There are always errands to do- errands, and the idle fantasies of putting her employer out of his misery with her bare hands briefly play out in bright colours in the back of her mind, sniffed at and dismissed but briefly cheering. She fetches him endless reams of paper and parchment and pens, which he is constantly losing- she brings messages to other researchers associated with the University and is careful to become a welcome, well-known face amongst them, sweet and funny and with a razor sharp mind, drops little hints about her thoughts on her employer’s latest research, leaves them frowning and interested in her wake. She collects letters, prints, books, the parts of a new calculating engine he is building and which she helps him with, suggesting tiny, crucial changes- he blinks, and she wonders irritably if he’s ever going to twig that she’s cleverer than he is.

In some ways, getting out of the observatory is a blessing- at least while clicking at a business-like rate through the streets of Baedal, stopping in to deliver this or that, to pick up something else, pausing at bookshops to hunt down the reference book Dr Krithn is sure he had in his hand just last week or possibly last year, called- called something with constellations in the title, well, anyway, there is a passage that is essential to his work and could she have it by three, please- at least then she is not trapped in the same room as him, frustrated by the alien stars and his inability to remember her name more than twice a day.