Thanks for your votes and comments.

This is a non-erotic science-fiction story, the latest in the series of stand-alone short stories featuring Hana Jeffries. It's the story I promised at the end of Every Man's Fantasy, chapter 27.

There are some tie-ins to the Every Man's Fantasy series, where the story fits in between chapters 27 and 28.

I hope you enjoy it.

Erinaceous.

********

The Mystery of Eden Homeworld

1 Leaving Capella

"What are guyots?" Hestia asked.

"They're undersea volcanic mountains with flat tops," Hana answered.

Hestia Smith and her honorary niece, fourteen-year-old Hana Jeffries, were in their seats on a hyperspace liner, waiting to depart. It was Earth-year 2,559 and they were leaving Capella Space Station for the Outworld planet Celetaris, a week's journey on the regular stopping service. An in-flight program about an optional excursion to Eden Homeworld captured Hestia's interest.

"It says Eden was once a volcanic planet covered with miles of water," said Hestia, "but after terraforming, it now has ten-thousand islands in a great ocean."

"Did they use electrolysis or photolysis?" Hana asked.

"Pardon?"

"The terraformers must have evaporated the ocean by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. On an Earth-sized planet, oxygen will stay in the atmosphere but hydrogen will escape into space or be collected for fuel. Electrolysis does it with electrodes. Photolysis uses plants or nanobots. Does the program say which method was used, or both?"

"It doesn't say. It just says if you choose one excursion this journey, make it to Eden Homeworld: it's a paradise. We should go there."

"You said you wanted to visit Erythos, Auntie."

"I do, but Erythos is for lazy rich people who like spa-treatments. You'd be bored. Eden's better."

Hana looked up the price-list for excursions to Eden. There were day-trips and longer holidays.

"They seem very expensive," she said doubtfully.

Hana was going to university four years early and her parents had saved hard to afford their brilliant daughter's flight and living expenses.

"Aw, Sweetie. My treat. We'll take the day-trip. It saves packing our suitcases again."

Aged 38, but still looking 23 thanks to rejuvenation treatments, the red-haired Entertainer had recently retired from her job of pleasing men for money. Now Hestia was looking forward to a new life on Celetaris, where she hoped she could be useful to her niece.

It was only forty minutes since they made a tearful farewell to Hana's family and their friends in the passenger dock.

While their trunks were settled in the hold, they trundled sheeplike through the lines of the customs and hygiene station, wearing magnestrip waistbands and overshoes to prevent them floating off in the low-gravity dock, tugging suitcases weighed down with magnetic lugs.

Despite her tears, Hana was excited to leave Capella Space Station for the first time in her life. Hestia was no less excited. She had not been on a spaceship in nearly twenty years, not since she left Earth to seek her fortune on Capella.

After embarkation, the crew in blue-grey uniforms and orange magnestrip vests smiled as they helped passengers to their cabins. Hana unpacked her case, clipping her clothes into the cupboard to prevent them floating around in zero gravity, securing her suitcase in a drawer.

She took her wash kit to the bathroom.

There was a shower cubicle which puffed out damp air, to be wiped off with a sponge, followed by a blast of warm dry air. The next cubicle was a toilet with an adjustable intimate attachment for each user. The spaceship was designed to accelerate and decelerate at 1g for long periods of flight, creating an Earth-like gravitation, but there would be times when the ship was just cruising, when anything not clipped into place or attracted to the floor by magnetic lugs would float around and be a nuisance.

Looking at the arrangements, Hana decided she would wait until they were accelerating before using the toilet.

"I can hold it in," she said to herself. "So long as I don't drink anything."

"What's that, Sweetie?" Hestia asked as she packed away her makeup case.

Hana showed her the toilet attachment.

"It's not so bad once you're used to it," Hestia said.

"Yuck!" said Hana.

Her last item to stow away was a big soft furry toy rabbit. White with pink ears, nose and belly, it was a going-away present from her best-friend Morty Bowman and his family. She hesitated a second, then decided she was not embarrassed, so she pulled off her magnetic waistband and overshoes, kicked off from the floor and floated up to the ceiling.

Hana executed a perfect roll, twisting out to place her feet on the ceiling, cushioning her motion to stop dead. She tucked the rabbit under the blanket of the top bunk and pushed off again. With another twist and roll, she landed on the floor, with her feet ready to slip into the magnestrip overshoes.

Hestia watched her niece's self-taught gymnastic skills. "You'll do," she said.

With their clothes and cases stowed away, they left the cabin to find their assigned seats for the departure.

As soon as they sat down, a voice came over the speakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm your flight manager, Carol. On behalf of Captain Edwards and the crew, I'd like to welcome passengers who joined us at Capella Space Station. This is the regular stopping service clockwise through the Beltway Hyperspace System to the Outworld colonies. Our next stop is in about eight hours at Eden Homeworld.

"Please take your flight seats and watch the safety briefing on the big screen. Crew-members will be happy to help you in any way you need or answer any questions you have. I wish you a pleasant and comfortable flight.

"Crew announcement: fifteen minutes to departure. Check and secure the cabins. Thank you."

Hana looked around the circular deck. There were twenty cabins around the rim, with emergency escape pods and other amenities in between. The middle of the deck had lifts and stairs to other levels. Forty passengers sat in large comfortable seats facing a big curving screen toward the centre of the deck. It was showing the safety briefing. The seats had strong harnesses and pockets with clips to secure personal belongings in zero gravity, like Hana's computer tab. There were directional speakers in the soft protective headrests.

Carol, the flight manager, broadcast again.

"Crew announcement: check that all loose items are safely stowed away. Secure all passenger harnesses. Ten-minutes to departure."

Stewards came around to fasten the harnesses and check the headrests were curled into place.

It was now that Hestia looked at the in-flight magazine, projected in 3d by beams from her headrest.

She could have learned about guyots for herself but she liked that Hana knew everything. "Some people have the webopedia," Hestia would say, "but I have the Hanapedia," and Hana would roll her eyes.

With the safety briefing over, the big screen projected images from the surface cameras of the spaceship.

In a choreographed movement, six tugboats positioned themselves alongside the ship. Their long antennae-like grapples extended to three times their lengths and made strong magnetic fields. Their job was to pull the spaceship away from the passenger dock and guide it clear of the space station.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the flight manager said again. "Magnetic artificial gravitation has been turned off and lights guiding you to the emergency escape pods have been turned on. Crew: dim the cabin lights and take your stations for manoeuvring."

The cabin lights went down and they felt lighter in their seats. A new voice came over the speakers.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is Captain Edwards. We're ready to depart Capella Space Station and launch toward the clockwise Beltway beacon. Crew: manoeuvring in one minute."

Exactly a minute later, there was a soft jolt as the ship detached from the docking point and was pulled away from the space station by the tugboats. Powerful rocket exhausts washed over the hull, making a faint hissing inside. A deep slow vibration - felt rather than heard - signified that the ion drive had been turned on.

They felt the inertia as the great ship was slowly turned around and pointed away from the space station. The bass rumble of the ion drive became a smooth background buzz, like a radio hum, but it quietened down and was almost undetectable as they gradually picked up speed.

Ten minutes later, flight manager Carol's voice again came over the speakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're clear of Capella Space Station and have said goodbye to the tugboats. We're on our way to the beacon, which you can see as a small blue dot in the centre of the screen. Captain Edwards has engaged the ion drive to bring us up to our approach velocity of just over 100,000 metres per second. Your harnesses will remain secure until we are at 1g acceleration. Thank you."

There was a surge as the drive flipped a heavy beam of ions out of the rear of the ship at nearly light-speed. The passengers were pushed down into their seats. The space station, Hana's home, began to recede.

"We're at 1g," Carol announced, as the cabin lights came on and the harnesses released.

"We will accelerate at this rate for 2 hours and 50 minutes to reach entry speed for the beacon, after which we will cruise for another half-hour. When we enter the hyperspace plume, it will take only three seconds before we emerge from the exit beacon near Eden Homeworld, 60 light-years away. We ask you to return to your seats before the acceleration stops and we become weightless again.

"Meanwhile, the restaurant, bars and shops are open. Please enjoy your journey."

"Can we look around the ship?" Hana asked.

"Sure. Let me get my credit stick so we can book our excursion."

"I need the toilet first," Hana said, having been valiantly holding it in all this time.

The tour took them almost the whole length of the ship, which was a strong tube with an ion drive at the stern and the pilot's station at the prow. The body of the ship was split vertically into sixty decks. Forty decks had passenger accommodations. Other decks were for the crew, restaurants, bars, games rooms, a children's play area, shops, a rudimentary gym, a helpdesk to report problems, cinemas and even a casino.

After they visited the travel agent to book the day-trip to Eden, Hestia and Hana went exploring.

The restaurants and cafes were comfortable and already busy. They were open only during periods of acceleration and deceleration. Food and drink were not permitted outside the restaurants, due to the nuisance of spillages during zero-gravity flight. The food looked good but it was afternoon by their body-clocks and neither was hungry.

They visited the shops and looked in on the entertainment deck but did not stay long at either.

When they returned to their seats, Hestia took out a fashion magazine and Hana studied a physics paper on her computer tab. She projected a 3d image of a Beltway hyperspace junction, a grey tube a kilometre in diameter, filled with complex electronics.

Hana rotated the holographic image with a flick of her fingers, zooming in to focus on the junction's mechanism, dismantling its components, learning how it redirected spaceships out of the Beltway onto a spur, either back toward Earth, where the hundred or so Homeworld planets were, or outward toward one of the dozen Outworld planets, where Hestia and she were headed.

"Are you worried about jumping through hyperspace? It's perfectly safe, you know."

It was the man in the seat next to her who spoke. He was a middle-aged black man with a moustache, a squareish face and a soft voice.

"Thank you, I'm not worried," Hana said, "though I've never jumped through hyperspace before."

"I asked only because I can see you're reading about the Goldrick junctions. I thought maybe you sought reassurance."

"I'm reading all Doctor Goldrick's papers."

"Hana's going to study astrophysics with Danielle Goldrick at the Celetaris Institute for Science," Hestia said with immense pride in her honorary niece.

"That's impressive. May I call you Hana? I'm Tom. This is my wife, Grace," the kindly man said, indicating a middle-aged black woman in a flowery dress.

"This is my aunt Hestia."

"How old are you, Hana?"

"Fourteen."

"Just fourteen," Aunt Hestia boasted. "She was fourteen yesterday."

"And you're going to university?" Tom said. "I'm even more impressed."

"Are you a physicist, Sir?"

"Please call me Tom. ... I'm an electronic engineer. I specialise in security systems but I like to keep up with all science and technology. I know that the Goldrick Junctions are being upgraded to Doctor Goldrick's new hyperspace technology. Like you, we're going to Celetaris, but from there we're taking the tethered link to New Exeter. That was the second hyperspace pathway built with Doctor Goldrick's new technology. The first one was to Samothea, as I expect you know."

"Are you going to New Exeter just to use the new technology?"

"It's not the only reason. Our son, Luke, is competing in the Airsuit Trials there."

"Airsuits are another of Doctor Goldrick's inventions," Hana said. "I've a paper on airsuit technology to read but I haven't got to it yet. How do they work?"

"They're very clever. They use microwaves to compress the air around the suit into a force-field, something like an exo-skeleton, but with an almost frictionless surface. With a good supply of air, you can fly an airsuit. On New Exeter, Luke flies his suit around ice lakes and abandoned quarries. We think he's got a shot at winning a prize in his age-group."

"Tom, stop boring the poor girl."

It was Grace who spoke. She had a round happy face and a warm smile. Tom's accent was East Coast American but Grace spoke with a warm Caribbean lilt.

"Please excuse him, Hana. If he's not going on about science, he's boasting about Luke."

"I don't mind, Ma'am. I love science and Luke sounds brave and skilled."

"Thank you, he is. Call me Grace."

The neighbours for the week-long trip spent an enjoyable half-hour getting to know each other. Grace was a senior nurse practitioner. Hestia explained that she would be looking for a new job on Celetaris. All four were going on the one-day excursion to Eden.

The travellers went to dinner together and stayed in the restaurant until closing time, when the flight manager announced that acceleration would stop in half-an-hour. They were back in their seats and secured with the harnesses in good time for entry to the hyperspace beacon.

The forward camera showed the purple hyperspace plume glowing with static electricity within the silver-grey ring of the beacon, with golden lights flashing around its rim. In a minute, they plunged into the plume and there was only static on the external cameras.

Three seconds later the forward image cleared to show black star-filled space. In the rear was a hyperspace beacon receding from them, its purple plume stitching back together around a vaporous black hole caused by the exiting spaceship.

There was an announcement.

"This is Captain Edwards. We have emerged from the exit beacon and are now on course for an engineering station in a 3,000 mile orbit above Eden Homeworld. Crew: manoeuvring in five minutes."

The flight manager came on the speaker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are cruising at 100,000 metres per second. Your harnesses and headrests will remain secured in position until Captain Edwards has turned the ship around. You'll be weightless as we cruise for half-an-hour before decelerating at 1g, when the harnesses will release and you can leave your seats. Thank you."

The spaceship began to rotate about its long axis, giving the passengers a sideways impetus, pushing them firmly into the backs of their chairs. After a minute, there was a different motion, like falling forward, as the great ship gently turned nose over tail until it faced in the opposite direction.

It was a delicate manoeuvre done slowly and carefully. Even so, a few passengers had queasy stomachs.

"Clever," said Hana, who knew something about gyroscopic motion and suffered no queasiness herself.

"What's clever?" asked Tom.

"How Captain Edwards twisted the ship as well as turned it over, to reduce the effect of the change in momentum on us all."

"Yes, I see that. It was well done."

Half-an-hour later the ion drive came back on and they began their deceleration at 1g, giving them the same downward inertia as gravitation on Earth.

Passengers could leave their seats again. As it was night-time by Earth standard time, Hestia, Grace and Tom went to bed, to catch a few hours' sleep before their excursion the next day. Hana never slept much. She stayed up to read Doctor Goldrick's paper on microwave compressed air technology.

2 Gravitation

Next morning, two-hundred passengers disembarked at the engineering station in a 3,000-mile orbit around the planet Eden. A large shuttlecraft waited to take them down to the planet. Most of the passengers had reached their destinations. Some were visiting Eden for a holiday, and some, like Hestia, Hana, Grace and Tom, were day tourists.

After the shuttlecraft made a hot and fast entry to the atmosphere, it levelled off at ten miles up and began a steady glide down to the surface. The pilot retracted the heat shields from the camera windows and the passengers took their first real view of Eden Homeworld. Those who had not seen it before gasped.

Eden was a paradise. From that height, its colours were mostly shades of blue and green, with wispy white clouds and a big soft yellow sun making the ocean shine and the land glow.

The ocean was vast, though only a remnant of the original sea that had been four miles deep, now mostly evaporated away by terraforming. Thousands of volcanic mountains rose as green pinnacles through the surface. Once underwater, the guyots stood proudly out, up to a mile in height.

Some mountains joined up to form large islands, with the water forming shallow inlets: blue fingers washing as milky foam against the shores.

As the shuttlecraft descended, more features became visible. Some steep-sided guyots had grey granite peaks, their slopes cultivated with light-green terraces, rich in crops, or pastures separated by dark-green hedges. Other mountains and the valleys of the bigger islands were covered by rich verdant forest.

Some volcanoes were bare granite pipes. On others, fountains erupted from their peaks and fell as waterfalls or fast-flowing rivers down their walls.

The shuttlecraft flew over dozens of guyots and coral atolls before making its final descent in a wide circle toward a large island formed from three mountains. This was 'The Three Ladies', a triple city built on an island.

The astroport was on Daughter City, on the eastern point of the triangle. Nine miles to the west was Mother City, the business centre. Thirteen miles to the north was Grandmother City.

As they circled the island, losing height and speed, the passengers had a good look at the three ladies.

Grandmother City was steep-sided and lush with pastel shades in the hazy sunlight. It had a pink and white fairytale castle on its granite peak over a cascading waterfall that fell into a wedge-like chasm.

A minute or so later they passed the crystal and steel skyscrapers on the flat peak of Mother City, glimmering in the morning sunlight.

Now on its final approach, the shuttlecraft circled Daughter City. Its flat top, more than a mile across, contained the astroport, its runways, conning tower, passenger buildings, hangers and transport links. Many light aircraft queued to land or taxied on the runways. A terrestrial stratoliner took off below them and made a turn out to sea, quickly gaining height, the sun glinting on its wings.
They flew over the houses, offices, schools and parks of a living city that grew out of the mountainside. Hoverbuses negotiated the steep winding streets up to the astroport and a maglev monorail coasted on stilts across the arable terraces between the mountains, heading for its station beside the terminal.

******

They landed safely and disembarked on a warm sunny morning into the glass-covered astroport. About sixty passengers were on the day tour. They were met by guides in red jackets who collected them together into groups of ten or twelve.

The last group to be formed included Hestia, Hana, Grace and Tom. They were delayed because Hestia and Hana, who had been living under artificial light on a space station, stopped to apply lashings of sun-cream before they could be exposed to natural daylight.

The tour-guide was a young Korean woman called Min. She vainly tried to hurry her group along but Hana caused a further delay. She had something else she wanted to do.

Standing on the platform, she took a tennis ball from her backpack and looked up at the ceiling of the astroport to check its height. There were people around her but plenty of room for her task.

Hana threw the ball straight up in the air, watching it climb and fall back toward her outstretched hand. She caught the ball and smiled happily.

"Real gravitation," she said to Hestia with satisfaction. "Make a video of me for Morty please?"

Hestia took Hana's communicator and videoed the girl as she threw the ball in the air again, spinning around to catch it with a great beaming smile, her pony-tail swishing across her face.

"Look, Morty!" she cried to the camera. "It comes down in an exact straight line!"

Hestia filmed the exuberant girl in her innocent fun, laughing as she flung the ball up and caught it again. Best of all, Hestia got a still shot of Hana in mid-air, just as she launched the ball again, kicking her heels up, her knees bent, her back arched, her head thrown back and her arms raised. Her whole frame was an expression of pure joy.

This was when Min came over to hurry the pair along. Down to only eight members, she complained that they would be the last to take a hoverbus from the astroport. Hana sheepishly apologised to them all as she got on the hoverbus, explaining that she promised to send a video to her best-friend back on Capella of her first experience of gravitation.

"Don't you worry, Honey," Grace said on behalf of everyone, whether they agreed or not. "It's important to get your bearings in a new place, especially if you've never been on a planet with real gravity before."

Hana's youthful innocence won over the other members of the group. They got to know each other as the tour began with a hoverbus ride down the mountainside, through the valley between Daughter City and Mother City, crossing a shallow inlet of the ocean when the hoverbus turned amphibious to scoot across the water like a jetboat.

Besides Grace and Tom, whom they knew, and Min the guide, Hestia and Hana introduced themselves to a Chinese couple, Nuo and Chen Yang, who were shopkeepers in their seventies. In the twenty-sixth century, seventy was still middle-aged and the Yangs were a fit and active couple. They were headed to a planet in the Sino-Russian sector and taking excursions at every stop on the way.

The last couple were Rowen and Agatha. Tall blonde women from the Nordic Alliance, they were friends in their thirties on holiday together.

Apart from Min, who immigrated to Eden, they were all tourists from Earth or Capella.

******

The hoverbus took them on an exciting climb on a winding road up sheer cliffs to Mother City. It deposited them at the ground-floor entrance to a large shopping centre in a sheltered canyon between vast skyscrapers.

Mother City was ultra-modern. It was for businessmen, serious shoppers and tourists who liked to party in nightclubs or enjoy the kind of entertainments that need flashing lights and loud noises. It was fun to visit for a while. They had a good breakfast at a food court on the roof of a plastisteel skyscraper among the wispy clouds, with the bustling city far below.

An hour in Mother City was long enough for this particular tour group, who had not come to Eden to go shopping or look at skyscrapers. They took the maglev monorail from the central station, which crossed the wide valleys on plastisteel legs, connecting all three cities. In fifteen minutes, they plunged into the middle of the mountain of Grandmother City. The monorail ascended the seven levels of the city in a spiral inside the mountain, stopping to deposit passengers at underground stations on its way to the peak, sometimes emerging from between the streets, to run on elevated platforms for a quarter-mile or so.

The tour group departed the monorail at level five, three-quarters of the way up the mountain. It was the human heart of Grandmother City: a circle of terraced houses, narrow streets and wide squares with street markets and an artists' quarter.

They emerged into bright sunlight. Min took them on a walking tour through the winding streets. Stone-built houses in long terraces seemed to grow out of the cliffs. Eight stories high, they had wooden shutters, narrow balconies and romantic garrets in which artists traditionally starved or looked for inspiration from cracks in the plaster. Between the streets, there were glimpses of the ocean or heady rooftop views of the lower levels.

The artist colony thrived in these charming back streets, where the best cafes and bars were found.

Crossroads opened out into squares with fountains or shady plane trees. Cafes with tables under blue-and-white parasols spilled out into the wide streets. Market stalls with colourful awnings and noisy vendors sold fruits, vegetables, bread, cheese, cooked meats and artisan wares, blocking the traffic.

Hana was pleased to see the citizens of Grandmother City were keen gardeners. Lush red bougainvillea, lilac and honeysuckle grew on wires across the narrow passageways. Front gardens in the wider roads had orange trees, olives, miniature pines, lollipop-shaped laurels and box hedges. Mock orange and climbing roses in yellow and pink hung over the doorways. Back gardens had American sycamores and tulip trees for shade. There were fig trees for fruit, laburnum for colour and jasmine for perfume.

With stops to browse the street markets, the tour of the artists' quarter finished in the early afternoon. Min told her group:

"Our next stop is a cafe on the main square beside the castle. There's a funicular here to the plaza on level seven, or you can take the stairs. There are 430 steps, so those of us taking the funicular will give the energetic climbers a half-hour head start."

Grace and Tom preferred to be lazy and even the fit Yangs declined the stone steps; but Hana was determined to walk, to feel as much gravity as she could. Hestia also fancied the exercise. Rowen and Agatha came with them, so the four went on foot to the next meeting point at the top of the city.

On the bracing climb, they chatted about home and work. Agatha and Rowen were schoolteachers who left their husbands at home to go travelling for a fortnight during their long summer holiday. They were simple unpretentious folk, friendly but quiet. Their only affectation was to call themselves 'travellers' rather than 'tourists'.

Min was waiting for them at the top of the steps and led them across a wide cobbled square, with the castle on one side and shops, pubs, cafes and hotels in a crescent around the edge. At one end of the crescent was the monorail station.

On the open side of the square between the station and the castle, there was a low wall and a protective barrier to a sheer drop into a chasm that split the top of the mountain, as if a chunk has been sliced from it.

The waterfall from a natural spring in the castle grounds splashed over the edge of the peak and cascaded into the chasm. There was some wind at this height, a mile above the ocean. It drove spray from the falls onto the plaza, making the cobble stones glint and shine.

The back yard of the café opened to a view over the red-tiled roofs and luscious gardens of the city. Hana ran to the parapet to gaze on a vista she had only glimpsed between the houses on the stone staircase.

From the platform built into the cliff, the full beauty of the city opened to her view, one of the most magical sights in Eden Homeworld.

Beyond the roofs was the terraced mountainside, with the shimmering blue sea beyond and other mountains hazy on the horizon. The golden afternoon sun drenched the abundant fields, planted with violet lavender and green spiky wheat. Butterflies fluttered in their manic flight around a buddleia bush. A hundred feet below them, bickering in a fig tree, a flock of parakeets was a colourful nuisance on a hot day.

Perfumed roses climbed the walls of the parapet and infiltrated the wooden balustrade.

"The scents are intoxicating," Hestia said. "It reminds me of a poem I learned at school. Just the line: 'sweet musk-roses and eglantine'. I smell musk roses, but what's eglantine?"

"It's a pink flower, the dog-rose or briar," Hanapedia said. "I can't see any here but we have it in the park on Capella."

After applying more sun-cream, they sat in the garden under a parasol to eat a late lunch while enjoying a cooling breeze and a heart-melting vista.

There were two items left on the tour: buying overpriced kitsch in quaint little shops around the pretty cobbled square, and visiting the castle, which was the town hall, police station, museum and art gallery. There was a special treat in the art gallery of a jewellery exhibition.

Hana was not interested in shopping and she loved a museum. Hestia preferred shops to a museum but they both fancied the art gallery. Rowen and Agatha had the same preference and, as the others had shopped enough in the artists' quarter before taking the funicular, the whole group set off for the fairy-tale castle.

They began with a tour of the town hall, which had a library, a plush great hall lined with portraits and heraldry, half of which served as a council chamber, and a museum that told the history of the colony. Hana took the longest in the museum, learning how the planet was terraformed (it was both hydrolysis and artificial photolysis), so aunt and niece lagged behind the others.

They briefly caught up in the castle grounds, which had planted verges, a small orchard and a rose garden, but they fell behind again when Hana lingered on the glass-floored viewing platform over the waterfall. Hana was thrilled to stand above the waterfall as it dropped over the granite escarpment and disappeared into the mountainside. It reappeared further down the mountain as a stream that splashed through the terraces to the ocean.

She ran to the edge of the platform to look straight down, which frightened Hestia even more than standing on a glass floor above the chasm.

"Don't go so near the edge please, Hana? It gives me the shakes," Hestia said.

"It's all right, Aunt Hestia," Hana assured her, leaning over the barrier. "There's a safety net. It's a shame: it spoils the view."

After the terror of the chasm, they went to find peace in the art gallery.

3 Exhibition

The art gallery was a series of rooms running either side of a long corridor above the great hall.

It featured local artists whose most common subjects (of those paintings that had recognisable subjects) were the people of Grandmother City, living or working in their quaint houses, winding streets, cobbled squares or the fantasy castle. Given the location and the Mediterranean light, views of the sun-blessed terraces and the shimming blue ocean were also popular.

Each room of the gallery was devoted to a school, with paintings in a similar style placed together. Hestia and Hana loved the domestic scenes and the landscapes best. They appreciated the historical and devotional paintings, the portraits, nudes and still lifes, but Hestia was less happy with the last few rooms at the far end of the corridor that led to the special exhibition room.

They were filled with paintings in the modernist style: abstracts, childish still lifes, distorted landscapes and portraits of people with noses and eyes on opposite sides of their faces and horribly contorted bodies.

Hestia had to laugh at some of them.

"You probably understand art better than me," she confessed to Hana, standing before a particularly incomprehensible canvas. "When I was a girl, I liked a painting of a dog or a sunset because I liked dogs and sunsets. Now I can appreciate more subtle things, like showing the brushstrokes or leaving some of the canvas bare. It doesn't have to be a beautiful subject to be a beautiful painting. But this is just ugly.

"It looks like leftovers from dinner. And this one," she pointed to a distorted portrait of a woman: "has got three ears and a belly-button on her chin."

Hana laughed.

"Sometimes the artist is trying to teach us a new way of looking at the world, such as seeing the dimension of time as another spatial dimension."

"Really? This makes sense to you?"

"It does, but that doesn't mean I like it."

"Come on, let's hurry through this wacky stuff and look at the jewellery. It better be good to make up for having to wade through all this. Yuck! There's even more of it in the corridor."

The jewellery exhibition was the current highlight of the gallery. It had its own museum guard. At the moment, it was a tall thin man with dark spiky hair. On display stands were a dozen pieces of desstrolite crystal jewellery. One of the rarest and most expensive minerals in the galaxy, desstrolite had the uncanny property of changing its crystal structure randomly in response to light of different intensities and angles of incidence.

Normally translucent white, the most admired desstrolite crystals had impurities that shone as rich blue veins as the lattice stretched and deformed under the natural variation of light, so that it seemed to viewers like the blue veins were dancing.

Hana said desstrolite had a fractal quality but she did not try to explain to Hestia what fractional dimensions were. It was enough that the crystals scintillated and coruscated with a special kind of beauty.

Cut into regular shapes and polished, the jewels needed to be seen close up for the best effects, so the number of visitors was restricted. Only one tour-group at a time was admitted to the exhibition.

Min's tour group were lucky to have the exhibition to themselves for half-an-hour before the museum closed. It was a treat, because other places they went in Grandmother City were busy enough to make them wait in line. Now they had plenty of time to admire the astonishing jewellery before having to take the monorail to Daughter City astroport and catch the shuttlecraft back to the spaceship.

More than half of the jewels were shaped like teardrops. The largest of these, an inch long, was on loan from a shop on Argus Space Station. It rotated in a glass case under bright lights, making an image of finger-like blue lightning threading through white cotton-wool clouds. The motions were regular enough for the viewer to see patterns but random enough to keep his interest as the image continuously changed.

The masterpiece of the jewellery exhibition was a thin sculpted four-inch-square piece. On a display stand under bright white lights, with no glass protector, it was possible to get up close to the jewel, though discreet signs warned viewers to stay back from the edge of the display stand.

Nuo and Chen were there first, on either side of the jewel. They were mesmerised. Being fair-minded, after five minutes they gave up their places to Rowen and Agatha, who were enraptured as well.

Grace and Tom came next.

"It's fascinating," Grace said. "It looks like a beach with yellow sand and green palm trees, but it's all blue and white. How's it done?"

"I don't know," Tom said. "I guess it's like those diagrams in which a few dots moving in a coordinated way tricks the mind into seeing an entire figure moving. The edges suggest an image and the mind does the rest."

"There's a tree here ..." Grace pointed, moving her hand close to the gem.

An alarm went off and the display stand was bathed in red light. There was a sharp hissing sound and Grace felt her hand pushed away by a firm cushion, as if the air itself became solid.

"Step back, please Ma'am," the spiky-haired guard said.

"Oh, did I do that?" Grace was shocked. "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right, Ma'am. It's happened more times than I've counted. Nothing to worry about. It'll reset in a minute."

The alarm sounded for ten seconds and went off when the attendant called his office to report the false alarm.

Grace was still apologising to the guard while Tom had a close look at the source of microwave compressed air that instantly formed a force-field to protect the jewel.

"It's very sensitive," he said.

"Yes, Sir," the guard agreed. "Too sensitive, if you ask me, but at least we know it works."

The misty air cleared and the red light went off.

"And here's the jewel, safe and sound."

Grace was still embarrassed, so Tom took her away to look at the other exhibits. Hestia and Hana took their places and were soon enthralled as well.

The design was carved just a millimetre into the crystal but it was enough to produce a transcendent effect when the viewers' eyes adjusted. An image popped out of the background. Sculpted from milky white clouds and scintillating blue veins, there was the outline of a desert island, framed by palm trees, with a wide beach and a shimmering ocean.

The palm fronds seemed to bend in the wind, as waves brushed against the sandy beach. By some kind of cognitive trickery, the vivid image seemed to take on the natural colours of the scene, though the jewel was clearly blue and white at the same time. The effect was mesmerising.

Hestia and Hana saw mirror images of the ethereal design. They were so engrossed they did not hear the public announcement that the museum was closing in ten minutes. Nor did they hear the second announcement five minutes later, which prompted the other tour-members to go to join Min. They were so enthralled by the jewel that they remained transfixed even after the final announcement.

The guard stayed patiently near the door during the visit of Min's group, except briefly when Grace set off the alarm, but he paid attention to Hestia. Like a normal red-blooded man, he took many long looks at her and hoped she did not catch him staring.

Now Hestia and Hana were the last visitors in the exhibition. The guard spoke softly, not wanting to break the spell but needing to move them on.

"Excuse me, ladies, but the museum is closing now."

Nodding in obedience, Hestia took one last longing look at the jewel and shut her eyes tightly.

"Guide me out, please," she said to Hana.

"Guide you? Why?"

"I love that jewel so much that I want to keep its image in my mind and not look at those horrible paintings again, so I'm keeping my eyes shut until we get to the stairs. You'll have to guide me."

"You're nuts, Aunt Hestia."

"I know, Dear. Indulge me."

Taking her hand, Hana guided Hestia through the door and along the corridor to the stairs down to the exit, where the tour-group was waiting for the stragglers, as usual. They were at the top of the stairs when an alarm bell went off.

Hestia was forced to open her eyes. A short blonde museum guard came running from the other end of the corridor. She stopped by the entrance to the exhibition room and spoke a few words. Then she continued her run to catch up with Min's group. She looked shocked and worried.

The rest of the tour group were marshalled by another museum guard who ran around the end of the castle to stop them leaving. He led them back up the stairs.
The whole group was escorted by the two guards back along the corridor to the stairs they first came up. When they passed the exhibition room, they looked inside. The desstrolite sculpture, the priceless jewel, was missing from its display stand.

Two museum guards were by the stand, looking puzzled. The spiky haired guard put his hand over the stand's barrier and the alarm went off, exactly as it had done for Grace. The red light shone and the force-field ascended to push his hand back from the barrier.

The alarm was silenced and the air cleared, revealing an empty display stand again.

Now the tour group was hurried along the corridor down to the great hall and asked to sit in the delegates' chairs in the council chamber to wait for instructions.

Min approached the blonde guard.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, I'm Min Dae. I'm responsible for getting my tour-group back to Daughter City astroport. They're due to board a shuttlecraft to their hyperspace liner in about ninety minutes. Do you know how long we'll be delayed? As you know, the monorail takes twenty minutes."

"I'm sorry, Miss Dae, I don't have anything to tell you. That's my boss there, Mr Atherson, the Museum Manager, talking to a staff member. He'll let me know as soon as he has any information."

"What's your name?"

"Jill Coburn. Please try not to worry."

Min's group sat waiting patiently. They took at look at Mr Atherson, who was of medium height, past middle age, fair-haired with a reddish face at the moment. He was giving orders but seemed to be using activity to overcome his embarrassment at the greatest test of his career: a priceless jewel stolen on his watch, even while he was in the building.

Also sitting at the other end of the hall were about thirty other visitors who had been in the castle when the alarm went off. They were guarded by members of the museum staff, who were soon joined by two constables from the police station next door.

A stocky dark-haired woman in a blue uniform with sergeant stripes followed the constables. Finally, a dour looking man in a grey suit arrived. He was the senior policeman, known to Mr Atherson, who went to greet him.

"Inspector Masham, thank you for coming, thank you. It's such a disaster, a catastrophe. What can we do? What do you need me to do?"

"We'll talk in your office, Colin, and we'll get this all sorted out. Come on."

4 Investigation

Inspector Masham followed Colin Atherson into his office, which was beside the main entrance, next to the cloakrooms. The door was open, showing the computer workstation that controlled the security system for the museum.

The sergeant came over to talk to Jill Coburn. Min stood up to explain her worry that the tour-group might miss their flight.

"Sergeant Wren, Ma'am," the police officer introduced herself. She had a brisk efficient voice and a straightforward manner. "I understand your concern, but you'll have to be patient for now. Inspector Masham will explain things to you soon. I'll let him know that you're pressed for time."

The sergeant joined Inspector Masham in Colin's office to watch the security footage from the exhibition room. After ten minutes, during which Min became increasingly agitated, the inspector finally came out to address the museum's visitors and staff.

He stood in the middle of the hall and waited for silence. He was a melancholic man, with heavy bags under his eyes, a grey mournful face and grey thinning hair. Though he stood tall, his demeanour made it look like he stooped. His freshly-pressed suit looked like it came already crumpled.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said in a sad voice, "I'm Inspector Masham. I'm sorry to keep you here but there's been a theft from the exhibition room. A four-inch square sculpted jewel has gone missing from its display stand. At the moment it's a complete mystery how the theft was performed.

"You may appreciate the difficulty we policemen find ourselves in. We need to learn how the theft was done, who took the jewel and where it is now. If you'll forgive my saying so, the thief is likely to be a visitor to the exhibition, so I'm going to ask you to permit Sergeant Wren, her constables and the museum staff to search you.

"Now, I tell you upfront that we have no search warrant. It'll take about thirty minutes to obtain one. A judge has already been notified. The problem is: I know some of you are on a day-trip here and need to be at the astroport soon.

"Unfortunately, I can't let anyone leave, just in case you have a priceless jewel on your person. So I hope you'll all consider it a fair request, in order to save everyone's time, to let us search you.

"My constables are setting up an x-ray device and the museum guards are preparing a table on which they can search your bags. Does anyone object to being searched?"

With Min's encouragement, there were no dissenters in her tour-group. Nor did the visitors at the other end of the hall protest, though none was near the exhibition room at the time of the theft.

The group of thirty was processed first. They relinquished their bags for a visual inspection and lined up to walk slowly through a portable x-ray machine like a thick doorway. The jewel was not found on any of them so the inspector let them all leave.

Min's group was also quickly processed and the jewel was not found on any of them, to Min's relief. She assumed they would also be free to go, but the inspector asked them to return to their seats.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "You may wonder why we've kept you behind. The reason is that you were all near the exhibition room when the jewel was first seen to be missing. In fact, two of you were in the exhibition room when the security video shows the jewel disappearing."

Without waiting for a response, nor observing the consternation his remark caused, the inspector returned to Colin's office, which Colin had temporarily vacated, leaving Sergeant Wren with the tour-group.

"Hestia Smith and Hana Jeffries?" she read their names from a sheet. "Please come with me."

"Oops! Now we're for it," Hestia said standing up.

"Shush! Aunt Hestia," Hana warned. "It's not funny."

Min stood up as well, preparing to accompany them.

"Sorry Ma'am," Sergeant Wren said. "The inspector wants only these two ladies."

Inspector Masham greeted Hestia and Hana with a smile that did not make him look any happier. He guided them into Colin's office, which was a windowless box with a computer workstation at one end and an oval table for meetings at the other.

Hana took the details in at a glance. There was a clear desk, with the computer keyboard aligned square. There were no family photographs or posters of favourite sports teams, but the only personal item in the office was a Chinese puzzle box: the kind with a false bottom or drawer.

Inspector Masham invited them to sit and view the video projection, while the stout sergeant stood defensively by the open door, legs apart, arms folded, a stern look on her face.

"Thank you for joining me," Inspector Masham said mournfully. "I wonder if you wouldn't mind looking at the security video."

He began the video of the exhibition room. It showed Hestia and Hana staring in a kind of rapture at the desstrolite jewel without moving for at least three minutes, until they were informed by the spiky-haired guard that the exhibition was closing. Then Hana took Hestia's arm and guided her like a blind woman out of the room.

The inspector paused the video and said to Hestia:

"Can you tell me what I'm witnessing please, Ma'am?"

"It looks daft, I know, but I thought the jewel was so beautiful that I didn't want to look at the ugly paintings in the corridor, so I asked Hana to guide me out with my eyes shut."

"That makes eminent sense to me," the inspector said with his sad smile. "I'm no fan of paintings that look like someone sneezed on them. But, if you'll forgive my saying so, such behaviour might be considered somewhat, er, unusual."

"I know," Hestia admitted.

"Even a not particularly alert policeman might go so far as to call it ... well, ... what's the word?"

"Suspicious," Hana said quietly, unable to resist filling in the blank left by the inspector.

"Thank you, Miss Jeffries. It could seem like suspicious behaviour. I see you're an intelligent young person, so maybe you'll tell me what precisely is so suspicious about this behaviour?"

"It looks like a distraction," Hana said.

"Quite so. Let's watch some more of the video. Look, if you will, at Mike Baddage's face."

He played the video. It showed the spiky-haired museum guard (whose name evidently was Mike Baddage) focussing on Hestia and Hana as they paraded to the exit. If they had been trying to distract him, they could not have done a better job.

"Now take a look at the display stand while the video plays on."

Mike Baddage was looking at Hestia's bottom as they left the room when there was a shimmering in the air around the display stand and the jewel magically disappeared, as if by a conjuror's trick.

Mike did not notice at first, but when he did his checks before closing up, his gaze passed the display stand and he did a double-take like a cartoon character. He did a third take and then ran to the wall to press the alarm button.

The video continued, seeming to Hana to go in slow motion, so closely did she absorb every detail, committing it to her perfect memory.

A male museum guard arrived first. He went up to the stand with Mike. They looked shocked and worried.

Jill Coburn, the short blonde guard, appeared in the doorway. She stared open-mouthed, said a few words and left at a run.

A minute later, the tour group stood in the doorway, looking on as Mike put his hand out toward the absent jewel to trigger the alarm and the protective force-field.

Inspector Masham paused the video there.

"Now isn't that interesting?" he asked. "Even the dullest policeman would be suspicious, don't you think?"

They did not answer.

"However, you don't have the jewel with you, and you were many feet from it when it magically disappeared, so you couldn't have swiped it and hidden it somewhere. It's all a big mystery."

"It is," Hestia agreed.

"You weren't the only people acting suspiciously in the exhibition room before the jewel magically disappeared."

He reversed the video to the place where Grace triggered the display stand's protective measures and paused the image there. He sat back in his chair, gazing miserably at Hestia and Hana. His silence created a vacuum into which he hoped their confessions would leak.

There were no confessions.

"It was an accident," Hestia said. "Grace didn't mean to set off the alarm."

"No doubt. The jewel was still there when the force-field receded. But it's my curse to have a suspicious nature."

There was another sad pause, a gap waiting for an incriminating admission while he examined their faces for signs of guilt.

Sadly, no admission came. He sighed: an action that plumbed his melancholy demeanour another level. Hestia thought it all an act and struggled not to laugh at him. She put her hand over her mouth.

If the inspector noticed, he said nothing but merely turned back to the screen.

"I've no more questions for you at the moment," he said. "Please return to your seats. Sergeant Wren: bring over Mr and Mrs Martens."

While the inspector borrowed his office, Colin Atherson went to check on the museum guards, trusting to the police. Satisfied his staff had no problems, he visited the closed canteen and returned with a tray of soft drinks for everyone.

Having taken drinks from his tray, Min said to Jill Coburn:

"He's a thoughtful man. He's kind to us tour-guides, who can be a nuisance in the museum."

"He's fair but a stickler for the rules."

"I feel sorry for him," Min said.

"So do I," Jill agreed. "He looks calm on the surface but I think he's worried."

As Sergeant Wren collected Grace and Tom for their interview with the inspector, Hestia winked at them.

"We're suspects," she said, trying by levity to mollify the alarm Grace appeared to feel.

"It's not good to be suspects," Hana whispered to Hestia.

"Don't worry, I've done this before," Hestia said. "Your dad once suspected me of murder and your mum suspected me of stealing her suitcase. Anyway, they've got everything on video, so I'm sure they'll find the culprit soon and let us all go."

"Maybe, but I'd like to see those videos for myself."

"Do you know something about the theft?"

"I'm not sure. I need to think about it. I may know how the theft will be done, I just don't know who'll do it, nor whom to tell about it. I don't know whom to trust."

"I think the inspector's trustworthy."

"Why do you say that?"

"He has such a sad face."

"That makes him trustworthy?"

"It does to me. Call it woman's intuition."

"There's no such thing. Besides, I'm a woman and my instinct says the opposite."

"All right, darling," Hestia said, smiling at Hana's determination. "How about confiding in that nice museum manager who brought us the drinks?"

"It's the same problem. Anyone might be the culprit."

"I suppose so."

Hestia then realised what Hana had said.

"What do you mean you know how the theft will be done? Hasn't it already been done?"

"No, I don't think so. We saw on the video that Mr Baddage set the alarm off by hand. We also saw Mr Baddage test the alarm after the supposed theft, proving it was working. Grace set off the alarm before the theft. So, if the security system has been working the whole time, and the jewel can't be taken without setting off the alarm, then the jewel must still be there."

"Well that's where logic lets you down, Hana. We both saw that the display stand was empty."

"Logic isn't defeated so easily, Auntie. An empty display stand means either that the jewel is missing or that the jewel is still there but invisible."

"How can it be invisible?"

"You remember the microwave compressed air technology that powers the force-field around the display stand?"

"Yes."

"It's the same technology that Doctor Goldrick used to make the airsuits that Grace and Tom's son Luke flies."

"What of it?"

"I read Doctor Goldrick's paper on airsuits last night and one of the things the microwave compressed air technology can do is create something like a mirage. When light passes through air of different pressures, it gets bent, and bent light can focus an image, so that something distant can appear nearby. If there are microwave beam emitters on the display stand, then they can produce an effect in which the light is bent around the jewel, making it appear as though it isn't there, as if you can see right through it."

"You mean it's a trick done with mirrors?"

"Yes, except the compressed air works as a lens, not a mirror."

"Why would someone trick us into thinking the jewel's been stolen when it's really still there?"

"In order to cause exactly this kind of commotion, where everyone gets searched and the whole museum gets turned upside down. In the confusion, a thief can simply swipe the jewel, knowing that no one will suspect him because he's already been searched."

"Won't he set off the alarm himself if it's working properly?"

"He will, so there must be a way around that problem which I haven't worked out yet."

"What else do you need to know?"

"I need to look at the security video from a good time before the jewel seemed to disappear, to see if someone places microwave beam emitters on the display stand. They might be tiny dots. And it would help to know how the security system works, to see if it can be bypassed."

"You could ask Tom. He works with security systems."

"Yes, but isn't he the most likely suspect?"

"Tom! Why's he a suspect?"

"Tom and Grace together. He might know how the security system can be bypassed and Grace triggered the force-field."

"It was an accident."

"It certainly looked like it, but what if Grace set off the alarm while placing something on the display stand?"

"Like microwave beam emitters?"

"Exactly. Tom or Grace might have turned on the beams when we all left the exhibition, to make the jewel seem stolen. Now all they need to do is create some kind of distraction so they can go back to the exhibition room to pocket the jewel."

"I don't suppose we can ask Tom if he knows how to bypass the security system without alerting him to our suspicions."

"No, and it's just as likely that Tom and Grace have an accomplice on the inside who can turn off the security system at the right moment to steal the jewel."

"Ooh, yes!" Hestia said. "Tom's the brains behind the heist; Grace placed the beam emitters; and an inside man (probably one of the museum guards) sabotages the security system. No one suspects the inside man because he was nowhere near the exhibition room when the jewel went missing; and Tom has already been searched, so no one suspects him either."

"That's one scenario."

"Why can't you suggest it to the inspector?"

"Because he's a suspect as well. It's as likely the inside man is a policeman as a museum guard. But I do like the idea that it's an inside man in cahoots with one of us visitors because we might be back on the spaceship before everything's properly sorted out here."

"That's it, Hana! That's why the theft was planned for closing time when a tour-group was present, because we're pressed for time to get back to the shuttlecraft. If the inspector's in on it, then he'll keep us here to the very last moment, then declare the case unfathomable and let us go. Meanwhile, he'll arrange for the security system to be turned off and nab the jewel for himself."

"I thought you said the inspector is trustworthy."

"Don't mock me, young lady. Besides, it might be any policeman or museum guard."

"It looks like Inspector Masham agrees with that judgment," Hana said, indicating activity in the middle of the hall.

The museum staff was lining up to go through the portable x-ray machine, observed by the policemen. The policemen themselves followed. Even Sergeant Wren went through it. When Inspector Masham finished interviewing Tom and Grace, he walked dejectedly through the device himself.

Looking on, Hestia and Hana smiled to each other, sharing the knowledge that, for at least one of the participants, it was a charade. None had the jewel hidden on his person. Not yet anyway.

******

The x-rays did not reveal the thief, so Min and most of the tour-group were feeling frustrated. There was about an hour before they would miss the shuttlecraft.

"If Tom and Grace are suspects," Hestia said, "what about the rest of the tour-group? Can Nuo and Chen be implicated?"

"What kind of shop do they own?"

"I don't know."

Hestia turned around in her seat and spoke to the man behind her.

"Nuo, what kind of shop do you have?"

"A jewellery shop," he said.

Hestia could see Hana's smile through the back of her head.

"How much is the stolen jewel worth?" she asked Nuo.

"I don't know for sure, but I would guess at least 100,000 Galactic Pounds."

"Phew! That's a pretty big fortune," Hestia said.

She turned back to Hana.

"That settles it" she whispered. "The Yangs are involved. They're going to fence the loot. What about Agatha and Rowen? They're respectable teachers."

"What better disguise to transport the stolen merchandise?" Hana said.

"So they're mules. Is Min also a suspect?"

"As you said, it's very useful to the thief that the last tour-group to visit the exhibition should be one that urgently needs to leave the scene of the crime. Min might have arranged it so that we would be the final tour-group."

"I think Min is either a good actress or she was genuinely trying to hurry us up. Remember, Sweetie, you and I dawdled the most."

In fact, it was Hana who had been the slowest because everything was so new to her and she was a girl with infinite curiosity. She gave her aunt a guilty smile.

"How can we know which of the staff-members is in on it? It might be them all," Hestia asked.

"Yes. ..." Hana began, but she went quiet, thinking.

"Hana?"

"Sorry Auntie. I think I've just worked something out."

"Tell me."

"How can the jewel be stolen when the security system has been proved to work properly?"

"I don't know."

"By persuading Mr Atherson that his system is faulty and suggesting he reboots it, to see if it clears the fault."

"I get it. Meanwhile, the thief is in the exhibition room. When the alarm is temporarily turned off, he pockets the jewel. Very clever."

"If we're right, then we can set a trap for the thief. Mr Atherson can tell everyone he'll reboot the system, then someone can monitor the video source. Whoever approaches the display stand when the system reboots is the thief."

"But the problem is?" Hestia prompted.

"The same problem. I don't know whom to tell to set the trap. Suppose I tell one of the conspirators?"

"Is there a time-limit? I mean, how long will the microwave beam emitters work?"

"I don't know. They can have their own battery power, in which case they might last weeks. Or they can pick up power from the lights, so it might be a few hours or a day."

"What can we do?"

Hana looked around.

The inspector, sergeant and constables were in conference with some of the museum staff at the other end of the hall. Only Jill Coburn and Mike Baddage were not involved. Jill was with the tour-group and Mike was by the exit and cloakrooms. They could see Colin Atherson in his office through his open door, studying the security videos.

"I'd like to see that video footage."

"How can I help?"

"If we go to the bathroom, you can distract Mr Baddage while I look over Mr Atherson's shoulder."

Having gained Jill's permission to go to the toilet, Hestia came out first and engaged Mike Baddage in conversation while waiting for her niece. She did not need to do much to provide a distraction. Mike was happy to have a good reason to gaze at her lovely face.

Hestia was one of the most beautiful women in the galaxy. She twiddled her chestnut hair a little, pretending to be shy, while Hana snuck past and loitered outside the communications room, around the corner by the entrance and the stairs up to the gallery, hidden from view by those in the hall.

Hana memorised a good few minutes of the video footage when a loud cough from the inspector caused Mike Baddage to look up. Hana also reacted, skipping up to her aunt as if she had just arrived from the cloakroom.

5 Suspicion

"What did you learn?" Hestia asked Hana when they were in their seats again.

"I saw some of the earlier video. The display stand from before our group arrived is identical to how I remember it when we visited, so we can say that no one in our group interfered with it."

"Good, that exonerates Grace."

"Yes, but Tom may still be involved."

"We're running out of time," Hestia said. "What if we just announce what you think to everyone, the innocent as well as the culprits?"

Hana paused for a moment to think it through.

"You mean that the thief won't be able to go through with the crime if everyone knows how it'll be done? It might mean we never know who the culprit is, but if we're right, we'll prove the jewel's still there, and the inspector must let us go."

"If we suggest this plan to Inspector Masham but he's actually the thief, then it'll look like he's guilty if he refuses."

"We have to make the announcement in public, so he can't refuse."

"Yes, we must. Ready?" Hestia asked.

"Now?"

"No time like the present."

Hestia stood up.

"Inspector Masham, Sergeant Wren: Hana and I have something to say. Can everyone come here so we can explain?"

"Madam," Sergeant Wren said, coming over to deal with the unusual request, "we're conducting an investigation and there's less than an hour until your tour-group must board its flight. We can't waste time with distractions."

"We think we know how to get the jewel back."

"Well, then, tell us and let us act on the matter."

"I'm sorry, sergeant. We're not telling you what we know until everyone's here to listen to us."

"What it is, sergeant? Are they confessing?" the inspector asked.

"No, Sir."

"We're not confessing, inspector," Hestia explained, "but we think we know where the jewel is. Hana worked it out."

"Well, I have something to confess," Inspector Masham said. "We're at a dead-end in our investigation, so any change of tack may be beneficial. I would like to hear what Hana has to say. Gather around everyone."

With everyone together, Hestia pushed Hana forward to say her piece.

"We think the jewel is still on its display stand," Hana said, giving her theory of the beam emitters.

"We also think the culprit is one of us here. Someone who's waiting for the display stand's security system to be rebooted so he can take the jewel without triggering the alarm."

There was not much discussion. Just a few murmurs from the policemen and the museum staff, until the inspector said:

"I think it's an excellent theory, Miss Jeffries, and I propose that we test it straight away. We'll all go to the exhibition room now, except for you, Colin. Will you stay in contact with me by radio, and turn off the security system when I ask? If the jewel's there, then we'll all be witnesses."

"And I will be most gratefully relieved," Colin said.

With the police and museum staff hurrying them along, they were all soon standing around the empty display stand. Inspector Masham radioed Colin and asked him to turn off the security system.

"Miss Jeffries, come forward if you will," the inspector said. "You should have the honour of picking up the jewel."

With a glance at Hestia and a shy smile, Hana stepped forward and put out her hand to where the jewel should have been.

Her hand passed through empty air. With a puzzled look, she passed her hand through the space again. The jewel was genuinely gone. Her theory was wrong.

She felt around the edge of the stand for the microwave beam emitters. There were none of those either.

Hana looked astonished. Hestia came to her side, to defend her niece from the inspector's displeasure.

"Well, that's a disappointment," Inspector Masham said, sounding resigned rather than angry. "Now we need a new theory to explain our mystery. Suggestions anyone?"

There was silence.

"Well, how about this theory?" he proposed to Hana. "The jewel was stolen hours ago, and what everyone looked at was a 3d projection."

"I don't think so," Hana answered, "because a holograph wouldn't show the fractal effects. It had to have been the real crystal we saw."

"Then we have a problem," the inspector said. "From the time that Grace Martens triggered the alarm until we saw the image of the jewel disappear on the video, the only people who looked at the jewel were you and Miss Smith. We have only your word that it was a real jewel you were looking at, not a holographic image that replaced the jewel, which had already been swiped and hidden someplace."

"Cor!" exclaimed Hestia. "That's some fancy reasoning."

"It can't be true," Hana said. "While the security system still worked, we couldn't have taken the jewel without setting off the alarm. I know you've only my word that the jewel was real and the microdots on the display stand must have been removed, but we would need to be able to bypass the security system."

"Well someone managed to bypass the security system and steal the jewel without setting off the alarm," the inspector said.

"Whoever turned the security system off temporarily and came here to swipe the jewel," he continued, "most likely also removed the microwave beam emitters. But the only people who left the hall since the jewel was seen to be missing are those members of this tour-group who went to the toilet.

"And the only one of those who wasn't watched the whole time, but snuck away while her aunt was distracting Mike Baddage again ..."

The inspector paused meaningfully.

"... was you, Miss Jeffries."

6 Solution

A policeman escorted Hestia and Hana back to their seats. Inspector Masham followed mournfully behind them. Sergeant Wren arrived having completed an errand for the inspector. She whispered something to him. He nodded silently and sighed.

"Miss Dae," he said. "How long does the tour group have before its flight?"

"Forty minutes," Min replied.

"Then there's still time to take the monorail. Your group is free to leave. I apologise for detaining you all this time."

The group began to collect their bags. Min handed their bags to Hestia and Hana but the inspector said: "Not those two. They still have some questions to answer."

"What about their connection to the hyperspace liner?" Min asked.

"Sergeant Wren has contacted the transportation company on their behalf. I'm sorry to inconvenience you, ladies, but I would be in dereliction of my duty were I to let you leave while there is such a mystery surrounding the missing jewel."

There was nothing Min could do. She looked as sad as the inspector and tried to reassure Hestia and Hana. The other members of the tour group, led by Grace and Tom, discussed refusing to leave out of solidarity with Hestia and Hana, but it would be a useless gesture. There was no time to waste and the sergeant hurried them out of the town hall.

"I'm going to interview Miss Jeffries alone now. Colin, I'll use your office once more."

"Go ahead, Sir," Colin Atherson said. "I have to close up the museum anyway."

Despite her police guard, Hestia followed Hana and the inspector, not wanting to leave the girl alone. She heard the inspector say to Hana:

"Miss Jeffries, are you prepared to save us all time by confessing now?"

"Yes, Sir," Hana said, "I'll tell you everything."

"Hana!" Hestia protested. "What on Earth do you mean?"

"Miss Smith," the inspector stopped and turned to Hestia. "You could assist my investigation by fascinating Mr Baddage one more time."

"Fascinating?"

"You are the most charming woman I've ever met. I say that as a happily married man, so I know you understand what I mean."

"Well, really!"

"Go along, please, Ma'am."

Hestia turned on her heel and went to find Mike Baddage. Her police escort followed discretely at a distance.

Hana and the inspector were in Colin's office when Sergeant Wren returned.

"The tour-group is on the monorail," she said, "and we're ready in the exhibition room."

"Very good. You can make the arrest whenever you like. I believe Mr Baddage is agreeably occupied?"

"Yes, indeed, sir. She's a siren, that one. I doubt he'll interfere when Miss Smith is paying him attention."

She left the inspector and Hana alone in the room.

The inspector looked miserably at Hana and sighed.

"It was there, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Sir. There's a kind of trap-door on the top of the display stand that's a fraction of a millimetre higher than it was before. I think the jewel is lying flat under it."

"So a mechanical device, not the clever advanced technology you suspected?"

"No, Sir. I was wrong."

"You were the inspiration for solving the case, Miss Jeffries, and you almost solved it alone. Thank you for not revealing the secret. Now we can catch the thief in the act. You know who it is?"

"Mr Atherson."

"Quite so. How did you work it out?"

"It's only a guess, really. His Chinese puzzle box has a trap-door, which might have given him the idea. I thought of it when I saw the top of the display stand had a square gap. Mr Atherson would have had access to the display stand while the exhibition was being set up. He could have made a mechanical device with a trap-door to fit in the square gap.

"Very good. What else?"

"Mr Atherson has access to the security video footage. His office shows he has a tidy mind, and sometimes people like that are skilled with computers, so he might be able to doctor the video, to hide the evidence of the device. The video shimmered when the jewel disappeared, which may be evidence of doctoring."

"Anything else?"

"Only that we might catch Mr Atherson in the act because we forced his hand, compelling him to rescue the jewel and maybe hide the trapdoor mechanism, replacing it with a blank. If we hadn't intervened, he could have turned off the security system or rebooted it at his leisure, maybe at night; but he must do it now, before he's found out."

"I think you've covered it, Miss Jeffries. Thanks to you, Atherson has the perfect opportunity to collect the jewel and hide it somewhere safe. Also, thanks to you, we may catch him red-handed. Do you want to watch the arrest?"

"Is there time?"

"Yes. The sergeant made arrangements."

"Oh," Hana realised something. "Will there be a news report about the crime?"

"For sure. It's a famous jewel."

"Can I call my parents?"

"Do you think they'll worry?"

"My Dad will. Mum's not a worrier."

"Use the computer here."

Hana put through a call to the police station on Capella Space Station. Arthur Jeffries, Constable of Capella Space Station, answered.

"Hello?" he said warily before the distorted image came fully into focus.

"Daddy, it's me!"

"Hana, sweetheart! What's going on? Where are you? Are you in trouble?"

"No trouble, and I don't have much time. I'm on Eden Homeworld with Aunt Hestia. We just helped Inspector Masham solve a crime. I wanted you to know because our names will be in the police gazette and probably on the galactic news."

"Inspector Masham? 'Misery' Masham? Is he on Eden? I heard about him at the police academy twenty or more years ago. What kind of help? You didn't lend him money or buy him alcohol did you?"

"Of course not, Daddy!"

There was a snort from the inspector.

"What kind of crime was it?"

"The theft of a jewel. Sergeant Wren and the constables are arresting the museum manager now. I'll tell you the rest when we're back on the hyperspace liner. Love you, Daddy!"

"Well done, sweetheart! I love you!"

"So Arthur Jeffries is your father? I'll call him sometime and tell him what a lucky man he is. Off you go and fetch your aunt."

Hana ran to get her backpack and collect Hestia, so they could make the shuttlecraft in time. On the way, they saw Colin Atherson being led away by Sergeant Wren and the constables, with Mike Baddage looking very confused.

"Are you ready?" asked the inspector.

"Yes, Sir," Hana said.

"What's happening?" Hestia asked, as Hana grabbed her hand to pull her along.

"This way," Inspector Masham said, opening the main doors to a dusky evening.

As they emerged onto the cobbled plaza outside the town hall, a police jetcopter with flashing lights made a roaring descent and landed fifty feet from them, blowing dust and leaves around the square.

"Come on," Inspector Masham shouted over the racket. "In you get."

He helped Hestia into a seat, passing her the harness so she could strap herself in.

"Do you want to sit up with the pilot?" he asked Hana.

"Do I?"

He helped Hana clamber up into the front seat and leant over to strap her in. He got into the back with Hestia and put on his own harness.

With a tap on the pilot's shoulder, he shouted: "Daughter City Astroport. The direct route. And you can break the speed limit if you like."

The pilot nodded and checked they were clear to take off. He pushed the lever for maximum thrust. The roar was immense. The jetcopter wobbled and then leapt straight up leaving a cloud of dust.

At 500 feet above the castle, pointing at Daughter City thirteen miles away, the pilot lit the rearward jets and the 'copter launched forward.

The wind whistled around them as they raced on a straight path, nose down, houses and terraces flashing past them far below. To the west, the sunset was a thin orange strip, with pink streaks reflecting in a dark-blue sky.

Daughter City was lit up. There were red, green and white landing lights for the astroport and yellow street lights in the suburbs that clung to the mountainside. It was a magical view of a magical place on a magical day. Hana was enchanted.

Coming in hot to the roof of the astroport terminal, the pilot banked and spun 180 degrees with full forward jets, stopping their motion in a second, giving the passengers an exciting shake and jolt as they landed firmly. Hana laughed happily while Hestia wondered where her stomach went.

To the sound of whining jets cooling off, Hestia and Hana hugged the sad inspector. Shouting "Goodbye" they ran off into the terminal building to join the tour-group in the lines for the shuttlecraft.

There were hugs all around again, especially for Min, whose relief was profound. Explanations had to wait, though, because the line began to move as soon as they arrived and, within minutes, they were on the shuttlecraft and secured in their seats for take-off.

7 The journey resumes

Back on the hyperspace liner, detached from the engineering station and accelerating toward the next hyperspace beacon, the eight members of the tour-group went to dinner together.

Hana explained how the inspector had solved the crime.

"Everyone was a suspect," she said, "but Inspector Masham deflected suspicion from Mr Atherson onto Aunt Hestia and me, to encourage him to retrieve the jewel before anyone looked too closely at the display stand."

"Why did he send me out to 'fascinate' Mike Baddage (a thoroughly nice bloke, by the way)?" Hestia asked.

"To keep him out of Mr Atherson's way. All the museum guards except Mr Baddage were given jobs by Sergeant Wren. They were so loyal, they would have gone with Mr Atherson to help him, but the inspector's plan needed Atherson to be in the exhibition room alone.

"Auntie, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you the right answer when I realised it in the exhibition room, but I had to play along with the inspector. After that, we weren't alone long enough."

There was more to explain, about the mechanical device in the display stand, the puzzle box on Colin Atherson's desk, the doctored video and the elaborate plan to steal the jewel while people were in the exhibition room, rather than in the dead of night, when Colin would be the prime suspect because he alone had both access to the museum and control over the security system.

"I feel sorry for him," Hestia said.

"I know," Tom agreed. "To live with all that beauty and wealth and not to have it oneself."

They talked long into the night, until the flight manager announced that the restaurant was closing because they were soon be in weightless cruising before entering the hyperspace beacon.

By the time they were through the beacon and diverted by a Goldrick Junction toward the spa planet Erythos, it was time for bed. Even Hana felt tired.

In their cabin, at the end of an adventurous day in the most magical place she had ever been, Hana hugged her honorary aunt one more time.

"Thank you for everything, Auntie. I love you."

"I love you too, Sweetie. No one's ever had a niece quite like you."

Snuggling up to her soft rabbit, Hana Jeffries, 'Saviour of the Space Station' and now successful detective, went blissfully to sleep and dreamed of a pink and white fairy-tale castle.