There were no lessons and her parents were busy all day, so Connie had arranged to go and help out at the stables for the morning. Her mother had praised the decision to volunteer as "very mature." Connie had managed to keep quiet the fact that a morning at the stable generally only involved an hour or so of actual work, and Mr DeMayo was content to let her sit around reading for the remainder. Either Mr DeMayo had landed on his feet in an easy role, or he was being indulgent and saving the hard work for after she had left.

(With one thing and another, Connie felt she had earned the right not to worry about this.)

They had fed and watered the horses, and now Connie waited as Greg chatted with visitors who were taking a cart out for some fieldwork. Once he had checked they had everything they needed, he returned to where Connie was failing to concentrate on her book, and they sat for a while in companionable silence.

"I guess we've had the last of the good weather," he said. "Things can get rough once winter sets in."

"We could do with some rain," Connie observed.

"Be careful what you wish for," Mr DeMayo smirked. "When you get a real storm out here, it's hard to know where the sea ends and the land begins."

Connie wasn't sure if he was joking. "It's my first winter by the sea," she said.

"It's the winds," he said. "You get that wind coming in from the sea and it's as if the rain is coming in horizontally. Best to stay indoors on a day like that."

"Where I used to live," Connie said, "it might be the sunniest day, and suddenly clouds would blow in and rain on everything, and be gone almost before you knew what was happening."

Greg chuckled. "Yeah, we get that here sometimes. I guess I don't mind the rain, but I do prefer summer over winter. I miss the cherries," he added wistfully.

"Oh!" Connie exclaimed slightly too loudly, and there was a nickering from a nearby stable. "Mr DeMayo, I forgot I keep meaning to ask. You came in from another settlement, right? Did you ever come across a book called The Adventures of Lemuel Gulliver?"

Greg considered this. "I'm not sure. Can you tell me anything about it?"

"I've got a sequel at home," Connie explained, "but nobody has the original. It's about a guy who travels around having adventures." She immediately realised this was an apt synopsis for a good proportion of all books. "Sorry, that's not a very good description. In the one I've got, he keeps going to different strange islands."

Greg was nodding. "No, that's fine, now you say that it sounds a little familiar. I think I heard that story when I was a kid."

"Do you remember any of it?" Connie asked eagerly. The missing book had become a minor obsession, or at least a means of occupying her mind.

"Hmm." He looked dubious. "It was a good while ago, and I don't know if I was told it from the actual book. But let's see. I know he went to an island where all the people were tiny, and another place where they were all giants."

"What happened on those islands?"

"Eh... sorry, but I can't really remember." He suddenly brightened up. "Oh, but I do remember the ending! He ends up in this place where all the people were horrible savages, but there were some talking horses who were really civilised."

"That adds up," Connie said, "because there was a reference to something like that in the sequel. I couldn't figure out what it meant."

"I always figured the moral of the story was, horses are nicer than people." He rubbed his chin, staring pensively at the ceiling. "Huh, maybe it had more influence on me than I thought."

Connie didn't have high expectations of getting any further details, but asked anyway. "In the story, did he meet any gems?"

"Not that I remember," Greg said. "It was mostly different-sized humans."

"Isn't it weird how in all these old books, there's never any real mention of gems? At least, not so far as I've seen."

Greg gave a vague shrug. "I guess back then they kept to themselves, and just didn't seem that important. It's hard to imagine, now."

"We have all this written history, and all the time they totally missed the point of what was really happening. It makes me wonder what we're missing right now."

Greg was wary. "Well, now we have the guidance of the Diamonds."

"Sure, but..." — Connie tried to sound at once conspiratorial and flippant — "they're probably not telling us everything about the world, right? I mean," she added after a moment, "that they only need to tell us what they need us to know. What we need to know. You know."

"Too much knowledge can be dangerous," Greg pointed out. "I've always been happy to trust in Pink Diamond. She knows what's best for us, after all."

"But is everybody getting what's best?" Connie asked urgently. It was suddenly important that Mr DeMayo understood where she was coming from. "Is everyone happy? You're friends with Vidalia, right? Does she seem happy to you?"

Greg bristled slightly at this. "All I know is, self-sufficient farming was identified as the best way for humans to live. Not everybody can be happy all the time, but you know... I'm sure there are limits even to Pink Diamond's power. You can't force people to be happy."

Connie wondered where Pink Diamond was at that moment, and whether it really mattered.

"You've just got to learn to be content in your own niche," Greg continued with a strained smile. "Sure, it'd be nice to be able to travel, but... well, you can't have everything, right?" He chuckled, then fell silent, staring into the middle distance.

"Uh... sorry if that was a weird subject to bring up," Connie said.

Greg snapped out of his reverie and chuckled again, more sincerely. "Ah, it's fine to have questions about this stuff, especially at your age. Just, uh, maybe be careful who you ask."

A little later, Connie wandered the boardwalk weighing up her lunch options.

"Ah, young Miss Maheshwaran," Mr Pita said as Connie entered the cafeteria. "Is there something I can assist you with? You surely haven't come here for a meal."

This was new. Connie tried to decipher Mr Pita's haughty smile. "Um... is there any reason why that would be... a bad thing?"

He gave an exaggerated burst of laughter. "Really, young lady, you embarrass us! You are here so often that people will think you are showing us undue favour. A girl in your position must be a friend to all food vendors. Why not show Mr Barriga or Mr Fryman that you have not forgotten about them?"

Mr Pita always seemed angry, even when he was being aggressively polite. Despite his diplomatic phrasing, it felt strangely like she was being thrown out. "Well... I suppose, if you're sure..."

"I won't be offended," he added, his eyelid twitching. "Come back whenever you like."

Connie emerged back out into the daylight, confused. She couldn't remember doing anything to upset Mr Pita, but perhaps he too was spooked by recent goings-on and wanted to avoid scrutiny. Whatever the reason, it was seriously limiting Connie's dining options. She'd been avoiding the Frymans' place for a while now, wary of any encounter with Mr Fryman. She hadn't spoken to the man since meeting Amethyst, and had no idea how much he knew. She was therefore paranoid that she would be too obviously suspicious in any future encounter.

That only left the bakery, so she continued in that direction.

A familiar figure was lounging against the back of the counter when she walked in. "You again?" Lars grumbled, but there was a listlessness to his manner, and Connie was concerned that his greeting lacked its usual venom.

"Good afternoon, Lars. Are you in charge again?" she asked him.

"Yeah, worse luck," Lars shrugged. "My folks are busy arranging to get a ration of wood. For some household repairs," he added pointedly.

"Oh. That's..." Connie trailed off, unsure what to say. Instead, she asked: "Is Sadie not helping you today?"

"Even you should have noticed," Lars said, "that everyone's rethinking who it's wise to be seen with. Not that I can exactly blame her." He stared glumly at the counter. "She probably just doesn't want to embarrass her mom."

Connie racked her brains, realising she didn't actually know who Sadie's parents were.

"It's probably for the best," Lars continued, standing up straight. "I'm probably going to end up stuck running this place in the end, so I might as well get used to it ahead of time."

"Well... you wouldn't have to, surely," Connie hesitantly replied. "You don't have to follow the same path as your parents."

"Yeah, but what else would I do?" Lars sneered. "Spend all day digging in a field? Huh, no thanks. This is my only real option, that is if those gems don't come up with some excuse to ship me off to who-knows-where." He glared defiantly at nothing in particular. "Not that I'd care. I hate this place anyway."

Connie considered this. "Your home's always been in this settlement, right?"

"I've always lived here," Lars said quietly. "I never really thought of it as home."

This was an odd concept. Growing up, Connie had always thought of settlement P5T7 as home, and now that she had been living in settlement B1C7 for a good while, she felt like she belonged. She thought this might be an issue with Lars himself rather than the settlement, but declined to say so. "Well, there are worse places to live. Believe me, this place is way more interesting than where I grew up. I mean," she quickly clarified, "interesting in good ways. Forgetting about that other stuff that's going on, for the moment. I'm sure that'll all be over before too long, anyway," she concluded with forced jollity.

Lars narrowed his eyes. "How would you know that? You said you didn't know anything about your dad's peacekeeper work. Which is it?"

"I don't!" she hastily exclaimed. "I was just guessing. I'm... a natural optimist?"

"That must be nice. Some of us have to live in the real world."

Connie smiled politely. "I guess you're right. My sheltered existence has probably blinded me to the harsh realities of life."

This could easily have been sarcasm, but in truth she was grateful for Lars's perspective. Even though she was deeply embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy and Lars had been affected only peripherally, he was clearly having just as bad a time of it as her (if not worse.) There was something in the boy's constitution that made him sense hardships all the more, and to feel beset by troubles even if they weren't there. She felt sorry for him, and simultaneously encouraged — for if she had more naturally high spirits than Lars, surely she could find a way to cope even with the current circumstances. And if Lars, despite his misgivings, could find it in himself to stand up to the Diamond Authority, then what excuse did she have?

Lars was losing patience. "Did you come in here for a reason, or did you just feel like wasting my time?"

An answering stomach pang reminded Connie of her purpose. "Oh, yeah. I was just after a bite of lunch, if it's not too much trouble. I'm sure we've got stuff at home if you're..."

"Sure, whatever," Lars interrupted, leaning to retrieve something from out of sight behind the counter. "They've really gotten to you, haven't they?" he remarked casually. "Just like everyone else. If you want something to eat, don't tiptoe around it." He dropped some slices of shiny bread in front of Connie. "Here, have as much as you want. This loaf was on its way out, so I baked these up with some egg and a dash of honey. It's better warm, but... yeah."

Connie was already halfway through a slice. "It'f really goob," she enthused through a mouthful of crumbs.

Lars didn't respond to this directly, but acknowledged the review with a sort of complacent smirk. "The thing is," he continued, "they don't understand their own rules. 'Ooh, don't hoard food!' You know what that really means? We should enjoy it while it lasts. These fools trying to find ways to spin stuff out so we don't need help from the gems, they're the ones hoarding." He hoisted another item onto the counter. "There's cake too if you want a bit."

Connie nodded enthusiastically. "I'd love a piece. What kind of cake is it?"

Lars affected a studied nonchalance. "I used pumpkin and apple. It's just an experiment."

The cake was easily up to the standard of Lars's competition entry. "Lars, can I ask you something?" She decided to take the risk as Lars was in a less adversarial mood than usual.

He looked around shiftily. "Uh, what?"

"I just wondered. You seem to enjoy baking and you're good at it. So how come you always talk as if working here is such a bad thing?"

"Well," Lars spluttered, flustered. "I mean... it's not that it's bad bad... it's more just, you know, the burden of it. And... people's expectations. I wouldn't expect you to understand," he haughtily concluded.

"Your parents' expectations?" Connie asked. "Or people in general?"

"Uh..." Lars avoided eye contact, staring out of the window as if looking for an excuse to end the conversation.

Not much chance of that, Connie thought. And yet...

"Oh, look," Lars pointedly announced. "It's your friends."

Connie wheeled round, expecting perhaps to see some classmates. Not observing anybody immediately outside, she peered along the path to the boardwalk. There, the unmistakeable figure of a Jasper loomed imposingly over some humans.

Connie's eyes widened, and she turned back to Lars. "I, uh, I have to go," she stammered. "Thanks for... look, could you maybe not mention to anyone that I was here? If they don't ask?"

Lars raised an eyebrow. "Don't flatter yourself. You're not interesting enough to talk about."

"Thanks, Lars!" she responded, breathlessly running out of the door. Catching a glimpse of the Zircon entering one of the buildings along the boardwalk, Connie did not approach but instead took a hard right and ran inland, getting out of sight as quickly as possible. From here she took the second-most straightforward route back to her own house.

She had formulated the kernel of a plan to deal with the Zircon's crew, but this was the first time she'd learned of their presence early enough to put it into action.

In the house, Connie crept upstairs and back down again, uttering the occasional loudly-whispered "Dad?" Just as she had hoped, it was still deserted. (Her mom was at some kind of all-day meeting with Mrs Lezner at the civic hall.) Now she needed to choose the right place to conceal herself.

As far as she could tell, there was always some kind of meeting and discussion between her father and his Zircon after they had been investigating. This was never at the civic hall, but always here, and always guarded from outside by those Jaspers. What Connie was gambling on was that they wouldn't check the inside of the house first. As far as anybody knew, she was out all day — and regardless of that, they would naturally expect her to make her presence obvious if she was at home.

The question was, where in the house would the meeting take place? The drawing room seemed plausible, but on the other hand, maybe that was too informal. Perhaps they would sit at the dining room table. One option would be for Connie to wait upstairs and sneak back down when they were ensconced — however, the floorboards of the stairs made it difficult to be stealthy. After some deliberation, she decided to hide in the pantry. It felt like a clever choice: since gems didn't eat, her dad would have no reason to offer the Zircon food, and would probably abstain from eating anything himself until she had gone.

Definitely, she told herself. He definitely wouldn't come into the pantry. This was a good plan. Pushing some jars to one side to make room, she lay down and shuffled into a space on the bottom shelf behind the door. If her analysis was wrong then the hiding place would be worthless, but it would defeat a cursory glance from someone passing by the room.

Now all she had to do was wait. This should have been the easiest part of the plan, but it was in fact quite mentally gruelling. It gave her time to wonder about where the gems were searching and what they might find. There was also the possibility at the back of her mind that she was wrong, and they wouldn't even be coming to the house. If so, she could wait here for hours before ever realising that she had wasted her time, and in such an undignified pursuit. (Should the time ever come to tell her story, she resolved to leave this part out.)

Just as Connie was debating internally whether to move to a more comfortable spot, she heard muffled sounds within the house. This was it! She waited a couple of minutes to see if she could tell where the voices were coming from. When it was amply clear that nobody was checking the pantry, she crawled awkwardly from her hiding space, wincing as she brushed against some jars and made them clank together. Nobody came running in, and replaying the sound in her mind she concluded that it had been too quiet to hear from anywhere else.

She edged her way out into the kitchen, nervously checking every corner. No sign of anybody so far. As she crept closer to the main entrance, it became clear that her dad was in fact in the drawing room as she had initially guessed. Connie cursed her luck, as this meant she would have to eavesdrop from the hallway — right in the path of anyone exiting the room, and with only the front door separating her from one of those intimidating Jaspers.

The door to the room was ajar but not open, and Connie tucked herself into the nearby corner next to the stairs. Here, she could remain still and silent without being too uncomfortable, and still be ready to move in an emergency. She focused on the quiet voices from within.

The Zircon's muffled tones resolved themselves into comprehensible speech. "Given the history surrounding that particular family group I was really expecting more to come of this. This lack of meaningful progress will reflect badly on all of us if it is allowed to continue. I will require your full cooperation in the upcoming action."

There was a pause before her dad carefully responded. "I'm... asking you to reconsider." His tone stretched the limits of diplomacy, and Connie knew instinctively that he was pushing his luck.

"I have delayed this for as long as is reasonable. Please, for both our sakes, don't make requests that fall beyond your authority."

"Morale in the settlement is bad already," Doug insisted. "I need to be able to do my job going forward. People will resent this and it's going to make things im... extremely difficult for me."

The Zircon was undeterred. "That may be so, but you fail to realise the alternative could cause you bigger problems. A continued lack of results could be interpreted as complicity on your part. Now, I personally have no doubts as to your loyalty, but I have no choice but to make objective reports and I cannot guarantee my superiors would have the same interpretation..."

"Forgive me, but this is hardly fair. I've done my best but I'm working with insufficient information. I feel I've been put in an impossible position."

"I confess sympathy for your misgivings, Mr Maheshwaran. Believe me, I myself share them. You're not the only one being placed in jeopardy." At this, there was a long pause before the Zircon continued speaking. Connie tried without success to picture her seated in the comfy armchair. "Do you know that I was never made for this task?" There was by now a note of sad exasperation in the gem's voice. "Dealing with the concerns of humans is beyond the natural scope of my cut. And yet I'm expected to achieve the impossible, without sufficient resources, without the support of a Sapphire, without anything. And in the event of failure I will be judged just as harshly as you, if not more so."

It came across, oddly enough, as an appeal to camaraderie. Connie felt a strange pride that her dad could be taken into the Zircon's confidence to such an extent.

"...We don't have any choice here, do we?" her dad said flatly.

"The sooner we resolve this, the sooner everything can go back to normal. I'm sure whatever... ill feelings are stirred by this audit will be short-lived. If time passes and you truly feel you're unable to command authority, I can recommend your relocation, but surely that won't be necessary?"

"Well, if it came to that, couldn't I just step down? Work the fields and let somebody else take over peacekeeping? My family is happy here."

Connie tried to ignore the fact that her own future was being negotiated in the next room, and remain focused.

"It would be most irregular," Zircon said, "but... I can bear your request in mind if there are extenuating circumstances."

The briefest of pauses before Mr Maheshwaran got back to the main subject. "So... when's this audit going to happen?"

"I can't give a precise time scale at this point. I will need to requisition additional forces, enough gems and robonoids to supervise the human population while the searches are carried out. A high proportion of local gempower is currently occupied with future preparations. Given the circumstances I've no doubt I can get what we need, but there could be some administrative hoops to jump through."

"What kind of future preparations?" Doug asked.

"Nothing that need concern you." A very matter-of-fact dismissal.

"Just tell me this, at least. It's not technology, is it? You're looking for something else." Connie's eyes widened at this. Perhaps her dad was closer to the truth than she had realised, but how had he figured this out?

Zircon sounded almost amused. "Obviously I can't confirm or disconfirm that," she said. "But I look forward to a day when you can focus your insight on the more conventional aspects of your work. It shouldn't be long."

There was a sense that business was approaching a conclusion, and at once Connie was conscious of her precarious position. Not daring to stay put any longer, she rose slightly from her sitting position and scuttled to the bottom of the staircase on her palms and feet. From there, she carefully crawled up the stairs, hugging the wall so as to avoid putting weight in the middle of the floorboards. There was no choice but to remain hidden until they left, and so she concealed herself under the bed in her room.

This felt important. They hadn't outright said what this audit was, but Connie could take a decent guess. A force of gems going from street to street, from building to building, from room to room, and not leaving until they had found what they were looking for. The Diamond Authority's patience must be at an end.

At last there was a sound of the front door closing, and Connie dared to believe she had a clear run out of the house to share her findings with PeeDee or Ronaldo. She waited a few minutes, then edged up to the side of the bedroom window and peeked out: no sign of any gems. With this established, she quietly descended the stairs.

As she reached the hallway, she realised which possibility she'd neglected: her dad was still home. He was leaning on the kitchen counter, alternately sipping from a glass of water and staring at its contents with open suspicion.

With a sense of inevitability, Connie froze in the doorway. However, when he finally looked up and saw her, her dad merely gave a puzzled smile. "Good afternoon, Connie. I didn't hear you come in."

Connie forced a manic grin. "Uh, yes! I was so caught up that I almost forgot about lunch. Just thought I'd drop in now and... grab something?"

Doug consulted his pocket watch, and then nodded solemnly. "You know, with one thing and another, I've not had time for lunch myself. Let's see what we've got."

As her dad rummaged in the pantry, Connie's relief at (apparently) not having been caught was offset by some more negative feelings. There was, of course, frustration that she was now delayed in returning to the boardwalk to find out what had happened. It was also difficult to suppress guilt over the unnecessary extra helping she would now be eating — coupled with the residual guilt she'd been feeling in the past weeks for deceiving her parents.

She stifled these emotions and tried to look grateful as her father served up some leftovers. Connie helped herself to a drink and joined him in the dining room.

"I've just spoken with my Zircon," he said, and Connie nearly choked on a mouthful of food. Trying to speak made her eyes water, and she had to take a few sips of her drink before she could respond.

"Oh..." — she coughed — "is that so?" She smiled weakly. Was this a mind game? Did her dad know what she'd done?

He looked at her with amused concern. "Are you all right?"

Connie nodded in affirmation, taking another drink of water. She cleared her throat again.

"Anyway," Doug continued, "I didn't forget what you said about people being relocated, and how it would be better if things were explained more clearly. So I asked if there was any more information we could have about their policies on moving people."

Connie hoped he hadn't mentioned her by name. "What, uh, did she say?"

Her dad smiled. "It actually made a lot of sense, the way she explained it. I didn't know, but they've spent centuries studying organic biology, and apparently there are problems caused by small populations that can only be solved by moving people around. It's got to be enforced since everyone might just stay put if it was left up to them."

"What kind of problems?"

"Your mom might understand it better," he admitted, "I never had much of a head for science. But just as it's natural for gems to be alike, it's natural for us humans to be different. Since we're all in isolated groups, we need new people brought in so we can maintain that variety. Otherwise, in a few generations people in a settlement would all be the same, which again, we're the opposite to gems so that wouldn't be good. So that's why there's not always an obvious reason for being relocated. It's for the good of people in the future." He glanced at the ceiling. "What did she call it? Population dynamics."

Connie mulled this over. "For small populations?"

Her dad nodded earnestly, clutching his water glass on the table. "Apparently they've been researching it for years. It's easy to forget how hard they all work. Still, I suppose you can get more done when you don't sleep."

"Hmm."

"So," he asked, "do you feel any better about things, knowing that?"

Connie had no interest in adding to her father's troubles. "Absolutely," she said. "Hey, thanks for lunch but I'm going to head back out if that's all right?"

"It's fine," he said, thoughtful. "Everything's fine."