Jool's body was square, a compact — if misshapen — mass of muscles. She wore what looked like the all-purpose coverall of the Harbor, much patched. One side of her body was quite damaged — her hair was missing down one side of her scalp in wide swathes, and her arm on that side was twisted, atrophied. Her leg was missing, below the knee.

He was staring at the stump of the leg, the tied-off trouser leg below the knee. Suddenly unbearably self-conscious, he lifted his eyes to Jool's face.

She clapped him on the shoulder. "Not much point looking for that leg; you'll never find it." She smiled kindly. "Here. Have a petal. I meant it."

He dug his hand into the globe, pulled out a fistful of the little leaves, and jammed them into his mouth. They were insubstantial, like all leaf-matter, and strongly flavored — so strong that his head seemed to fill up with their sweet aroma. He coughed, spluttering leaf fragments all over his hostess.

Jool tilted back her head and laughed. "Your upfluxer friend hasn't got very sophisticated tastes, Bzya."

Bzya had gone to work in one corner of the cramped little room, beneath two crumpled sleeping-cocoons; his arms were immersed in a large globe-barrel full of fragments — chips of some substance — which crunched and ground against each other as he closed his fists around pieces of cloth. "Neither have we, Jool, so stop teasing the boy."

Farr picked up a petal. "Is it a leaf?"

"Yes." Jool popped one in her mouth and chewed noisily. "Yes, and no. It's from a flower... a small, ornamental plant. They've been bred, here in Parz. You don't get them in the wild, do you?"

"They grow in the Palace, don't they? In their Garden. Is that where you work?" He studied her. From the way Cris had described the Committee Palace to him, Jool seemed a little rough to be acceptable there.

"No, not the Palace. There are other parts of the Skin, a little further Downside, where flowers, and bonsai trees, are cultivated. But not really for show, like in the Garden."

"Why, then?"

She crunched on another leaf. "For food. And not for humans. For pigs. I wait on Air-pigs, young Farr." Her eyes were bright and amused.

Farr was puzzled. "But these leaves — petals — can't be very nutritious."

"They don't make the pigs as strong as they could be, no," she said. "But they have other advantages."

"Oh, stop teasing the lad," Bzya called again. "You know, she used to work in the Harbor."

"We met there. I was his supervisor, before that cretin Hosch was promoted. At the expense of this huge dolt Bzya, I'm afraid. Farr, do you want some beercake?"

"No. Yes. I mean, no thank you. I don't think I'd better."