‘If I had a hand in ending the bears’ civilisation, even if by misunderstanding or mischance, I’d probably want to keep quiet about it,’ Ardent Whitesand said.

‘I think I’d want to boast about it,’ Swift said. ‘Especially as it freed their slaves, namely us.’

The three of them were eating mussels and periwinkles in a waterside shack at the eastern edge of Highwater Reach. The lights of Concord twinkled across the broad black flood of the river; the crescent of the Daughter Moon tilted high above. That was where Intrepid claimed to have been born, one of the second generation of people raised by the visitors and employed as scouts and agents. And Fragrant Plainsrunner was there now, so strange to think, part of a small delegation of star gazers and rock collectors from the Invisible College. She had told Pilgrim in a letter that she was having a fine old time exploring the Daughter Moon’s battered plains and mountains, and was thinking of staying there.

‘The Invisible College and I looked for other evidence that the visitors met with bears,’ Pilgrim told Ardent, ‘and found nothing.’

‘You should keep looking,’ Swift said. He was working a pin into a periwinkle shell, turning it to extract the toothsome morsel of meat. ‘If it happened, the truth will be out there.’

‘But if you find something that contradicts the visitors,’ Ardent said to Pilgrim, ‘what will you do with it? Given that you are one of their ambassadors.’

‘I resigned, having done my duty. Such as it was. The visitors don’t need my help anymore.’

‘What are you planning to do now?’ Ardent said.

‘The visitors offered to fix my leg,’ Pilgrim said. ‘I might accept, now I have time to lie up and recover from the operation. They also offered a treatment that would allow me to respond to the Season like any ordinary person.’

‘They can do that?’ Ardent said.

‘Apparently it isn’t difficult,’ Pilgrim said. ‘They can take some of my cells, use them to grow a little gland that would produce the right hormones and transplant it inside me.’

‘What did you say?’ Swift said.

‘I thanked them for the thought, and told them that I did not feel the need to be anything other than what I already am.’

‘Quite right,’ Swift said. ‘Who wants to be ordinary?’

The three of them drank to that.

‘They offered me a trip to the Daughter Moon, too,’ Pilgrim said. ‘I had to think long and hard about how to turn it down without giving offence, but if they invite me again I could pass it to one of you.’

‘Do they have books up there?’ Swift said.

‘I don’t think so. There is a kind of library, but it is stored in their Mother somehow.’

‘A library is a library. I could see if I turn up anything like your map.’

‘Apparently their Mother already looked, and found nothing.’