back and air-braked, pushing them all forward against their restraints, until the little flier was down to about ten metres per second.

They passed into the shadow of the giant ship.

“Fassin Taak,” Major-Domo Verpych said, “what trouble have you landed us in now?” They were hurrying down a wide, windowless passageway under the centre of the house. Before Fassin could reply, Verpych nodded at a side corridor and strode towards it. “This way.”

Fassin lengthened his stride to keep up. “I am as ignorant as you are, major-domo.”

“Clearly your gift for understatement has not deserted you.”

Fassin absorbed this and thought the better of replying. He assumed what he hoped looked like a tolerant smile, though when he glanced at Verpych the major-domo wasn’t looking. Verpych was a small, thin but powerful-looking man with pale creamy skin, ubiquitously stubbled, giving his head the look of having been chiselled out of sandstone. He had a square, ever-clenched jaw and a perpetual frown. His head was shaved save for a single long ponytail that extended to his waist. He gripped the long obsidian staff which was his principal badge of office as though it was a dark snake he was trying to throttle one-handed. His uniform was the black of soot, like folded night.

As Chief Seer-in-waiting Fassin was, supposedly, in a position of complete authority over Verpych. However, somehow the Sept’s most senior servant still managed to make him feel like a child who’d only just escaped being discovered doing something extremely improper. Fassin could envisage the changeover when he finally assumed the post of Chief Seer being awkward for both of them.

Verpych turned on his heel and walked straight at a large abstract mural hanging on one wall. He waved his staff at the painting as though pointing out some detail of the brushwork, and the whole painting disappeared into a slot in the floor. Verpych stepped up into a dimly lit corridor beyond. He didn’t bother to look back as Fassin followed him, just said, “Short cut.”

Fassin glanced back as the painting rose out of the slot in the floor, cutting off most of the light in the corridor, which looked bare and unfinished after the passageway that they’d just left. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a utility corridor; probably when he’d been a child, exploring with his friends.

They stopped at a lift, its door open, a chime sounding. A boy servant stood in the elevator car, holding a tray full of dirty glasses with one hand and using the other to jab at the car controls, a puzzled, frustrated expression on his face.

“Get out, you idiot,” Verpych told the boy as he strode to the lift. “It’s being held for me.”

The servant’s eyes widened. He made spluttering noises and almost dropped the tray, hurrying to quit the elevator. Verpych tapped a button on the lift controls with the end of the staff, the doors closed and the lift — a plain metal box with a scuffed floor — descended.

“Have you recovered from your unscheduled awakening, major-domo?” Fassin asked.

“Entirely,” Verpych said crisply. “Now then, Seer Taak. Assuming my comedy troupe of technicians haven’t electrocuted themselves or stared into any light cables to check that they’re working and blinded themselves, we should be ready for you to hold your conversation with whatever it is they are beaming towards us about an hour before midnight. Is nineteen o’clock convenient for you?”

Fassin thought. “Actually, the lady Jaal Tonderon and I might—”

“The answer you are searching for is ‘Yes,’ Seer Taak,” Verpych said.

Fassin frowned down at the older man. “Then in that case why did you—?”

“I was being polite.”

“Ah. Of course. That cannot come easily.”

“Quite the contrary. It is deference that one sometimes struggles with.”

“Your efforts are appreciated, I’m sure.”

“Why, I live for nothing else, young master.” Verpych smiled thinly.

Fassin held the major-domo’s gaze. “Verpych, could I be in some sort of trouble?”

The servant looked away. “I have no idea, sir.” The lift began to slow. “This emissarial projection is unprecedented in the history of Sept Bantrabal. I have talked to some other major-domos and nobody can recall such a thing. We had all thought such phenomena restricted to the Hierchon and his chums in the sys-cap. I’ve sent a message to a contact I have in the palace asking for any guidance or tips they might have. There has been no reply so far.”

The lift doors opened and they stepped out; another corridor, quite warm, cut from naked rock, curving. The major-domo looked at Fassin with what might have been concern, even sympathy. “An unprecedented event might be of a benign nature, Seer Taak.”

Fassin hoped that he looked as sceptical as he felt. “So what do I have to do?”

“Present yourself to the Audience Chamber, top floor, at nineteen. Preferably a little before.” They came to a Y-junction and a wider corridor, where red-uniformed technicians were trundling a pallet loaded with complicated-looking equipment towards a set of open double doors ahead.

“I’d like Olmey to be there,” Fassin said. Tchayan Olmey had been Fassin’s mentor and tutor in his youth, and — had she not become a pure academic in the household library, researching and teaching to the exclusion of undertaking any delves of her own — might have been the next familias and Chief Seer.

“That will not be possible,” Verpych said, ushering Fassin through the double doors into the room beyond, which was hot, crowded with more red-uniformed technicians and dished, like a small theatre. Dozens of opened cabinets displayed intricate machinery, cables hung from the tall ceiling, snaked across the floor and disappeared into ducts in the walls. The place smelled of oil, singed plastic and sweat. Verpych stood at the top and rear of the room, watching the activity, shaking his head as two techs collided, spilling cable.

“Why not?” Fassin asked. “Olmey’s here. And I rather wanted Uncle Slovius to be able to look in as well.”

“That won’t be possible either,” Verpych told Fassin. “You and you alone have to talk to this thing.”

“I have no choice in this?” Fassin asked. “Correct,” the major-domo said. “None.” He returned his attention to the milling techs. One of the senior ones had approached to within a couple of metres, waiting for an opportunity to speak.