A sudden picture bloomed in Jin's mind of the odd little fellow living all alone in a cottage in the country—no, better, a big rambling old house with a vast overgrown garden.  Like the book with that old professor who had taken in two children from the city during wartime—Jin didn't know what war, except it was from a period before anybody got frozen.  There'd been a horse that drew a cart, and wonderful adventures involving a cave with blind white fish.  Jin had seen a horse in the Northbridge Zoo, once, on a class field trip.  The braver children had all been allowed to pat its glossy neck, while one of the keepers held its lead; Jin remembered the huge beast blowing air out its soft, bellows-like nostrils in a warm whoosh across his cheek.  Jin understood there were littler versions bred just for children, called ponies.  Mina wouldn't be scared of one that size.  The looming beast at the zoo had alarmed even Jin, but he'd been younger then, too.  A great rambling house, and animals, and . . .

It was all rubbish.  Miles-san wasn't a professor, or their uncle of any kind, great or regular, and for all Jin knew he lived in a cramped city apartment and wasn't lonely at all.  Jin decided he didn't like that country daydream.  It hurt too much when it stopped.  He frowned at Mina.  "Nobody's going to adopt us and take us away from here.  That's a stupid idea."

Mina looked offended.  She turned one shoulder to him and began pulling on her socks.  They were blotched with pinkish-brown stains where her blisters had popped and bled, and Jin gulped faint guilt.  They both donned their shoes, Lady Murasaki was safely lodged in Mina's backpack, where, Jin argued, she would endure less bouncing than in his pocket, and they sneaked out onto the street once more.

A winding kilometer farther on, during which Jin kept looking for, and not getting, a glimpse of the downtown towers for orientation, they came upon a busier street with a tube-tram station entry.

Mina's footsteps had grown short and gimpy already.  She looked at the entrance in some longing.  "If you want to go on the tram"—she swallowed a bit—"I'll pay our fares."

"No, the police have vidcams in the stations.  That's how I got trapped day before yesterday.  We can't go in there."  But Jin's eye was caught by a big colorful display on the outside of the entry kiosk.  A map!  He peered up carefully for scanning vidcams on this side, didn't spot any, and ventured nearer, Mina trailing.