She'd been beautiful, with high cheekbones and dark hair that swept back in a wave and glowed against the setting sun like a devil's halo. That was the view of Alan Ginsberg anyway, who once spent five pages and a whole summer in Asbury lamenting the fact she wasn't a boy.

Petra Mayer's beauty was long gone and in its place was a faded elegance at odds with the compact body she now inhabited. Only in her dark eyes, high cheekbones and greying hair could be seen the echo of beauty which once trapped year after year of Harvard freshmen, a collection of fathers who should have known better and the occasional female student.

"Katie Petrov," said Katie, answering her cell phone.

She listened for a moment.

"Thank you. Please show her in."

Dr. Petrov had dressed quickly and gone over her notes, taking extra care. Although she always took care, Katie reminded herself. She just hadn't been expecting a flying visit from an ex-mentor with the ear of the President. And it was a flying visit because Katie had heard Petra Mayer's helicopter land outside.

"Katie?"

Having made herself finish a note on her pad, Katie looked up and found herself staring into a familiar face, albeit more lined and slightly older than she remembered.

"You're looking good," Petra Mayer said. "Which is more than you can say for me, so don't bother." The Professor was wearing a sand-coloured skirt and matching linen jacket, both badly crumpled. "I liked your paper."

"Paper?" Katie's voice sounded puzzled.

"Anorexia and pre-adolescence... Interesting take." It had been the last piece of research Katie submitted, a slight article that did little more than attempt to overturn some of the received wisdoms on who was responsible for pre-pubertal eating disorders. Her grandmother had refused to speak to her since.

"Thanks," said Katie.

Petra Mayer smiled. "If we could have a word...?"

Only then did the Professor's gaze take in the man who sat naked on Katie's floor, his fingers swathed in white gauze.

"Maybe outside?"

When both the marines outside Katie's office snapped to attention, Petra Mayer had the grace to look embarrassed. "For the purposes of this visit I'm a general," she explained. "I didn't realize the kid could do that."

It took Katie a second or two to realize that "the kid" was Gene Newman.

CHAPTER 34

Northern Mountains, CTzu 53/Year 20 [The Future]

"We're going to crash."

Tris nodded.

"Just so you know." The yacht spoke in simple sentences. Somewhere between untethering and plotting its run to the Emperor's palace on Rapture, the yacht had decided that Tris was a child. Since then, communication had been limited to easily understood phrases and short words.

"The decoy's gone?"

"Well," said the yacht. "If you mean has my spare fuel cell been dumped, then yes. That was the pretty flashes you saw burning up about five minutes ago."

There'd be a toggle somewhere for switching off the character overlay that came bundled with the ship's AI but finding it meant digging though several layers of software and Tris simply didn't have time.

She didn't even have time to admire her appearance in a strategically placed mirror, and there were a lot of strategically placed mirrors aboard All Tomorrow's Parties. Not to mention a clothing unit more complex than any she'd ever seen. So now Tris wore a freshly applied second skin of black latex, half hidden beneath an oversized black leather jacket which read "Empty" across the back in neon.

Tris was pretty sure the latex wasn't what she'd asked for, but it looked good in a flashy rich-kid kind of way and it would do until she found a way to originate something more practical.

"How long to landing?"

"Crashing," corrected the computer. "How long until crashing."

"But we might touch down safely. You said so."

"You're going to touch down safely," said the computer. "I'm going to crash."

Tris looked at the curved wall in front of her, which showed exactly what she would have seen if the hull were made of glass, except then she'd have burnt up or got irradiated or something.

She'd asked the yacht about this earlier but the thing had been very cagey about side effects. After listening to the yacht prevaricate for a while, Tris realized it simply didn't want to frighten her.

"Define crash," Tris demanded.

"One: verb transitive. To smash violently or noisily. To damage on landing. To enter without paying. To suffer unpleasant side effects following drug use.

"Two: noun. A loud noise. A breaking into pieces--"

"No," said Tris. "What does crash mean to you?"

Outside, heat radiated from the hull as All Tomorrow's Parties plunged through Rapture's lower atmosphere like a clumsily thrown stone. The landing gear was already burned out, largely because Tris had insisted on it being lowered early. So now they had to find a way to make a soft landing.

The yacht seemed to hesitate before answering, although it was probably just putting its thoughts into a form simple enough for Tris to understand. (It had a very low opinion of her intelligence, something Tris put down to her refusal to listen when it suggested that double-crossing Doc Joyce was a bad idea.)

"Come on," insisted Tris. "Tell me. What does crashing mean to you?"

"Not being able to take off again."

"So why can't you take off?"

"Because," said the AI, sounding genuinely cross, "even if I had landing gear, you've just dumped my return Casimir coil. Remember?"

Tris did. It made a really good display.

The yacht could read facial expressions, both complex and simple. For example, it could differentiate between disapproving and puzzled, Tris having been disapproving of the luxury she found aboard All Tomorrow's Parties and puzzled as to why anyone would fit out the inside of a racing yacht in chrome, fish tanks and black leather.

Apparently its owner was anally retentive. And a request for an expanded definition led her into areas Tris really didn't want to go.

"What are you?" she asked the ship.

"A C-class Niponshi yacht, registered to XGen Enterprises. Licensed to race anywhere within the 2023 worlds."

"No," said Tris. "What are you?"

"A C-class Niponshi yacht, registered to--"

"That's not what I asked," Tris said. "What are you?"

"Me?"

"That's what I said." She jacked the slide on a weapon Doc Joyce had lent her and pointed it at the control panel. They both knew she wouldn't fire. It was one thing to threaten to fry the yacht's circuits when it was tethered off the Chinese Rocks and quite another to shoot it up from inside while it was falling towards one of the 2023 worlds. Tris wasn't running some passive-aggressive adolescent suicide routine, the ship had already established this.

"You mean what form does my core take? My thinking bit," the yacht added, in case Tris found the technical term too difficult. "That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Tris, through gritted teeth. "That's exactly what I mean."

"I'm crystal," said the computer. "Some Class Cs still use bio-cores but mostly we've upgraded. Somehow even the highest quality organic matter always seems to degrade in the end. Crystal is--"

"I know about crystal," Tris said flatly. "I used to deal it when I was a kid."

"That's--"

"Technically illegal," agreed Tris. "Quite probably. But not where I come from."

"And where do you come from?"

Tris opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again. For all she knew this conversation was being recorded so the yacht could make a formal complaint after this was all over.

"You wouldn't," said Tris. "Would you?"