“The Dreaming Sisters,” says a strange male voice.

The colors fade, leaving an imprint on Aiah’s vision, which glows for a few seconds like the afterburn of a photographer’s flash.

She turns to see who was speaking, her tongue poised to ask more questions; but it’s a businessman, sallow and sleek, and from the glint of his eye she can tell he’d like nothing more than a frolic with a strange woman, so she merely nods, then takes her bag indoors.

The hotel is an ancient place that has seen better days. Prostitutes cruise the lobby, either shockingly young or shockingly aged. Ribbed plastic sheeting protects old, broken tiles that were once bright with abstract designs dating from the old Geoform movement. Aiah’s room has a lovely plastered ceiling with a life-size figure of the immortal Khomak brandishing his assault rifle overhead and riding that fabulous animal, the sea horse… but from the sea horse hangs a wire, and on the end of the wire is a naked bulb. The bed has a cheap steel frame and the bedsprings squeak. There is no other furniture. Over the sink hangs a sign: Hot Water Available 05:00-07:00.

It’s 10:31, according to Aiah’s watch. She guesses she’s missed her bath for the day.

There is a communications jack but no telephone. Aiah finds she can rent one by the hour and does so. It’s an unusual piece, with a pair of heavy brass earphones and a trumpet-shaped mouthpiece braced up in front of her face by a butter-smooth brass prop in the shape of a human arm.

Constantine, she knows, is Minister of Resources in the new government. She calls the ministry in Government Harbor, but all they will do is take a message, so she phones the Aerial Palace and asks to be connected to his suite. She can’t even get anyone who will promise to take a message to him.