Smoothly - as if she was under remote control (which, as it turned out, she was) Lucia the Tracboat turned towards the Encorathon by which she'd been waiting while Eldenbeam told his story.

As they got closer, Dot began to get worried. Each of the “floors” of the giant, skyscraper-like structure hanging in the net-sky was revolving at speed - making a humming sound which she'd hardly noticed before, but which was now getting louder and louder.

More than that, the gap between the floors - open net-air - seemed FAR too narrow for them to get in.

“Er... ” she began. “Aren't we...?”

But, of course, she needn't have worried. Whoever - or whatever - ran Encorium, the “place of happening again”, home of the recycleds' cyberpathways - had that one covered. At the very last minute, as if it knew that Lucia was coming (it did) the space between the floors suddenly opened up - worryingly, a bit like the jaws of a giant shark!

“Oooff!” said Fromage. “Ow!” He'd twirled one of his whiskers right off again!

“Barkbark!” went Wiz.

Lucia glided gently into the space that had opened to let them in, and stopped, rocking gently in the net-air.

“Look up!” said Carmeramalita gently.

“Wow!” said Dot, as she did so.

Above them, arranged in hundreds and hundreds of circles, were what looked like little flickering TV screens. Each one had a video of a computer device on it - mice, printers, skype phones, speakers, keyboards, portable hard drives, memory sticks, even floppy discs. Each device in each video turned slowly round and round, up and down, back to front showing all the angles of each device.

It was like a brilliantly coloured, solid wheel, a ceiling of brightly-coloured images, circle upon circle closing into the centre, where the words “Welcome to Encorathon 5,907,687!” shone out in bright white letters. And like a wheel - and just as it had appeared from the outside - it was spinning round, but somehow in such a way that the images on the little screens never blurred.

That meant that though the pictures were quite far away, at least five metres from where she was standing on Lucia's deck, Dot could see them quite clearly. She could even pick out details like the lettering on a memory stick, or the little control wheel on a mini-mouse.

“And down!” added Hombellyton, with a little chuckle.

Wiz and Dot peered over Lucia's side. It was the same below them - hundreds and hundreds of devices, all being recycled or already recycled.

“It looks... it looks like every computer thingy that's ever been made is being shown here!” said Wiz.

“It is!” said Walpurgis proudly. “And in all the other Encorathons in Encorium too. of course. Just shows what you can do if you don't chuck things away! Everything that's ever been in computer world - IF it hasn't been binned - finds a cyberpathway dock here! Look at that!”

He pointed down at the image of a funny clunky box with the words 'Amstrad' on it.

“One of the first ever personal computers you could get for your home” he said. “Quite the bee's knees in its day! How Alan Sugar made his money to start off with.”

Zleep! went the Tracmapper.

“OK, ready to locate” said Walpurgis, rubbing his furry paws together. “Here we go!”

He pushed his paw down into the centre of the squidgy “keyboard” below the globe of the Tracmapper.

Phwunk!

Like a shy flower growing out of the earth in spring, a silver stalk appeared where his paw had been, rising steadily up till it was just under Walpurgis' beak. There was a little golden globe on the end of it. As it stopped it opened up - reminding Dot of a chocolate orange when you unwrap it, only much smaller!

“Hyphenmarc 650R. Cerulean” said Walpurgis into the 'chocolate orange'. He gave Dot his funny, beaky smile. “Let's find the cyberpathway to the chap we've been looking for!”

Once more - phwunk!

Only this time, all the screens above and below Lucia suddenly went out. It didn't go dark though - just a bit dimmer.

Then, one by one, some came on again - at different parts of the spinning circle above them. Only three in fact, and one below,

“Getting close!” said Walpurgis, gazing up and down at the lit images.

Dot did too. The trouble was - they all looked just like Mr Mouse, because they were in normal mode. Her Mr M only got into Mr Mouse mode when he was alone with her and Wizzy - just as well, otherwise her Mum and Dad might have wondered why their computer mouse wore a baseball cap, and had a tail. Not to mention a backpack where his click-on bits ought to be!

“Well... it's one of these four, to be sure” said Walpurgis. “Any ideas? We could guess, but you're only allowed two goes in an Encorathon. After that you have to go out and wait your turn again. And it's getting busy out there now - we just happened to be the first in after a reboot, which is why we didn't have anyone else round us. It was also why we had to wait!”

Dot gazed up at the four images. And down. There had to be something... “I can't...” she began.

Wiz suddenly jumped up and looked in her face, pink tongue out, panting excitedly.

“Dot!” he said. “Remember when you spilt some spag bol on Mr M and Dad had to clean him up? There was one bit he just couldn't get at and he got impatient, so he got his penknife and when he was getting the last bit out...”

“He scratched him!” said Dot, equally excitedly. “Yes! Just down on the side! It was only a tiny mark but Mr M was SO cross about it!”

They both peered up at the videos of the four Mr Mouse lookalikes. And down. Slowly, as they'd done before, the images turned round, showing all angles of the computer mice.

Then: