“Something deep inside tells you that, does it?”

She glanced sharply at him, then gave a small laugh. “Yes, quite. Point taken. But we all need to have the courage of our convictions, Tem, if we’re not to be just the playthings of the powerful; hordes of falling, clicking balls batted this way and that at their whim in some vast game. And you have yet to say whether you’ll help or not. You need to choose which side you’re on.”

“Mrs M, I’m still not entirely sure what the sides are.”

She looked down towards the layer of cloud two kilometres below. “You know,” she said, “people at the top of any organisation like to think that they are, metaphorically, on the summit of a mountain in perfect visibility. They’re wrong, of course; in fact there’s mist all the way down. Organisationally, you’re lucky if you can see clearly into even just the next level down. After that it’s pure murk, as a rule.”

She left a pause, so he said, “Really?”

“Of course, with the Concern it gets even more difficult to see what’s going on.” She turned to look at him. “There are levels most of us don’t even know exist. I was on the level just beneath the Central Council. If I’d kept my nose clean I’d probably be there now; certainly in a decade or so, assuming that one of the hold-outs sticks to their guns and dies rather than keeps going on for ever. You’re a level down for that, Tem, fast-tracked for success but, I’d guess – ” her eyes narrowed again and her head tipped “ – not knowing it. Would that be right?”

“I thought you had to do a lot of committee work and politicking back on Calbefraques. I enjoy working in the field too much. Also, it has been noticed amongst the lower orders that the turnover in the Central Council has slowed down a lot over the last fifty years or so.”

“All the same, you’re one of the potential chosen ones.”

“I’m flattered. Is that why you’re trying to recruit me?”

“Not directly. They must see something in you. I do too, though perhaps not exactly the same things. I see a potential in you that I don’t think they know is there. And I think you might choose the right side.”

“So do they, I suppose. But this brings us back to the issue of sides. You were about to explain just what they were, I think. I did ask you to.”

She moved closer to him, placed one snow-soft white mitten on his. “The Central Council has become obsessed with power before and beyond anything else. The means has become the end. If they are not opposed they will turn l’Expédience into something that exists only for its own aggrandisement and the pursuance of whatever secret purposes the individuals on it choose to dream up. I think that is unarguable. Plus I believe that – at the behest of Madame d’Ortolan – there is something else, some already hidden agenda they’re working to – the uniqueness of human intelligent life and the singular nature of Calbefraques itself may well point to the nature of that secret – but I never got close enough to the centre of power to find out.”

“What, and I am supposed to?”

“No. It’ll take too long for you to be elevated to the Council, if you ever are. It’ll be too late by then.”

“Too late?”

“Too late because soon Madame d’Ortolan will have the Council exactly as she wants it; full of people who think just as she does and who will do everything she wants them to do, and who will never die, because they will keep repotting themselves into younger bodies as their older ones approach senescence.”

“So what do you propose, Mrs Mulverhill?”

Her smile looked defensive. “Ultimately, that the Central Council either ceases to exist or is severely reined in and radically reconstituted. Certainly that it is subject to some sort of democratic oversight. They can even keep their serial immortality, as long as they resign in perpetuity from the Council itself. Long life for long service. An incentive to serve but not to entrench.”

“All the same, you’re asking a lot of them.”

“I know. I don’t see them giving up what they have at present without a fight.”

“And is the other side just you and your bandit gang?”

“Oh, there are plenty of people who feel the same way, including a few people on the Central Council itself.”

“Like who?”

That smile again. A little wary, this time. “First tell me if you’ve betrayed me, Tem,” she said softly. She lowered her head a fraction as she gazed up at him.

“Betrayed?” he said.

“We’ve talked before. I’m an outlaw. If you were playing by the book you ought to have reported our meetings.”

“I did,” he said. “Is that betrayal?”

“Not by itself. What else, though? What did they suggest you do?”

“Keep meeting you, keep talking to you.”

“Which you have done.”

“Which I have done.”

“And reporting back.”

“Which I have also done.”

“Fully?”

“Not quite fully.”

“And have you agreed to help catch me?”

“No.”

“But have you refused ever to help catch me?”

“No. They did ask. I told them that of course I’d do what was right.”

She smiled. “And do you yet know what is right?”

He took a long deep breath of the pure gas and the stunningly cold air. “I think I would find it very hard to help them catch you.”

She looked pleased and amused at once. “Is that gallantry, Tem?”

“Perhaps. I’m not entirely sure myself.”

“Sexual sentimentality, is what Madame d’Ortolan would call it.”

“Would she now?”

“She is a very unsentimental woman. Well, apart from her cats, maybe.” Mrs Mulverhill was silent for a moment, then said, “Do you think they’re using you to try and catch me even without your consent?”

“I’m sure they are. I’ve always assumed that when we meet you’ve taken care of that.”

“I do what I can.” She shrugged. “I think I’m still ahead of them.”

“You think they’re in hot pursuit?”

She nodded. “Theodora keeps at least two tracking teams on the lookout for me at all times. And she has her special projects, her wild cards, randomisers whom she’s tormented and bent until they form specialist tools for seeking out people like me. She thinks they might be able to work some magic and both find me and then disable me when I’m traced. I suppose I ought to feel flattered to be the object of such obsessive attention.”

She looked away at the startlingly bright point of the rising sun. The surrounding peaks shone a bright yellow-white now, the level of illumination dropping down their snow and rock flanks as the sun continued to rise, casting jagged shadows across the steeply sloped snowfields and glacier heads. Just in that moment he thought she looked small and vulnerable and hunted, even afraid. The urge to reach out and take her in his arms, to shelter and protect and reassure her was very strong, and surprising. He wondered for a moment how much of this was deliberate, if he was being manipulated, and in that hesitation the moment passed and she turned back to him, smiling, raising her face. “You need to take care, Tem,” she told him. “You can only postpone making up your mind for so long. Perhaps no further, after this. You can seem to cooperate with them and listen to me for now, but sooner or later they’ll insist you do something that settles it. You’ll need to decide.”

“I thought you were trying to get me to decide.”

“I am. But I’m not threatening you.”

“They’re not threatening me.”

“Not yet. They will. Unless you take the hints that will be put before you, if they haven’t been already, and obviate the need for explicit threats.” She looked down towards the ruffled blanket of cloud far below, still in shadow. “The Central Council prefers implied threats, the threat of threats. It’s more effective, leaving so much to the individual imagination.”

“You’re not going to tell me who the people on the Central Council are, are you? The ones who might think the way you do.”