When she returned to the great room where the women waited, men had already come in, and were talking to the girls they had chosen. These girls were all flirtatious looks and pretty little laughs, and animation. The others sat watching. The men were traders, visitors to the town, and seemed elated because of the generosity of the hospitality, the drinks and the food and the willing servants. Well, Mara would have seen this room as splendid, once. One of the men saw her and pointed, but Senghor shook his head and hurried her through. But she had time to see another group come in. These she recognised as the same as the Hadrons, not physically, because they were a mix, like most of the people to be seen in the streets, but because she recognised the self-satisfied conceit of the consciousness of power: gross, indulged men, and certainly brutal. They saw her as she was going out, and let out cries like hunting cries, and were about to come after her; but Senghor put his arm across to bar them, and when they were through the curtain, and the door, locked it. Now she was glad to have him there. Those men — how well she knew them. So, Bilma's danger was not that it was drying up, or likely to, but that it was corruptly governed. But if these were the rulers of Bilma, as Senghor's demeanour said they were — he had shown none of the cringing humility at the sight of the traders — then was it the same here as in Chelops, which had a layer of apparent subordinates who in fact ran the place? Those faces — Dalide had said that the man she planned to sell Mara to was one of them. She reached her room trembling with fear at her probable future.

As Senghor was about to shut the door on her, she said, "I want some information."

"What?"

"Do you know anything about my brother, Dann?" "Your brother? Why should I know?"

"I am very unhappy about my brother. If you hear where he is then."

"My orders are not to talk to the house women about outside." And then she saw in his face a genuine curiosity, which softened it. He came closer and said in a low voice, but not looking at her, "It is a strange thing when a brother gambles away his sister and the sister is not angry."

"I didn't say I am not angry. But he is my brother. If you hear."

Now he did look at her, and said, "I have been in Mother Dalide's house for twenty years. She is good to me. I shall not go against her orders."

"Then tell me this: are there other women here who were gambled away in the Transit Eating House?"

"Yes."

"And was it Bergos who brought them here?" But he shook his head at her and went out.

She was alone. She stood at the window and saw that in the garden the watchmen's fire was burning, and their shadows flickered over the earth and the shrubs as the flames danced. They were eating and the smell of food rose up to her and made her hungry. Her supper tray arrived, and she sat and ate and thought that already she took all this for granted: food, good food, better than anything she had eaten in her life. But the really strange thing was that she was not eating every mouthful with the thought, It is a miracle, a wonder, that this food should be here, and that I should be eating it, good food and clean water, as if it is a right, and I am entitled to all — I, Mara, who spent so many years watching every scrap of food and mouthful of water. And soon would she forget that Mara and see food without ever thinking about the hard work and the skills that had made it? Where was Dann?

Again she stood at the window, mentally mapping out the house. A very big, square house, made of large, square bricks, not easy to dislodge or break through. The house was in two layers, rooms above rooms. In front was a street, and there was a guard there. At the back, the garden she was looking into — guarded. The rooms on the ground floor had thick wooden bars — not Dalide's, but all the others. This window was not barred, but if she jumped down she would break a limb, and the watchmen would stop her. All the servants, judging by Senghor, were devoted to Dalide. That meant, unbribable. And she could not let it be known that she had money, because Dalide would have it off her. So all that meant that if she was going to get news it must be from the men who came to the house.

Later that night she heard Senghor in argument with men outside her door: they were demanding to come in. The girls downstairs had talked about her to their customers.

Next day, but not till the afternoon, she went down to the big room. The women had just got up, and were lolling about, yawning. The little plump girl was sitting inside the arms of the tall white one, with her straight, pale hair; she was stroking and playing with the hair, but when she saw Mara, she reached out, took Mara's hands with little cries of pleasure, and pulled her down. So Mara was sitting within touching distance of this white female, who was so alien and so disturbing; and when the little girl said, "Talk to us, Mara, tell us something," she found it hard to compose herself. She told her story again, because what else could she tell them, when they were so curious about her? They took it as a tale, an invention, for what she said was so far from their experience, and this even though some were from the country regions of Bilma, sold by their parents to Dalide, because of hard times. None had known real hunger and could not conceive that there might not be water to drink. So Mara told her own tale and marvelled at it with them, particularly as she left out all references to the gold coins that had saved her and Dann. So the central thread of the story was not there and sometimes in the tale it sounded as if the brother and sister's successful flight had been due to supernatural interventions, instead of the slog of endurance backed by the little store of gold that had spent years hidden inside a battered floor candle.

She finished the tale as the customers were coming in, while the girls clamoured for her to come again tomorrow and tell them another tale. The girl, Crethis, who had been as close to her during the telling as she could, short of climbing inside her arms, now returned to sit on the lap of her pale friend, Leta, whom the others called the Albina. But immediately Crethis had to leave Leta, because in came a man who claimed her. He was a sensible looking, serious, pleasant man who seemed like a Mahondi — was he one? Yes, he was. He took a good, long look at Mara, nodded, smiled, but did not ask for her. He took Crethis off with him to a private room, and Mara went upstairs.

There she found that all her dresses had been washed and hung up. Her bag of coins had been put on the table.

She tried on the two gowns from Chelops. Well, these flounced, bright cottons had seemed fine enough, then. She put on the indestructible brown garment, and stood in front of the glass. It was short on her now, just to her knees, and seemed to float around her like a shadow. She was standing looking into the water-wall when Senghor came in with her supper tray and saw her. At once he pointed to what she wore and said, "What is that thing?" For he had tried to wash it.

"Once there was a civilisation that made things which were — they never wore out."

He shook his head: I don't understand.

"A people, long ago, hundreds of years..." She thought he had taken in the hundreds and tried, "Thousands of years ago, they found the secret of how to make things — houses, garments, pots, cans, that last for ever."

"What people? Who? Where?"

"Long ago. No one knows." He stared, his forehead puckering. "There were many peoples who lived and then vanished. No one knows why."

His face, as he stared at her, was sombre, awed, but also angry. Then he decided to laugh. "You must tell this story to the girls — they would like it," he said, and then dismissed all these difficult thoughts with an energetic shake of the head.