My people are more sturdy than walls.

"Wake up!" I shouted in the woman’s face. "Do not go to sleep again."

"Why not?" Her collision with the wall had brought back the focus in her eyes, but her voice was sullen — like a cranky child who wants to remain in bed.

"Because if you stay awake," I told the woman, "you will be able to lead a rich life wherein you accomplish great things."

"Like what?"

"Like…" I looked about me for inspiration; seeing the open path down me center of me room, I remembered why I had awakened her in the first place. "We shall solve a mystery, you and I. We can discover who cleared the space from me to the door."

"Oh, I saw that," the woman said. "It was interesting. Sort of. I think…"

Her voice was fading. "Wake up!" I cried. "Stay awake and talk to me." With a burst of fierceness, I thrust my silver ax close to the woman’s face. "Stay awake or I shall cut off your wallabies."

"Missy!" Uclod said, staring at the ax. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I am attempting to make a friend." Without letting him interrupt further, I turned back to the woman. "Talk to me. Talk to me about… about this interesting thing you saw."

"There was an alien," the woman replied with grumpy ill will. "A big white thing — like some animals, but bigger than a buffalo and it didn’t have a head."

"Then where did it put its ears?" I asked.

"It didn’t have ears. Or eyes or a nose or a mouth. Because it didn’t have a fucking head. Have you heard a word I’m saying?"

"I am listening most attentively. This headless beast picked you up to clear a path to me?"

"It didn’t touch us," the woman answered, "but we moved anyway. Everybody. We floated off the floor and out to the sides. Then the creature took away your body and when it brought you back, you were alive again."

"But I was always alive. I am not so weak as to the from a little tumble."

"You didn’t look alive," the woman said. "But you got taken away and when you came back…"

Her voice faded again. I gave her another smack against the wall. "Wake up! Is it not interesting that I appeared dead but then was alive? Do you not wish to find this headless beast and learn the reasons for its actions? I am clearly enmeshed in Portentous Events and if you accompany me, we shall both… wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

I slapped her hard. She did not react. I lifted my hand to slap her again, but Uclod seized my wrist.

"Enough, missy," he said. "You’ve knocked her out cold."

I looked at the woman before me. She was beginning to slump to the floor — but not because I had battered her unconscious. I had not hit her hard enough to cause injury; in fact, I had not hit her hard enough to keep her awake.

And through all this, none of the others within hearing had opened an eye to watch. Too lost to care. The woman had been the most awake of them all; but she had not been awake enough.

Perhaps no one in this tower was. No one in this city. No one in the world.

Uclod eased his grip on my wrist and took me by the hand instead. "Come on. Let’s get out of here."

I let him lead me away.

Subterranean Snow

Outside the tower, it was snowing. Only a few flakes trickled directly onto my shoulders, but many more were falling three blocks over.

The snow came through a great hole in the roof. This city — and I do not know the city’s true name, so I shall call it Oarville — was built within a gigantic cavern dug deep under a mighty mountain. The place seemed empty and abandoned now, except for thousands or even millions of Ancestors who slept in their great bright towers. Apart from those towers, all other lights had been damped down by the supervising machines that concern themselves with power consumption. The result was a permanent dusk, illuminated only by Ancestral Towers shining amidst the underground blackness.

At one time, the whole cavern had been completely sealed off from the outside world; but then my friend Festina used Science to blow a great fissure in the stony roof so she could fly inside with an aeroplane. Although that happened four years before, the city’s repair machines had not yet patched up the damage… which disturbed me very much indeed. The purpose of machines is to work automatically: to mend breakage and to shield people from the Harsh Cruel World. Here in Oarville, the Harsh Cruel World was enjoying free rein — a blizzard gusted with arctic ferocity through the mountains outside, and its thick showers of white spilled in through the roof’s hole.

Why had the damage not been fixed? Unless perhaps the city’s repair machines were becoming as Tired as the people: lapsing into torpor like the woman in the tower. But I did not want to think such a thing — I did not want to think about my whole world guttering out like a candle. Therefore, I tried to empty my mind of mournful thoughts, concentrating only on the here and now.

Standing in the open air. Snowflakes falling down.

The hole in the roof was high above us, higher than the city’s glass towers. Wind whistled across the gap, but did not reach all the way to the street; the gale sent snow swirling madly as it entered the cavern, but the furious spinning whiteness lost energy as it fell. By the time the snow brushed past my face, it had resigned itself to perfect calm. Even over by the central square, directly under the rupture in the roof, the snow floated quietly as it settled onto the pavement.

"Whoa!" Uclod said, staring at the soft white tumble pouring onto the sky. "Where did that come from?"

"It is snow," I told him, "Snow is a weather phenomenon."

"It wasn’t a weather phenomenon ten minutes ago," he said. "But I guess things change fast in the mountains. Give me a sticky-hot beach any day."

"I will not give you anything," I said. "I have heard about you aliens trying to obtain other people’s land. If you offer me beads and trinkets, I shall punch you in the nose."

"You got the wrong idea, missy. I’m not here to give you grief." The little man grinned. "But maybe together, we can give grief to other people."

"Are these other people evil?"

"Utter bastards."

"Then they deserve trouble. I feel no pity for bastards, especially utter ones."

I started toward the central square, where the snow drifted down the thickest. Snow is a fine thing indeed: it is pleasantly cool as it falls on your arms, and when the flakes melt against your skin, they leave attractive droplets of water. I am not such a one as wears clothes even in winter, but snowflake sprinkle is an excellent look for me.

The short Uclod man trudged at my side, muttering about the snow; he was obviously a Warm-Weather Creature, unprepared for a Melaquin winter. His skin, which had darkened in the tower, was now growing light again: turning from umber to orange, and onward to a bleached yellow jaundice reminiscent of dead grass. It could not have been that he was sickening from the cold, for the city was well-heated despite the note in the roof. (All around us, the snow melted as soon as it touched the pavement.) But Uclod’s skin seemed intent on reacting in exaggerated fashion to every tiny change in the environment.

"You were telling me about utter bastards," I said, "and why you have come to Melaquin if you are not after our land. Are you another fucking Explorer, marooned against your will?"

"Not me, missy," he replied. "I’m what you might call a private entrepreneur. Working at the moment for Alexander York."

"Who is a friend of Festina’s."

"Friend isn’t exactly the right word." "What is the right word?"