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was stopping them. The door that led back into Malik’s control cabin was opening and closing with exasperated hissing sounds. Looking through it, Zen saw the screens flaring with static. By their pale light, Malik was wrestling with Nikopol, who thrashed in his seat, blood bubbling from his nostrils. Malik sensed Zen standing there. He looked up, but before he could say anything the door gave one last hiss and shut tight, locking itself.
    Zen turned the other way. At the far end of the corridor was a hatchway marked with fire exit symbols. He hurried toward it, hoping that wasn’t locked too.
    It wasn’t. Just as his hand reached for the lever, the hatch opened.
    “Zen Starling?”
    The girl in the red coat was standing on the tracks. She had thrown back the hood of her coat and he could see that Malik had been right, she wasn’t a real girl at all, just a Motorik—a wire dolly—an android.
    She tilted her head to one side and smiled at him.
    “Well, this is exciting!” she said. “I hope you’re not going to run away again. There’s no need. I’m on your side. My name is Nova.”
    While Zen was still trying to work out if she was a hallucination, she reached through the hatch, took his hand, and pulled him out of Malik’s train into the chill darkness of the tunnel.

6
    He snatched his hand free and stood in the middle of the tracks, looking back at the stricken train. It hulked there, lifeless under the tunnel’s faint lights. Its engines wheezed and whined and died, wheezed and whined and died. Sometimes it rocked slightly, as if people were running about inside.
    “Come on!” said Nova. “We mustn’t keep the
Fox
waiting!”
    “What fox?”
    “Raven’s train. The
Thought Fox
. Come on.”
    She did not act like a Motorik. No bow, no preset smile, just a quick grin as she turned away from him and headed off along the tunnel, a silhouette against the blue darkness. Zen went after her. Never trust a Moto, Myka would have told him, but he didn’t see he had much choice. It was either go with her or climb back aboard the train, and the wire dolly seemed friendlier than Malik.
    “If you’d just come with me in the Ambersai you could have saved yourself no end of trouble,” she said.
    “Your drone shot Uncle Bugs.”
    She glanced back at him. “I’m sorry about that. It was the
Thought Fox
’s drone, and the
Thought Fox
gets… carried away sometimes. But that Hive Monk isn’t dead. He’s just scattered about a bit. He’ll pull himself back together.”
    “What about Myka and Ma?” he said. “Are they all right?”
    “Oh yes!” She stopped and looked at him. “I wouldn’t let the
Fox
hurt them. I’m pretty sure your sister would have liked to hurt me, though. Is she always that angry?”
    “Myka doesn’t like Motorik.”
    “She called me a putala,” said Nova. “I thought she was very rude.”
    That meant something like “mannequin” in one of the Old Earth languages. Zen grinned, imagining how his sister would have spat the word.
    Meanwhile, Nova had turned toward the tunnel wall. Zen could not tell what she was doing, but there was the sound of a door opening, then a rush of stale air against his face. He followed the Motorik into a narrow passage with ceramic floors and walls. Lights came on in the low roof as the door shushed shut behind them. The Motorik looked back at him with what he supposed was meant to be an encouraging smile. She had a cheap, generic face he’d seen on others of her kind: the eyes too big and too wide apart, the mouth too long. But there were patterns of freckles on her cheeks and across her small, straight nose. Whoever heard of a Moto with freckles?
    They walked on. The floor sloped down, the tunnel turned. The walls weren’t simply water-stained ceramic anymore, they were covered with thousands of glazed tiles, like slabs of clear toffee. The place reminded Zen of something, and a moment later they stepped out into a big, shadowy hall, and he knew