her – and pushed Dann aside when he tried to protect her. Then one said, ‘Oh leave him,’ and they all stood back. And then, just at the right moment, when the youths were wondering what to try next, Dann said, ‘I’ve got an axe.’ Now, axes were rare and precious. ‘Show us,’ cried the youths, and when Dann produced the axe were silent because of it. It was very old: the man Dann had got it off had said it was the usual ‘thousands of years old,’ made of a dark, gleaming stone, and with an edge that left blood on the thumb of the youth who tried it. It was, like the gold pieces when they were allowed to see the light of day, made with a craft and a care and a knowledge that no one knew how to match. It was worth – well, it was worth Mara and Dann’s lives.
The young men no longer cared about the two, and hardly noticed when they set off down the long descent. They were handling the axe, silent with awe of it.
The laborious walking down, with ahead of them a long ascent, told the two just how much the skimmers had saved them every day. The distance covered in the skimmers amounted to two or three days of the slow walking that was all the travellers could manage now, being so exhausted. Mara and Dann were in better shape than most of the others because they had had more water and a little food, but they were learning today that they were reaching the end of their strength. Then Dann said, ‘Wait, wait, we’re going to see something soon – I think. It was still running when I came down to get you.’ And as he spoke there appeared in the sky ahead a machine that Mara remembered: it was a sky skimmer, an old machine, and as it settled on the road it was rattling and shaking and roaring as if it might collapse there and then. Out stepped the pilot, a person in bright blue clothes, not a tunic or a robe but close fitting trousers and top, a vision of cleanness and neatness. It was a woman, Mara decided after her eyes had cleared from the surprise and shock of seeing this being from another kind of world. Her yellow hair was smooth and glossy, her skin shone, and she smiled at them.
Dann walked straight up to her holding out the gold coin, as he did before, keeping an edge tight between his fingers. ‘How far?’ he asked.
Before examining it she said, ‘I am Felice. Who are you?’
Dann did not reply, intent on the transaction; but Mara said, ‘Dann and Maro, from the Rock Village.’
‘You must be the last, then.’
And then she bent, bit the coin, while Dann still held tight, straightened and said, ‘It’s genuine, all right. I don’t see one of these very often.’ She waited, but Dann said nothing, and she said, ‘Well, ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies.’
‘I found it,’ said Dann.
‘Of course you did.’ And she showed she was waiting for some tale by leaning there against her machine, all her very white teeth on show, and her eyes hard, but amused.
‘I didn’t kill anyone for it,’ said Dann, angry.
‘I know he didn’t,’ Mara came in, and this bright, shining creature transferred her attention to Mara. ‘He’s my brother,’ she said.
‘So I can see.’
‘That money was given to me by the woman who took us in when we were little and looked after us…’ And Mara, not knowing she was going to, began to cry. She was thinking of all that kindness, which she had taken for granted. She was thinking, Oh I wish I could be little again, and Daima could hold me. She could not stop crying. She turned away and tried to wipe the tears from her face with the sleeve of her dusty robe. This dirtied her face even more.
But Felice was kind, Mara knew, and without knowing she was going to, held out her hands imploringly to her.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Chelops,’ said Dann.
Her face changed. She was incredulous. ‘Why Chelops?’
‘We’re going North.’
‘You are Mahondis,’ she stated. ‘And what makes you think you’ll get any farther north than Chelops?’
‘But we do keep going north,’ said Dann.
‘Have you been to Chelops?’
‘Yes,’ said Dann, again surprising Mara.
‘Are you sure? You mean to tell me you just walked through Chelops?’
‘I…didn’t just walk,’ said Dann. ‘I saw a lot of police, and so I hid…and hid…and then made a run for it at night.’
‘You didn’t notice the slaves?’
‘I didn’t see very much,’ said Dann. ‘But I liked what I saw.’
Felice seemed too surprised to speak. She seemed to be thinking, or even in doubt. Then she said, ‘Why don’t you let me take you to Majab? It’s a nice town.’
‘Majab,’ said Dann, contemptuously. ‘Compared to Chelops it’s just nothing.’ As she still did not reply, and hesitated, and then began to speak, but stopped, he said, ‘I know you go as far as Chelops.’
‘It’s my base,’ she said. Then said, ‘I am employed by the Hadrons.’
This meant nothing to either Dann or Mara.
Felice sighed. ‘I’ve warned you as much as I can,’ she said. ‘Very well. But that coin: it would be enough to take the two of you to Majab. What else can you pay me?’
At this Dann scrabbled around in the bottom of his sack, without actually taking anything out so she could see it, and untied another gold coin, and brought it forth.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘If I were you I’d not let anyone know you’d got those.’
Dann gave the sort of laugh that means, You think I’m a fool? She was thinking they were foolish, but her face was soft and she smiled as she helped Mara in.
This was a six-seater, but the seats were broken and they had to sit on the floor. The machine took off with a feeble, coughing roar. All the same, it got quite high, enough for them to have a good, wide view down. It was a brown landscape, with clumps of grey rocks and, very occasionally, a green blotch that was one of the trees that had deep roots. There were dead trees everywhere. The machine was following the road. Below were several columns of walkers, like the one the two had been part of till this morning. As the machine passed overhead all the people looked up to see this rare thing, a sky skimmer, and while it was not possible to see their faces, all of them were hating the machine and cursing it.
They crossed a wide river running west to east, but there was not much water in it. At the least the mud flats on either side were not white with bones. Now they were approaching some mountains, and the machine did not increase its height – could not, that was clear. At the last moment, when it seemed it would crash into a tall peak that had glittering streaks down it from past rains, it turned to slide through a pass to the other side, where the plain went on, and on, everything brown and dry. After about half an hour, in the middle of the plain, there appeared below them a town, rather like the one behind them that was full of spiders and scorpions, but here there seemed to be people in the streets and there was a market.
‘Majab,’ whispered Dann. ‘That’s where the old woman was – I told you, who hid me when I ran away.’
‘You
