Toller was lowering the load to its original resting when, without warning, the pawl with which he was controlling the descent sheared through several teeth on the main ratchet in a burst of staccato sound. The laden basket dropped a short distance before the cable drum locked, and the crane — with Toller still at the controls — tilted dangerously on its base. It was saved from toppling when some of the watching labourers threw their weight on to the rising leg and brought it to the ground.

“My congratulations,” Hargeth said scathingly as Toller stepped clear of the creaking structure. “How did you manage to do that?”

“If only you could invent a material stronger than stale porridge there’d be no.…” Toller broke off as he looked beyond Hargeth and saw that Lord Glo had fallen to the ground. He was lying with his face pressed against a ridge of dried clay, seemingly unable to move. Fearful that Glo might have been struck by a flying gear tooth, Toller ran and knelt beside him. Glo’s pale blue eye turned in his direction, but still the rotund body remained inert.

“I’m not drunk,” Glo mumbled, speaking from one side of his mouth. “Get me away from here, my boy — I think I’m halfway to being dead.” Fera Rivoo had adapted well to her new style of life in Greenmount Peel, but no amount of coaxing on Toller’s part had ever persuaded her to sit astride a bluehorn or even one of the smaller whitehorns which were often favoured by women. Consequently, when Toller wanted to get away from the Peel with his wife for fresh air or simply a change of surroundings he was forced to go on foot. Walking was a form of exercise and travel for which he cared little because it was too tame and dictated too leisurely a pace of events, but Fera regarded it as the only way of getting about the city districts when no carriage was available to her.

“I’m hungry,” she announced as they reached the Plaza of the Navigators, close to the centre of Ro-Atabri.

“Of course you are,” Toller said. “Why, it must be almost an hour since your second breakfast.”

She dug an elbow into his ribs and gave him a meaningful smile. “Yoirwant me to keep my strength up, don’t you?”

“Has it occurred to you that there might be more to life than sex and food?”

“Yes — wine.” She shaded her eyes from the early foreday sun and surveyed the nearest of the pastry vendors’ stalls which were dotted along the square’s perimeter. “I think I’ll have some honeycake and perhaps some Kailian white to wash it down with.”

Still uttering token protests, Toller made the necessary purchases and they sat on one of the benches which faced the statues of illustrious seafarers of the empire’s past. The plaza was bounded by a mix of public and commercial buildings, most of which exhibited — in various shades of masonry and brick — the traditional Kolcorronian pattern of interlocked diamonds. Trees in contrasting stages of their maturation cycle and the colourful dress of passers-by added to the sunlit chiaroscuro. A westerly breeze was keeping the air pleasant and lively.

“I have to admit,” Toller said, sipping some cool light wine, “that this is much better than working for Hargeth. I’ve never understood why scientific research work always seems to involve evil smells.”

“You poor delicate creature!” Fera brushed a crumb from her chin. “If you want to know what a real stink is like you should try working in the fish market.”

“No, thanks — I prefer to stay where I am,” Toller replied. It was about twenty days since the sudden onset of Lord Glo’s illness, but Toller was still appreciative of the resultant change in his own circumstances and employment. Glo had been stricken with a paralysis which affected the left side of his body and had found himself in need of a personal attendant, preferably one with an abundance of physical strength. When Toller had been offered the position he had accepted at once, and had moved with Fera to Glo’s spacious residence on the western slope of Greenmount. The new arrangement, as well as providing a welcome relief from Mardavan Quays, had resolved the difficult situation in the Maraquine household, and Toller was making a conscientious effort to be content. A restless gloominess sometimes came upon him when he compared his menial existence to the kind of life he would have preferred, but it was something he always kept to himself. On the positive side, Glo had proved a considerate employer and as soon as he had regained a measure of his strength and mobility had made as few demands as possible on Toller’s time.

“Lord Glo seemed busy this morning,” Fera said. “I could hear that sunwriter of his clicking and clacking no matter where I went.”

Toller nodded. “He’s been talking a great deal with Tunsfo lately. I think he’s worried about the reports from the provinces.”

“There isn’t really going to be a plague, is there, Toller?” Fera drew her shoulders forward in distaste, deepening the cleft in her bosom. “I can’t bear having sick people around me.”

“Don’t worry! From what I hear they wouldn’t be around you very long — about two hours seems to be the average.”

“Toller!” Fera gazed at him in open-mouthed reproach, her tongue coated with a fine slurry of honeycake.

“There’s nothing for you to fret about,” Toller said reassuringly, even though — as he had gathered from Glo — something akin to a plague had begun simultaneously in eight widely separated places. Outbreaks had first been reported from the palatine provinces of Kail and Middac; then from the less important and more remote regions of Sorka, Merrill, Padale, Ballin, Yalrofac and Loongl. Since then there had been a lull of a few days, and Toller knew the authorities were hoping against hope that the calamity had been of a transient nature, that the disease had burned itself out, that the mother country of Kolcorron and the capital city would remain unaffected. Toller could understand their feelings, but he saw little grounds for optimism. If the ptertha had increased their killing range and potency to the awesome extent suggested by the dispatches, they were in his opinion bound to make maximum use of their new powers. The respite that mankind was enjoying could mean that the ptertha were behaving like an intelligent and ruthless enemy who, having successfully tested a new weapon, had retired only to regroup and prepare for a major onslaught.

“We should think about returning to the Peel soon.” Toller drained his porcelain cup of wine and placed it under the bench for retrieval by the vendor. “Glo wants to bathe before littlenight.”

“I’m glad I won’t have to help.”

“He has his own kind of courage, you know. I don’t think I could endure the life of a cripple, but I have yet to hear him utter a single word of complaint.”

“Why do you keep talking about sickness when you know I don’t like it?” Fera stood up and smoothed the wispy plumage of her clothing. “We have time to walk by the White Fountains, haven’t we?”

“Only for a few minutes.” Toller linked arms with his wife and they crossed the Plaza of the Navigators and walked along the busy avenue which led to the municipal gardens. The fountains sculpted in snowy Padalian marble were seeding the air with a refreshing coolness. Groups of people, some of them accompanied by children, were strolling amid the islands of bright foliage and their occasional laughter added to the idyllic tranquillity of the scene.

“I suppose this could be regarded as the epitome of civilised life,” Toller said. “The only thing wrong with it — and this is strictly my own point of view — is that it is much too.…” He stopped speaking as the braying note of a heavy horn sounded from a nearby rooftop and was quickly echoed by others in more distant parts of the city.

“Ptertha!” Toller swung his gaze upwards to the sky.

Fera moved closer to him. “It’s a mistake, isn’t it, Toller? They don’t come into the city.”