He found some other bits and pieces: a spare suit helmet, a length of thin rope, an AG harness and a heavy gun tripod. He threw them out. He found a small fire extinguisher. He looked round but there didn't seem to be any flames and the smoke hadn't got any worse. He held onto the extinguisher and went through to the flight deck. The smoke appeared to be clearing there, too.

"How are we doing?" he asked. Mipp shook his head.

"Don't know." He nodded at the seat Horza had been sitting in. "You can unlock that from the deck. Throw it out."

Horza found the latches securing the seat to the deck. He undid them and dragged the seat through the door, to the ramp, and threw it out along with the extinguisher.

"There are catches on the walls, near this bulkhead," Mipp called, then grunted with pain. He went on, "You can detach the wall seats."

Horza found the catches, and pushed first one line of seats, then the other, complete with straps and webbing, along the rails fixed to the shuttle interior, until they rolled out, bouncing on the ramp edge and then spinning away into the glowing mist. He felt the shuttle bank again.

The door between the passenger compartment and the flight deck slammed shut. Horza went forward to it; it was locked.

"Mipp!" he shouted.

"Sorry, Horza," Mipp's voice came weakly from the other side of the door. "I can't go back. Kraiklyn would kill me if he isn't dead already. But I couldn't find them. I just couldn't. It was only luck I saw you."

"Mipp, don't be crazy. Unlock the door." Horza shook it. It wasn't strong; he could break his way through it if he had to.

"Can't, Horza… Don't try to force the door; I'll point her nose straight down; I swear it. We can't be that high above the sea anyway… I can hardly keep her flying as it is… If you want, try closing the doors manually. There should be an access panel somewhere on the rear wall."

"Mipp, for God's sake, where are you going? They're going to blow the place up in a few days. We can't fly for ever."

"Oh, we'll ditch before that," Mipp's voice came from behind the closed door. He sounded tired. "We'll ditch before they blow the Orbital up, Horza, don't you worry. This thing's dying."

"But where are you going?" Horza repeated, shouting at the door.

"Don't know, Horza. The far side maybe… Evanauth… I don't know. Just away. I-" There was a thump as though something had fallen to the floor, and Mipp cursed. The shuttle juddered, heeling over briefly.

"What is it?" Horza asked anxiously.

"Nothing," Mipp said. "I dropped the medkit, that's all."

"Shit," Horza said under his breath, and sat down, back against the bulkhead.

"Don't worry, Horza, I'll… I'll… do what I can."

"Yes, Mipp," Horza said. He got to his feet again, ignoring the ache of exhaustion in both legs and the stabbing pain in his right calf, and went to the rear of the shuttle. He looked for an access panel, found one and prised it open. It revealed another fire extinguisher; he threw it out, too. On the other wall the panelled to a hand crank. Horza twisted the grip. The doors started to close slowly, then jammed. He strained at the lever until it snapped; he swore and threw it out as well.

Just then the shuttle came clear of the mist. Horza looked down and saw the ruffled surface of a grey sea where slow waves rolled and broke. The bank of mist lay behind them, an indeterminate grey curtain beneath which the sea disappeared. The sunlight slanted across the layered mist, and hazy clouds filled the sky.

Horza watched the broken handle tumble down towards the sea, becoming smaller and smaller; it stroked a mark of white across the water, then it was gone. He reckoned they were about one hundred metres above the sea. The shuttle banked, forcing Horza to grab the side of the door; the craft turned to head almost parallel to the cloud bank.

Horza went to the bulkhead and banged on the door. "Mipp? I can't get the doors closed."

"It's all right," the other man replied faintly.

"Mipp, open the door. Don't be crazy."

"Leave me alone, Horza. Leave me alone, understand?"

"God-damn," Horza said to himself. He went back to the open doors, buffeted by the wind curling back in from the slipstream. They seemed to be heading away from the Edgewall, judging by the angle of the sun. Behind them lay nothing but sea and clouds. There was no sign of the Olmedreca or any other craft or ship. The seemingly flat horizon to either side disappeared into a haze; the ocean gave no impression of being concave, only vast. Horza tried to stick his head round the corner of the shuttle's open door to see where they were going. The rush of air forced his head back before he could take a proper look, and the craft lurched again slightly, but he had an impression of another horizon as flat and featureless as that on either side. He got further back into the shuttle and tried his communicator, but there was nothing from his helmet speakers; all the circuits were dead; everything seemed to have been knocked out by the electromagnetic pulse from the explosion on the Megaship.

Horza considered taking the suit off and throwing it out, too, but he was already cold, and if he took the suit off he'd be virtually naked. He would keep the device on unless they started losing height suddenly. He shivered, and his whole body ached.

He would sleep. There was nothing he could do for now, and his body needed rest. He considered Changing, but decided against it. He closed his eyes. He saw Yalson, as he had imagined her, running on the Megaship, and opened his eyes again. He told himself she was all right, just fine, then closed his eyes once more.

Maybe by the time he woke they would be out from under the layers of magnetised dust in the upper atmosphere, in the tropical or even just temperate zones, rather than the arctic region. But that would probably mean only that they would finally ditch in warm water, not cold. He couldn't imagine Mipp or the shuttle holding together long enough to complete a journey right across the Orbital.

… assume it was thirty thousand kilometres across; they were making perhaps three hundred per hour…

His head full of changing figures, Horza slipped into sleep. His last coherent thought was that they just weren't going fast enough, and probably couldn't. They would still be flying over the Circlesea towards land when the Culture blew the whole Orbital into a fourteen million-kilometre halo of light and dust…

Horza woke rolling around inside the shuttle. In the first few blurred seconds of his waking he thought he had already tumbled out of the rear door of the shuttle and was falling through the air; then his head cleared and he found himself lying spread-eagled on the floor of the rear compartment, watching the blue sky outside tilt as the shuttle banked. The craft seemed to be travelling more slowly than he remembered. He could see nothing from the rear view out of the doors except blue sky, blue sea and a few puffy white clouds, so he stuck his head round the side of the door.

The buffeting wind was warm, and over in the direction the shuttle was banking lay a small island. Horza looked at it incredulously. It was tiny, surrounded by smaller atolls and reefs showing pale green through the shallow water, and it had a single small mountain sticking up from concentric circles of lush green vegetation and bright yellow sand.

The shuttle dipped and levelled, straightening on its course for the island. Horza brought his head back in, resting the muscles of his neck and shoulder after the exertion of holding his head out in the slipstream. The shuttle slowed yet more, dipping again. A slight juddering vibrated through the craft's frame. Horza saw a torus of lime-coloured water appear in the sea behind the shuttle; he stuck his head round the side of the door again and saw the island just ahead and about fifty metres below. Small figures were running up the beach which the shuttle was approaching. A group of the humans were heading across the sand for the jungle, carrying what looked like a huge pyramid of golden sand on a sort of litter or stretcher, held on poles between them.