She almost smiled; it really was like talking to a five-year-old savant. “The world orbits its star at a constant rate. How many times will it have gone around by the time we arrive?” Then all she had to worry about was if the Skylord even had a concept of numbers; after all, why would a spaceborne creature need to develop math?

“The world you seek will have gone around its star thirty-seven times by the time we arrive there.”

Crap! And a Querencia year is a lot longer than an Earth year. Don’t their months last for something like forty days? “I understand. Thank you.”

“Will others of your kind come into the universe soon?”

“The one your kindred spoke to, the one who asked you to let me in; she will lead them here. Listen for her.”

“All of my kindred do.”

That sent a slight chill down Justine’s spine. “I would like to sleep for the rest of the flight.”

“As you wish.”

“If anything happens, I will waken.”

“What will happen?”

“I don’t know. But if anything changes, I will be awake to talk to you about it.”

“Change in this universe is finding fulfillment. If you are asleep, you will not reach fulfillment.”

“I see. Thank you.”

She spent a further half day getting ready, checking various systems, loading in a whole series of instructions about what constituted a reason for the smartcore to bring her back out of suspension. In the end she acknowledged she was just killing time. The last thing she did as she got undressed was shut down the confluence nest, ensuring that there would be no more of her amplified dreams leaking out to warp reality with such unexpected consequences. That brought back the one thought she’d been trying to avoid. Her mind lingered on the Kazimir she’d abandoned on the slopes of the ersatz Mount Herculaneum. All that was left of him now was a pattern in the Void’s memory layer. It wasn’t fair to have lived for such a short time only to be unmade.

I will make you real again, Justine promised her poignant recollection of him. She lay down in the medical cabinet and activated the suspension function.

HUNGER AND A NAGGING pain woke Araminta. At first she was woefully drowsy as she lay on the motel bed. Bright daylight was shining around the window blinds, warming the still air. Her stiff muscles protested as she tried to shuffle herself to a sitting position. Every part of her ached. Her feet throbbed. When she pulled the duvet aside to look at them, she actually winced at the sight.

“Oh, Ozzie.”

Well! It was no good just lying about feeling sorry for herself; the first thing was to get her feet cleaned up a bit. She eased her legs over the side of the bed and slowly stripped off her filthy clothes. Without doubt, they were ruined; she’d have to get rid of them.

The room had a cybersphere node beside the bed so old that it was probably the one installed as soon as the drycoral had finished growing into shape. Araminta started tapping away on its small keyboard, using the new account she’d opened at the Spanish Crepes office. Miledeep Water didn’t have a touchdown mall, but Stoneline Street at its center had a plethora of small stores that sold everything she needed. One by one she accessed their semisentient management programs and placed her orders, adding the items to the delivery service she’d hired.

She ran the bathwater at just below body temperature, then sat on the side and gingerly eased her feet in. The water soaked away the worst of the dirt and dried blood, leaving them looking slightly improved. She was letting them dry when there was a knock on the door. Thankfully, the motel supplied toweling robes. She’d assumed the delivery service would be a courier case floating along on regrav, all nice and impersonal. Instead, once she’d hobbled over to the door, a young teenage girl called Janice was waiting outside, wearing a cap with the delivery company’s logo and carrying a couple of large shoulder bags.

Araminta was thankful her hair was still all messed up and the threadbare robe was a ridiculous white and red stripe. Even if the girl knew all about the Second Dreamer, she’d never recognize her in this state.

“I think Ranto was pulling into the park out front,” Janice said as she handed the bags over to Araminta.

“Ranto?”

“You ordered takeaway from Smoky James? He runs delivery for them.”

“Ah. Yes. Right.” Araminta couldn’t work out if Janice was angling for a tip. It said a lot about Miledeep Water’s economy that they used people instead of bots for a service like this. In any case, Araminta could remember how only half a year ago she depended on the tips at Nik’s, so she produced the cash coin, which was obviously the right thing to do as Janice smiled in gratitude.

Ranto appeared before the door was even shut, handing over the five thermplastic boxes of food from Smoky James. That immediately kicked up a dilemma. Araminta was desperate to use some of the medical kit she’d bought, but the smell wafting out of the food boxes was too much for her stomach; she could actually hear it churning. She sat back on the bed and kept her feet off the floor as she started to open the boxes. There were pancakes in berry syrup and cream, followed by an all-day breakfast of smoked bacon, local chulfy eggs scrambled, hash browns, baked galow, and fried mushrooms; the drinks box had iced orange juice and a liter flask of English breakfast tea, and she finished with toasted muffins. By the time she’d finished eating, her feet didn’t seem to be aching quite so badly as before. Nonetheless, she applied the antiseptic cleaner, wincing at how much it stung, then sprayed both feet with artificial skin, sealing in the abused flesh. When she finished, she just curled up on the mattress where she was and went straight back to sleep.

It was dark when she woke, leaving her slightly disoriented. Something somewhere wasn’t quite right, and her subconscious was worrying away at it. She didn’t think it was another dream connection to the Skylord; at least she couldn’t remember having one during the last sleep. But on the plus side, she didn’t feel remotely hungry anymore. Time to think about me.

The bath had spar nozzles that didn’t work. Even so, she let it fill to the brim and poured in the scented soaps she’d bought. While it was running, she went back to the cybersphere node and laboriously typed in a request for information on Oscar Monroe. The antiquated search software pulled a list of references out of the unisphere; there were eight and a half million of them. The search hadn’t gone into deep cache databases.

“Great Ozzie,” she muttered, acknowledging just how much she missed her u-shadow, which would have sorted the information down to something useful in half a second. Another minute typing in new parameters and she’d filtered the list down to biographical details verified to the Commonwealth general academic standard-always a good starting point. That took it down to one point two million.

By then the bath was full. She got in and wallowed in the bubbles as the dirt slowly soaked off. Reading up on Oscar would have to wait a while, but at least she knew he had to be important. He hadn’t been lying about that. When she got out, she felt a whole lot better.

Araminta tipped the remaining contents of the bags onto the bed and started examining the clothes. Most of them had come from a camping store, which had provided her with practical hiking boots that came halfway up her shins. When she tried them on, they were impressively comfortable. The dark brown jeans were tough and waterproof, which raised some interesting questions given that she was on a desert continent. She shrugged into a simple black singlet, then put a loose burgundy T-shirt on top of that. A navy-blue fleece was similar to the one she’d brought with her, except this one was waterproof and the semiorganic fibers were temperature-regulated. She needed that function; even after sunset Miledeep Water’s climate was still baking from the desert air gusting over the ridge. All the other accessories-the knapsack, the water bottle (complete with manual filter pump), solar-store cooker, multipurpose blade, micro tent, gloves, thermal-regulated body stocking, hygiene pack, first-aid kit-meant she could now walk wherever and whenever she wanted. The notion made her smile grimly at the collection. Buying the gear had been instinctive. She knew Miledeep Water was only ever going to be a way station, though Chobamba itself might turn out to be a possibility.