Out of Reach

       “Now you can go fetch a cleaver,” I turned to the Hunter. “It wouldn’t make things worse.” “No, wait!” The Prince had finally heard me and waved his arms in protest. “They weren’t attacking us—they wanted to help! Don’t be afraid, but don’t move! Hunter, please don’t shoot. I… I understand them. I’ll try to talk—” The Hunter, however, didn’t lower his rifle, though he now aimed at the reddish orange blobs behind the Prince. “No, kid. Wild beasts turn aggressive if you attack one of their pack. I’ll keep watch just in case…” Meanwhile, the Prince carefully approached the two halves of the former amoeba. Two others, pulsing red yellow, slithered closer. But before he could gather one of the extinguished slime blobs in his palm, it flickered white. So did the other half. A hazy glow coalesced into points, brightened into distinct colours, and—voilà—two tiny new amoebae stretched out pseudopods. “Wow,” the Fox dared to inch closer. Even the Hunter whooped and tossed his rifle in the air. “Binary fission,” I chimed in. Best not let them think the crisis was over. “Though their kin don’t look thrilled. Ask why. You won’t like the answer.” The Prince glanced back. A dozen amoebae were closing in, all a dull crimson. No translation needed. Naturally, he didn’t switch to defence, just held out an open palm to the nearest large amoeba. Silence. “Just in case,” I nodded to the Hunter, who glared at me over his rifle’s sights. “Why don’t you carry our princess to safety, since you don’t trust me with the task? The natives are still cross.” “No!” The Prince’s voice cut in. Not at me, though. He was staring at the large amoeba but recoiled, clutching the tiny slime-half to his chest. “You can’t—that’s cruel!” “Eh? What? Why?” The Fox flattened his ears. The Prince resumed his silent negotiations, now fully encircled by amoebae. I answered for him. “Just as I told you. Little light, little food. Enough for exactly this many natives. More mouths might make all starve. Even if the Hunter had shot one, they wouldn’t be this upset. But you, dear Rose, forced them to kill and eat one of their own to survive. Or exile it to the surface to dry out.” She gasped, covering her mouth with leaves. The horror in her eyes was spoonable— though just metaphorically for me now. Anyway, the flavour was as exquisite as ever. “Oi, don’t pin this on us,” the Fox wedged between me and Rose, tail shielding her. “Like I’d believe you didn’t drive them to this in the first place!” “Indeed,” the Prince backed him up, rising from his amoeba huddle. The swarm now pulsed violet-blue. “You lied. They weren’t turning us to stone, they were… licking visitors so the planet accepts them as its own.” Well, might as well feign surprise. “What?! But—a couple centuries ago, it was just as I said! Where d’you think those petrified flies at the entrance came from? No one helped them, quite the opposite. The natives must’ve switched tactics later.” “Oh, pull the other one!” The Fox bared his teeth. “I don’t inspect every planet daily! Let crises simmer, return as needed weeks, years, centuries later…” “Let’s suppose that’s true,” the Prince said, retrieving Rose (and still cradling the slime-bit). Friends, hold still while the amoebae—Twinglings, as they call themselves… mark you as theirs. Fox, you’re first. By the way, your colour means ‘grumpy’ in their twinkle-tongue.” Rose giggled. The Fox’s ears pinned back, but he didn’t dare to object and thus confirm the term. “What about the spare slime-blob?” the Hunter asked as pseudopods explored his boots. “I’ll think of something.” “No need to think,” I waved at the muscle-column. “Sever the hinges, and the shell won’t snap shut. Save your friends and these natives from famine.” Physical form had its perks, but mucus-soaked socks weren’t one. “That’s not a ‘hinge’, it’s part of a living being! I won’t harm anyone!” He was nearly shouting. Excellent. Push harder. “Not even to save lives? Choices aren’t between good and evil, just between bigger and lesser evils. I’m offering the least destructive option. Severing ligaments won’t kill the oyster.” Not immediately, anyway. It’d dry out or rot soon enough. “Right,” the Fox cut in. “If the overgrown maggot insists so hard, don’t touch the mollusc. How do we get back, then? By walking? It’ll take ages, the ground is slippery as hell! Worse than at the Ashkabar’s planet, at least that ice was dry.” The Prince shifted focus to sketching a new bird. So, the ‘protect your friends’ angle failed. Then again, the situation wasn’t as dire as at the Planet of Roses. We boarded with two amoeba guides brightening the bird’s glow. The rest formed a pulsing trail below. The shell stayed shut. Of course. Even without my sabotage, oysters open slowly. The bird landed near the mantle’s edge, where the valves met. Waiting was all one could do. Ah, no, the Prince set Rose down and flipped through his notebook—plotting apparently. Not aloud, blast him, so I couldn’t think in advance how to neutralise his devices. The Hunter mournfully inspected his slime-gummed rifle and soaked cartridges. The Fox shook himself like a wet dog. I settled for admiring Rose, who huffed and turned away each time our eyes met. “I’ve got it!” The Fox leapt onto a pearl. “Let’s do like the ancient Twinlings: stick this one, “ he jerked his muzzle at me, “here and let him pearlify! Safer than the notebook.” I froze. Unlikely the Prince would agree. But then, where I was concerned, his principles wavered. “Fox!” The Prince grimaced. “That’s too far!” “Is it?” The Fox rounded on him. “After all the drowning, freezing, caging, tail-yanking, tree-whacking, and many other abusive crap I’ve endured?” “Acting like him isn’t the answer. Revenge solves nothing.” “Fine, fine,” the Fox backed down. “There goes the revenge, but shouldn’t we stop him somehow? And we can’t even shove him in the notebook safely now. Rose, my beloved piece of shrub, back me up! He nearly wiped out your planet!” I had enough of their third-person deliberations, and the moment for intervention was ripe. “Notice he said nearly. Recall why ‘nearly’ didn’t become ‘absolutely’? Oh right, you were all nearly dead, and only Isaved you, for your information. Not your hero.” I stared at the ‘hero’. The Prince didn’t flinch. “I remember that. That’s why I notebooked you when the Rose King and Crab Elder wanted you dead. We’re even now. But I do need to protect others from you.” He flipped pages absently. “But if I notebook you, tear the page out, leave it soak into a small pearl… That way, you’d stay alive but unable to tamper with other pages, and no one can accidentally free you.” He eyed the Fox, who ducked his head. Oh. Crap. The notebook was already in his hands. Strike first, hard, and where it hurts. “And what of the other planets like this one?” I blurted the most effective half-second thought. “Left to die while you dally around?” At least that managed to surprise him. He stopped mid-gesture and blinked. “Wh—what do you mean by ‘planets like this’?” Old habits resurfaced. I circled him, unnerving the Fox and Hunter. “Planets where I visited and set things up to ripen over centuries to a catastrophe or a quiet demise.” “Aha!” The Fox pounced. “So you are the guilty party in this shell’s troubles!” “This one,” I nudged a pearl, “learned to snap shut and pearlify objects without me. I just… ensure a passing meteorite adjusted its axis so that the sun travelled across the opening, not along it. Less light, less food. But there are other planets. Without me, you’ll never find them. Now you choose,” I jabbed a finger at the Prince, “whether to accept my help or to stroll the cosmos knowing creatures starve, get poisoned, or dry out.” “You—” Rose whirled on me, glorious in her fury. “Vile monster!” “We’ll find afflicted planets the old way,” the Fox scoffed. “By the dark haze. Don’t need you. And stop shifting around, you can’t scare anyone now.” “Did you see any haze approaching this oyster?” “No,” the Prince admitted, but didn’t take the notebook away yet. “But why should we believe you?” Time to twist. “What is that you can’t believe? That such planets exist? Or that trading them for my freedom benefits me?” “No. We know what you want.” The Prince didn’t seem diverted by rhetorical questions. “To destroy everything. I don’t believe that you’d contrive another catastrophe while helping us.” “Quite,” the Fox began to circle me as well. “Or you’ll lead us to a pristine, untouched planet, spin a pack of lies, and get us to wreck it with our own hands and paws, just like the Planet of Roses.” “You managed before,” I shrugged. “Now you’ve got a whole regiment.” I pointed at the Hunter. “Let them earn their keep.” “And don’t you doubt it, I’ll keep watch.” The Hunter twitched his wet moustache. Given up on scraping his rifle clean, he gripped it by the barrel like a club. Oh, and there was a chance to change the subject. “And another thing, doesn’t it strike you that we’ve been sitting here too long with no way out? Prince, ask the amoebas if this is normal.” He stared at me for a long, hard moment, but went off to the natives anyway. And in the distance, between the shadows of the gill-branches, flickers of light from the rest of the population were starting to show. A good quill, holding its own. But I needed to keep up the psychological pressure. I demonstratively rubbed my face, though my hands and sleeves were already soaked enough to wring them out. In response to the Prince’s question, the amoebas shifted into the red spectrum. Anxious too, were they? Naturally, the Prince confirmed it: the oyster was delayed, and by a significant margin. As if something was obstructing it. And he had a suspect in mind. “Not a clue,” I announced before he could open his mouth. “And believe me, I want to be stuck here even less than you do. But if this oyster continues to be obstinate, you’ll have no choice left but to force it open. If you don’t want to get your own hands dirty, sketch the Hunter an axe. Do you have any idea what it’s like when the air stops reaching your lungs because of all the slime, when your hearing and sight have long since failed, and every movement is a massive effort, until you freeze solid, like a fly in amber? And Rose? Her bell jar will seal itself to the pot permanently, and she’ll suffocate too, just a bit after us. Is that what you want?” My vivid imagery was wasted on them. They didn’t believe me. Well, the Hunter grew nervous, started looking around, but since the Prince was sitting there as if nothing was wrong, he too pretended to be unafraid. But I knew that’s exactly how it would play out. “I will not harm it,” the Prince said, rapping his notebook against his palm with a meaning. “Not for anything. Not even for our salvation. Because I am more than certain that you know why the shell won’t open, and how to calm it.” Stalemate. Who would break first? The one who takes the threat seriously. That is, me. They believed I was exaggerating the danger. One of those situations where getting yourself out becomes more important than finishing the job. Ah, fine. The Prince won’t be able to fix the planet’s axial tilt, and without that, the locals will continue their wretched existence until the pearl clogs the entire aperture. Slow, unreliable, but better than being stuck here myself. And there’s still Rose. She needs to be extracted. Fine I retreat but don’t surrender. I just couldn’t possibly admit outright that I was the one who orchestrated the sabotage. To keep the Prince from reconsidering my freedom, to ensure they listened to me occasionally, I needed to maintain at least some shred of credibility. A difficult task, given the extensive catalogue of my misdeeds that squandered it, but… “For once, I had nothing to do with this one. But I’ll attempt to assist. Let’s see: if the oyster remains closed, it means something is still bothering it,” I began my reasoning aloud. A long, monotonous speech dulls the senses. “Something, not someone—as we are all present and accounted for. Or did anyone else enter with you?” “No,” the Prince replied. He was keen on listening. A small mercy. “Then, in all likelihood, one of you has dropped something underway. Not me, I have nothing to lose. Not the Rose, she was under her glass dome all the time. Not you,” I caught the Prince’s gaze. “Your notebook is here, the torches are in place. That leaves the Fox with his fur and the Hunter with his gear. His bag is stuffed to the brim; he could easily have lost something when we fell from the bird.” “As if,” the Hunter grumbled but did pat down his pockets. “Everything of mine is secured properly, I’ll show you now.” And he began laying out his possessions on the flat pearl. An excellent chance to study his inventory. For future reference. What might I be able to pilfer from him later? Alas, he didn’t always comment on his actions aloud, but I counted a dozen different cartridge casing colours. He only mentioned signal flares, dye-packs, and itch-inducing rounds. I recalled from practical experience the 'stinkers' as well. What, not even a penknife? Right, I had planted the seed; now to disguise it as a logical conclusion. “Perhaps you could ask the amoebas to search the area where you entered, and then along the route to and from the site of our fall?” “Hmm, that sounds reasonable,” the Prince agreed after a long pause. Finally, he put his notebook away to raise his right hand to his heart, summoning his parade uniform with its enhanced strength and sword. Was he going to sketch a bird again? Precisely. “Fox!” he commanded on the move. “Take the Twinklings to the shell joint; it’s faster that way, and your sense of smell is keen. Search for any scraps there.” “Do I have to fly alone again?” the Fox grumbled but trotted over to the winged silhouette on the floor. “At this rate, I’ll become a flying ace. And don’t rely on my nose, it feels like my whole body is one big snot.” And with two of the natives on board, he vanished into the gloom. “Indeed,” I decided to return to the theme of my innocence, “you’ve managed to raise all these problems perfectly well without me: you got yourselves into this trap, you’ve harmed the locals…” Rose made an indignant sound, but immediately turned away again and refused to elaborate. “…You’ve complicated your own escape, whereas I have only been helping. To the best of my ability,” I added hastily, as the Prince lifted his head and was about to object. The blue doublet on him had dissolved once more. He put his hands on his hips and regarded me with patent scepticism. “Very well,” he decided at last. “You may stay outside. But only if you truly do lead us to the planets in need. Try to deceive or sabotage us, and we will return here, even from the other end of the galaxy.” *** The Fox returned first, on foot, shaking his paws as he ran. His long ears drooped, and his tail was frankly a comical sight. And before he could open his mouth to report, a draught swept past, followed by a loud crunch from behind. Well, finally. The valves were opening. A band of blinding light widened. After the gloom, it was painful to look outside, even though the sun was already moving out of the aperture. The Fox was the first to dart out and began racing around on the rough surface, shaking himself off like a dog. The air outside seemed almost sweet after the stifling, damp interior, but the necessity of breathing remained a chore. And a lingering, unidentified sense of nausea remained deep in my system. The planet’s gravity, too, seemed to have increased. And my mood was further soured by the Hunter, who was trudging along, wheezing, a couple of steps behind. The Prince, carrying Rose, brought up the rear. Her glass dome dissolved into sparks, no longer needed. “Wow!” he suddenly exclaimed, “Rose, look how beautiful it is! Fantastic!” What now? I turned around. The sun’s rays were still falling inside. Naturally, the wet, pearlescent surfaces were reflecting and refracting light. Yes, most sentient beings with a standard visual spectrum would find the sight beautiful. But must they stand and gawk at every shiny surface now? “Shall we perhaps get a move on?” I inquired, when the party was still loitering at the edge a couple of minutes later, even though the sun had set. “How did you get here in the first place?” The Prince turned reluctantly. “Not until I figure out how to help the Twinklings. I promised I’d return their light, that there would be enough algae for everyone, and that no one would have to be killed.” “Not afraid of making promises you can’t keep? Going to leave them two torches? They aren’t real, they’re from the notebook; they’ll dissolve once you’ve flown a sufficient distance. And the planet is too large, your paper horses won’t be able to re-orient its tilt.” “No, not torches,” the Prince mused, turning a bit more serious. “But I’ll think of something. Hmm, a light source…” He took the headband with its torch from his head, twisted it, shone it inside the oyster. And suddenly, he laughed. Had he actually invented something? It seemed so. He set Rose down on the outer surface of the shell and hurried back inside. The Fox, after sticking his tongue out at her, followed. The amoebae’s lights drew closer to him from the depths; I too stepped nearer. Perhaps I could figure out what was happening and find a way to thwart it. “What’s happening over there?” Rose fretted as a faint glimmer of the Prince’s transformation flashed within the darkness of the oyster. It seemed he could switch between forms as often as he liked. A pity. “My dear Rose, would you care to relocate a little closer?” I suggested, with as much innocence as I could muster, sinking down on one knee beside her. It immediately protested with a sharp pain, so much so I nearly hissed. And how long was this going to last? “As if!” she snapped, and clicked a thorny tendril in the air for emphasis. At that moment, something shoved me hard in the shoulder from behind, nearly knocking me to the ground. I barely caught myself and did let out a hiss. “Hey, the lady said 'no', which means no,” the Hunter announced. Of course. He had indeed used his rifle as a club. I stood up and stared at him. It is rather convenient that he’s so short. Out of habit, he properly re-gripped his rifle, even disengaging the safety, but in response, the mechanism just clicked. The Hunter began to look worried. “What is going on here?” the Prince’s voice came from behind before I could make a quip about courage without a weapon. “Just making sure this rascal doesn’t lay a finger on your Rose!” the Hunter reported. “Ah, I see. Snake, don’t even think about it.” I too turned towards the shell aperture. The Prince, still in his doublet but without the sword, was holding an obviously heavy stack of mother-of-pearl plates. He carefully set them down near Rose, but kept one and ran further off, away from the sun. He twisted the plate. Well? When a glare from the plate suddenly flared across my eyes, I began to guess. Using found materials as mirrors to cast reflections inside? Not very efficient. The hours of daylight within would only increase by about ten minutes, and with minimal brightness. And it would require an awful lot of mirrors. The Prince must have been thinking along the same lines. He summoned the rest of his paper guard from his notebook and began pestering the Geographer with questions. At first, the Geographer shook his head listlessly, but the Prince managed to cheer him up, and soon the scientist was perched on the edge of the valve, scribbling busily on his slate tablet. I ought to go over there, even under guard, to offer some… convenient suggestions. Just then, the Prince stepped into my path, and looked too thoughtful for my comfort. “Ah, fine,” he finally waved a hand, “better not to leave you here unattended, or you might spoil something while everyone is busy. Hunter, you’ll keep watch a while longer, won’t you?” And so a small caravan of those unfit for construction work (the Fox and Rose), the untrustworthy (myself), and their escort (the Hunter and the Prince) marched away from the aperture. I understood at once how the Fox had reached this galaxy: a very familiar asteroid with a house drifted up from beyond the horizon, anchored in orbit. Tied to the chimney on the roof, paper birds and horses grazed. “You stole my B613?!” I couldn’t help myself. “But how? It didn’t have an engine!” “We had the Businessman,” the Fox puffed up with pride and malice, “and he had a full case of all sorts of cra… useful things. We tethered a kite to the window and caught a favourable wind to build up speed. And we didn’t steal it, we impounded it for moral damages.” Wait a moment… I had created that asteroid for a minor prank of mine, and if I hadn’t cancelled the illusion while crossing the intergalactic gap with the Prince and Rose, posing as Louis, it was only because I had other things on my mind. But when the Prince caught me back in the notebook on the Planet of Roses, the illusion should have dissipated, even without a direct command! And right now, I had no control over my powers or the illusions I’d cast, so B613 simply couldn’t exist—and yet there it was, solid as anything. An interesting coincidence—a copy of a destroyed asteroid becomes stuck in reality, and I become stuck in the body of a destroyed inhabitant of that same asteroid… Was it a coincidence, though? The group boarded the asteroid the usual way, via the anchor line. The Prince immediately headed for the small well to water Rose and wash the Fox, and he didn’t even object when I fetched a bucket of water for the same purpose. There now, that’s better. And the Hunter rushed off to disassemble and clean his rifle. Does he think the cartridges will dry out quickly? The Prince waited just long enough for him to reassemble the rifle, then headed back to supervise the construction of the reflectors. I ran through my options: whom to shove overboard, what to steal. Nothing suited my purposes. The Prince and his company would easily retrieve any eject, catch up, and prevail. Besides—why bother? It’s more advantageous to stay close to him (and to Rose) in case he lets slip what he did to me. But I had no desire to watch the triumph of light and good either, so I trudged towards the house. At least there was some entertainment to be had: the Hunter followed, grumbling that he, too, had wanted to see what the Prince had invented. The slime, at least, was beginning to dry. In the open air, outside the shell, it didn’t harden into a solid mass but flaked off in fine scales that insisted on getting in the eyes and making everyone sneeze. A little cloud puffed off the Fox with every movement. “Well, Rose,” I couldn’t resist an irony. “I did invite you to B613. And here we are, one way or another.” She turned her back on me demonstratively. What, she wouldn’t speak to me at all? Perfectly understandable, but it would be a pity if I were only to see the back of her head. No, she was exquisite from every angle in her indignation, in the tilt of her head, in her crossed leaf-arms. And… and she was missing a petal from the back again. When did she manage to lose that one? Saving the Prince again? Back on A000, she had the full set, I saw it myself and even touched it. While studying her, I paid no attention at all to the Fox muttering something like “dreams do come true” from behind me. The next instant, I actually yelped—it felt like my ankle had been stabbed in several places at once. I instinctively kicked out, hitting something not very heavy and solid. Ah, the Fox had decided to take a bite. He got a shoe to the nose, yelped himself, and went flying sideways. But he was back on his feet in a flash, baring his teeth, all still present. And sharp. “Hee-yaw, boy!” the Hunter whooped. “That’s the way! You’d make a splendid police dog!” “Don’t you people vaccinate your pets against rabies?” I feigned sarcasm, glancing down briefly. No, my foot was still in place, but it felt like it was still in a trap. What else can one expect from a vulnerable human body? “Fox, stop it,” Rose suddenly spoke up. I even risked a glance back, taking my eyes off the Fox. She had, after all, turned towards us, wearing an adorably displeased expression. “Why must you put such filth in your mouth? Are you hungry again?” “What do you mean, 'again'?” he spluttered. “When did I last have a proper meal? Before we even landed! So yes, I’m starving. But you’re right, petal, even a pumpkin tastes better than this knitwear-clad tapeworm. Still, now I’m convinced he really isn’t putting it on.” And he trotted off towards the vegetable patch by the house. It was only then I noticed some alterations. The entire end wall of the house was gone, or rather, the full-wall bay window had vanished. “'Tethered to the window', you said?” I looked back at the Fox. “You broke my property.” “Nah,” the Fox shook his head again, sending a cloud of dust motes flying. “Our property now. And if it broke, well, who made the asteroid and the house so flimsy? Shoddy workmanship! And the gravity? The moment we shifted this rock, the gravity point slid from the centre outwards; we spent the whole journey stuck to the ceiling like flies!” “Why would I bother making a fully-functional planet if it was only needed as a ten-minute backdrop?” I shrugged. The jumper fabric rasped unpleasantly. Meanwhile, he was gnawing a pumpkin off its stem. “So that’s what you lived on during the journey,” I remarked aloud. “Again, at the expense of what I created. And again, not a single word of thanks…” “What’s to thank you for?” the Fox continued to grumble, rolling the pumpkin towards Rose. None of them seemed inclined to eat indoors at a table. “The house is completely useless, not even a proper kitchen, just a backdrop, like you said. Can’t cook anything, can’t have a decent meal. Just as well the Businessman had some crockery. Get to the house and fetch the plates, you might as well make yourself useful. And remember—I’m right behind you!” The Hunter, whistling, tagged along behind. “What do you need plates for, you’re not human,” I grumbled for appearances, but went. And neither am I. But this shell insisted otherwise. The hunger was becoming unbearable, my skin unpleasantly itched from the flaking mother-of-pearl, my bruised knees ached, along with the crab scratch and the Fox’s bite, and fatigue was pressing down on me. What, would I have to sleep as well to regain strength? Without the wall, the house was even brighter and more uncomfortable than before. The only piece of crockery to be found was a single, decorative plate on the stand by the door. The Fox cursed all manner of greedy businessmen who hadn’t bothered to clear up after themselves, while I pried the well-glued dish from the stand. I nearly dropped it when it finally came loose. Well now? Perhaps I should drop it, let it shatter? That would yield sharp shards. But to what end? I ran through the options in my mind again. No, even if I reduced the number of guards right now and stole the asteroid, the Prince with his collection of flying objects would still give chase, and a single ceramic shard is poor defence against a sword. Use the Fox as a hostage? A tempting thought, but alone I couldn’t possibly guard him and watch for pursuit indefinitely, not when this body would inevitably demand food and sleep. Unless… Why, exactly, do I need this body? What happens if I destroy it? In all honesty, I’ve so often suggested to various living (now deceased) beings a reliable method to escape any problem or suffering, to liberate the soul from its material prison using lead, poison, height, or any number of means. Take the original of this impersonation, for instance. Of course, I was lying; they simply ceased to live, no prospects involved. But this body wasn’t real. If I destroy it, will I become myself again? It’s hardly complicated: roll up the sleeve, drag a sharp edge with full force along the vein, and wait. The others certainly wouldn’t stop me. I weighed the plate in my hand. The Fox was already heading out through the gap where the bay window had been, without looking back. But what if it wouldn’t work? I still didn’t know why I was stuck in this form, what other complications were, or to what extent I remained myself. What if, like ordinary people, I’d just… vanish? Fine. Let that remain an option of last resort. If I find no other way. The Hunter had nothing sharp on him. Well, well. I’ll remember that; he was not dangerous in the slightest. But the problem of cutting the pumpkin remained. In the end, driven by hunger, the Fox showed some wit and summoned the blue traitor gloomy. He sent it to the oyster, to the Businessman, for cutlery. The blurry blue ball, squeaking something unintelligible, shot upwards. I wondered how, with that lousy articulation, it would explain what it needed. But it managed somehow because it returned swiftly with a knife and fork, laying them before the Fox. Ah, some cold steel at last. Now how to appropriate it… The Fox was enjoying his newfound authority and ordered the pumpkin to be divided, but before I could reach for the knife, Rose’s thorny tendril snapped across my hand. Red droplets welled up on the back of it. Ah, who else hadn’t injured me today. While I was licking this latest scratch, Rose was scolding the Hunter and the Fox for their carelessness. So the task of dividing the food fell to the half-gloam. The hazy ball with tiny hands managed it, though it was clearly nervous, glancing at me now and then with its pink eye. The crescent-shaped slices were easy enough to gnaw without a fork, which is what I proceeded to do. For lack of anything better, I looked up towards the surface of the shell. The world-salvaging brigade was already busy on the second valve, invisible from here, and the visible one was studded with the faint lines of reflectors. Judging by the beams between them, the mirrors were arranged to bounce the sun’s rays from any point, around the clock. Ugh. Finishing my share of pumpkin, I went back into the house. The Hunter trudged after me and cursed with genuine feeling when I stretched out on the sofa and pulled the baseball cap over my nose. Best to conserve my strength while the others were working. Consciousness switched off instantly. I didn’t even perceive darkness or silence.