It did not rain. It was time to scatter the poppy seed and the ganja, but the earth was hard, and the wind blew away the seed. The ganja self-seeded and did better.

Kira gave birth, and it was at once clear that what she had wanted was not a baby, but Juba, for she took the infant to Ida and said, "I don't want it." Ida was transformed. She took into her house a woman from the fields who had wanted a child and failed, and the two women spent all their days watching over the infant.

The water was low in the reservoirs, and so it was rationed. Instead of tubs being taken every day to the male slaves, now it was once a week. No longer could the courtyard women spend hours in the basins that were kept filled in the bathhouse. The people of the town, used to the morning and evening watercarts, were told that there would be one delivery a day, and the penalty for wasting water would be death.

The townspeople were showing all kinds of initiative. In the dusty gardens were appearing food crops and — illegally — poppy. They began trading direct with the River Towns merchants. The Hadrons turned a blind eye, because that meant less food had to be found from the half-empty warehouses. Some old wells were discovered, and the owners sold water, and some even established bathhouses. The monopoly of water, which the Hadrons had used for so long to control the town, was weakened — not ended, for there were not many wells. But the Hadrons were losing power fast, and when Juba said that it would not be long before the ruling junta was ousted, no one disagreed.

Meryx said to Mara, "Please live with me, and let me try to give you a child."

Mara moved in with Meryx and found herself overthrown by love. She had not imagined there could be such happiness. Nor that there could be such fear. For her to get pregnant — what a catastrophe, she knew it. Only in a dream or a fever could she possibly have seen herself with a child, here, where the drought was creeping up from the south. For the first month she lied about her fertile time, she was so afraid. But Meryx knew it and she could not bear what he was feeling. And so she abandoned herself as she might have thrown herself into a fast flowing river, thinking that she might or might not find landfall. And yet she loved him — and it was terrible.

Meanwhile the rainy season trundled on. There was a brief, violent storm, enough to half fill the reservoirs. The river ran again from under the cliff. There was not another storm. The poppies sparsely sprang up, and died. They were replanted and there was patchy rain. The ganja was thick and odorous, but only half its usual height.

The four babies were born, all of them strong and well formed. The other waiting women reminded Juba of his promise, but then two of the babies died. It was the drought sickness. Mara knew it, but the others did not, because they had never seen it. Mara told the two mothers and Ida's nurse to sit by the babies and give them clean water, but the water was not really clean. The Kin commandeered water from one of the deep wells in a citizen's garden, and it was thought that this was keeping Kira's (or Ida's?) baby and the other two surviving babies alive. The babies were sheltered inside the house because of the dust blowing about, and it was touching, and wonderful, and frightening, to see how all the Kin made excuses to go into the rooms where they were, to touch them, beg to hold them, watch them sleeping — men as well as the women.

One day Kira was not there. She left a message for the Kin that she was going to try her chances up North.

Mara was hurt by Kira's leaving, as the Kin were. She thought, Why did I let myself love Meryx? It was better when I was hard and cold. Now I'm open to every feeling, and it hurts, loving Meryx.

Their rooms were in Juba and Dromas's house, and looked into a court where some cactuses were flowering. Mara and Meryx's bed was a low, soft pallet, heaped with cushions. Mara lay in Meryx's arms and thought how strange it was that this delight — lying with your love in a clean, soft, pretty place, and sometimes the scent from the cactus flowers blowing in — was something that could be taken for granted, as Meryx did. Mara let her palm slide down the smooth warmth of his arm, felt his hand close on her shoulder, and for her these were pleasures she felt newly with every breath she took: pleasures as fragile and sudden as the cactus flowers bursting impossibly out of dry brown skin. Meryx had lain with others before her, and he had always been with them in sweet-smelling beds, in rooms that were cool and kept the dust out. For him there was nothing extraordinary that two bodies with healthy flesh should lie wrapped around each other, while strong hearts beat their messages. Mara often did not sleep, not wanting to lose a moment of this delight, or she half-slept, or dreamed, and more than once she dreamed that it was Dann in her arms and this startled her awake and into grief. She knew that sometimes when she held Meryx she felt that he was part-child, and wondered if this was because of Dann; for Meryx was not childish at all. Except in this one thing: that he did not know life was so like a cactus flower, and could disappear in a breath. And this was really what separated them. Strange that no one, even the cleverest, could know anything except by direct experience. All his life Meryx had been sheltered in the Kin, been safe, and that was why he could not hear when she whispered, "Meryx, it is not going to last. Let's go now, while we can."

His hand often slid to her waist, and fingered the little ridge of skin the rope of coins had left there. She had had to trust him with her secret. She begged him not to tell the Kin, and he said he would not. She pushed the cord with its heavy knots into the middle of a big cushion that lived at the head of their bed. All the anxiety she carried with her, unable to subdue it, was concentrated on what was in that cushion. She insisted on cleaning this room herself, would not let anyone else do it. She sometimes came secretly to the room to put her hand down into the cushion and reassure herself. When Meryx saw her doing this he was unhappy, and said, "I believe that you care more for that little nest-egg of yours than you do for me." And she said, "Without that money we would not have reached here. We would have been killed on the road." She knew he did not understand, because he had never in his life been at that point where it could be life or death to own a root filled with juice, or a bit of dry bread, or a coin that could buy the right to be carried in a machine out of danger. He would let his fingers travel along the tiny, rough line of skin and say, "Mara, I sometimes wonder if you could have said no to me, to keep those coins a secret."

As that rainy season ended, with months of dry before even the possibility of skies that held the blessed water, there were rumours that bands of travellers were leaving Chelops for the North, and they were not passing through, from the south, but were from the Towers. More people had been living there than had been suspected. They were leaving because of water rationing. People living near the Towers sold water to anyone in them, whether fugitives, criminals or squatters. But now there was little water to sell.

And then this happened. Mara was with Juba, in the warehouses that held the sacks of precious poppy and ganja. When she had first seen them, the warehouses were crammed to their roofs, but now were half empty: so much had been stolen, and then there had been the poor rainy season. What were they going to trade with, when the River Towns traders came next, if they reserved enough to keep the Hadrons happy?

Mara was a little way from Juba, who was standing on a tall pile of sacks using a probe to make sure they held what they were supposed to, and not chalk or chaff. Kulik came to her and said loudly, "My replacement has not arrived, he is sick." Then he said, very low, "Your brother is on level two, Central Tower." And then aloud again, "I've been on duty twenty-four hours now." He winked at her, a slow closing of a fat, yellow eye, and there was such malevolence there, such hatred, that she literally went cold, and trembled. She told him loudly to go off and rest. As he turned, there was his smile, poisonous, a threat. She thought, How strange: all my childhood I was dodging out of the way of this man and now here I must be careful not to find myself in his hands again.