She knew that, if she looked at him directly, he would be gone, and so she would stalk him, sidle up on him, creep closer until she could sense him at her elbow: Tisamon the Mantis-kinden, Tisamon the Weaponsmaster, just as he had left the world: a tall figure dressed in blood, hacked and red from a dozen wounds, half flayed, swords and broken spears rammed into him where the Wasp soldiers had desperately tried to keep him away from their Emperor.

And she would stand there companionably beside him, leaning on the rail or holding firmly to a stay, and feel comforted by the riven and ruined corpse her mind had conjured up here beside her. It was almost all she had left of her father.

She was not sure what she intended once Allanbridge at last got her to her destination. The inner wounds that surrounded her motives were too painful to bear scrutiny. The one vague feeling that she huddled close to, as vital as the airship’s burner in keeping her warm and alive, was that she should say sorry, somehow, to someone. Possibly thereafter she should accomplish her own death, and she had reason to believe that, for the people she intended losing herself amongst, this was a practice that they respected, and therefore would not interfere with. Her own people were not so understanding.

My own people! she had reminded herself dismissively, when that thought occurred to her. And which people are they? I have no people.

And now Allanbridge had set down at this place with half a sky, which was indicated as ‘The Hitch’ on his maps, and that in his own practical Beetle-kinden script. People actually lived here, where there was only half a sky.

Tomorrow, Allanbridge’s airship would make that journey up, and although he anticipated a jolting passage, its physical dangers did not concern him. After all, he had made the same trip on four occasions before now.