Lioe nodded, wordlessly, hearing the voice of the school’s medical trainer droning in her mind. White‑sickness–pneumatic histopathy, also known as lung‑rot oruhanjao, drown‑yourself, in HsaioiAn–is classified as a dangerous condition less because it is fatal, which it is, than because it is contagious until treated. Once proper treatment is begun, the danger of infection is over, but the damage to the victim is irreversible. Most planets require a certificate of treatment before customs will admit an infected person; pilots are advised to adopt the same precaution. There had been more–details of how death occurred, how and why simple organ transplants inevitably failed, the mechanisms by which the disease altered the lung tissue, slowly dissolving it into a thick white mucus, so that the patient drowned in body fluids even as the lungs themselves stopped working–but she did her best to push that aside. “Do you want me to come with you?” she said cautiously, and did her best to keep her voice normal.

Ransome looked for a moment as though he would refuse, but then made a face. “Yes,” he said, and then, with an effort, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Lioe said, and seated herself on the bench beside him. But it was a problem, it was a hell of a problem, and she found herself filled with an irrational fury. How could he be sick–how dare he?–just when she’d found–She stopped abruptly, closed off that line of thought. Found what? You barely know him, except through the Game. Just because he showed you the imaging system he uses doesn’t mean that he’d want to teach you–or that you could learn, or even that you want to.

The sound of rotors overhead was a welcome relief, and she squinted up into the hazy clouds. The helicab dropped easily toward the pad, balancing the weight of the machine against the lift of the rotors and the gas in the envelope. The two pods were fully inflated, one to each side of the passenger compartment, so that the cab looked rather like a rodent, both cheeks filled with scavenged food. The unseen pilot brought it down carefully, setting it precisely in the center of the bright‑blue guidelines, and the passenger door opened. Lioe stood, uncertain whether to offer her hand, and Ransome pushed himself to his feet. He climbed into the cab, and Lioe followed him, pulling the door closed behind them.

“You’re going to Warehouse?” the pilot said, and Ransome nodded.

“That’s right,” Lioe said aloud, and wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing until she saw Ransome’s fleeting smile.

The helicab rose slowly, rotors whining, and the whole machine shivered suddenly in a gust of wind. The pilot corrected it instantly, adjusting power and lift, glanced apologetically over his shoulder.

“Sorry, people. It’s going to be a rough ride.”

“‘S all right,” Ransome murmured.

“The storm?” Lioe asked, as much to distract the pilot as anything, and was not surprised when he nodded. The braided wires that connected him to the cab bobbed against his neck.

“Yeah. The dispatcher’s saying we’ll probably have to shut down this afternoon.”

Lioe leaned back in her seat. Through the transparent door panel she could see the Dock Road District spread out beneath her, buildings clustered around tiny spots of green that were the open plazas, and crowding shoulder to shoulder along the banks of the myriad canals. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen this in daylight,” she said, in some surprise, and saw Ransome smile again.

As they rose above the cliff edge, approaching Newfields and the Warehouse helipad, the wind caught them, jolting the cab sideways before the pilot caught it. Lioe braced herself against the safety webbing, watching the muscles of the pilot’s arms tense and relax as his hands moved inside the sheaths of the on‑line controls. His lips were moving, too, and she guessed he was talking to his dispatcher, warning other pilots about the winds. He took the approach to Warehouse very carefully, and Lioe was grateful for it: the helicab shuddered and bounced, but finally dropped the last meter or so onto the hard paving. The credit reader unfolded from the cab wall, beeping for payment.

Ransome reached for his card, but Lioe got there first. “Pay me back,” she said, and ran her own card through the slot. She managed not to wince at the total–about twice what she had expected–and hit the key that confirmed the payment. The pilot opened the passenger door, and they climbed out onto the pad. The helicab started to lift as they crossed the low barrier, and Lioe flinched as grit stung her face and bare arms. Ransome turned away from it, one hand cupped over his mouth and nose, did not move until the cab had lifted out of range.

“Do you want a velocab?” Lioe asked, tentatively, more to make sure he was all right than to get an answer to her question, and was relieved when he shook his head.

“No. It’s not far to the loft.” He sounded a little better, and Lioe let herself relax.

The streets were all but empty of pedestrians here, and only a few heavy carriers rumbled past, stirring the drifted dirt and sand. A fickle wind was blowing, a warm wind that carried an occasional hint of a chill at its heart. Lioe shivered at its touch, glanced again to the sky, but saw only the same hazy clouds, the sun a hot white disk behind them. It felt like the afternoon winds on Callixte, the summer wind that brought the big storms down onto the plains, and she found herself walking warily, as though too quick a movement would trigger lurking thunder. Ransome glanced curiously at her, then looked away.

They turned the last corner onto a street shadowed by the buildings to either side, and Ransome led her past a tangle of denki‑bikes, their security fields humming at an annoying pitch, to the access stair that ran along the side of the building.

“Isn’t there a lift?” Lioe asked involuntarily, but Ransome didn’t seem offended.

“There is, but it’s in use.” He nodded to the main doorway, where a red flag drooped, moving only sluggishly in the breeze.

“Oh.” Lioe followed him up the stairway, past the Carnival debris, broken bottles, a cluster of stained and ragged ribbons at the base of the stairs, another bottle on the landing; the crumpled papers and stained foils from a packet of Oblivion lay on the landing outside Ransome’s door. He stepped over them without looking, and Lioe did her best to follow his example.

The loft was pretty much as it had been when she’d left it, nothing changed except the pile of clothes on the floor outside the bedroom door. Her hat was sitting on the folded bed. Was it only yesterday that I left it? she thought, said aloud, “Can I get you anything?”

Ransome was already heading for the tiny bedroom, said over his shoulder, “Coffee?”

“Right.” Lioe went into the kitchen. She filled the machine and set it running, came back out into the main room just as Ransome emerged from the bedroom. His eyes looked slightly unfocused, and there were two spots of red on his cheeks that spread as she watched, as though he were blushing deeply.

“I appreciate your coming back with me,” Ransome said. His voice already sounded better, less choked. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to talk the pilot out of taking me to a clinic.”

“Should you have gone to a clinic?” Lioe asked. “Should you go to a clinic?”

Ransome grinned. “No, I told you, I had what I needed here. They couldn’t‘ve given me anything different.”

Lioe nodded, watching him. “Are you all right?” she said slowly, and Ransome looked away.

“For the moment.” He sighed, turned back to face her. “As you probably already figured out, I have white‑sickness–it’s under treatment, so you don’t need to worry–but I’ve had it for a while, and the system’s slipping out of equilibrium.”

Which translates as, you’re starting to die. Lioe said, “I’m sorry,” and cringed at the inadequacy of the words.