He glanced at Hester. “We do have room for a passenger, Het. And we could use the money…”

Hester scowled.

“Oh, money is no object,” promised Pennyroyal, pulling out a plump purse and jangling it. “Let’s say, five sovereigns now and five more when we dock at Brighton? It’s not as sweet a deal as Piotr Masgard would offer you for betraying some poor city, but it’s pretty good, and you will be doing a great service to literature.”

Hester stared at a coil of hawser on the quay. She knew she had lost. This too-friendly stranger knew just how to appeal to Tom, and even she had to admit that ten sovereigns would come in handy. She made one last effort to fend off the inevitable, booting Pennyroyal’s pack and asking, “What’s in your baggage? We don’t carry Old-Tech. Seen a bit too much of what it can do.”

“Heavens,” cried Pennyroyal, “I couldn’t agree more! I may be Alternative, but I’m not an idiot. I, too, have seen what happens to people who spend their lives digging up old machines. They end up poisoned by weird radiation or blown up by malfunctioning widgets. No, all I carry is a change of undies and a few thousand pages of notes and drawings for my new book, Fire Mountains — Natural Phenomenon or Ancient Blunder? ”

Hester kicked the pack again. It fell slowly over on to its side, but it didn’t let out any metallic noises to suggest that Pennyroyal was lying. She looked down at her feet, then down again, through the perforated deckplates of Airhaven to the earth, where a town was creeping slowly westward, dragging its long shadow behind it. Oh well, she thought. The Middle Sea would be warm and blue, a far cry from these dismal Barrens, and it should only take a week to get there. Surely she could bear to share Tom with Professor Pennyroyal for a week? She would have him to herself for the rest of their lives.