Hessia watched the cart as it lurched away down the road. “They understood completely what we are. They weren't shocked, though; they accepted our presence as easily as they might accept the weather.”
“This is a weird planet. Have you noticed we've seen quite a few old people?”
“Hard lives and the lack of good healthcare make people age quickly,” said Hessia. “They probably look twice the age they actually are.”
“Perhaps. It's odd, though. I'm picking up no signs of infection from them, none of the deformities or cancers you might expect to see. And I swear I can pick up traces of some kind of nano-scale tech in the air.”
“Doing what?” asked Hessia.
“Without access to labs, I have no idea. But if I had to guess, I'd say it was protecting these people, keeping them healthy, fixing their wounds. Perhaps that hand will be as good as new in a few days.”
“Particles free-floating in the environment? You're suggesting technology that most advanced worlds don't have. These people don't look like they could have built such a culture.”
“Maybe they didn't,” said Selene. “Maybe they're not aware of what's going on. Where exactly do they think we came from?”
“Just, you know, elsewhere. Out there.” Hessia indicated the rest of the universe with a wave of her hand.
The stone building they'd seen from orbit stood atop a prominent hill, clearly visible for many kilometres around. Whoever had built it had wanted it to be easy to spot. The central tower might have been a natural outcropping that had been carved and smoothed away over time to form a lopsided spiral. They'd seen no other buildings like it: dwellings were single-storey stone houses, comfortable-looking and well-maintained, but modest in scale. They passed more and more of these as the track circled the hill, rising all the time. A growing number of people milled around, and Selene began to see shops and gathering-places as well.
They stopped by a stall overflowing with bright pink fruits and, next to them, vats of what looked to be juice. They'd seen orchards from the track as they'd walked, the trees heavy with produce. Both she and Hessia were thirsty, but they hadn't been able to work out from Hessia's observations what the locals used for money, or even how trade worked on the planet. Eb appeared to be neither thirsty nor hungry. By some means that Selene hadn't fully understood, he absorbed energy directly from the Dragon – a fact that at least partially explained why he couldn't leave his vessel for long periods.
Selene walked up to the man sitting in the sun beside the stall. “May I take some of the juice?”
The man didn't reply for a moment, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked up at her. He looked puzzled. Perhaps she hadn't formed the question correctly. The man opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Is he offended?” Selene asked Hessia, brain-to-brain.
“He's as baffled as he looks. He doesn't appear to understand the concept of your question.”
Selene reached out and took one of the fruits, its skin cool and smooth in her hand. “I can have this?”
The storekeeper – if he was the storekeeper – finally spoke. “Please. There is plenty of fruit. We have all we need.”
“Is this your stall? Do I … give you reward for fruit and juice?” There was a millisecond pause as her translation routines struggled to produce the correct terms. Examining what it had come up with, Selene saw why. There was no word for pay in the local language. No concept of it, apparently.
“My stall? It's a stall I am sitting by because this is where I live. You can leave or take as much fruit as you like. Does it work differently where you are from?”
“No, no,” said Selene. “I simply wanted to check. Thank you.”
She took two of the fruits and tossed one to Hessia. Eb looked on but didn't respond. His face was lost in the shadows of his cowl.
A stack of hemispherical, hollowed-out fruit husks were piled by the vat. Cups, she supposed. Keeping one wary eye on the man, she filled two of them and passed one to Hessia. The man had apparently gone back to sleep.
“Seems we're free to take whatever we need,” Hessia said. “I could get used to this.”
“I still think it's weird.”
Selene sipped at the juice. It was tart and refreshing, with no toxins or allergens that she could detect. She drank it all down.
“Can your enhancements pick up anything from the juice?” Hessia asked.
“There are definitely nano-scale devices in it. Millions of them.”
“Ondo will freak if he finds out. Can you tell what effect they're having?”
“They appear to be benign. I can't detect them doing anything to my tissues, natural or artificial.”
“Good to know.” Hessia drained her cup, too.
They continued the climb. Selene had expected to find the entranceway through the three circles of wall blocked or at least guarded, but they were able to wander in without being question or accosted. The dust and sand on the ground bore the marks of many, many feet. A steady flow of people passed through now, individuals and family groups, none of them in any hurry.
From the outer wall, the middle wall was nearly two hundred metres distant, and the space between had been filled with a disordered confusion of houses and stalls and open spaces. The buildings had been placed with no apparent system, narrow alleys snaking between them, turning sharply, branching and re-joining, and often leading to complete dead-ends. Selene built up a map of it in her head, but while it was still incomplete they became lost repeatedly. Once they found themselves back at the outer wall. They tried to aim towards the central tower – the compass in her head taking over when they lost sight of it – but there was simply no logic to the way the paths wound round.
Eventually, they found the gateway
