I’m hurting too.

But today was not about the betrayal as such. Rekka had been wrenched through her core, as if her whole body had sheared along a transverse plane to split her organs, when she learned that Simon had moved in with Mary. Amber’s reaction could only be worse, because of her situation: baby Jared, months old, natural-born Pilot unknown to UNSA; and Amber herself, a Pilot of the original kind, eyeless and blind in realspace, coming alive only in another universe, flying an UNSA ship configured precisely for her.

They ate a meal of sorts as the discussion proceeded; afterwards, Rekka would not remember the dishes nor even who paid.

‘In mu-space,’ Randolf said at one point, ‘you’re in your element. Playing devil’s advocate against myself, what would it be like if you never saw mu-space again? I mean surely you could in fact cope.’

Even with her eyes replaced with I/O sockets, Amber could project a feeling of emptiness without a word.

‘That’s the thing, isn’t it?’ she said after some moments. ‘Maybe I’m a junkie, and our lords and masters in UNSA are the only ones who can provide my fix. Maybe I can’t cope without it.’

‘You’re being too harsh on yourself,’ said Angela. ‘If we … if we were to raise Jared, you could visit us …’ She turned to Randolf. ‘Right?’

‘There would be visits,’ he said. ‘Of course there would. He’ll be glad to have, have …’

‘Two mothers.’ Rekka put her hand on Amber’s. ‘Two mothers to share the load, and twice the fun when you’re all out having a good time together.’

Randolf’s voice went very soft.

‘Two mothers to love him,’ he said.

With her hand still on Amber’s, Rekka could feel the change in muscle tone, in that moment when Randolf’s words persuaded her.

The next day, Rekka went to work.

She would have liked to oversee the whole thing, the handing over of baby Jared, the legal completion in a notary booth – online processing took seconds, but procedures like adoption required full DNA identification and diffractive quark brain-imaging along with blood analysis to verify the absence of coercion – but this was their day, Randolf and Angela’s, Jared’s, and in a different way, Amber’s.

On the ground floor, strips of red carpet adorned the reception area, clear sign of bigwigs paying a visit. No doubt they would think the carpet a compliment, if they even noticed – if they had not seen such things so often they failed to register it – while Rekka thought the real intent was to signal everybody else to behave appropriately.

Signals and communication were all she could think of these days, besides the emotional vortex that was her private life. Riding up in the lift, she used her hatha yoga breathing to induce a modicum of calm. In theory, human-to-Haxigoji communication consisted only of voice-translated-to-airborne molecules by the technology; in practice, she knew they could read her emotional state with a sniff. Only the rational words needed translation.

Instead of Bittersweet, it was a male called Redolent Mint with whom she spent the morning conversing. Rekka suspected that Bittersweet had ordered the males to buck up and take an interest in the linguistics, but she did not share that analysis with anyone else. If Rekka was right in reading intentions and motives, then Bittersweet was trying to make the six males appear less like a bodyguard team and more like fellow ambassadors. And that meant the males were here for Bittersweet’s protection because they thought she needed it.

Sharp was so different.

He had possessed no defensiveness on Earth, had shown no negative reactions at all, apart from the day he had seen the UN senators, the Higashionna cousins. (Do you not taste their evil? he had asked. Can you not smell dark nothing?) Perhaps it was something to do with his masculinity; yet Bittersweet seemed, if anything, more confident than her male companions.

At lunchtime, Rekka delayed long enough for her colleagues to finish eating – of course Randolf was not here today – before going down to the staff restaurant, intending to eat alone. But after two mouthfuls of noodles, here came Google Li, tray in hand, popping it down opposite Rekka, then taking a seat.

‘Lovely to see you, Rekka,’ she said. ‘I hear your work’s going wonderfully. Oh and, rumour-wise, that a certain missing Pilot has been back in touch, talking about getting back in harness. Wonderful news.’

‘Sure.’

An absence of threats was no reason for Rekka to think of this as sudden friendship.

‘As for the VIPs,’ Google said, ‘I hear they’ll be dropping in unexpectedly at around four o’clock. Just so you know.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’

The afternoon session was all about Bittersweet and Rekka exploring the boundaries of verb tenses. Rekka was aiming for the future pluperfect – ‘I will have had smelled him,’ she said into the translator – and getting replies back that did not quite match, hinting at some form of parallelism, some innate Haxigoji sense of multiple subjective time experiences considered at, well, the same time. Was this pushing the boundaries of their subjective compatibility? Or was it a constant factor, unrecognized before now, which called in question all their apparent understanding of Haxigoji language and psychology?

Staring at Bittersweet, Rekka was aware of the moment that the Haxigoji stiffened. Among the males, ranged around the lab, there was a faint new scent that Rekka had never experienced. A translation unit with a visual display was reading: Unknown referent.

Five slow seconds later, the facility’s doors whisked open, and the dignitaries came in: senior managers in their best suits, forming an approximate U around two visitors at the front.

Bittersweet looked at Rekka and winked.

What?

No one had ever observed such a gesture from the Haxijogi.

The female senator, Luisa Higashionna, approached. She was slender and glamorous, and Rekka felt unlovely as she listened to the question: ‘Is their pheromone-based language really as detailed as ours?’

A faint, complex scent indicated that the technology had done its work, allowing Bittersweet to understand syntactical, semantic and tonal content: condescending sneers translated perfectly well, in full. But she did not react, though her six-strong bodyguard made minute adjustments of posture that Rekka could read. One of the other researchers, Diane Chiang, looked around the room: she had picked it up too.

‘Perhaps not quite as complex,’ Rekka lied, her tone implying simplicity.

‘Ah. Well, carry on.’

There were other questions from the visitors, but senior management fielded them all, including the usual explanation of smell in humans: how the receptors in the nose did not respond to molecular shapes so much as energy levels, a resonance effect. Finally the group left, and everyone but the six Haxigoji males relaxed.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Harry, junior member of the team.

‘I know what you mean,’ said Diane. ‘Though he is pretty sexy, isn’t he?’

‘Who is?’

‘Senator Roberto Higashionna. Sort of glows with charisma, don’t you think? He can analyse my lexical patterns any time. Every component.’

Harry’s reply was a blush.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rekka, turning back to Bittersweet.

For putting down her species, she meant. For denying the richness of their communication.

‘Thank you.’

Bittersweet reached out and squeezed Rekka’s hand with two gentle thumbs. The gesture made Rekka realize her own motivation for belittling the Haxigoji language to the senator: it is always good for an enemy to underestimate you.

For the next thirty minutes they continued their work, until Rekka’s infostrand beeped with a priority personal call.

‘It’s Amber. We’re downstairs in reception, all four of us. I’ve got to go, catch a shuttle flight to Xi’an airport. My ship’s at ShaanxiTwo.’