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‘Where’s Logan now? Back in space?’

‘Yeah, he got off Earth again, but he was blacklisted to the Moon and back. I lost touch with him after a few jumps. The only person who might know where he is is Bernstein.’

‘Who’s Bernstein?’

Moh looked surprised. ‘Everybody knows Bernstein.’

‘I don’t. Is he on the net?’

Moh laughed. ‘No, the old bastard’s done too much time on semiotics charges for that. He’s a hard-copy man, is Bernstein.’

Janis decided to let that lie.

‘All right, so what do we do now?’

‘Well, I’m expecting to find a few people down at the local pub who might know more about what’s going on. Check out a few things with them, maybe get some leads. After that we can stay here overnight, look up Bernstein in the morning, then hit the road.’

‘The road to where?’

Moh grinned at her. ‘Ah, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Let’s discuss it in the pub.’

‘Now you’re talking.’ The desire to relax in a sociable civilian place, to let a little alcohol smooth over the rough day, came into her like a thirst. Her mouth felt dry. ‘Where can I crash out afterwards?’

‘My room’s free,’ Moh said. There was no insinuation in his tone.

‘And what about you?’

‘I’ll find a place.’

It could mean anything. She gave him a speculative smile. ‘Do you ever sleep?’

‘I took a tab.’

‘Oh yeah. You didn’t score it at that disco, did you? Off a blonde girl?’

She could see his eyes widen. ‘How the fuck did you know?’

‘“Wakesh you up jusht like zhat”,’ she mimicked derisively. ‘Well, let me tell you, in another four hours you’re gonna fall asleep jusht like zhat.’

They lugged her bag upstairs. Moh’s room was on the second floor at the back of the house. It was bigger than she’d expected, with a double bed, a large wardrobe. Lots of old political posters, a metre-wide video screen.

‘I need a shower,’ Moh said, ‘and all my stuff’s here—’ He sounded almost apologetic.

‘Get on with it, idiot.’

She idly flicked through Moh’s collection of diskettes while he disappeared into the adjoining shower room. One box was labelled ‘CLASSICS’, and the worn sleeves suggested the films had been watched many times: El Cid, Battle of Algiers, 2001, Z, Life of Brian…She smiled.

He had few books, but racks and stacks of political pamphlets: she found a copy of The Earth is a Harsh Mistress, the original manifesto of the space movement, glossy with old holograms; The Secret Life of Computers, which had the same scriptural status for the AI-Abolitionists; a neo-Stalinist tract called Did Sixty Million Really Die?; she turned over the brittle pages of a pamphlet published a century ago in New York, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International – it was subtitled The Transitional Program. Weird, she thought. Did they have computers back then?

She glanced over the first couple of pages: ‘Mankind’s productive forces stagnate. Already, new inventions and improvements fail to raise the level of material wealth.’ Oh, so they did have computers. ‘Without a socialist revolution, in the next historical period at that, a catastrophe threatens the whole culture of mankind.’ She didn’t get it; she had what she knew was a commonplace notion that communists were basically OK, always banging on about markets and democracy and sensible stuff like that, whereas anything to do with socialism was a catastrophe that threatened the entire culture of mankind. It was something she’d have to sort out sometime. Not now. She put the pamphlet back.

Among the posters was a black-and-white photograph of a strikingly pretty young woman in overalls, looking up apparently from repairing an internal-combustion engine; she was caught with eyes widening, a smile just starting, pushing her hair back with the wrist of an oily hand.

She guessed this must be Cat.

Moh emerged wearing a collarless shirt, black leather trews and waistcoat. She didn’t give him time to leave again while she rummaged through her own costly bales, asking him trivial questions about the household while taking