Seluma arranged for her employees to work four-hour shifts so that everyone would have a chance to attend the festivities while ensuring the restaurant's continuity of service.

  Fuig's absence had opened a bottomless pit. Only now did she realize how tireless the little man had always been, never complaining, never demanding. Seluma had counted on him like on the walls of her own shell. And because of his muteness, she had never found it necessary to shorten the distance, to show herself as more than an employer, to offer friendship. Fuig didn't seem to care anyway...

  Excuses. Seluma simply hadn't thought about it. She was self-sufficient from birth and the idea that others felt such a strong need to bond with each other was an artificial and foreign thought, something that belonged to another world. You don't spend much time thinking about how much a fish needs water if you're not a fish yourself, do you? she reasoned.

  But now she too had taken a little liberty.

  Starting in the morning, there were group dances in the squares and free drinks. Crawling through the streets and hearing music from every corridor, every terrace was a refreshing change. She liked the music, it induced —almost always— elastic vibrations in the structure of her body, a fun tickle with a sweet aftertaste.

  She had repaired the ubiquitous cracks in the corset, polished it to a high sheen, and left, following a small procession of tree-masked revelers down a side street. She had missed the historic meeting with the foreigners, even though Luoth had shown her the photos and the detailed report had been printed in all the newsletters hanging on the bulletin boards. A great success, she sighed, not sure if she should be happy or not.

  She did not hate the Zerafians. She did not want there to be any animosity between Zerafia and Nelatte.

  But the alternative, the assumption that the incident had not been a ridiculous plot...

  If at least she could have sought advice...

  Damn it, Marghi! It was he who had made her try the experiment for the first time so long ago, who had whispered flattery into her mind for years, who had appealed to her ancient curiosity. You have shut yourself away, Seluma. Where is the bright girl who questioned everything? The one I loved, he had told her, insinuating and tireless. It had not taken him long to overcome her resistance. And they had really succeeded. The portal to the Metz O Bar had opened!

  Nothing serious would have happened if they had stopped there. But they had done it a second and a third time, and before Seluma realized how insane it all was, how it tore at her mind, threatening to cut her off from reality and turn her into a vegetable, before she could find the strength to set a limit, these trips had become a necessity, an indispensable source of satisfaction, even physical. A terrible and most dangerous vice. By now, she ran to the Hall of the Nine Gates whenever she felt a little restless.

  It's your fault, Marghi. Don't hide in there. You can't.

  Why didn't her first husband take his share of responsibility?

  She shook her head sharply, attracting the curious gaze of an insect child chewing on an amaranth-colored leaf as she passed. Seluma regained her composure and greeted him with a gentle movement of her antennae. He continued to stare at her blankly, even turning to look back when his mother led him away.

  No, that was her responsibility. It was not Marghi who had wanted to try again the other night; he had not forced her...

  She had not known him well enough, she concluded on certain sad days. You never know anybody well enough. An undeniable truth. Or had he become that way? Had he become cynical, hard and bored inside her? Could she blame him? He had joined her believing he would find new freedom and instead had gone from one captivity to another, from a useless, ravaged body to one that surrounded and crushed him like a monstrous, hungry jelly. And he had even found himself with a mistress, a stronger spirit that silenced him.

  He must hate her, she thought. Torturing her was his revenge. A spasm of pain forced her to twitch, a whiff of thorns in her throat stung her so hard that milky fluid oozed from the glands in her neck. Seluma crawled against the wall, trying to remain unnoticed in the hustle and bustle that had now reached this suburban district.

  A flicker of something familiar, about twenty yards ahead of her among the people on the street, helped her regain a modicum of composure.

  Moi had seen her, greeted her, and came toward her with a smile. He looked exactly the same as always, perhaps even better, well dressed in the brown suit he reserved for important meetings with the rector, neatly combed and clean shaven. His complexion had regained its rosy glow, and his face still had that old mischievous air with which he used to outwit everyone in the restaurant at guessing contests and word games on certain evenings.

  “Are you going to go to the opera concert?” he asked her, raising his voice above the cackling of the crowd. “Can I accompany you?”

  Seluma did not even know about the opera concert, but the joy of seeing her friend in full form again was so great that she enthusiastically consented. Moi walked cheerfully beside her, his hands in his pockets, enjoying the fresh air and the general atmosphere of merriment.

  “I was worried,” she scolded him after they left the alley for a wide bridge suspended between two clusters of bulbous buildings.

  “You're right, I'm sorry. I have not been well. But it's over now, just in time for the carnival, thank goodness!”

  A feeling of warmth filled her heart. Everything was working out. It was foolish to worry so much and turn every little setback into a tragedy. They had just come out of winter, and many people were still suffering from the ailments associated with wet weather. Who knows how many diseases were spreading in schools and other places where large numbers of people passed through! Not everyone was as resilient as she was. The professor had been suffering from the flu, and he had certainly been in a weak and altered state when the unpleasant scene with the trolley had occurred in the restaurant, which was why he had been so impressed. Now that he was better, as anyone could see, Moi had recognized those catastrophic fantasies as nonsense. What could you expect from a cultured man?

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Is Fuig's replacement doing well?” she asked him in a casual tone. No one had complained yet, but the new guy was very anxious and confused when it was his turn to go door to door; it was to be hoped that he would not cause her to lose customers.

  Little people ran down the length of the bridge at breakneck speed, colorful balloons tied to their wrists, as if expecting to fly away.

  The professor took a while to answer, and Seluma turned one of the antennas to the side to get a better look at his face. Moi was still smiling and squared his shoulders.

  “He'll learn,” he said.

  “Look, I won't fire him for a word!”

  He puffed out his cheeks to let out a measured breath.

  “Fuig's precision was a gift of nature, you know,” he commented.

  Across the bridge, they passed through an enormous gate into the Square of a Thousand Drops. On the stage and in a vast, cordoned-off space around it, workers and performers were busily putting the finishing touches on the show. Some scarlet curtains, part of the set, would not stay in place.

  “He had the whole map of Nelatte burned into his memory,” Seluma admitted, allowing a hint of nostalgia to color his voice. “I don't know how he did it. I'm afraid he knew the city even better than I did.”

  “I told you, you can't expect the same from anyone else.”

  “The boy got lost in the network of parallel streets where you live,” she guessed.

  “The boy got confused and delayed a bit, that's all. He eventually found me.” The professor sighed. “The basket still kept the food warm and...”

  “But you had to wait to eat, and you were sick!”

  Moi interrupted her solemnly.

  “I forbid you to scold him! He already felt humiliated enough.”

  One of the disobedient curtains had completely detached itself from the pole and was wrapping itself around a struggling worker who was threatening to topple the chain of metal barriers. The other workers stopped laughing to give him a hand, but they were in no hurry.

  “Did he bring it to you, the olive scone?” she asked him in a low voice, and there was no need to point out that the subject of the sentence had changed; they were talking about Fuig again.

  The professor understood at once.

  “Yes, I told you,” he admitted, but moved away from her uncomfortably. “He came to me.”

  “So you were the last one to see him. He never visited those who were later on the list,” she murmured gravely. “What was the point of going halfway? Did he seem strange, different than usual?”

  They had talked about it before. Moi repeated almost the same words he had spoken the first time.

  “As always: mute. He curtsied to thank me for the tip and left.”

  “Maybe they attacked him to rob him. If they kept an eye on him, they knew he always carried all the cash with him.”

  Moi shrugged.

  “Rob him? Maybe. But to make him disappear?”

  Such crimes were not common, no. Maybe there had been an accident, poor Fuig had tried to defend the money that wasn't his, and...

  “There are so many crimes these days. There's even someone who steals automata, and I really don't know what they can do with them. They are not re-programmable as far as I know. The only way to reuse one of these machines is to take it apart into all its components and sell them separately, and even then you don't get half the value of the intact automaton!”

  “It's still a lot of money,” the professor remarked, adjusting the flower in his buttonhole. “And there are unscrupulous people who deal in parts of uncertain provenance. The rector swears he saw the head of his stolen maid on a worker's automaton smoothing asphalt on a road. It may be true...”

  He brightened, a mischievous smile on his lips.

  “Or, who knows, it could be a plot by the Zerafians!” he teased her. “And Fuig was a spy!”

  “Ah, very funny.”

  The workers all fought together against the escaped tent. They brought it back to its senses with long poles and finally secured it with strong ties to the backdrop of the stage.

  “Speaking of automata, it seems that the trolley footage hides some unexpected treasures,” the professor sighed. “Unpublished images that will soon be released. I can hardly wait.”

  Seluma made her way to the stands, which were still almost deserted. They must have been very early for the show if none of the celebrities had shown up yet. The professor followed her a few steps with his hands in his pockets, then stopped and looked skyward.

  “How's your work going?” she asked him, stretching out on an empty seat. The cold marble stung her belly; the pale spring sun had not been enough to warm the stone seats.

  He had stayed at the bottom of the stairs, looking at her, tilting his head.

  “It's progressing,” he replied, not taking his eyes off her.

  “You've chosen a difficult subject,” Seluma commented as gently as possible. The professor's last published article was now four or five years old; his monumental study always seemed to be in the preliminary stages. But the Pipers, while not hostile, were not the most cooperative of creatures. How to study a flying species that sought refuge in inaccessible places and seemed unaware of the existence of other beings around them?

  Moi smiled and spread his arms wide.

  “Some subjects choose you.” He sighed.

  Without the Pipers, they would never have met, she and Moi: the professor had taken to visiting the Coneshell to observe his beloved creatures. She remembered well the first time he had introduced himself to her, all composed, the shyness she had guessed beneath the detached academic air. Moi was more sentimental than he liked to show, more vulnerable, Seluma was sure of that. That was why she forgave him when he pestered her with his interviews, with his increasingly personal questions. She understood his need for knowledge.

  But the name of the person who had managed to attract the Pipers for the first time, to establish a semblance of communication, was none of his business. The professor had to be content with knowing how it had been done. Hadn't he himself tried similar experiments on the terrace of the academy? Hadn't he already achieved encouraging results? Well, if he had succeeded, he could take all the credit. That name did not concern him.

  “Did you hear what a strange way the Pipers sang the other night? How is that?” she asked him again, lifting and stretching her head to catch more light.

  The professor moved sideways, climbing directly over the bleachers without using the steps, and sat down on the lowest level in front of her. His back was to her.

  “They are affected by many climatic events and subtle changes that we don't even notice,” he told her, his voice lost in the immensity of the plaza.

  Remarkable changes, she thought, uneasy again, because in a hundred and fifty years she had never heard them cry like that.