Mixed up

Once she was outside the city, she would find berries to pick, or orchards she might raid for apples and cherries.“I’m going to take the Eva Rye up and over to the other side of those things. Why don’t you let go of our hull and just stay floating here? If they turn to follow us, you might then get a look at what they’re concealing.” The potshops would give you a fistful of coppers for a litter of pups, she'd heard, but she didn't like to think about that. She remembered seeing some from the kingsroad on the journey south. And she could dig for roots in the forest, even run down some rabbits. Maurice gave a half-hearted wave in return as he moved closer to the images. They reminded him of flowers: they were all the same size and shape, roughly spherical.The teamster cursed at them and drove them off with a crack of his whip.

Justinian gave an involuntary shiver as he said these words. It reminded him how far he was from home, and Justinian felt doubly alone. Toothpaste on the brush so. Scrub. Shaving mirror pointing at the ceiling. He adjusted it. For a moment it reflected a second bulldozer through the bathroom window. The bright blue belt of M32 rose into the dark sky behind the pod. The Milky Way was a monochrome rainbow in the other direction. Here he was, standing on a remote mud slick, lost on a planet that floated between galaxies, and yet he felt himself an outsider to the only group of humans for millions of light years. In other ministries and other places similar holocausts were under way. There was practically nothing going on on Kandar which was not relatedto the disaster for which the people of that world waited. The feel ofbitterness and despair was everywhere. Broadcasting stations stayed onthe air only to report monotonously that the tragic event had not yethappened.