When they refer to Ochale as the Masked Empire, for those of you who don’t know, it’s not some tired cliché about inscrutability. Ochaleans quite literally wear masks from the day of their birth to that of their death. Their spouse will see their face, and their children when they’re young, and very occasionally their very dearest friends, but no others. So far as they are concerned, their masks – those elaborate constructs of porcelain and brass, clockwork and light – are their true identities, untainted by the ever-shifting passions of the moment.

The mask may shift, but only with deliberation, or an Ochalean may change their mask – and therefore their identity, and to allude to the other mask-identities of an Ochalean is an unspeakable impertinence – but to intentionally bare one’s face to the world is to forever give up being of Ochale, and thenceforth only be from Ochale.

Take Uálé Amoli te Haixíä, for example.

We went up together on Silverfall Eight. If you’re history-minded, you’ll know that was the first relief crew for Silverfall City, though it was just Silverfall Base then, with the first dedicated mining module. (If you visit the city, drop in on it. It’s the front room of the Drink Deep now.) We worked together figuring out all the tricks and traps in driving shafts and drifts through moon-rock and cracking ancient lava tubes.

But I spent two years on the moon with te Haixíä, was closer to her than anyone but husband and blood-sisters, and I never saw her face.

(I learned a lot about making regolith-glass, though.)

– Tinith Silverfall-ith-Mirarí, unpublished memoir