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enormous hand on Pero’s shoulder and forced him down into his seat. Pero took it with good humour, laughing, waggling a forefinger at the Garang as the guard leapt down again. Karlo gave the saccule driver an order; with a boom it lashed its whip, and the albino vakr jerked forward. This time the crowd fell back and let them pass.
    With the excitement over, and her klosh finished as well, Vida climbed down from her perch and regained the street. The mob trailed after the Peronidas and cleared, at least temporarily, the public square. A procession of Lifegivers, mostly humans, took the space over, walking solemnly in twos. Their silver-speckled dark robes, symbolizing endless space, fluttered around them as they traced out the sacred spiral of the galaxy, which had come from the darkness of space and to which in the end it would return. Each held a small speaker, and the clash of electronic gongs and drums marked out their steps.
    Once they’d finished their dance, Vida headed across the square. Shoving back their hoods, the Lifegivers were breaking their formation, and the younger ones among them were laughing, caught up in the spirit of the festival. A young fellow not much older than she hailed her as she passed and handed her an Eye of God, a carved wooden disk with a hole drilled in the top so that it could he worn around the neck on a chain.
    ‘Blessings upon you, child,’ he said. ‘Blessings for the festival. In the name of Calios.’
    ‘Thank you, Se.’ Vida touched her thumbs and forefingers together to form a triangular, more or less eye shape, a gesture of respect that she had seen Aleen use many times. The Lifegiver’s eyebrows shot up. He really was rather handsome, she decided. Pity he was a monk. ‘Excuse me, Se,’ Vida started. ‘What-’
    ‘Brother Lennos!’ called out one of the older monks. ‘Get over here right now!’
    The Lifegiver scurried off, leaving Vida smiling. Overhead, the sky was swirling and lightening in the promise of a few moments of sunshine and a glimpse of blue sky. The light that fell round her turned silver and cast faint flat shadows. Vida pulled off her cloak and let the fugitive warmth touch her skin. The sound of bells, notes of music so pure that they seemed to burn in the air like candles caught her and drew her on. She’d always wanted to see the famous Pleasure Sect Carillon when it was sounding, and today it would give a proper concert. A floating clock told her the time had just reached the fifteens. If she hitched a ride on a wiretrain heading for the Hub, and there was a stop right near the Carillon, she could easily get back to The Close before Aleen left her important reception. A few blocks from the square stood the Crossroads, an intersection of multi-levels that led to pretty much every interesting place in Pleasure Sect. Vida climbed the helical stair, pausing at each landing for the view, each a different part of the Southern Quad. The topmost landing opened into a longtube, a flexible tunnel whose diameter was about four times her height, made of a metal that was smooth and warm to the touch. Why the Colonizers had built the longtubes no-one knew, but nowadays they functioned as conduits for supply shipments, emergency vehicles and the like. Vida knew where all the longtubes were, where they went, and who used them. Her memory had amazed the people around her all her life. To Vida herself, remembering anything she’d ever seen was effordess and obvious. She still couldn’t really believe that no-one else could look at diagrams and spatial displays and remember them the way she could or even to do more than just remember - she could turn the images this way and that in her head, add or subtract data, and then remember the new diagram as easily as another might work with it on a Mapscreen.
    When Vida walked into the tube, she hesitated, wondering if she should go on. Only half the longtube’s strip lights glowed. Powerflucs were happening more and