Pennyroyal was a name that rang a bell with Tom, although he could not think why. He was sure he’d heard it mentioned in a lecture, back in his days as an Apprentice Historian — but what Pennyroyal had done, or said, to make him worth lecturing about, he did not recall; he had spent too much time daydreaming to pay much attention to his teachers.

“We don’t carry passengers,” said Hester firmly. “We’re bound for the south, and we travel alone.”

“The south would be just fine and dandy!” beamed Pennyroyal. “My home city is the raft resort of Brighton, and it is cruising in the Middle Sea this autumn. I am eager to be home quickly, Miss Shaw. My publishers, Fewmet and Spraint, are desperate to have a new book from me by Moon Festival, and I need the peace and quiet of my own study to begin working up my notes.”

As he spoke, he glanced quickly over his shoulder, scanning the faces of the people on the docking ring. He was sweating slightly, and Hester thought he looked not so much eager to be home as downright shifty. But Tom was hooked. “You are a writer, Mr Pennyroyal?”

“ Professor Pennyroyal,” beamed the man, correcting him very kindly. “I am an Explorer, Adventurer and Alternative Historian. Maybe you’ve come across my works: Lost Cities of the Sands, perhaps, or America the Beautiful — the Truth about the Dead Continent…”

Now Tom remembered where he had heard that name before. Chudleigh Pomeroy had once mentioned Nimrod B. Pennyroyal in a lecture about Recent Trends in History. Pennyroyal (the old Historian had said) had no respect for true historical research at all. His daring expeditions were mere stunts, and he filled his books with wild theories and lurid tales of romance and adventure. Tom was rather fond of wild theories and lurid tales, and he had looked for Pennyroyal’s works in the Museum Library afterwards, but the stuffy Guild of Historians had refused to allow them shelf-space there, so he never did find out where Pennyroyal’s expeditions had taken him.