Instinct smoothly clicked his awareness to her location — which was an interesting trait to know he had. From then on he was conscious of where she would casually wander in order to keep an easy distance between them, how she would never have her eyes in his direction when he glanced at her. She wore a simple short-sleeved rusty-orange top and knee-length blue trousers of some modern fabric. A little different to the faithful who tended to wear the more primitive rustic clothes of wool, cotton, and leather which were favoured by Makkathran's citizens, but not contemporary enough to be obvious. Nor did her looks make her stand out. She had a flattish face and a cute-ish button nose; some of the time her slim copper shades were across her eyes, while often she had them perched up in her short dark hair. Her age was unknowable, like everyone in the Greater Commonwealth her appearance was locked into biological mid twenties. He was certain she was well past her first couple of centuries. Again, no tangible proof.

After they'd played the orbiting satellites game for forty minutes he walked over, keeping his smile pleasant. There were no pings coming off her that his macrocellular clusters could detect, no active links to the Unisphere, nor any active sensor activity. Electronically, she was as Stone Age as the city.

'Hello, he said.

She pushed her shades up with the tip of a finger and gave him a playful grin. 'Hello yourself. So what brings you here?

'This is a historic event.

'Quite.

'Do I know you? His instinct had been right, he saw; she was nothing like the placid faithful shuffling round them, her body language was all wrong; she could keep tight control of herself, enough to fool anyone without his training — training? — but he could sense the attitude coiled up inside.

'Should you know me?

He hesitated. There was something familiar about her face, something he should know about her. He couldn't think what, for the simple reason that he didn't have any memories to pull up and examine. Not of anything, now he thought about it, certainly he didn't seem to have had a life prior to today. He knew that was all wrong, yet that didn't bother him either. 'I don't recall.