'He's spent a little time with Ways. I think it's likely that he's been booby-trapped,' said Dom. 'I wouldn't worry too much.'

'You think you're invulnerable. Don't bank on it,' said Joan. She glared at Ig.

The Emperor rose slowly to his feet and rang a small black bell. The diners began to leave the table. Dom saw Sub-Lunar and his serving man disappear into the crowd.

'What happens now?' he asked. 'I understand everyone's waiting for me to make a move.'

'Are you going to discover Jokers World?'

Most of the diners had left. The Emperor bowed to them and left them seated. Across the room Hrsh-Hgn and Isaac chatted to Tarli.

'I think so,' said Dom. 'I'm getting the . . . the sort of outline of it already. It's not a planet. I mean, it may be a planet but... well, Widdershins is a planet, with an orbit, a hydrosphere and a magnetic field and so on, but Widdershins is also a world and a culture.'

'I see,' said Joan, 'I wonder where it could be?'

'I've got five days, less now, so that rules out most places outside the life-bubble. I think...' Dom stopped. 'You are pumping me'

'For the sake of Widdershins. I don't want you to find Jokers World and lose it to a mob. You don't care about politics. I tell you, used properly this could be the making of the Sabalos family.'

'You mean that seriously?'

'I do.' She rose. 'We'll talk about this later. Are you coming to see the Masque?'

'You must!' said Tarli, hurrying round the table. 'It's a special production. Sub-Lunar wrote it on the ship coming here. Father likes a little entertainment after dinner.'

Dom thought it was mildly entertaining. It was a skit on current Earth-Outer Worlds politics, which were always good for a laugh, written in early Greek style. All the characters wore larger-than-life masks, spangled with jewels. The chorus was robotic.

Then it nailed Dom to his seat.

The chief protagonist was a goat-legged Chairman Pan, complete with horn and.syrynx. It happened after the bit of business with the First Sirian Bank, a bloated silver globe on spindly legs.

The Bank said: 'do you think, then, that man can PREVENT HIMSELF BEING OUSTED BY ROBOTS?'

Pan capered across the stage: 'Certainly. What robot could do my job? They can only go down to Class Ones, you know.'

Chorus: 'Brekekekex, co-ax, co-axial!'

Pan: 'But list! Who is this weary traveller?'

Another actor lurched on to the stage. He was a bright, vivid green. He was staggering under the combined weight of a pair of winged sandals that left a trail of feathers, a large sword made of rubber, a giant bottle of water and, on one emerald shoulder, a taxidermist's nightmare of glass eyeballs, feathers, tufts of hair and badly-assorted claws.

Pan: 'Good grief!' What are you doing with that strange, ill-assorted creature?'

Traveller: 'It's not a strange creature, it's my pet.'

Pan: 'I was talking to your pet. What do you seek, traveller? Get on with it so we can continue with this sketch.'

The traveller peered myopically around the stage and then glared at the audience.

'I'm looking for a world of Jokers,' he muttered.

Pan said: 'Try Earth. They are quite good-humoured on Terra Novae, too. Oh, those Jokers. Be off with you! They don't exist - do they?'

'Yes and no. That is, no and yes.'

Bank: ' everyone knows they have moved to the UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR— '

Pan: '—so why not look on the dark side of the sun?'

Traveller: 'Gosh, yes! The dark side of the sun, you say? I'll go there directly.' He shuffled off.

Dom woke next morning in a bedroom almost oppressive in its wealth, washed in a gold bowl and strolled down to the dining hall. He was late for breakfast. Most of the night had been spent in a fruitless discussion with Joan. There had been a row when Ig was taken to a laboratory and probed for every conceivable weapon, to the little animal's distress. Nothing was found, but Ig, coiled across Dom's shoulders, was strangely silent today.

Sub-Lunar had left after the Masque, after taking an urgent call from Earth.

Down in the hall a floating sideboard had been laid out with large dishes under covers. Dom padded silently over the carpet, experimentally lifting lids. One covered a dish of smoked red fish, another the considerable wreckage of a boar's head. A third was just fruit. Being a Widdershine, he settled at last for the fish, and sat down at one end of the empty table. Out of interest he lifted the lid of a large tureen, and slammed it down hurriedly; the Emperor had been entertaining drosk guests.

A few minutes later a small door across the hall opened and a girl tiptoed in. She was small, and dark like Tarli. Dom g r inned. She blushed, and sidled along the sideboard with her eyes fixed on him.

She piled a small dish with little fish and sat down at the opposite side of the table. Dom stared at her. In the morning light she seemed to glow. It was uncanny. The glow followed her, so that when she moved an arm she left a faint, golden ghost in the air. An electro-physical effect, but still impressive.

They ate in silence, broken only by the hum of a large, antique Standard clock.

Finally he steeled himself. 'Can you speak Janglic? Linaka Comerks diwac? How about drosk? - upaquaduc, uh, lapidiquac nunquackuqc quipaduckua-dicquakak?'

She poured herself a tiny cup of coffee and smiled at him. Dom groaned inwardly. Drosk was bad enough, but he could handle it. He prepared his epiglottis and sinuses for the supreme test.

'Ffnbasshs sFFshs - frs Sfghn Gss?'

Her second smile struck him as unnecessarily prim. She clapped her hands. A moment later he felt a presence by his elbow.

A giant was standing behind his chair. A pair of eye-slits surveyed him dispassionately from a small head atop a body as broad as it was high, which was almost two metres. It wore a jerkin of leather, covered with familiar angular designs in red and blue. A variety of hand weapons were stuck into the belt. It was a drosk - an old one - so of course it was a female. If there had been any males in the place they were probably in her deep-freeze right now.

The girl sang a glissando of bell-like note. The red eyes blinked.

'Empress say what you say?'

'I was just trying to be sociable,' said Dom. 'Who are you?'

The giant held a brief interchange with the girl, and said, 'I her bodyguard and lady-of-the-bedchamber.'

'That must be economical.'

'Lady Sharli say you come for a ride?'

Without waiting for his answer the drosk lifted him out of his chair with one hand. Ig woke up and bared his teeth, then whined as the giant picked him up gently in another great paw and crooned to him. The swamp ig blinked, then ran up one iron-muscled arm and perched on the drosk's head.

Sharli was already walking across the broad patio outside the hall. She looked sympathetically at Dom as he was dumped at her feet like a parcel, and stamped her foot - to Dom's amazement, for even his mother had never resorted to that in her expert tantrums - and waved one tiny finger at the giant, who bowed to her. She helped Dom to his feet.

A robot was standing holding the reins of two creatures. Dom hadn't seen horses before, except the pair that had been regretfully sent back on his birthday. But these were Laothian horses. Therefore they were robots.

Sharli was helped on to one with a coat of anodized aluminium. The reins were some woven metal, hung with jewels and bells.

Dom's mount was copper-coloured. As he climbed into the control saddle it turned and looked at him through multi-faceted eyes, and said: 'Can you ride, buster?'

'I don't know, I've never tried.'

'Okay, then let me do the work, huh?' said the horse, pawing the ground.