Erna had eaten little all day. I had arranged that a load of plain flatbreads, as close to the bread they ate in the mountains as I could find, would be provided for her, but she ate no more than a few small bites. I didn’t know how to make fungo, but I was able to source a collection of green vegetables at considerable expense. It made for an elegant buffet, running the entire length of the eight-floor conference room, lacking in variation but plentiful. She didn’t eat any of it. She seemed afraid even to touch it, as if she had rediscovered caution, now that she was dealing with a formidable group of outsiders rather than just one. She had laughed so derisively when I told her the bare facts of the Munlore story, but it wouldn’t be so easy to mock a larger group of people who shared that belief.

  We sat with the company doctor in her examining room. Erna had succumbed to the examination reluctantly, unwilling even to sit down.

  The doctor confirmed that Erna had no issues with her eyes, but, seeing her discomfort, decided not to proceed with the full physical examination. ‘She’s about as healthy as anyone I’ve seen today. She seems to have a wheeze, but that would be normal for any newcomer to Severas,’ she said.

  I told the doctor that Erna’s people normally walked around in bare feet, and the doctor reasoned that it was probably some kind of parasite that was causing the illness. Something that had burrowed through the feet and found its way eventually to the eyes and then the brain. ‘Is there discolouration of the eye?’ she asked Erna, in slow syllables. Erna, who had wandered to the door, as if she had wanted to escape, replied with an unintelligible grunt.

  The doctor asked again, adding hand movements to the separated sounds.

  ‘The eyes? The people with the seeing sickness? Do their eyes change colour?’

  ‘They turn almost yellow,’ she replied finally, turning around to face us. She had removed her cloak earlier, leaving her shoulders and arms bare. The heat of Severas, especially within this wind-tight edifice, must surely have oppressed someone used to draughty huts and bare feet. I felt a lusty quake as I admired the unguarded sinews on her upper arms. The amount of exposed flesh was within the bounds of acceptable, but some decency pedant could have constructed a case against her. Out of her natural day-to-day, she was obliged to reveal more of herself, to weaken herself.

  I had almost kissed her when we were on the mountain, as a sudden momentary wave of desire rose in my stomach and electrified my legs. I resisted, and the feeling dissipated. Intrusive thoughts asked if they even knew what kissing was in Clabby.

  She treated me coldly now, whatever warmth there was between us having completely disappeared. I was thankful – it made it clear to the bulbs at the company that I had maintained my professionalism.

  ‘Hmm, yellow - that sounds like something,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll have a look in the archive tonight. Perhaps there is a volume on parasites, something with images. I could bring them tomorrow?’ She looked at me for confirmation.

  ‘We have another busy day tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you could come for lunch?’

  ‘That should be fine. I’ll bring whatever I find.’

  ‘And, just so you know, we’re trying to keep this as quiet as possible,’ I added.

  ‘Of course,’ she said scribbling decisively in her pad. ‘I’m the company’s doctor. I’m bound by its directives on company secrets, same as you.’

  ‘And the medicine?’ asked Erna.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ asked the doctor.

  ‘Will you bring the medicine tomorrow?’

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  ‘We haven’t quite identified the illness yet, Erna,’ she said, standing. ‘I have ideas of what it is, but we will have a clearer picture when we look at some images.’ She placed a gentle hand on her elbow.

  ‘We leave the day after tomorrow,’ said Erna. ‘It will be ready then?’

  The doctor looked to me.

  ‘It might not be ready Erna,’ I said. ‘It may take time to prepare.’

  She turned and fixed me with a look.

  ‘You made the offering. Now there are delays and sweet words.’ After a moment, she turned back to the window.

  ‘I offered to let you discuss with a doctor,’ I said, trying to sound authoritative while the doctor was listening. ‘The doctor has only descriptions of the illness from you. We need time,’ I said, extending my arms briefly, then retracting them, fearing that I looked submissive.

  ‘You offered something you do not have.’

  ‘I only offered-’ I began, then stopped myself. ‘We will have it.’

  ‘I can get the pictures and come back later this afternoon, if it helps?’ said the doctor, interrupting.

  ‘Yes,’ said Erna. ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘It’s no trouble?’ I asked.

  ‘She can come, she said,’ said Erna, her voice raised. ‘She would not offer if she could not.’ She clasped nervous hands together and squeezed.

  ‘We’ll figure it out Erna, don’t worry,’ said the doctor.

  ‘I know you will. You’re very helpful,’ said Erna.

  Later, the doctor came with her pictures, and Erna recognised the symptoms of the seeing sickness in one of them. It was called Frapp’s Galar, and the doctor assured us that it could easily be treated with a salgann solution and an unguent. Erna was happier than I had ever seen her. So happy that she grabbed the doctor by the shoulders and pressed her forehead against hers, perhaps in some gesture of gratitude. The doctor reddened and held her hands awkwardly by her sides, as if trying not immediately to brush the dirt from her smock.

  ‘It is my duty,’ she said, laughing. ‘I am very happy to help you, Erna. And your people.’

  ***

  ‘You see how we burn things in this city,’ I said to her the following day, after the excitement had died down. There had been grey moisture in the air that morning, the kind you could have wiped it from your forehead with a cloth, and rain was the only topic of conversation throughout lunch. Finally, it had come, first in noiseless drops making uneven progress down the surface of the windowpanes, and then in a thunderous downfall, raising furious, temporary flows of brown water down the hollows on the sides of our streets. The roads had been laid many cycles ago, when rain and flooding were a regular concern. Now it only rained two or three times each orbit.

  ‘Your earth does not take the water,’ she said, watching the nascent rivers. She either hadn’t heard me or was ignoring me. ‘Where does it go?’

  ‘It drains away underground. We encourage it all the way to the ocean.’ Ever the scholar, ever the show-off, I almost leaped into an explanation of the ancient miracles of plumbing, but I resisted, remembering my purpose.

  ‘The ocean,’ she said.

  ‘About the hinch,’ I said. ‘Would it possible to get more of it?’

  Her hand stopped its gentle exploration of the moisture on the windowpane, and she turned to face me.

  ‘I don’t wish to be so blunt,’ I said quickly. ‘I only wish to make our desires plain. Our city has needs. Our people. Heat costs us many soldies. Soldies that could be better spent on food.’

  She swallowed with a grimace, as if she might have vomited. She looked out the grey window again to the shining streets. At the top of a nearby streetlamp, an orange flame still flickered stoically despite the heavy water.

  ‘What would you do with the hinch?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘As I said, we would use it to heat our homes. To cook. I’m sure there are many things we can do with it.’

  She sighed.

  ‘This is a place where things are wasted. You would use up a full mountain’s worth of hinch in an afternoon.’

  ‘No.’ I licked my lips, primed to speak further on this, but I couldn’t find the words. ‘That’s just not true,’ I said finally.

  ‘It’s a small mountain,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. But underneath perhaps-’ I said, before I can stop myself.

  ‘Underneath.’ She said the word with quiet triumph. As if she had made me finally admit something. The negotiation had failed. I knew immediately.

  ‘You want the mountain and everything underneath then,’ she said after a moment, looking at the side of my head, daring me to meet her gaze. Mudders only offered and never asked because you could only offer something you were willing to part with. You would never offer to allow someone to cleave your village from the mountainside.

  ‘We just want to investigate its properties. We only want some. Enough to complete our surveys. Enough to know what it can do.’

  ‘I will tell the village of your request.’ A smile. ‘If it is to their liking, we’ll send for you.’

  When she set off for the village again a few hours later, I pressed a hand on her shoulder, sure that I would never see her again.

  ‘May they find your mud,’ I said, the Mudder farewell blessing.

  ‘Put it with the rest,’ she said in response.