elderly Yort was hammering at the struts of his craft, knocking off icicles. He looked strong despite his age, with a thick neck and huge shoulders. He was bundled up in heavy furs, only his bald and tattooed head exposed to the elements. His ears, lips and nose were pierced with rings and bone shards. Otherwise, there was nobody to be seen.
Besides the Ketty Jay there were a couple of Yort haulers and some small personal racers, which Jez had already examined and mentally criticised - a habit born from a life as a craftbuilder’s daughter. They were blockish, dark and ugly, built for efficiency, without a care for aesthetics. Typical Yort work. In such an excessively masculine society, owning a craft of elegant design was viewed at best as pointless, at worst as potential evidence of homosexuality. Not something to be taken lightly, since sodomy carried the death penalty out here. As a result, Yorts designed everything to suggest that the owner was so enormously virile, a woman would need armour-plated ovaries to survive a night with him.
Jez’s eyes unfocused as she stared out across the plain.
Get away from everyone, she thought. Maybe that’s best. Get away from everyone, before it’s too late.
But the loneliness. She couldn’t take the loneliness. What was the point in existence, if you were forever alone?
Scattered across the plateau was the settlement of Majduk Eyl. Yorts built mostly underground for insulation, and their dwellings were barely visible. All that could be seen from the pad were the shallow humps of their dome-shaped roofs, the doorways that thrust through the snow, the skylights sheltered by overhanging eaves. Smoke rose from three dozen chimneys, curling steadily up to join the clouds. A small figure, hooded and cloaked, was scattering grit from a sack over the slushy trails that ran between the dwellings.
The crew of the Ketty Jay were in one of those buildings. They were just another set of companions, like the ones before, and the ones before that. She kept herself aloof from them. It would make it hurt less when she had to leave.
Sooner or later, they’d notice something was different about her. The little things would begin to add up. The way her bullet wound had healed so fast, the way she never seemed to sleep, the way she never got tired. The way animals reacted to her.
Then she’d have to move on again, find a new crew. Keep going.
Going where? Doing what?
Anywhere. Anything. Just keep going.
She drank her cocoa. She only ate or drank these days because she liked the taste, not out of need. During the month of Swallow’s Reap, as an experiment, she’d gone without food or water for a week. Nothing happened except a vague, instinctive suspicion that something was missing in her daily routine. After that, she’d made sure to join the crew at mealtimes, and occasionally comment loudly on her hunger or thirst; but she ate little, because she wasn’t wasteful by nature.
The snow-hogs were inching across the ice-plain, shambling heaps of muscle and tusk and shaggy white fur. She could see a pair of predators tracking them, huge doglike things, a type of creature she didn’t recognise. They loped along hungrily, hoping for a chance at a straggler.
Here I am again, she reflected, as she scanned the landscape. A few years ago, she’d been a frequent visitor to the wild, icebound northern coast, part of a scientific expedition in search of the relics of a lost civilisation. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to stay away from Yortland, but it was only now that she realised she’d never been back since . . . well, since . . .
Her thoughts flickered away from the memory, but it was too late. A dreadful sensation washed over her, beginning at her nape and sweeping through her body. Her skin tightened, then relaxed; her muscles clenched and unclenched. The world flexed, just a fraction, and when it sprang back into shape, everything was different.
A strange twilight had fallen. Though it seemed darker, her vision had sharpened. It was as if she’d been looking at the world through a steamed-up pane of glass, and it had suddenly been removed. Details were thrust at her eyes; edges became stark as razors.
