Unfortunately, his imagination also supplied what One-of-a-Kind would surely reply.

Ah, my precious. Is that not what you always say?

Shivering from more than mere cold, Dwer settled for a long watch, eyeing the funnel-avenue for other strange things sneaking over the pass through the Rimmer Range.

A sound roused Dwer from a dream filled with sensations of failure and paralysis. His eyes flinched when he opened them to a chill wind. Listlessly, he tried focusing on what had yanked him awake. But all that came to mind was a preposterous notion that someone had called his name.

The Dolphin was up near zenith, its flank shimmering with blue-white stars, seeming to dive between milky waves.

Clouds. And more snow was falling. He blinked, trying to stare. Something was moving out there.

Dwer lifted a hand to rub his eye, but the fingers would not uncurl. When they touched his face, they seemed petrified — a sign of shock compounded by frostbite.

Over there. Is that it?

Something was moving. Not another robot, wafting on smug pillars of force, but a shambling bipedal figure, hurrying upslope at a pace Dwer found professionally lacking. At that rate, whoever-it-was would tire much faster than necessary. No errand was worth taking such risks in this kind of weather.

Of the Six, only a hoon or human could make it this high in a snowfall, and no hoon would let himself get into that much of a hurry.

Hey, you! Don’t go up through the boo! There’s danger thataway!

Dwer’s voice produced only a croak, barely loud enough to rouse the noor, causing Mudfoot to lift its head.

Hey, fool. Can’t you see our trail in the grass and snow? It’s like a Buyur highway out there! Are you blind?

The figure plowed right on by, disappearing into the dark cathedral-like aisle between twin walls of vaulting boo. Dwer slumped, hating himself for his weakness. All I had to do was shout. That’s all. Just a little shout.

Glassy-eyed, he watched more flakes fill the runnel in the grass, slowly erasing all signs leading to this rocky cleft. Well, you wanted to hide, wasn’t that the idea?

Perhaps the four of them would never be found.

Dwer lacked the strength to feel irony.

Some hunter. Some mighty hunter…

It will take some getting used to, this curious unlikely voyage, rushing along in a wooden boat that glides down rocky canyons, swooping past high stone walls, giving a sense of incredible speed. Which is odd, since he knows he used to travel much, much faster than this… though right now it’s hard to recall exactly how.

Then there are his fellow passengers, a mixture of types he finds amazing to behold.

At first, several of them had filled him with raw terror — especially the squishy thing, looking like a stack of phlegmy doughnuts piled up high, venting complex stinks that scrape-tickled his nose and tongue. The mere sight of its corrugated cone wrenched feelings of blank horror — until he realized that something was quite different about this particular Joph—

His mind refuses to bring forth the epithet, the name, even though he trolls and sifts for it.

Words refuse to come easily. Most of the time, they do not come at all.

Worse, he cannot speak or form ideas, or comprehend when others send shaped-sounds toward him. Even names, the simplest of labels, refuse to rest within his grasp but wriggle off like slippery things, too angry or fickle to bear his touch.

No matter.

He resolves to wait, since there is no other choice. He even manages to hold back revulsion when the doughy cone-creature touches him, since healing seems its obvious intent, and since the pain always lessens a bit, each time it ivraps oily tendrils round his throbbing head.

In time, the contact becomes oddly pleasant.

Anyway, she is usually there, speaking to him gently, filling the tunnel-view of his attention with her smile, providing an excuse for frail optimism.

He doesn’t recall much about his former life, but he can dimly remember something about the way he used to live… not so much a philosophy as an attitude—

If the universe seems to be trying to destroy you, the best way to fight back is with hope.

So there we were, way up in the thin, dry air atop Mount Guenn, surrounded by heat and dust and sulfury smells from Uriel’s forge, and what does Gybz the Alchemist want to talk to us about?

The traeki tells us we’re being sent to a different kind of hell.

But hold on, Alvin. Spin the yarn the way an old-time human storyteller would. Describe the scene, then the action.

Gybz concocts recipes for metal and glass in a grimy workshop, quite unlike Uriel’s prim, spotless hall of spinning disks. Mineral powders spill across stained wooden shelves and earthenware jars stink with noxious liquids. One slit window overlooks a northern vista stretching all the way down to a splash of painful color that could only be .the Spectral Flow, which means the chamber is about as high as you can get without tumbling into Mount Guenn’s simmering caldera.

Below the window, flies swarmed over a pile of nicely aged kitchen mulch. I hoped we weren’t interrupting Gybz at dinner.

The four of us — Huck, Pincer, Ur-ronn, and me — had come up to the alchemy lab at the command of Uriel, the great blacksmith, ruler of this fortress of industry perched on Jijo’s trembling knee. At first I figured she sent us away just to get rid of some irritating youngsters, while she conferred with a human sage over how to improve her beloved mobile of gears, pulleys, and whirling glass. The chief assistant, Urdonnol, muttered disapproval while shepherding us up a long ramp to the traeki’s mixing room. Only our pal Ur-ronn seemed cheerful, almost ebullient. Huck and I exchanged a glance, wondering why.

We found out when Gybz shuffled ers mottled, conical bulk around from behind a workbench. Words bubbled from a speaking tube that puckered the third-from-the-top ring.

“Bright youths of four races, be made welcome! Sublime news for you, it is an honor to relate. A decision to approve your expedition, this has occurred. Your endeavor to reach, visit, explore the nearest reaches of the Upper Midden, this you may attempt.”

Gybz paused, venting puffs from a purple synthi ring. When the traeki resumed, it was in warbling, uneven Anglic, with a voice that sounded strained.

“The attempt will have… the full backing of Mount Guenn Forge. As evidence of this support, behold — your completed window!”

The Master of Mixes gestured with a wraparound tentacle toward a wooden crate near the wall, with its cover removed. Amid drifts of fine sawdust, there gleamed a curved pane of thick glass, flawless to the eye.

Pincer-Tip danced excitedly, his red-clawed feet noisy on the stone floor. “Beautiful-iful!”