He turned back to the guests. Here and there a big gold egg now showed in the crowd - the Creapii ambassadors. Experience suggested that there was no risk in them. They seldom meddled in the affairs of worlds where water liquefied.

One was holding a dish of silicate-salt hors d'oeuvres in a single armoured tentacle. Occasionally it held one to the complicated airlock on its circumference. It was chatting to Joan I, who stood majestic in the black memory velvet and purple tabard of a Sadhimist Dame-Priestess in the negative aspect of Nocticula-Hecate. Lady of Night and Death, thought Korodore. It was not a tactful choice.

She smiled at the Creapii and turned to face the hidden camera, raising one hand. Korodore reached out and tipped a switch.

'How goes it?' Joan asked. Korodore watched fascinated - she had a remarkable talent for sub-vocalizing.

'He is breakfasting. We have treble-checked the food and everything else.'

'Has he shown any effects from yesterday?'

Korodore paused. 'No. While he slept I used a brain scrubber on him. I—'

'How dare you ! '

'It will keep yesterday's memories in a state of flux for a few hours. Would you prefer him to learn the truth? He would, had I not done so - even if he had to brow-beat it out of Hrsh-Hgn.'

'You should have asked me!'

Korodore sighed, and picked up a memory cube on the console. 'I'm sorry, madam, but you have a security rating now of only 99.087 per cent. I checked. Probably it's only deep Freudian impulses - but from now on I am afraid I must run this show.

'Like I said, madam, I'm not inclined to accept probability maths. You may, if you like.'

He switched off. She stood rigid for a moment, trying to contact him, then turned and began to talk brightly to a tall diplomat from the Board of Earth.

Korodore turned his attention to the main hall. Dom wasn't there. His heart stopped until he realized that the boy had also moved out of one camera's range to look at his presents.

Dom opened the first package and drew out a pair of gravity sandals, glistening under their thin coat of oil. The tag said: 'From your Godfather. Come up and orbit me some time. It gets damn lonely.'

Dom grinned and buckled them on. For a hectic few minutes he bobbed and swooped among the struts of the dome, gliding to an unsteady halt six inches above the floor. He felt that the sandals would probably be the climax - most of the other presents would be much less interesting.

From Hrsh-Hgn came a fat rectangle. Dom unwrapped a memory cube and ran his finger over the index face. The cube lit up, the title page standing out in white letters a few centimetres above the surface and revealing: The Glass Castles: A History of Joker Studies, by Dr Hrsh-Hgn. Dedicated to Chairman Dominickdaniel Sabalos of Widdershins.'

In smaller letters Dom read: 'Number One in a limited edition of one (1) imprinted on Third Eye saffron-silica.'

'A high honour, indeed,' said Isaac. Dom nodded, and thumbed the cube at random to read: '... mystery of the galaxy. As Sub-Lunar has said, to the imaginative mind they form part of galactic mythology: the Glass Castles at the back of the Galactic North Wind. These towers, built before the oldest of the official Human races had discovered the uses of stone, are memorials to a race which—'

Dom laid the cube down slowly and opened the present from Korodore.

'That looks dangerous,' said Isaac.

Dom wielded the memory sword carefully, staring up at the almost invisible blur as it changed under his touch from sword to knife, from knife to gun.

'Hm,' said Dom, 'They use swords on Earth and Terra Novae, don't they? And on Laoth, too?'

'Yes, with metal blades. They're more ceremonial and satisfying than guns. But that thing is made to kill people with. Not that I'm putting it down, boss.'

Dom grinned. 'You're mighty uppity for a robot, aren't you? In the old days you'd have been dismantled by the mob.'

'In the old days robots were considered to be non-living, chief.'

Joan's present was a simple black Sadhimist athame against the time when he should be admitted to membership of a ceremonial klatch, while from his mother he received the deeds of one of her personal estates on Earth. It was far too generous, and typical of Lady Vian on those occasions when she remembered Dom.

There were other presents from the minor directors and heads of sub-committees, most of them expensive - far too expensive to be allowed to keep, even if Joan would permit it. But Dom looked wistfully at the deeds of a robot horse, presented by Hugagan of Planetary Relations. Isaac peered over his shoulder and sneered audibly.

'Lunar manufacture,' he said, 'All right, I suppose, but not a patch on the ones we make on Laoth. They live.'

Dom glanced at him.

'I shall have to visit Laoth,' he said.

'The jewel of the universe, take it from me.'

Dom laughed and made sure that Ig had a good purchase on his shoulder. Then he thumbed the control ring and the sandals lifted him up, through the dust-laden beams that filled the dome, and out over the sea.

He spiralled low over the lagoon, where Lady Vian's little tame windshells grazed, and felt Ig scramble around his neck. He glanced backwards and saw the little animal was riding him comfortably, pointed snout sniffing the wind.

Below him he watched the shells cease their grazing and swing into a pattern so that, prow to stern, they formed a circle. Vian spent hours drumming simple tricks into their microscopic minds.

Something stirred restlessly at the back of his memory, but he dismissed it carelessly and sought altitude.

He burst through the balloon trees ringing the lawn, bursting the fruits recklessly, and braked a bare inch above the grass.

Joan I strode across the lawn to meet him, and kissed him with rather more tenderness than usual. He looked into her grey eyes.

'Well, grandson, and how do you feel this day?'

'I feel on top of the world, madam, thank you. But I must say you look rather tired.' She's acting like a cool-head, he thought - why is she so worried?

She smiled wanly. 'It is always hard when one's descendants make their way out into the world. Now you must come and meet people.'

Lady Vian had walked slowly up, her face hidden in a heavy grey veil. She extended a white hand. Dom knelt and kissed it.

'So,' she said, 'Enter the master of the world. Who is your ferrous friend?'

'Isaac, my lady,' said Dom, 'An uppity robot who doesn't want his freedom.'

'But of course,' said Vian, 'We are all of us in chains, even if they be only of chance and entropy. Have not the Jokers put even the stars in chains?'

'You have a fine grasp of essentials,' said Isaac, bowing.

'And you are presumptuous, robot. But I thank you. Dom, I wish you would donate that swamp creature to a museum or a zoo or something. It is so animal. '

Ig scratched himself and sniffed - then gave a long drawn out hiss. Dom looked over his mother's shoulder and caught the eye of a tall man in a long blue cloak, who wore a heavy gold collar at his neck. The man's face was creased with laughter lines, and he winked at Dom and gestured upward with his glass. Dom followed his gaze and saw a flock of flamingoes wheeling high over the domes. For a moment they formed a circle. Then, with long slow wingbeats, they flew out to sea.

Korodore sat back and breathed deeply. Short of poisoning the air - and a filter haze surrounded the lawn - the only way someone could attack Dom now was with bare hand or tentacle. At least, they could try, before concealed strippers separated them from their component molecules.