‘You can be certain of that,’ the arbiter said. ‘But you might tell me what your people were up to, in that camp in bear country. That’s what your friends were interested in, and I suppose you must be too.’

‘I am. Especially this woman,’ Ysbel said, pulling the composite image of Kirder Halmasdaughter from her satchel and handing it to the arbiter.

She glanced at it and gave it back, saying, ‘Never seen her before.’

‘What about your friends?’ Ysbel said, and held up the image so that the group around the fire could see it. A gang of pups and striplings had gathered a little way off, the pair of striplings who had been tormenting the bear amongst them.

No one spoke up. Some feigned boredom or disinterest; others glared at Ysbel with undisguised hostility. For a moment, they looked like malicious children wearing animal masks, an inversion she hadn’t experienced for a long time. It reminded her that she was the only human here. The only human, apart from Raia somewhere out in bear country, for hundreds of kilometres in every direction.

‘We told your friends we had no knowledge of any of your kind at the camp,’ the arbiter said. ‘And since that’s the plain truth of it, I can’t tell you any different.’

‘Perhaps my friends also asked you about a collective by the name A Group of Young People Who Believe They Will Turn Dreams of the Past into Wonders of the Present,’ Ysbel said.

‘What if they did?’ the arbiter said. She seemed to be enjoying their exchange, which gave Ysbel a little hope that she might let slip something she had held back from the Special Operations agents.

‘Did they tell you that the collective was shipping supplies for the camp from Pleasant Bay to this railhead?’

No one answered. A young native took his long-stemmed pipe from his mouth and spat accurately into the flames of the fire. Another scratched under the rim of a conical leather hat.

‘You’d have to ask the station chief about that,’ the arbiter said. ‘If you can find him. He retired three years back. Went south, and no one replaced him.’

Someone in the crew around the fire hooted softly, mockingly.

Ysbel said, ‘I was wondering how those supplies got to the camp. If anyone was paid to take them there. What they might have seen if they did.’

The arbiter stared at her for a moment and Ysbel felt a chill, knowing she had pushed too hard.

‘You said you’d answer our questions,’ the arbiter said. ‘But so far all you’ve done is ask questions of your own. So I’ll ask again, and ask you plain and simple, expecting a plain and simple answer: why were they keeping bears at that camp?’

‘Didn’t the people from the camp ever tell you?’