Coral volunteered to stay on board the windjammer; Jasmine led the others through a bustle of sailors and labourers, cranes and wagons, to a transit station on the far side of a row of godowns and sheds, and they rode a smart open-sided tram (one of the gifts of the Sweetwater Collective) across town. There were no burrows or large houses, only wooden shacks standing in sandy lots. Even the flat-fronted facades of shops and rooming houses on the town’s main street had the impermanent air of a stage set. When Pilgrim remarked on this, Jasmine told him that because the ground ofttimes trembled and shook buildings were mostly wood and paper. Cheap to construct and easy to replace, and few people would be hurt if they collapsed. The chief danger was fire. Much of the town had burnt to the ground three years ago, and almost everything they saw had been rebuilt since then.

Ten blocks of the main street were given over to the fossil trade, with displays of bones and artefacts in open windows or heaped on tables under canvas awnings. Slabs of mudstone printed with the shapes of ogre possessions, combs and cutlery, buttons and fragments of ceramics, sheets of plasticised paper which had been wiped clean of any print or images they might once have held. Pilgrim saw a complete, articulated ogre skeleton hung against black velvet drapes in one window, saw in another a display of mudstone slabs imprinted with the fossilised skeletons of chickens.

They left the tram at the far end of this bone market and walked two blocks to the stable where Jasmine had hired a short string of maras. An emporium a few doors down sold supplies to prospectors. While the women bought camping gear, a bundle of firewood and canned food and flagons of water, Gentle found a display of machetes and utility knives and suggested they should acquire some cutlery for purposes of insurance, seeing as how some folk in the Territories were downright uncivilised, with no regard for the Mother’s precepts. But Poppy and Fragrant vetoed his suggestion, and when Pilgrim sided with them Gentle sulkily put back the filleting knife he’d selected, saying that he hoped none of them would come to regret travelling empty-handed.

After the women had settled the bill and Gentle had helped them to load their purchases, rollbags and Fragrant’s plate camera onto the maras, Jasmine handed Poppy a map and traced the best route, east and south to a pass through the mountains. Beyond that, she said, they could find their destination by following the procession of fools.

‘The college is grateful for your help,’ Poppy told her.

‘Remember me if you are successful. Forget me if you aren’t,’ Jasmine said, and walked off before they had mounted their maras.