Again half-smiling, Shalukhe appraised Osherl. “How can I supervise someone so clever?”

“Simplicity itself! If he shirks, speak only two words: ‘indenture points’.”

Osherl uttered a hollow laugh. “Already Rhialto the Marvellous works his supple wiles.”

Rhialto paid no heed. He reached down, took her hands and pulled her erect. “And now: to work! Are you less distraught than before?”

“Very much so! Rhialto, I thank you for your kindness.”

“Shalukhe the Swimmer, or Dawn-thing, or however you will be called: a shadow still hangs over you, but it is a pleasure to see you smile.”

Osherl spoke in the language of the twenty-first aeon: “Physical contact has been made, and the program now enters its second phase … Such a poor torn little wretch, how could she resist Rhialto?”

“Your experience is limited,” said Rhialto. “It is more a case of ‘How could Rhialto resist such a poor torn little wretch?’”

The girl looked from one to the other, hoping to divine the sense of the interchange. Rhialto spoke out: “Now, to our business! Osherl, take the pleurmalion —” he handed the object to Osherl “— then climb above the clouds to locate the sky-spot. From a point directly below, lower a heavy flashing red lantern on a long cord until it hangs close above the Perciplex. The day is windless and accuracy should be fine.”

Osherl, for reasons of caprice, now took upon himself the guise of a middle-aged Walvoon shopkeeper dressed in baggy black breeches, a mustard-ocher vest and a wide-brimmed black hat. He took the pleurmalion in a pudgy hand, mounted the sky on three lunging strides.

“With any luck,” Rhialto told Shalukhe, “my irksome task is close to its end, whereupon we will return to the relative calm of the twenty-first aeon … What’s this? Osherl back so soon?”

Osherl jumped down from the sky to the rug before the pavilion. He made a negative signal and Rhialto uttered a poignant cry. “Why have you not located the Perciplex?”

Osherl gave his fat shop-keeper’s face a doleful shake. “The sky-spot is absorbed in the mists and cannot be seen. The pleurmalion is useless.”

Rhialto snatched the device and sprang high through the air, into the clouds and out, to stand in the acrid vermilion radiance. He put the pleurmalion to his eye, but, as Osherl had asserted, the sky-spot no longer could be seen.

For a period Rhialto stood on the white expanse, casting a long pale blue shadow. With frowning attention he examined the pleurmalion, then again looked around the sky, to no avail.

Something was amiss. Staring thoughtfully off across the white cloud-waste, Rhialto pondered the conceivable cases. Had the Perciplex been moved? Perhaps the pleurmalion had lost its force? … Rhialto returned to the pavilion.

Osherl stood to the side, gazing vacantly toward the mouldering ruins. Rhialto called out: “Osherl! A moment of your time, if you please.”

Osherl approached without haste, to stand with hands thrust into the pockets of his striped pantaloons. Rhialto stood waiting, tossing the pleurmalion from one hand to the other, and watching Osherl with a pensive gaze.

“Well then, Rhialto: what now?” asked Osherl, with an attempt at ease of manner.

“Osherl, who suggested to you that the projection of the Perciplex might be captured by the overcast?”

Osherl waved one of his hands in a debonair flourish. “To an astute intellect, so much is apparent.”

“But you lack an astute intellect. Who provided this insight?”

“I learn from a multitude of sources,” muttered Osherl. “I cannot annotate or codify each iota of information which comes my way.”

“Let me imagine a sequence of events,” said Rhialto. “Osherl, are you paying close attention?”

Osherl, standing disconsolate with hanging jowls and moist gaze, muttered: “Where is my choice?”

“Then consider these imagined events. You climb above the overcast where Sarsem greets you. A conversation ensues, in this fashion:

Sarsem:

‘What now, Osherl? What is your task?’

Osherl:

‘That stone-hearted Rhialto wants me to search about the sky for signs of the Perciplex, using this pleurmalion.’

Sarsem:

‘Indeed? Let me look … I see nothing.’

Osherl:

‘No? Most singular! What shall I tell Rhialto?’

Sarsem:

‘He is easily confused. Tell him that the image is trapped in the clouds. This pleurmalion is now worthless. Take it back.’

Osherl:

‘But this is a different pleurmalion from the one I gave you! It is only a trifle of ordinary glass!’

Sarsem:

‘What then? Both are now equally useless. Take it back and give it to that mooncalf Rhialto; he will never know the difference.’

Osherl:

‘Hm. Rhialto is a mooncalf, but a cunning mooncalf.’

Sarsem:

‘He is very troublesome to our friend Hache-Moncour, who has promised us so many indulgences … My advice is this: by some subterfuge induce him to cancel your indenture; then leave him to cool his heels here in this dank and tiresome epoch.’

Osherl:

‘The concept has much to recommend it.’

“So saying, the two of you chuckled together, then you took leave of your crony and descended with the false pleurmalion and the news that the sky showed no projection, owing to the overcast.”

Osherl cried out with quivering jowls: “Is this not plausible? You have no reason to believe either that the new pleurmalion is false, or that Sarsem’s views are incorrect!”

“First of all: why did you not report your conversation with Sarsem?”

Osherl shrugged. “You failed to ask.”