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‘It’s been getting quite fashionable recently,’ Janis interjected.

‘OK, interesting. Anyway, I remember this lady noticing that Cat wasn’t included in the deal over the crank bomb team. She might have followed it up.’

‘That’s possible,’ Jordan said. ‘But why should Cat go there?’

Mary shook her head. Moh shrugged.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ said Janis. They all looked at her. ‘Cat had just been thoroughly shafted in this game of soldiers. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if she wanted out, wanted at least a bit of peace and quiet. Even if it did mean having to sit and stitch. In fact, especially. Soothes the mind.’ She rolled over and laughed. ‘Try it sometime, guys and gals.’

‘Sanctuary,’ Moh said. ‘OK. That makes sense, I guess. Just as well you noticed the message.’

‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Jordan said carefully. ‘It wasn’t the search for Cat that brought it up, it was the…Beulah City follow-up.’

‘But why—?’

Moh was about to ask why the ANR should have any connection with this Women’s Peace Community when he remembered that Mary wasn’t in on the whole story. ‘Uh, what’ll we do, call them back?’

‘I already have,’ Mary said. ‘Didn’t say anything about you, just said we’d send someone over today.’

Moh turned to Janis. ‘You game for this?’

‘Sure. Should get Donovan off our backs, at least.’

‘At least,’ Moh agreed. And maybe lead us to the ANR as well. ‘I’m thinking about how we’ll get there,’ he added. ‘Mass-transit might take us out of our insurance cover.’

‘That’s all OK,’ Jordan said. ‘I’ve set it up. They’re taking a delivery of silk from Beulah City –’ Jordan paused, as if to make sure Moh had got that point. ‘But it’s in a place that no driver from Beulah City would go.’

‘Not one of those terrible places, is it?’ Janis asked.

‘Oh, no,’ Jordan said.

Mary smiled impishly. ‘It’s a small semi-closed neighbourhood in the Stonewall Dykes,’ she explained.

‘I see,’ Moh said after a moment. ‘Major fire-and-brimstone target area. So how do we get there?’

‘The truck comes out of Beulah City, goes to a pick-up point where it’s handed over – Mary’s got the map – and you drive it the rest of the way. It’s all in the name of a dummy company I’ve created.’

‘Sounds safe enough,’ Moh said. He had a thought. ‘Not a women-only area, is it?’

Jordan turned to Mary with a baffled gesture.

‘It’s OK,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve checked. They have no objection to men. In their place.’

‘This community is sounding more sensible all the time,’ Janis remarked, running a possessive hand down Moh’s back. He turned and grinned at her.

‘Hey, I’m quite used to being dominated by women.’

‘You should be so lucky,’ Mary said. ‘Right, here’s the details. Jordan’s made all the arrangements.’ She did something out of view, and streets and times appeared on the phone screen.

‘And get up, you two,’ she added, just before she and Jordan vanished. ‘It’s a fine afternoon.’

There wasn’t room to stand up in the double bed-cell they’d rented, so it took them a while. They had to get their clothes on, lie face-down and slither under their packs, then crawl backwards out of the hatch and down a ten-metre ladder to the ground.

‘Weird,’ Janis said as they walked out along narrow passages between banks of bed-cells. ‘Like left luggage.’

‘Left passengers.’

Little Japan hit them like a rock concert as they stepped out of the door. They took the slidewalk, changing tracks frequently, swaying in the crowds. Moh found he was half-consciously generating a running mutter of body-language that created a small space around them, whatever the crush. He gave up trying to process the incoming information, the solid-state semiotics of the place.

‘Doesn’t feel oppressive,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s so strange.’

‘Something in the food,’ Janis said. ‘Inhibits the anti-crowding pheromones.’

It bothered him that he couldn’t tell if she were making it up.

The trailer park, in an indeterminate zone between Little Japan and one of the more multi-cultural areas, felt like open space. There was an average