Korodore strolled silently along the empty corridor, which was lit faintly by the first glow of dawn.

He was thick-set and, as a sly gesture, heredity had given him a round cheerful face so that he looked like an amiable pork-butcher. But there were advantages to that, and no butcher - certainly not of pork - walked by instinct from shadow to shadow.

A door opened soundlessly and he turned along a short side corridor and into a large round room.

A peat fire was collapsing soundlessly into a pile of white ash in the central hearth. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished: a narrow bed, a table and chair made of sections of dagon shell, a wardrobe and a Sadhimist logo on sheet copper on one curving wall comprised its main geographical points.

There were one or two signs of Directorship, a large rolled map of the equatorial regions, an open filing cabinet, and a Galactic Standard clock on top of it.

But it was the trappings of probability math that clashed heavily with the strict simplicity of the room. Korodore's eye followed a trail of Reformed Tarot cards across the room to where the bulk of the pack, crystal faces now bland, lay against the wall where it had been thrown. A vaguely disturbing visual array on a portable computer glowed on another wall. Charcoal glowed faintly in a tiny brazier on the shell table, and the air was acrid with the fumes of - Korodore sniffed - the curious Sinistral incense. So Joan had taken refuge in being a cool-head...

Joan I looked up from the table, where a large black book lay open.

'Couldn't you sleep either?' she said.