"It's hardly destruction," Yay drawled. "The missiles are explosively dismantled, not destroyed. I can put one of those things back together in half an hour."

"So it's false."

"What isn't?"

"Intellectual achievement. The exercise of skill. Human feeling."

Yay's mouth twisted in irony. She said, "I can see we have a long way to go before we understand each other, Gurgeh."

"Then let me help you."

"Be your protégée?"

"Yes."

Yay looked away, to where the rollers fell against the golden beach, and then back again. As the wind blew and the surf pounded, she reached slowly behind her head and brought the suit's helmet over, clicking it into place. He was left staring at the reflection of his own face in her visor. He ran one hand through the black locks of his hair.

Yay flicked her visor up. "I'll see you, Gurgeh. Chamlis and I are coming round to your place the day after tomorrow, aren't we?"

"If you want."

"I want." She winked at him and walked back down the slope of sand. He watched her go. She handed his gun to a recovery drone as it passed her, loaded with glittering metallic debris.

Gurgeh stood for a moment, holding the bits of wrecked machine. Then he let the fragments drop back to the barren sand.

He could smell the earth and the trees around the shallow lake beneath the balcony. It was a cloudy night and very dark, just a hint of glow directly above, where the clouds were lit by the shining Plates of the Orbital's distant daylight side. Waves lapped in the darkness, loud slappings against the hulls of unseen boats. Lights twinkled round the edges of the lake, where low college buildings were set amongst the trees. The party was a presence at his back, something unseen, surging like the sound and smell of thunder from the faculty building; music and laughter and the scents of perfumes and food and exotic, unidentifiable fumes.