Mikey takes Flick back through the diamond mine. He pauses at an opening which leads into the Huguenot Quarter. Flick can see the Tower across the volume and starts to feel overwhelmed by the task in front of her. Too many interests involved. Too many variables. Still, it's what she's good at.

They need to go deeper to access the Tower through the Substrate. That means going back through Gnostic territory. Shem's people will be waiting for her. Before she left Pulse, neStelle gave her a patch for Mikey, ostensibly to wipe Pulse from his memory, such is the surreptitious nature of the place, but it also gave Flick an opportunity to have a tinker in his mind. The droid works for her now.

''Shem has sent some of his men to intercept you. I'm to lead you to them. They'll keep you until he can get there.''

''Why? He knows where I'm going.''

''Unknown.''

''Okay. We'll play along. I don't want him knowing I've turned you just yet.''

''Roger that.'' Mikey takes a side-shaft, almost hidden by the changes in light between the outside of the mine and the void they're in.

Flick experiences that claustrophobia she's been getting on occasion since her return to the mountain. She used to miss the enclosed spaces but living on the outside for so long has made her soft.

They meet a couple of shifty-looking characters, clearly not working on the Intelligence side of Shem's security business, blocking the shaft just before it hits a junction. To the right, a blue glow tells her that shaft leads down into the Cloisters. They are to wait for Shem to arrive as he has an important update. He apologises for the delay but is having to come the long way round, having been refused entry to the mine by Temperance, despite several urgent appeals.

She spends the time thinking about Holroyd; its minarets and great libraries, the municipal telescopes and the towering silos of the spaceport in the distance. She thinks how none of its accomplishments would have been achieved if it weren't for the city's openness to the outside world and the new ideas that flow into it as a consequence, combined with that streak of stubbornness and discipline when it comes to the community's spiritual life. How they've managed to accommodate every scientific discovery into a subtle, scintillating set of moral ethics and religious beliefs. It's what she wants for Murgatroyd, her city, to be as strong and diverse as that, as meaningful; as opposed to the quaint old place where tourists come to be amused by the strangeness and backwardness of its inhabitants.

When Shem finally arrives, he doesn't appear flustered at all. He dismisses the two security guards and proceeds along the other shaft at the junction, expecting Flick to follow, which she obediently does. They are back in the twisty-turny bit beneath the Substrate. Flick follows until they reach the lower warehouses that define the Substrate proper. There's a bit more space and the air is cooler. Shem lands his skiff next to some racking and Flick lands next to him.

''Thanks for waiting,'' says Shem. ''There should be enough privacy here.''

''I have to get this business done with, Shem. It better be important.''

''Of course it is.'' Shem touches her shoulder and gives her a needy look. ''You make it seem as if we're on different sides.''

Flick avoids looking him in the eye. To his left and a couple of cubits above him she notices a pallet in the racking stacked with blue boxes, each exactly the same, with a logo on the left and some writing in white on the right. It's blurry from this distance and she's sure she used to be able to read writing from that far away. Although there is a layer of shrinkwrap to contend with, she wonders if she might need spectacles. She wouldn't go for an implant or remedial surgery as that's not the Gnostic way. Her people have a policy of not interfering with the wetwork wherever possible. She finds herself happy with that, so long as it is a choice, not a requirement. It would be her natural choice anyway, she thinks. The logo, for a brand of rock salt local to the mountain, she can make out because it's something she's used to seeing and her mind can make up for what her eyes aren't divulging. It's a cartoon image of a cat in a canvas bag. The bag has a tear in it, with a flap revealing the cat's grinning face, next to a twinklingly sharp claw. It is, as everyone knows, a visual metaphor for misplaced desire. Why a rock salt company would want to identify with perversity is anybody's guess but somehow the marketing seems to work. It has an edge to it, a complexity that people seem to relate to.

Although the cat-in-the-bag metaphor has become a cliché, at this moment, trying to avoid looking directly into Shem's being for fear of seeing lies and discrepancies there, and also trying to avoid revealing the lies and discrepancies in her own, her mind wants to think on this more deeply, to go back inside the cliché and enjoy it like it's still fresh. But Shem's neediness is forcing itself upon her.

''It's about Vinst,'' says Shem, as if appealing to the moral high ground.

Fucking get on with it then! she thinks, as the cat-in-the-bag metaphor begins to reveal itself to her, despite the interruption. The story goes that, in ancient times, in the world beyond the mountain and over the sea, cats were carried around in bags to make them thirsty and frantic. They would be released into a crowd and the first person in that crowd to imagine themselves sexually with another person in the same crowd would themselves become the object of desire for the frantic cat. The cat, confusing thirst with desire, would leap onto the shoulders of its target and lick their eyes with its raucus tongue until they went blind. In turn, the last image held by the victim would always be that first imagined kiss wrapped up in the cat's mouth, sending them mad for the love of a human in the body of a cat.

As Shem waits for her to show an interest she looks at the metaphor in a whole new way. The point of the story isn't about the confusion of urges at all, or wrongfulness or perversity; it's about urge itself - the root of addiction and the root of love. A thing with its own essence, permeating the layers of desire that sit above it. Like salt, she thinks, bringing out the underlying taste of food.

''Well, he's been trying to get through to Temperance...'' another pause.

But what her science-brain is really trying to tell her has nothing to do with the cat-in-the-bag metaphor. What her brain is wanting her to do is simply take notice of the rock salt. Take notice of it. And the why of that hits her like a bad haircut in a mirror.

She crouches down and reaches for her handbag, which is currently fastened by its strap to the skiff's balancing-post, despite the negative pressure generated by the A-G field manipulators laced into the deck. There are various useful items in there which she loaded up in preparation for her next stint in the Tower. She rootles out a fancy little presentation box containing toe-nail accoutrements: scissors, clippers, an awl, nail varnish, nail-varnish-remover etc. It's the scissors she's after although, if she'd have given the matter a little more thought, the Holroydian Handyman Set may well have been the most suitable choice for the task at hand.

''Mikey, take me up to that pallet of... Carry on, I'm listening.''

''and the thing is... What the heck are you doing?''

Flick gets the box... ''surely he could have messaged me that.''

''Messaged you what?''

''The news that Temperance are blanking him.''

''You knew that?'' Shem is desperately trying to turn this around. ''All along?''

''Of course not. That sentence just wasn't going anywhere else was it?''

''Look, Felice, this is...''

''Why are you really here, Shem?''

Shem looks at the box of rock salt. ''What are you going to do with that?''

''My business. What exactly is it you want from me here? I'm doing the job you brought me in to do. Why can't you just let me get on with it?''

Shem looks staggered: ''I thought we had something Felice. We were getting somewhere weren't we? All of that with the dhôlmun, whatever it was...''

Flick rolls her eyes. ''I'm out of here. Mikey...''

''Okay okay,'' Shem raises his hand to ask her to wait. ''Mikey. Just hold on a minute.''

Imperceptibly, Mikey looks at Flick for instructions and, equally imperceptibly, Flick nods.

''Just spit it out Shem.''

''We need to know what Parx told you.''

''You don't need to know that, Shem. Because you have no influence over events once I get inside the cell. That's why you brought me in in the first place.''

Shem's face betrays him a moment.

''Except it's not is it?''

Shem opens his mouth to speak.

''You brought me in because you had no choice. Temperance want me here. Paradigm want me here. Even fucking Arbitration are willing to put up with me. My own brother? He wants me as far away from this city as he can get me.''

''Felice,'' says Shem, placatingly. Then: ''How do you know Arbitration want you in? Is that what Parx told you?''

Flick makes a face as if to say Shem has caught her out. ''Okay, yes. That's what Parx had to say. Can I go now?''

''He didn't give you a name?''

''arKhana has the name. He couldn't release it until I came to terms with Parx.''

''What terms?''

''I get to talk to The Chemist before I hand him over.''

Shem doesn't respond. He seems to be taking a while to process her answer. He decides that is actually something she could want out of this.

Flick watches the thoughts pass across his face for a while.

''Okay,'' he says, eventually, ''here's what I think we need to be doing...''

Flick can't stop herself from laughing but at least she has the good grace to pretend it's at something inside her head: ''Did you ever watch that cartoon when you were a kid? The one with the cat always getting up to shenanigans? He looked just like the cat on that box, don't you think? I wonder if there's a copyright issue...''

''I really need you to be paying attention right now,'' says Shem, with a patronising look on his face.

''Sorry,'' says Flick. ''I think things must be getting on top of me.''

Shem tries to lean over Flick to touch her consolingly but she has parked the skiff just that bit further away from where it was before. Shem readjusts his position but the moment is lost.

''So,'' says Flick, making a show of gathering her wits, ''what's the plan?''

Shem sighs, as if there is a great burden upon him. ''I think you need to get the name from arKhana then ditch him. He's too close to Temperance for this to work for us.''

Flick narrows her eyes.

''It's okay. When you get the name drop me a line. I can take it from there.''

''You won't get anywhere without me, Shem. Arbitration will shut you out.''

''You're right,'' says Shem. ''Now you're thinking it through, that's good. Okay, get the name, message me and I'll meet you on the gantry. We can do the extraction together.''

''I'm going to need to speak to Vinst,'' says Flick. ''I think holding onto The Chemist is a bad move, politically.''

''No,'' says Shem. ''It'll give the Hierarchy leverage. And that means it gives your family leverage. This is a win for the guFlecht.''

''But Shem,'' says Flick, innocently. ''As soon as I get my name back I'm head of the guFlecht. I think my opinion counts for something at this stage, don't you?'' This time Flick looks him in the eye. This time she wants to see the lies and the discrepancies.

''Of course,'' says Shem. ''I was forgetting myself. I'll make sure Vinst contacts you.''

Flick smiles at him. Vinst has no intention of letting her get out of prison alive. ''So what now? You take me to my cell?''

Shem makes his eyes light up as though he's just had an idea and says, magnanimously: ''I tell you what, you keep hold of Mikey okay? It'll give you a bit of independence. Give you back some of that pride of yours, how about that?''

''Fair enough. Mikey, if we could just grab a few things on the way...'' and before Shem even has time to giver her a peck on the cheek, let alone a hug and smoochy kiss with tongues, she's off.