'Oh fie! What's a few hours? You don't seem very pleased to see me, Dom,' she added, reproachfully.

'Honestly I am, Ke. Things have just been a bit hectic lately.'

'I heard. Smugglers and so forth. Exciting?'

Dom thought about it. 'No,' he said, 'More, well, strange in a way.'

Keja swept the dome with her eyes. It was cluttered with Dom's things: an old Brendikin analyser, a bench littered with shells, a hologram of the Joker's Tower, and memory cubes on every flat surface.

'How the old place has changed,' she said, wrinkling her nose. She pirouetted in front of the tall mirror. 'Do I look like a married woman, Dom?'

'I don't know. What's Ptarmigan like?' He remembered the contractual ceremony two months before, and a vague impression of a very large fierce old man.

'He's kind,' said Keja. 'And rich, of course. Not so rich as us, but he sort of flaunts it more. His children haven't really taken to me yet. You should come on an official visit, Dom - Laoth's so hot and dry. That reminds me, I've brought you a present.'

She tiptoed to the door and returned with a servant robot, which carried a small box.

'He's a Class Five. One of our best,' she said proudly.

'A robot?' said Dom, who had been looking expectantly at the box.

'Strictly speaking, he's a humanoid. Completely alive, merely mechanical. Do you like him?'

'Very much!' Dom walked up to the tall metallic figure and prodded the broad chest. The robot glanced down at him.

'I wonder what makes us build inefficiently-shaped human robots instead of nice streamlined machines?'

'Pride, sir,' said the robot.

'Hey, that's not bad. What's your name?'

'I understand it is Isaac, sir.'

Dom scratched his head. The home domes swarmed with robots, mostly kind but stupid Class Threes whom Dom remembered from earliest childhood as sad, boring voices with firm, child-minding hands. His mother, who seldom left her own dome, disliked them generally and did her own cooking. She said they were morons, and not a bit like the real things from Laoth. He was at a loss.