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couple from the Outer Hebrides. Only the metal frames of the hand-gliders remained, bobbing on the water.
    ‘Theys don’t even leave any bones, see, them natterjackers,’ said Stanton Bosch, and the cow vomited over the side of the tuk-tuk, and he had to call to her loudly, ‘Careful with that vomit, cow! That there’s a ladder for them fish! They’ll swim right up it and into your frothy mouth, they will!’
    But the cow couldn’t stop, and she couldn’t find a bucket, so she filled a corner of the tuk-tuk nearest the outboard housing with a puddle of her grey puke.

Chapter Nine
    On the great lawn, Mrs. Bellingham was making a hole, planting crocuses.
    The grounds of Blowers, her country estate on the planet Crampton, were neither tropical, nor temperate, nor tamed, nor fully wild.
    From Earth five centuries before, her ancestors had brought camellias, dandelions, hollyhocks and bluebells, that they had put in the shaded beds nearest the house; banana plants and frangipani were laid out on the escarpment to the north, which was warmed by a tropical breeze that blew in from the west; and paw-paws and mangoes were placed in an orchard near the south-facing wall, because the planet’s third sun would rise and catch them there twice a day. They had planted spreading groves of coconuts and banyans and plantains in the shade to the east; and daisies and lavenders and herbs of all descriptions had filled a plot that they had carefully marked out in the western remote, and had spread unexpectedly to a rose garden that flourished in a wet hollow near the ornamental lake; and there were thistles and burlaps and brambles and vines and creepers and cow-itch, growing all in between. All had flourished on this strange world.
    ‘You must push them in a little deeper, Madam,’ said Traction, the old gardener, who was standing nearby. He was some seventy years old, dressed in dirty flannels and black wellingtons with a tweed cloth cap on his head. He had sideburns, roughly configured, and a small moustache that was mostly grey but flecked black in places. He wore large gardening gloves and smelled of burdock.
    The Committee wanted her back in the house and he was the bearer of the message.
    She rose from her knees with a sigh and staggered about a bit and held a hand to her lower back and grimaced.
    ‘I know what I’m doing, Traction. I am a gardener.’
    ‘You are mistress of this house. I’m the gardener.’
    ‘The Bellinghams have been gardening here for five centuries. You are the hired help.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘Such a shame about the moon.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘It will have an effect on the hollyhocks.’
    ‘Undoubtedly.’
    ‘And on recruitment too.’
    ‘Recruitment has been an issue with us for a long time, ma’am. The destruction of the moon can’t really make it any worse.’
    ‘I suppose not. The young people show no commitment to the cause.’
    ‘They have known nothing but the Empire. It is only to be expected.’
    ‘They have no fight in them.’
    ‘It has been parlayed out of them.’
    ‘Are we to meet in committee?’
    ‘They’re waiting in the dining room.’
    ‘Oh, God! Is that dreadful man with the beard there?’
    ‘He certainly is. He’s the new Vice-Chairman, remember. I think he’s anxious to say his piece.’
    They made their way back to the great house, and Mrs. Bellingham stopped in the hallway to take off her wellingtons. She could hear the hub-hub from the dining room. The Committee was in full cry. Worse than the hounds, she thought. She wondered why she bothered.
    Traction made her straighten her frock and fix her hair. Then she gave a little spray with the perfume compact she kept in the press, and set her face in the mirror, before she opened the oaken double doors.
    There were half a dozen men seated around the oval table. They all stopped talking and looked up at her as she entered.
    ‘Hope you don’t mind, Pamela – started on the sherry.’
    ‘No, not at