One of her two short spears had snapped, she saw, and was now floating harmlessly away. But she had succeeded in ramming the other through the skin of the pig. The wounded animal, with Adda’s spear still protruding from its belly, tried to maintain its rotation; but, distracted by pain, its motion became uneven, and the pig began to precess clumsily, the axis of its rotation dipping as it thrashed in the Air. Poor Adda, now evidently unconscious, was thrown back and forth by the pig, his limp body flopping passively against the animal’s flank.

Philas fell on the pig now and drove another spear into the animal’s hide, widening the wound Dura had made. The animal opened its huge mouth, its circular lip-face pulling back to reveal a green-stained throat, and let out a roar of pain. Adda, his legs freed from the mouth, fell limply away from the pig; Farr hurried to him.

Philas rammed her second spear into the thrashing pig’s mouth, stabbing at the organs exposed within. Dura pushed away from the tree and hurled herself once more at the sow; she was weaponless, but she hauled at the spears already embedded in the pig’s flanks, wrenching open the wounds, while Philas continued to work at the mouth.

It took many minutes. The pig thrashed and tore at the Air to the end, striving to use its residual rotation to throw off its attackers. But it had no escape. At last, leaking jetfarts aimlessly, its cries dying to a murmur, the sow’s struggles petered away.

The two women, exhausted, hung in the Air. The sow was an inert mass, immense, its skin ripped, its mouth gaping loosely. Dura — panting, barely able to see — found it difficult to believe that even now the animal would not erupt to a ghastly, butchered semblance of life.

Dura Waved slowly through the Air to Philas. The two women embraced, their eyes wide with shock at what they had done.

Farr gingerly laid Adda along a tree trunk, relying on the gentle pressure of the Magfield to hold him in place. He stroked the old man’s yellowed hair. He had retrieved Adda’s battered old spear and laid it beside him.

Dura and Philas approached, Dura wiping trembling hands on her thighs. She studied Adda’s injuries cautiously, scared even to touch him.

Adda’s legs, below the knees, were a mangled mess: the long bones were obviously broken in several places, the feet reduced to masses of pulped meat. The surface of Adda’s chest was unbroken but oddly uneven; Dura, fearful even to touch, speculated about broken ribs. His right arm dangled at a strange angle, limp in the Air; perhaps the shoulder had been broken. Adda’s face was a soft, bruised mess. Both eyecups were filled by gummy blood, and his nostrils were dimmed… And, of course, the Xeelee alone knew about internal injuries. Adda’s penis and scrotum had fallen from their cache between his legs; exposed, they made the old man look still more vulnerable, pathetic. Tenderly, Dura cupped the shriveled genitalia in her hand and tucked them away in their cache.

“He’s dying,” Philas said, her voice uneven. She seemed to be drawing back from the battered body, as if this, for her, was too much to deal with.

Dura shook her head, forcing herself to think. “He’ll certainly die up here, in this lousy Air. We’ve got to get him away, back into the Mantle…”

Philas touched her arm. She looked into Dura’s face, and Dura saw how the woman was struggling to break through her own shock. Philas said, “Dura, we have to face it. He’s going to die. There’s no point making plans, or struggling to get him away from here… all we can do is make him comfortable.”

Dura shook off the light touch of the widow, unable — yet — to accept that.

Adda’s mouth was phrasing words, feebly shaping the breath that wheezed through his lips. “…Dura…”

Still scared to touch him, she leaned close to his mouth. “Adda? You’re conscious?”

A sketch of a laugh came from him, and he turned blind eyecups to her. “…I’d… rather not be.” He closed his mouth and tried to swallow; then he said, “Are you all right?… The boy?”

“Yes, Adda. He’s fine. Thanks to you.”

“…And the pigs?”

“We killed the one that attacked you. The sow. The others…” She glanced to the nets which drifted in the Air, tangled and empty. “They got away. What a disaster this has been.”

“No.” He stirred, as if trying to reach out to her, then fell back. “We did our best. Now you must… try again. Go back…”

“Yes. But first we have to work out how to move you.” She stared at his crushed body, trying to visualize how she might address the worst of the wounds.

Again that sketchy, chilling laugh. “Don’t be so… damned stupid,” he said. “I’m finished. Don’t… waste your time.

She opened her mouth, ready to argue, but a great weariness fell upon her, and she subsided. Of course Adda was right. And Philas. Of course he would soon die. But still, she knew, she would have to try to save him. “I never saw a pig behave like that. A boar, maybe. But…”

“We should have… expected it,” he whispered. “Stupid of me… pregnant sow… it was bound to… react like that.” His breath seemed to be slowing; in a strange way, she thought as she studied him, he seemed to be growing more comfortable. More peaceful.

She said softly, “You’re not going to die yet, damn you.”

He did not reply.

She turned to Philas. “Look, we’ll have to try to bind up his wounds. Cut some strips from the hide of that sow. Perhaps we can strap this damaged arm across his body. And we could tie his legs together, use his spear as a splint.”

Philas stared at her for a long moment, then went to do as Dura had ordered.

Farr asked, “What can I do?”

Dura looked around, abstracted. “Go and retrieve that net. We’re going to have to make a cradle, somehow, so we can haul him back home…”

“All right.”

When Philas returned, the women tried to straighten Adda’s legs in preparation for binding them to the makeshift splint. When she touched his flesh, Dura saw Adda’s face spasm, his mouth open wide in a soundless cry. Unable to proceed, she pulled her hands away from his ruined flesh and stared at Philas helplessly.

Then, behind her, Farr screamed.

Dura whirled, her hands reaching for Adda’s spear.

Farr was still working on the tangled net — or had been; now he was backing away from it, his eyecups wide with shock. With the briefest of glances, Dura assured herself that the boy had not been harmed. Then, as she hurried to his side, she looked past him to discover what was threatening him…

She slowed to a halt in the Air, her mouth dangling, forgetting even her brother in her amazement.

A box, floating in the Air, approached them. It was a cube about a mansheight on a side made of carefully cut plates of wood. Ropes led to a team of six young Air-pigs which was patiently hauling the box through the forest. And, through a clear panel set into the front of the box, a man’s face peered out at her.

He was frowning.

The box drifted to a halt. Dura raised Adda’s spear.