Dawn had set fire to the rim of the world, an arc of brilliant white light fading to nested layers of blue, defining the atmosphere’s thin envelope, as the sun rose and lit the trackless ocean. The coast of the Dreaming edged into view, fretted with bands of cloud picked out in shades of pink and bronze and casting long shadows on the tawny land; soon afterwards Ysbel and the others were pressed into their seats by the force of de-acceleration, rattled by turbulence. Forest cut by loops of a slow, brown river rose up, a mote of bare red dirt set amongst a million treetops exploded into a landing field and they were down, sudden and still.

The pair of pistol-packing aides went out first, and after they reported that it seemed safe everyone else followed, Ysbel last of all, stepping into a flare of burning sunlight. It was winter here, at the bottom of the world, but as hot and humid as Concord.

Nothing moved around the scatter of utility sheds on the far side of the landing field, nor in the forest of tall, pale-barked trees that surrounded it; the profound silence was broken only by cracks and creaks as the hopper’s fins baked off the last heat of re-entry. No welcoming party, no sign of habitation. Ysbel had left her satchel of bots behind when she’d been picked up in the middle of another forest just two days ago, and the hopper’s surveillance system had been stripped out before it had been given over to the government of the United Territories. If they were going to find the person or people who had invited them here, they would have to go look for them.

The pilot was left to stand guard over the hopper; everyone else set out down a track that angled away into the forest beyond the shuttered, empty utility sheds. Something screeched overhead and flapped away unseen and flies materialised from the baking air, swarming around them, eager to sip sweat. There was no other sign of life until Goodwill spotted the first hut. It was a low mound off in the trees to one side, with red dirt walls and a straw roof. A strip of tilled earth gone to dry weeds stretched away between the trees. Some kind of groundvine with large coarse leaves embraced a cistern with cracked mud at its bottom.