'I used to know a smuggler who had one of those,' Korodore went on. 'There are one or two odd legends about them. I expect you know, of course. I guess it's okay to bring it in.'

The communicator darkened. The robot stood aside.

Dom skirted the main living quarters. There was an uproar coming from the kitchens where preparations were being made for tomorrow's banquet. He slipped in quietly, snatched a plate of kelp entrees from the table nearest the door, and ducked back into the corridor. A phnobic curse-word followed him, but that was all, and he wandered on down to the corridor until it petered out in a maze of storerooms and pantries.

A small courtyard had been roofed over with smoked plastic that made if gloomy even under a See-Why noon, and the plastic itself was set with thin pipes that sprayed a constant fine mist.

In the middle of the yard a rath had been built of reeds. An attempt to grow fungi had been made on the patch of ground surrounding it. Dom pulled aside the drenched door-curtain and stooped inside.

Hrsh-Hgn was sitting in a shallow bath of tepid water, reading a cube by the light of a fish-oil lamp. He waved one double-jointed hand at Dom and swivelled one eye towards him.

'Glad you're here. Lissten to thiss: "A rock outcrop twenty kilometres south of Rampa, Third Eye, appearss to reveal fossil strata relating not to the passt but to the future, which..." '

The phnobe stopped reading and carefully placed the cube on the floor. He looked first at Dom's expression, then at the scar, and finally at the ig which was still twined round his neck.

'You're acting,' said Dom. 'You are doing it very well, but you are acting. You're certainly acting better than Korodore and the men on the jetty.