More than two hundred years old, Madame d'Ortolan has been accorded the honour of being allowed to transition permanently into a younger body when her older one is near death.

After forming a close relationship with Temudjin Oh, she disappears, causing Madame d'Ortolan to become deeply paranoid about her motives and intentions.

Mrs Mulverhill theorises that Madame d'Ortolan is motivated, along with a need to control the Council (and therefore humanity), to ensure that none of the many Earth worlds are contaminated by alien contact.

The Philosopher likes to imagine himself as an ethical and thoughtful man – hence his sobriquet – and claims to take no pleasure in his work, seeing it only as a necessary evil.

Through various extreme and unethical measures, the Concern has developed Bisquitine's transition powers to a very high degree.

In the end she is revealed to be an abused character we have briefly met in previous chapters, named "Subject 7".

"[3] In 2010, an unused section of the first draft was published by the Birmingham Science Fiction group as the short story "The Spheres" in a booklet of the same name.