‘A mistake in the measurement, a slip of the script. It’s an old language, Omtose, faint in my memory – perhaps as faint back then, when I first built this. The knowledge I seem to retain feels . . . precise, yet I am not perfect, am I? My certainty could be a self-delusion.’ No, Icarium, you are not perfect. ‘I calculate that ninety-four thousand years have passed since I last stood here, Mappo. Ninety-four thousand. There must be some error in that. No city ruin could survive that long, could it?’
