She gave Mur her bag of bread and told him to distribute it as he saw fit. As he moved among the Human Beings she saw how sharp eyes followed each move; the aura of hunger which hovered over the people, focusing on the bag of bread, was like a living thing.

She found Philas, the widow of Esk. Dura and Philas moved away from the heart of the crude encampment, out of earshot of the rest of the Human Beings. Oddly, Philas seemed more beautiful now; it was as if privation was allowing the bony symmetry, the underlying dignity of her features, to emerge. Dura could see no bitterness, no trace of the rivalry which had once silently divided them.

"You've suffered greatly."

Philas shrugged. "We couldn't rebuild the Net, after you left. We survived; we hunted again in the forest and trapped some pigs. But then the second Glitch came."

The survivors had abandoned the open Air in favor of the fringe of the forest. It wasn't particularly logical, but Dura thought she understood; the need for some form of solid base, to have a feeling of protective walls around them, would dominate logic. She thought of the folk of Parz in their compressed wooden boxes, their thin walls affording illusory protection from the wilds of the Mantle not half a centimeter from where they lay. Perhaps people all shared the same basic instincts, no matter what their origins — and perhaps those instincts had traveled with humanity from whatever distant Star had birthed the Ur-humans.

It was impossible to find Air-pigs now, no matter how widely the Human Beings hunted. The latest Glitch, savage as it was, had scattered the herds of pigs as well as devastating the works of humanity. The people were trying to survive on leaves, and were even experimenting with meals of spin-spider flesh.

Of course, it was impossible to subsist on leaves. Without decent food, the Human Beings would surely die. (And so will I, now that my bread is gone, she thought with a surprising stab of selfishness.)

Dura turned in on herself, trying to understand her own motives for returning to her people. After Rauc's death, and after she'd helped to cope with the worst of the destruction at Qos Frenk's farm, she learned that most of the coolies were to be released from their indentures. Qos, roots of yellow showing in his pink hair, his small hands wringing each other, had explained that he intended to save what he could of this year's harvest, and then start the slow, painful work of rebuilding his holding. It would take many years before the farm was functioning again, and in the meantime it would not generate any income for Frenk; so he couldn't employ them any longer.

The coolies had seemed to understand. Frenk provided rides back to Parz City for those who wanted it; the rest, dully, had dispersed to seek work in the neighboring ceiling-farms.