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Moud, call Miranda Seeward.

Yes, Godhead.

When Miranda answered he climbed from his bed and returned to his living space. ‘Good day, Miranda.’

‘Indeed it must be, Tekton,’ she said wryly, ‘since you forgot to dress.’

He glanced down at his naked body and then back at his muse. ‘Come now. Don’t pretend to be shocked.’

‘Shocked, pah! Now, what disturbs you enough to call me stark naked? Something that obviously cannot wait until tonight.’

Tonight?

The tyros’ weekly meeting, his moud reminded him.

Ah, yes . . . Now, how to say this so that she won’t be too curious? ‘I am concerned for Labile Connit. I spoke with him this morning and he seems beset by melancholy. Perhaps there is some way we could cheer him up. A surprise visit from his family, perhaps.’

Miranda’s mouth dropped open, sending her chins into an outrageous wobble. ‘Tekton, how thoughtful! I had noticed the same thing. You know, you really are a treasure under that brittle self-serving exterior.’ She leaned closer to the screen. ‘And I should know.’ She winked. ‘I have the fondest memories of our tryst on Scolar.’

Tekton felt his akula swamping his objectivity. Miranda seemed able to arouse him with the merest hint of her over-abundant pheromones. He made an effort to repress the rush. ‘As do I, my dear. But it is Labile we should be thinking of at this moment

She frowned at having the conversation deflected from one of her favourite topics. ‘Well, though your intentions are noble I think we would have little joy locating his kin. It is rumoured that he was incubated at an illegal birth-station.’

‘Then he has no family?’

‘Not a jot.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh?’

‘Then we must think of something else,’ said Tekton.

Miranda gave him a sceptical look. ‘I will put some thought into it. We can discuss it this evening.’

‘I shall look forward to it.’ Tekton ended the call and sat at his viewer for several moments, thinking of his conversation with Labile.

Moud, tell me what you can about Labile Connit’s origins.

Godhead, Connit has a privacy lock on his biographical information.

Isn’t there another way to access it?

No, Godhead.

If the moud had been corporeal Tekton would have kicked it. Really, it was next to useless.

He returned to his bed and resumed his darkened thinking. Geneers, he mused, were linear thinkers by and large. Moud, search biographical details of Labile Connit’s genetic parents.

Tekton was rewarded with silence while it did as he bid, and he felt a little surge of triumph. Connit had placed a privacy screen on questions about himself. He had not thought to protect himself from a sideways query.

There is no record of such humanesques.

Was Miranda correct, then? Had Labile been incubated illegally? He sat up again and this time he dressed with purpose.

Moud, call me a taxi and then hibernate.

Yes, Godhead.

Tekton put on a comfortable day robe, moisturised his smooth skull and sat down to wait for the taxi. It looked like he would have to find out the old-fashioned way what he wanted to know.

THALES

Politic detention was in a grand Renaissance Redux building adorned with gold-impregnated pilasters and movement-activated uuli hums, and took up an entire block along Gorgias Boulevard. Each detainee—so Thales’s guard informed him—was afforded a sleeping room and an antechamber with a desk and an aspect cube.

Though the surroundings were eminently comfortable, Thales felt the infringement of his liberty as painfully as a fresh scalding. Worse, when he realised that he would have to share his confinement.

As the Brown Robe thrust Thales to the floor and slammed the door, his room companion regarded him with interest.

‘You have trodden on someone’s toes. In fact, I would surmise, their fingers as well,’ the man said.

Thales scowled and climbed to his feet. ‘This is shameful. What sort of city is this where one cannot disagree with one’s wife without being jailed?’ He pounded on the door and continued pounding until his knuckles bled and his voice became hoarse.