KATHREE WAS AWAKENED MUCH AS KATH TWO HAD BEEN ON THE morning when she had seen the Digger from her glider: by a certainty that something was out there, supported by no real evidence. This time, she was responding to sound: something she’d heard while still asleep, accessible only through a memory that eluded her the harder she reached for it. She rolled over onto her belly, propped herself up on her elbows, aimed her face uphill, closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and froze. For the first few minutes she wasn’t trying to hear anything, just taking in the ambient soundscape so that she could detect any noises that did not belong in it. The flynk chain on that barge was still operating, producing a steady note that could be filtered out by the mind’s neural circuitry. She was aware that Bard too had suddenly become very quiet, but she didn’t know whether he had heard something or was simply following her cue. Kath Two might have been bookish and unobtrusive, but Kathree was the sort of person who kept nearby men on their toes.