Vipus appeared, fully plated except for his helm. He frowned in confusion at the sight of Loken's attire.

'Garvi? Where's your armour? What's going on?'

'I've an errand to run.’ Loken replied quickly, clasping on the vox-cuff. 'You have command here in my absence.’

'I do?'

'I'll return shortly.’ Loken held up the cuff, and allowed it to auto-sync channels with Vipus's vox system. Small notice lights on the cuff and the collar of Vipus's armour flashed rapidly and then glowed in unison.

'If the situation changes, if we're called forwards, vox me immediately. I'll not be derelict of my duties. But there's something I must do.’

'Like what?'

'I can't say.’ Loken said.

Nero Vipus paused and nodded. 'Just as you say, brother. I'll cover for you and alert you of any changes.’ He stood watching as his captain, hooded and hurrying, slipped away down an access tunnel and was swallowed by the shadows.

THE GAME WAS going so badly against him that Ignace Karkasy decided it was high time he got his fellow players drunk. Six of them, with a fairly disinterested crowd of onlookers, occupied a table booth at the forward end of the Retreat, under the gilded arches. Beyond them, remembrancers and off-duty soldiers, along with ship personnel relaxing between shifts, and a few iterators (one could never tell if an iterator was on duty or off) mingled in the long, crowded chamber, drinking, eating, gaming and talking. There was a busy chatter, laughter, the clink of glasses. Someone was playing a viol. The Retreat had become quite the social focus of the flagship.

Just a week or two before, a sozzled second engineer had explained to Karkasy that there had never been any

gleeful society aboard the Vengeful Spirit, nor on any other line ship in his experience. Just quiet after-shift drinking and sullen gambling schools. The remembrancers had brought their bohemian habits to the warship, and the crewmen and soldiery had been drawn to its light.

The iterators, and some senior ship officers, had clucked disapprovingly at the growing, casual conviviality, but the mingling was permitted. When Comnenus had voiced his objections to the unlicensed carousing the Vengeful Spirit was now host to, someone - and Karkasy suspected the commander himself - had reminded him that the purpose of the remembrancers was to meet and fraternise. Soldiers and Navy adepts flocked to the Retreat, hoping to find some poor poet or chronicler who would record their thoughts and experiences for posterity. Though mostly, they came to get a skinful, play cards and meet girls.

It was, in Karkasy's opinion, the finest achievement of the remembrancer programme to date: to remind the expedition warriors they were human, and to offer them some fun.

And to win rudely from them at cards.

The game was targe main, and they were playing with a pack of square-cut cards that Karkasy had once lent to Mer-sadie Oliton. There were two other remembrancers at the table, along with a junior deck officer, a sergeant-at-arms and a gunnery oberst. They were using, as bidding tokens, scurfs of gilt that someone had cheerfully scraped off one of the stateroom's golden columns. Karkasy had to admit that the remembrancers had abused their facilities terribly. Not only had the columns been half-stripped to the ironwork, the murals had been written on and painted over. Verses had been inscribed in patches of sky between the shoulders of ancient heroes, and those ancient heroes found themselves facing eternity wearing comical beards

and eye patches. In places, walls and ceilings had been whitewashed, or lined with gum-paper, and entire tracts of new composition inscribed upon them.

'I'll sit this hand out.’ Karkasy announced, and pushed back his chair, scooping up the meagre handful of scraped gilt flecks he still owned. 'I'll find us all some drinks.’

The other players murmured approval as the sergeant-at-arms dealt the next hand. The junior deck officer, his head sunk low and his eyes hooded, thumped the heels of his hands together in mock applause, his elbows on the table top, his hands fixed high above his lolling head.

Karkasy moved off through the crowd to find Zinkman. Zinkman, a sculptor, had drink, an apparently bottomless reserve of it, though where he sourced it from was anyone's guess. Someone had suggested Zinkman had a private arrangement with a crewman in climate control who distilled the stuff. Zinkman owed Karkasy at least one bottle, from an unfinished game of merci merci two nights earlier.

He asked for Zinkman at two or three tables, and also made inquiries with various groups standing about the place. The viol music had stopped for the moment, and some around were clapping as Carnegi, the composer, clambered up onto a table. Carnegi owned a half-decent baritone voice, and most nights he could be prevailed upon to sing popular opera or take requests.

Karkasy had one.

A squall of laughter burst from nearby, where a small, lively group had gathered on stools and recliners to hear a remembrancer give a reading from his latest work. In one of the wall booths formed by the once golden colonnade, Karkasy saw Ameri Sechloss carefully inscribing her latest remembrance in red ink over a wall she'd washed white with stolen hull paint. She'd

masked out an image of the Emperor triumphant at Cyclonis. Someone would complain about that. Parts of the Emperor, beloved by all, poked out from around the corners of her white splash. 'Zinkman? Anyone? Zinkman?' he asked. 'I think he's over there.’ one of the remembrancers watching Sechloss suggested.

Karkasy turned, and stood on tiptoe to peer across the press. The Retreat was crowded tonight. A figure had just walked in through the chamber's main entrance. Karkasy frowned. He didn't need to be on tiptoe to spot this newcomer. Robed and hooded, the figure towered over the rest of the crowd, by far and away the tallest person in the busy room. Not a human's build at all. The general noise level did not drop, but it was clear the newcomer was attracting attention. People were whispering, and casting sly looks in his direction.

Karkasy edged his way through the crowd, the only person in the chamber bold enough to approach the visitor. The hooded figure was standing just inside the entrance arch, scanning the crowd in search of someone.

'Captain?' Karkasy asked, coming forwards and peering up under the cowl. 'Captain Loken?'

'Karkasy.’ Loken seemed very uncomfortable.

'Were you looking for me, sir? I didn't think we were due to meet until tomorrow.’

T was... I was looking for Keeler. Is she here?'

'Here? Oh no. She doesn't come here. Please, captain, come with me. You don't want to be in here.’

'Don't I?'

T can read the discomfort in your manner, and when we meet, you never step inside the archway. Come on.’

They went back out through the arched entranceway into the cool, gloomy quiet of the corridor outside. A few people passed them by, heading into the Retreat.

'It must be important.’ Karkasy said, 'for you to set foot in there.’

'It is.’ Loken replied. He kept the hood of his robe up, and his manner remained stiff and guarded. 'I need to find Keeler.’

'She doesn't much frequent the common spaces. She's probably in her quarters.’

'Where's that?'

Той could have asked the watch officer for her billet reference.’

'I'm asking you, Ignace.’

That important, and that private.’ Karkasy remarked. Loken made no reply. Karkasy shrugged. 'Come with me and I'll show you.’

Karkasy led the captain down into the warren of the residential deck where the remembrancers were billeted. The echoing metal companionways were cold, the walls brushed steel and marked with patches of damp. This area had once been a billet for army officers but, like the Retreat, it had ceased to feel anything like the interior of a military vessel. Music echoed from some chambers, often through half-open hatches. The sound of hysterical laughter came from one room, and from another the din of a man and a woman having a ferocious quarrel. Paper notices had been pasted to the walls: slogans and verses and essays on the nature of man and war. Murals had also been daubed in places, some of them magnificent, some of them crude. There was litter on the deck, an odd shoe, an empty bottle, scraps of paper.