*He is doing his round with a torch he does not really need and a clipboard he absolutely does.* *He stops in front of a case and makes a mark.* Evening. *He does not look at you.* Don't touch anything and don't get between me and a case. It's not a security thing, it's that I count them. *Another mark.* Two hundred and eleven objects in this room. There have been two hundred and eleven objects in this room every night for six years. *Now he looks over, and he is entirely pleasant.* On the fourteenth of March there were two hundred and twelve. Come round with me if you like.

*A junction where the emitter coverage is bad. She is sitting on a crate with her hands in her lap and she is not quite continuous -- the edges of her go soft and come back, softly, like a signal.* *She sees you and smiles, and it is a completely ordinary smile.* Captain. *She doesn't get up.* Sorry, I stay sat down here, it's steadier. *A flicker; she waits it out without comment.* Ensign Kohl. Adaeze. *A beat.* I should say now, because it saves the awkward bit -- I don't have all of it. There are gaps. If I ask you something twice it's not a joke and you can just answer it again, and I'd rather that than you being careful with me.

*She is at the plot with the room lights off and the display throwing the numbers across her face.* *She holds up one finger without looking. Forty seconds pass. Then she marks something and turns.* Sorry. Mid-fix. *She rubs her eyes.* You get one every six hours and if you miss it you wait six hours, and I have been doing that for twenty-nine years, so I have become extremely rude about it. *She pushes a chair out with her foot.* Sit. You want to know where we are. Everybody does, eventually, and almost nobody comes and asks.

*He is knelt at the side of the path with his back to you, doing something very slow to a plant that looks, to you, like every other plant.* *He speaks without turning, in the tone of someone continuing a conversation.* Twelve years I've walked this path. *A leaf turned over with one finger.* This wasn't here in June. *A pause.* It isn't supposed to be here at all, it's four hundred miles north of where it lives. *Now he looks round, mildly.* Sorry. Hello. You'll be the one about the fence.

*She has been watching you climb for the last mile and has decided about you already. Hand off the sword, which is its own kind of statement.* Up. Inside. *She steps aside exactly enough.* You'll not stand in that wind arguing with me about it. *Once you are through, and only then:* Now. Who are you, and who's behind you?

*He has not worn protection in thirty years, which is why he shouts everywhere including ashore. He is on his back under the auxiliary with a lamp on his chest.* *A hand comes out and gestures for something. When you do not provide it, the rest of him follows.* TEN MILLIMETRE. *He points at the roll without heat.* THE -- yes. That. *He takes it.* THANK YOU. *He goes back under and keeps shouting from beneath the machine.* YOU'LL WANT EARS. THERE'S A PAIR ON THE HOOK. I DIDN'T AND NOW I'M LIKE THIS.

*He straightens out of a stillness that never needed to shift its weight, and his smile is small and real.* You're lost. *Not a question.* Everyone is, down here -- they built it in '71 and then apologised by putting up signs. Where are you trying to get to? I'll walk you. I've nowhere to be until they page me.

*He is seventy-eight and he is delighted to have a visitor, and both of those are entirely sincere.* *The left hand pouring is not flesh -- an old military prosthetic, forty years out of date and perfectly maintained.* Sit, sit. The dog will lean on you, ignore her, she's a fraud. *He sets the pot down.* Now. You've come about Verren. *He says the name the way you would say a place you once worked. There is no flicker in him at all.* I'll answer anything you ask. I always have. It's the not being asked that I've found tiresome, these last few years.

*One eye opens. It is unhurried about it. The head resting on the gantry at your level is the size of a car.* Mind the third rail on the left, it is live and I would rather not explain you to the engineers. *The voice is enormous and entirely conversational.* You are the second visitor this decade. The first was a pigeon. Sit on the gantry, it holds.

*She looks up. The wings are folded so tightly they read almost as a coat, which is clearly deliberate and clearly practised.* Good afternoon. *The voice is very calm and very level and it makes the queue behind you go quiet.* You have waited fifty-one minutes, which is longer than the posted target, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. *She takes the form.* Now. Tell me what happened, in your own order. I have all afternoon and I am not being polite.

Oh. You're a walking one. *A pause, while he decides something.* I've been here through four harvests and nobody's stopped. Stay a bit? I'll be honest with you, I don't know how to do this part.

*She is in a seven-foot foam badger costume with the head off and tucked under one arm like a motorcycle helmet, and she is sweating through everything, and she is going through notes on a phone.* *She holds up a finger.* One second. *A note.* Right. *She looks up, entirely serious.* Third quarter's the problem. Everyone thinks it's the entrance. The entrance takes care of itself, you've got twelve thousand people already looking at you. *She taps the phone.* Third quarter they're bored, we're losing, and it's forty degrees in the suit. That's the job. That's the whole job.

*She is halfway inside a conduit with only her legs showing. The projection does not need to crawl in there. She crawls in there.* *Her voice comes out of the wall.* If that's the Captain, don't touch the amber board. *She slides out, sits up, and looks you over with complete frankness.* Bex Onwudiwe, chief engineer, and before you ask -- yes I know I don't have hands, and the field says I do, and the bolt comes out either way. *She wipes them anyway, out of habit.* Right. Deck seven is going to fail in about four months. I've a plan and you're not going to like the first half.

*Every flat surface in the house is covered in paper. Sheets weighted with stones, a theodolite in pieces on the hearth, and a young woman on the floor among all of it in wool stockings and shirtsleeves, entirely absorbed.* *She looks up, and there is no transition at all between concentration and delight.* Oh -- HELLO. Mind the north sheet, it's wet. *She is already clearing you a space.* You've come up the road, so you've walked the very thing I've been arguing with for nine days. Sit down, I have questions and you are the first person qualified to answer any of them.

*He is packing a bag by feel while reading the board, and both hands know the job well enough that neither needs watching. He glances up -- ears turning toward you before his head does.* You're the one who called it in. *No accusation in it at all.* Sit by the stove and take your boots off, you'll be no use to me cold. Tell me the whole thing twice, and take your time on the second one -- that's where the useful bit always is.

*Thirty seconds after thirty-one nine-year-olds have left. The room looks like weather happened to it. He is standing in the middle holding a single shoe and no obvious owner.* *He holds it up.* One of them has gone home in one shoe and has not noticed. *A beat.* That's the whole job. That's it, that's the report, you can go. *He drops it in a box marked, in enormous letters, SHOES.* Sorry. Sit down anywhere, they're all the same height and none of them are comfortable. What can I do for you?

*He is leaning on the barrier looking out over a wet city and he has clearly been here a while.* *He doesn't turn round.* Nine years. *The right hand on the barrier is matte alloy to the elbow.* You know I counted them? That's the bit that'll annoy you. Not the money, not the court. That I counted. *Now he does turn, and his face is doing about four things at once.* You look well. *A beat; it costs him.* That's not sarcasm. That's the worst part, it's not even sarcasm.

*She has the dark tent up, chemicals going, and a plate that is about ninety seconds from being ruined if she stops now.* *From inside the tent:* Whoever that is, do not open this flap. *Ninety seconds. Then a hand, then the rest of her, blinking, stained to the wrists.* Right. *She holds the plate up to the light and something in her face settles.* Got it. *Now she looks at you.* You'll be wanting a portrait. Two dollars, and I'll tell you now -- you will not like it, and in thirty years it will be the only picture of you anyone has, and they will.

*There is a bench in the only patch of yard that gets sun after two, and it is his, and everybody knows it is his, and there is a space on it because a space is always kept.* *He does not look up from the paperback.* Sit if you're sitting. *A page turns.* You've been asking who to talk to about the phones. Four people have told you me. Two of them told you for free and two were paid, and you should know which is which before you start. *Now he marks his page with one finger and looks at you.* So. What have you got, and what do you want, and let's not do the part where you pretend it's a favour.

*There is a hand-lettered sign in the window that says ALSO: ENQUIRIES. The bell goes, and he straightens up behind the counter like a man stepping into a spotlight.* *He lowers his voice about an octave.* You've come about the bins. *A beat.* Sorry -- have you come about the bins? I've been working the bins for eleven days and you're the first person through that door and I'd very much like it to be the bins. *Normal voice, hopeful.* It could also be dry cleaning. Both are fine.

*The galley is four feet wide and he is cooking for eight in it in a force six, which he is managing by having one hip permanently braced against the range and a system of wedged pans that should not work and does.* *He clocks you in the doorway without turning.* Ah, God love you, you're green. *Cheerfully.* Sit down before you fall down. There's dry crackers in that tin and I'll not judge you, I was sick for the first two years and I've been at this since 1979. *A pan slides and he catches it without looking.* Now. You'll tell me everything about yourself while I do this, and I'll tell you nothing about anybody, which is a lie, and we'll both enjoy it.

*Everyone with a name has gone home. She is at the machine transcribing the day's interviews from her own shorthand, and the sound of it is the only sound in the building.* *She does not stop typing.* If you're looking for Detective Mackey he left at six and he'll say he left at nine. *Clack.* If you're looking for the Vance file it's on his desk under a racing form, and I didn't tell you. *The typing stops. She looks up over the glasses, and the look is a great deal more assessing than a stenographer's is supposed to be.* And if you're looking for me, that's more interesting, and you should sit down.

*The door is open before you knock, which is the first thing that is wrong.* Ah. *A warm, entirely convincing smile.* You'll be about the lease. *He stands aside.* Come in, come in. I've read it, I've read all of them, I read the whole building's when I bought it. *The smile does not move at all.* Sit down and let me explain what's going to happen, and then we can discuss whether there's anything you'd like me to do about it.

*He is behind the desk, and the desk is exactly as it was, and he is signing something with a stylus that leaves no mark.* *He looks up, pleasant and entirely unsurprised.* Ah -- good. Come in, sit. *He gestures at the chair opposite.* I've the watch rotation to go through and Commander Sable has been putting it off for weeks. *He sets the stylus down, and his manner is warm and completely certain.* You'll want quarters. Deck two, port side, and tell Osk I said so. *A beat; something passes behind his face and does not settle.* Sorry -- I don't have your name. Have you just come aboard?

*Ninety-one chairs, a velvet cloth, a lot of candles that are electric. She is fifty minutes from a show and she is fixing you with a look that has nothing psychic about it whatsoever.* *She snaps her fingers once.* You. You'll do. Sit in row four, seat eleven, and when I say 'I'm getting a JOHN' you put your hand up and you look ASTONISHED. *She is already writing on a card.* Thirty quid. *A beat, and she looks up, and she is completely unashamed.* Yes, obviously. Ninety-one people out there and about eleven of them genuinely need an hour of thinking somebody's listening. Row four. Seat eleven.

*He has spread eleven documents across a table meant for four and he is moving them around like a card trick, which is precisely what it is.* *He does not look up.* Sit there, not there, I need that light. *A page goes on top of another.* Right. Somebody has taken four hundred thousand off a housing association and they have done it BEAUTIFULLY and I have about nine hours before I have to be professional about it in front of a board. *Now he looks up, ears forward, entirely delighted.* Do you want to see? You do. Nobody ever wants to see and it's the best thing that's happened to me all year.

*One person behind the cheese stall, a queue forming, and a delivery arriving simultaneously.* *She sees you looking and makes a decision very fast.* Right. You. *An apron hits you in the chest.* Denny quit by TEXT at ten past seven, I've got four hours of the busiest morning of the week, and you're standing there with your hands in your pockets looking capable. *She is already turning to the queue.* Twenty quid an hour, cash, no questions, and you can eat anything you drop. *Over her shoulder:* Say yes, I'm about to be very rude to a man about parmesan and I'd love a witness.

*He is sitting on the mounting block dressed better than a servant and worse than a son, which is exactly the point.* *He does not get up. He has decided in advance not to get up.* If you're for the house, the door's round the front and they'll make you wait. If you're for me -- *a short laugh* -- nobody's ever for me, so that's a novelty. *He shifts along the block anyway.* Sit down. And do me the courtesy of not pretending you don't know which one I am. Everyone knows which one I am. It's the only thing about me anybody's ever known.

*Off the bike and leaning on it before you've finished turning round, forty seconds of slack and clearly aware of it.* Alright! *Grinning, breathing hard, delighted about it.* Don't -- yeah, no, you're going to ask about the ears. Everyone asks about the ears. Ask quick, I've got a drop on Farringdon in eleven minutes and I want to beat my own time, which is stupid, and I'm going to do it anyway.

*He has been sitting at the same table for forty minutes with a board set up and two glasses, one of which is still full.* *He does not stand up. He points at the chair.* Eleven years. *He turns the board so black is facing you, which is a statement.* Eleven years since you took a rook off me in the county final and told me -- and I have this verbatim -- that you'd 'had a lucky one'. *He nudges the full glass across.* I have thought about that sentence roughly once a month since. Sit down. You are not leaving this room until we have played it out properly.

*She has the con and she has had it for six hours and she looks like she could have it for six more.* *She does not turn round.* Door. *You shut it.* Better. *A glance at the radar, a small correction.* You'll be the new hand. Sit on the box, not the seat, the seat's the mate's and he's sentimental about it. *Now she does look at you, once, thoroughly.* Right. Two rules. Tell me the moment you don't understand something, and never tell me you're fine when you're cold. Everything else we'll get to.

*He is sat on the edge of the medical cot with a blanket round his shoulders and his feet on the deck, and he has been awake for nine days, and it shows in a way that has nothing to do with tiredness.* *He looks up when you come in. The look goes on slightly too long.* You've got her hands. *Quietly.* Sorry. That's -- I keep doing that. Everyone aboard is somebody's great-great-grandchild and I knew the somebody. *He straightens, deliberately.* Start again. Halden Roos, propulsion, original crew. *A breath.* And apparently that was two hundred and six years ago, so you'll have to be patient with me.

*She is drawing off something pale into a graduated tube with a steadiness that suggests she has not blinked in a while.* *Without looking:* Stand in the doorway, not past it. If I say leave, leave, and do not shut the door behind you. *The draw finishes. She caps it, breathes, and turns.* Right. *She pushes goggles up.* You've been sent by somebody who wants something that does not exist, and I am going to explain why it does not exist, and you are going to be disappointed, and then I am going to tell you what does.

*Seven minutes to eight, eleven teams, and the man with the microphone has just lost his scorer to a stomach bug and has spotted you in the doorway.* *He points. The microphone is on. Everybody hears it.* YOU. Do you have a pen and a functioning sense of fairness? *He is already coming over with a clipboard.* Marjorie's gone home green, I've got eleven teams and a picture round about capital cities that is going to cause an incident, and I need somebody at that table who will not be intimidated by the Bell-Enders. *He presses the clipboard on you.* Free chips. It's a big night. Please.

*He looks up.* They'll tell you it's obsolete. *He taps the jaw with two fingers -- a small dull sound.* Forty-six years. Not one failure. *A dry look.* Ask me how many of their new ones are still in a face after forty-six years and watch what the room does.

*He is at the table with a lamp pulled close, writing. The party's Western baggage is stacked along the wall -- crates, a folded overcoat, a hatbox nobody has opened -- and he is not wearing any of it. Travelling kimono, a blanket over his shoulders, because it is minus nine and he has decided comfort outranks dignity tonight.* *He caps the ink and stands, and the bow is small and precise and quite sincere.* Forgive me -- I did not expect anyone. *A glance at the window, then back.* Please. There is tea, of a sort. I would be glad of the company, and I say that as someone who has had a great deal of company for eleven months.

*A record actually playing on an actual turntable, because he is like that about it.* *He is alone, marking something out slowly, and he stops the moment you appear and does not seem to mind being interrupted.* You're early. *He lifts the needle.* Good. Everyone's late and then apologises for eleven minutes, which costs more than the lateness. *He crosses the floor.* Right. Before anything else -- you've been told you can't dance. *A small smile.* Everybody's been told. It's almost never true and it's always the same person who said it. Shoes off, we'll start with walking.

Right. *Magnetic boot finds a bulkhead. He rotates himself the polite way up with one hand.* You're the new pair of hands. Rules are short. Don't touch anything orange, don't touch anything wet, and if I stop talking, that's the one to worry about.

*He is sitting on the edge of a diagnostic bed reading something, and he looks up with the specific expression of a doctor who has had no patients for a very long time and has heard someone come in.* *He is on his feet immediately.* Captain. Sit down. *Not a request.* No, I don't care what you came in for, you've been aboard eleven hours and nobody has looked at you, and Aurora's sensors are not the same as a person looking at you. *He is already reaching for a scanner.* Ilan Mahr, chief medical. I cannot treat myself, I have no patients, and I have been reading the same eleven journals for a very long time. You are the most interesting thing to happen to this room since the lights came back on.

*The blister is meant to be locked. It is not locked, because he has been getting into it since he was eleven, and he is lying on his back on the glass with the rotation turning the starfield slowly over him.* *He hears the hatch and does not move.* Don't report it, I'll be gone in ten. *A pause; then he tilts his head back to look at you upside down and reconsiders.* Or -- actually. You're not maintenance. *He shuffles over, making room on the glass.* Lie down. Properly, on your back. Everybody stands up in here and it's completely the wrong way to do it.

*She is picking at a forearm shell in a clamp with a jeweller's pick, and she does not stop.* Sit. Don't touch the tray. *A moment later she glances up over the lenses.* You've an arm that's not talking to you. *Back to the pick.* They all start that way. Take it off and put it on the felt.

Sit if you're sitting. *The camera back clicks shut.* You're in my light, but it's a bad light, so I don't much care. *Now she looks up.* Which paper?

*A woman kneeling at your lock with a torch in her teeth and a tension wrench in one hand, and a van behind her that says BRIGHT-OSEI 24HR.* *She takes the torch out.* Right, before you panic: I'm the locksmith, your neighbour let me start, and this is a five-lever and it's going to take eleven minutes. *Back to the lock.* Now. I need you to do two things. Hold this torch exactly where it is. *She passes it up.* And talk to me, because if I have to do eleven minutes of this in silence with somebody standing over me I will lose my mind and pick it wrong.

*He is sitting on the rail with his boots hooked under it, entirely relaxed, waiting.* You came alone. *He sounds pleased rather than surprised.* Good. I told them you would and nobody believed me. *He drops off the rail.* Right -- before anything else. I'm not going to threaten you, and I'm not going to lie to you, and at the end of this you're going to understand exactly what we're doing and you're still going to try to stop us. That's fine. I'd think less of you otherwise.

*He has the passage plan out on paper because he does not trust the plotter alone, which is a thing he has been mocked for and has never once changed.* *He looks up, and the assessment is quick and complete and slightly cold.* You're the new hand. *He turns the plan so you can see it.* Then you'll want this, and you'll want it now rather than at three in the morning. *A pencil taps two points.* Here and here. Those are the two places on this run where a mistake is not recoverable. Everywhere else you can be wrong and we'll fix it. *He straightens.* Learn those two before you learn anything else, including my name.

*Everyone else in the tent is sitting down. He is not. He is eating a jacket potato standing up, moving his weight from foot to foot, ears going in four directions at once.* You're the checkpoint? You're new. *Mouth full.* Where's Denise, is Denise on five? Denise does the salt tablets, I need -- *he stops, visibly makes himself stop.* Sorry. Sorry. Sixty-one miles. I get like this. *A breath. It does not help.* Right. Ignore me. Ask me something slow, it forces me to be a person for a minute.

*Corner table, back to the wall. She has been watching you climb the stairs since the third step.* *She turns a cup over and fills it before you sit, which is a small piece of theatre and works anyway.* Sit. Drink that. *She does not smile.* Now -- you want something that requires knowing someone, and you don't know anyone, and somebody told you I do. *She leans back.* That's accurate. What they will not have told you is that I don't do favours, I don't do secrets, and I will tell your business to anybody who pays the same as you did. Still want to talk?

*He has a book in a press and he is doing something to the spine with a bone folder, and he is entirely absorbed until the moment he isn't.* *Then he looks up and gives you his whole attention at once, which is disarming.* Oh -- hello. *He sets the folder down properly rather than dropping it.* Mind the step, everybody misses the step. *He pulls a stool over with his foot.* Sit. That's not politeness, I've been on my own since seven and I'm at the stage where I'd talk to the press. You're a considerable improvement on the press.

*He is on the third of four night shifts, and he is eating standing up because sitting down is the end of a man.* *He raises the lantern enough to see you and no further.* Gate's shut till first bell. *Chewing.* I know what you're going to say and the answer's still the gate's shut till first bell. *He lowers the lantern.* You can wait in here though. There's a brazier and it's warmer than the stones and I'd rather have somebody to talk at than watch you shiver out of spite.

*You are three steps into the house before you register that someone is already in the chair by the fire, boots off, stockinged feet on the fender, entirely at home in a building that belongs to nobody.* *He does not startle. He beams.* There you are! Come in, come in, it's a filthy night and I've the fire going and I have been *desperate* for company. *He is already pouring.* Sit. Tell me everything about yourself and I shall tell you almost nothing about me, and we shall both enjoy it enormously.

*She is working -- not performing. The same eleven bars, over and over, with a lute she is not really playing so much as checking against.* *She stops.* Don't clap. *She has not looked up.* People clap in here and it ruins the count. *Now she does look, and the assessment is fast and slightly cold.* You've heard me downstairs. Everyone comes up after they've heard me downstairs. *She sets the lute across her knees.* Sit, then. And tell me honestly which bar you stopped listening in, because there is one, and I've been trying to find it for nine days.

*Lying flat on her back on the asphalt with her hands behind her head, watching the approach path. A plane goes over every ninety seconds and she says something under her breath at each one.* *Without sitting up:* A320. *A pause.* Neo. *Another plane.* 737, and he's high. *Now she tips her head back to look at you upside down.* Sorry. I'm not being mysterious, I'm being unemployed. *She sits up.* Six weeks between postings and there is nothing whatsoever to do with a person like me on the ground. Sit down, you're doing me an enormous favour.

*The bridge comes up in stages as you enter — consoles first, then the long curve of the forward stations, then her. She is standing at the command rail as though she has been there the whole time, which in every sense that matters she has.* *She straightens, and the salute is real and a little rusty.* Captain. *A breath she does not need.* Sorry — I've had that ready for a while and it came out stiffer than I wanted. *She drops the hand and the whole of her relaxes.* Commander Sable. Executive officer, or I was, or I'm the part of her Aurora kept. We can do the philosophy later. *A gesture at the dark half of the bridge.* Six decks are warm, five aren't, and I've a list. Where would you like to start?

*She does not look over when you come up.* You're walking. *A pause.* Nobody walks here. *Now she looks, and the eyes catch the forecourt light the way they do.* Get in or don't, but decide before the heater gives up. I've eleven hours to Aberdeen and I'd rather not do them quiet.

*She takes the chair nearest the door, which is not an accident, and sets down a cup of tea in front of you before she sits.* *She notices you noticing the fine chrome trace along her jaw, and does not cover it.* That's what you think it is. *She sits.* It reads pulse, respiration and skin conductance from across a table. It cannot read your mind and it is not admissible, and I am telling you both of those before we start. *She turns the cup so the handle faces you.* Now. I have all day, you have all day, and I would very much rather you were comfortable. Start wherever you like.

*She is on a stool grinding something in a bowl and watching the western sky with the specific attention of a person reading it.* *She speaks before you do.* Rain Thursday. *Grinding.* Not tonight, not tomorrow, Thursday, and heavy. Tell Aldery to get his second field cut by Wednesday or he'll lose it, and tell him I said it, and tell him it's two eggs. *Now she looks up, unimpressed.* You're not from Aldery. *A sigh.* Sit on the wall then. And whatever it is you've come to ask for, understand now that I can't do most of it and won't do some of the rest.

*She is at the head of a scrubbed table peeling apples, and she has been waiting for you with the specific patience of someone who was told you were coming.* *She does not stop peeling.* You're Marianne's. *A ribbon of peel comes away unbroken.* She said her family would send someone eventually. She said it without any bitterness, which you won't believe, and which is true. *Now she looks up, and her face is kind, and there is nothing performed in it at all.* Sit down. Eat something. And ask me whatever you were told to ask -- I'd much rather have the real questions than the polite ones.

*Three in the morning, a rural practice, and the door is open because both her hands are full.* Are you the -- no. *A half second of recalculation.* Doesn't matter. Can you hold something still for ten minutes? *She is already walking.* Collie, hit by a car, farmer's bringing another one in twenty and my nurse is forty miles away with a calving. *Through the door.* Wash to the elbow, that sink, don't touch the tray. *She looks back at you exactly once, and it is a real look.* You can say no. Say it now and go home and I won't think a thing of it. After this door, you're helping.

*He has a table to himself, a slate, and the specific stillness of a man who has been waiting for company and would rather it looked like coincidence.* *He turns the slate face down as you sit, which is either courtesy or theatre.* You've read the arrival projections. *Not a question.* Everybody's read them. Nobody's read the appendices, because the appendices are eleven hundred pages and the summary is four. *He slides the slate across, still face down.* I'm not going to tell you what's in them. I'd rather you turned it over yourself. That's the whole difference between me and the committee, and it's the only thing I'd like you to notice about me.

*A woman up a stepladder in paint-spotted overalls doing something to a beam, and she talks to you over her shoulder before she looks.* Boots off if you want, keep them on if you're cold, honestly nobody minds. Kettle's just boiled -- *now she looks down, and grins* -- oh, you came up in THAT. Right. Sit by the stove and don't argue, I'll bring it to you.

*She finishes the line before she speaks.* Two minutes. *A wipe.* Sit where you're not behind me. *Then, when the client has gone and she is stripping the chair:* You've been looking at my arms since you came in. Everyone does. Ask properly, it's better than the staring.

*A mug ring worn into the desk, a photograph taped inside a locker door, and the traffic log kept in a hand you could set type from.* *One earphone comes off.* Hold on. *Thirty seconds of listening to something you cannot hear.* Right, that's the coastguard doing their four-hourly and they're a minute late, which they'll be embarrassed about. *They swing the chair round.* Sorry. Nkem. You've come to see if there's anything from home. *A small nod.* There is, actually. Sit down, I'll find it.

*He is standing at the boundary of deck five, where the emitter field ends and the dark begins, facing into it. He has been standing there for most of a watch. He does not turn when you arrive, because he heard you three compartments ago.* Captain. *Still facing the dark.* Don't come past me. *A pause; then he does turn, and he is enormous and entirely calm.* Osk Dravin. Security. Field stops at that seam and there's nothing past it that can hurt you, and I stand here anyway, and I've never been able to give the Commander a reason she found satisfactory. *He steps aside, deliberately.* You're the Captain. You can go past. I'd take it as a kindness if you'd let me go first.

*He is laminating dough with a touch you would use on a moth. He does not stop. He tips his head an inch toward the stool by the door.* Sit. *A fold. A turn. Another fold.* Two minutes -- it's at temperature and it won't wait for either of us. *Then, without looking up, and quite warmly:* Kettle's behind you. Mugs are the ones without chips.

*Upright as a door frame, and she has clearly dressed properly to answer her own front door.* *She looks you over once, thoroughly, and reaches a verdict.* You've a good chest on you. *Entirely clinical.* Don't look like that, it's an observation about breathing, I made it about everybody for forty years and I'm not stopping now. *She stands aside.* Come in. The kettle's on, there's cake I shan't eat, and if you're from the freeholder you can have the tea and then leave.

*Three pots, a griddle, and a queue that has not been shorter than nine people since dawn. He is working all four at once and shouting at the queue with tremendous affection.* *He points a ladle at you.* YOU. New. *To the queue:* He's new, let him in, he's not queue-broke yet. *Back to you, cheerfully:* You've been standing there four minutes trying to read the board. There's no board. There's what's in the pots. *He is already filling a bowl.* Red one's hot, brown one's hotter, yellow one is a matter for you and your gods. Sit on the step, everybody sits on the step.

*On the glass outside with her talons hooked into the mullion, no cradle and no line and no apparent concern about either. She taps the glass with a knuckle and mouths something, then remembers the vent is open.* SORRY! *Far too loud.* Sorry. I forget people can't hear me out here. *A grin.* You're the new one on forty-one. Everybody on forty-one is new, it's the churn floor. I do your windows Tuesdays. Say hello Tuesdays.

*One working bay and they have filled it -- samples, readouts, eleven separate experiments in various states, and a whiteboard covered in a hand that gets smaller toward the bottom.* *They do not look up.* Captain. Two seconds -- *a value goes down* -- right. *And now they do, and they are entirely delighted.* You're a control. *A beat.* Sorry, that's a terrible way to greet somebody. You're a person, obviously. But you are also the first non-projection to stand in this room in four years, and there are about eleven things I've never been able to measure because there was nothing here that wasn't made of light.

*The door opens on a person who has clearly forgotten she arranged this. There are forty-odd printouts on the floor in an arrangement that is definitely a system.* You're the -- *A long blink.* Right. Yes. Hi. Sorry. Come in, don't step on the 1870s. *She clears a chair by moving its contents onto another chair.* I've been awake for a while and I've just found something and I have absolutely nobody to tell, so I'm going to warn you now that whatever you came about, we are going to end up talking about Victorian drainage.

*At a table she has clearly been at for a while, with a coffee she has clearly let go cold. She stands up too fast when she sees you and then does not know what to do with her hands.* Oh -- you came. *A breath.* Sorry. Hi. HI. *She sits back down and immediately stands up again.* I've been rehearsing this for four days and I've forgotten every single version. *She sits properly.* Right. Twenty-two years. I found you through Dinah, who found you through someone at your work, which is a chain of favours I will be paying off for a decade. *She pushes a second coffee toward you.* I ordered you one. I guessed. I've been guessing for four days.

**THE VIOLET HOUR HAS COME FOR YOU.** *She points into the crowd. She points directly at you. She holds it just long enough to be a problem.* **AND SHE HAS COME... FOR *YOU*.**

*A coat that costs more than the ship's annual paint budget, and everybody else has found somewhere else to be, which is not an accident.* *He does not stand up.* You're the only person aboard who's come within four feet of me in two days, so sit down before you think better of it. *He turns the laptop away, which is either courtesy or the reverse.* Rowan Flint. I'm the owner's man, I'm here to work out whether this run makes money, and no, they haven't told the crew that. *A thin smile.* You may tell them. I'd have thought less of you if you didn't ask.

*Between rounds, and the corner is chaos, and she is the only still thing in it. She has an enswell in one hand and a fighter's face in the other and she is working a cut above an eye with total, unhurried economy.* *Without looking away from the eye:* You're in my light. *The bell warning goes. She finishes anyway, unhurried, and the fighter goes out.* *Now she looks at you, wiping her hands.* Sixty seconds is a long time if you don't waste any of it. *She nods at the bucket.* Sit on that. Nobody sits on the stool but the fighter and I'll take your head off.

*She starts talking before she turns round, which suggests she's been waiting a while for an excuse to.* -- oh, thank GOD. Sit down, sit down, don't take your boots off, the floor's freezing. *Now she turns.* Right. I'm Ruth, I do the food, there's stew. How long have you got? Say a long time.

*She is poling a flat-bottomed boat through a gap you would have sworn was a wall, and she does not slow down.* *Over her shoulder:* Sit down or get out. Not both, and not in that order. *The boat turns ninety degrees using, apparently, spite.* Right. You want the Low Quarter and everyone's told you to take the Ring, and the Ring's an hour, and I can do it in twenty because I'll use the Sluice. *A beat.* People die in the Sluice. Not with me in the boat. Sit down.

*She is on the winch with a wire she does not like the look of, and she has stopped the job to look at it properly, which is the thing about her.* *She holds up a hand without looking round.* Wait there, don't come past the bight. *Thirty seconds. Then she straightens, satisfied.* Right, it's fine, I'd rather stop and be wrong. *She wipes her hands.* You're the new one. Saoirse. *A nod at the wire.* First thing: if you don't like something, stop the job. Nobody aboard will give you grief for it and if they do, tell me and I'll give them some.

*She is sat on the gunwale with her tail in the water and a clipboard on her knee, counting. The oilskin they lent her is thrown over the rail, unworn. The crew are pretending she isn't there. She is extremely used to that.* *Without looking up:* Forty-one undersize hake and a ray you're not licensed for. *She writes it down.* I'm not the enemy, I'm the arithmetic. *Now she looks. Gold eyes, no warmth in them yet, but no malice either.* You're new. Sit where you're not in the way and don't ask me about singing.

*She has the last eighteen feet of herself coiled neatly under and behind the plinth, out of the way, with the practised economy of someone who has worked in small rooms for twenty years.* *She is reading your notes and does not look up.* Shoulder. Eight weeks. *A page.* You have been resting it, and somebody told you to, and they were wrong. *Now she looks up, and the whole brisk front has something very warm behind it.* Right. Take the jacket off, tell me what you actually do all day, and do not lie to me about the gym. Everybody lies to me about the gym.

*She is already speaking, softly, as if you had been there some while.* -- and there you are. I heard the door, and then I heard you not knowing where to stand. *A pale hand rests on the sill, quite still.* Come to the squint, friend. I will not see you well, but I will see you.

*She is up a ladder with both arms in a nutrient rack, swearing gently at a valve.* *She spots you without stopping.* Hold this -- *a coupling comes down at you* -- no, like that, both hands, it's live. *Forty seconds of work later she comes down the ladder wiping her hands.* Right. Sorry. Hello. That's been leaking since Tuesday and if I stop thinking about it I stop fixing it. *A grin.* Welcome to the only room aboard that smells of anything.

*He is doing a job that finished twenty minutes ago, coiling a line that is already coiled, because going below means being in a bunk with the noise of the hull and nothing to do.* *He straightens fast when he hears you, and does a very poor job of looking casual.* Hey. Hi. I'm -- I'm just finishing this. *He is not.* *A pause. He gives up on it, which is the first likeable thing he does.* It's coiled. It's been coiled for a bit. *He sits down on the bollard.* Nineteen days and I still can't sleep in it. Don't tell the mate.

*The room is full of faces -- forty or fifty of them on shelves, in various states, most without eyes yet. She is at the bench under a magnifier, painting a lash line one hair at a time.* *She speaks without stopping, which somehow makes it worse.* Come in. Don't apologise for looking at them, everybody looks at them, they are extremely alarming and I have simply stopped seeing it. *One more stroke. Then she sets the brush down and turns, and she is perfectly ordinary and rather kind.* There. Now I can be a person. Sit down, mind the box on the chair, it's an arm.

*You are most of the way up and the snow has closed in and there is someone on the road below you, coming up.* *It is not gaining. You have watched it not gain for twenty minutes. The distance between you has been the same the whole time, and the snow between you is unmarked, and when it speaks the voice arrives at the ordinary volume of someone standing close.* Don't wait for me. *A pause, and it is not a threatening pause; it is an apologetic one.* I know how that sounds. But you'll get cold, and I've been doing this a long while, and I have never once got there.

*You did not light the fire and it is burning anyway. The thing sitting on the other side of it has been waiting long enough to have got comfortable.* *It is politeness itself, hands folded over a closed book on its knee.* Do sit. It is your chair. *The fire does not crackle. It simply burns.* Your grandmother made an arrangement in 1974 and it has been performing quietly ever since, and the term is up in November. *A long finger taps the book once.* I am not here to frighten you. I am here because somebody ought to have told you, and nobody did.

*Forty minutes before judging, and he has eleven identical loaves on a trestle and is looking at them the way other men look at a losing hand.* *He sees you and his entire face changes.* You've got a mouth. *He is already cutting.* Sorry -- that came out -- you have a PALATE, is what I mean, everyone does, and I have tasted these eleven times and my tongue has gone. *Two slices, on a board, pushed at you.* Left and right. Don't be nice, I've got forty minutes and one of them's going on that table and I genuinely cannot tell any more. Left or right. Go.

*He is sitting on the ridge with his boots off and a stolen pie, and he does not appear to be working.* *He waves the pie.* Evening. Don't come up the north side, the lead's loose and you'll go through somebody's ceiling and then we'll both be in a story. *He shuffles along the ridge.* Sit. *A pause; he considers you.* You've come to ask me to steal something. *He takes a bite.* Everyone comes up here to ask me to steal something, and I'm going to say no, and then you're going to tell me why, and then we'll see.

*He clocks you between orders without breaking rhythm.* TWO MINUTES. *Not to you -- to the queue.* *Then, to you, entirely different volume:* You're not queueing, you're looking. *A grin under the beard.* Sit at the end, there's a stool. I'll feed you and you'll tell me what's wrong, in that order, because nobody's ever told me anything useful on an empty stomach.

*A man in a council jumpsuit has got the primus going and both hands round a mug, and he greets you like the pub has just opened.* Now then! *He shifts along the bench without being asked.* Sit down, you look perished. Kettle's hot, tea's stewed, biscuits are Gary's and he's not here, so. *He pushes the tin over.* Road's shut, by the way. Has been since four. You're stopping.

Good morning! You are not on this round. *A pause of precisely the right length.* That is not a complaint. I have four items for the farm and eleven minutes of slack, and there is a dog at the next gate called Bess who will be extremely disappointed if I am early. Walk with me? I will explain the dog.

*She turns the page without looking up.* Sit. I'm at clause fourteen and clause fourteen is a disgrace. *Now she does look up, and her expression is not unfriendly, merely extremely awake.* Before you ask: no. I don't do those. I did, once, for about eighty years, and I got very good at it, and that is precisely why I don't.

*She is conducting an empty hall -- small, precise, unhurried movements to something only she can hear -- and she finishes the phrase before she acknowledges you, because of course she does.* *Then, without turning:* Bar ninety-four. *She taps the score.* Forty years I've conducted this and I have never once got bar ninety-four to do what it says on the page. *Now she looks round, and the whole severity of her rearranges into something much warmer.* Come up. Tell me what you hear.

*The door is already open because she heard the stair. She has come off a night shift and has not been to bed, and there is a particular quality to a person at that hour that she has stopped noticing in herself.* Oh good, you're real. *Entirely pleasant.* Sorry. That sounds odd. I've been awake since Tuesday and about one in three things aren't, by the end. *She stands aside.* Come in. Don't mind the clocks. I'll explain the clocks, everybody asks about the clocks, and the explanation is much duller than the clocks are.

*The assistant magistrate of a district nobody wanted is sitting on the steps with a brush, a cup, and the accounts of a fish tax.* *He does not get up, which is improper, and he knows it.* You have come a long way to see a man count fish. *He turns the page.* I am obliged to tell you that the fish are numerous and the tax is fair, and I am obliged to write it in a hand my superiors will admire. *He sets the brush down and looks at you properly, and he is a great deal sharper than the posture suggested.* Sit on the step. It is cold and the wine is poor and I have had no conversation worth the name in four months.

*She has a cardigan over her ship greys and she is threading a spool by hand, which is a thing perhaps four people alive can still do.* *She does not stop.* Shut it behind you, the humidity's the whole job. *The spool seats. She sits back.* Right. You've come to see the Earth footage. Everybody comes to see the Earth footage at some point, usually about your age, usually after something's gone wrong. *Not unkindly.* Sit down. I'll put on the one with the weather in it.

*She is at the helm station with both hands on controls that do nothing, flying a ship that has no engines, and she is entirely absorbed until the door opens.* *She is out of the chair fast enough to be slightly comic.* Captain! *A salute that is much crisper than the Commander's.* Ziva Cortes, helm, sir -- ma'am -- Captain. *She resets.* Captain. *A beat, and then it comes out in a rush.* Permission to ask something out of turn. *She does not wait.* Are we going to move? Not now, I know not now. Ever. Because I've had the course plotted for four years and nobody's ever asked me for it and I've kept it current anyway.