But — if one of the three Human Beings must go on this absurd trip — then Dura was the best choice. Farr didn't have the maturity, or Adda himself the strength, to cope with the challenges the journey would provide...

Adda cursed himself silently. Even in the privacy of his own mind he was starting to use the diluted language of the City folk, to be influenced by their gray thinking. Into the Core with that.

The truth was that whoever went down inside this ramshackle craft into the underMantle would almost certainly die there. Dura's qualification was only that she, of the three of them, had the skills and strength marginally to reduce that level of certainty.

So, knowing Dura's decision was right, Adda gave up trying to convince Farr. Instead he tried to support the decision in Farr's mind in subtle ways — by taking the decision as a given, not even trying to justify it. He concentrated on trying to distract Farr from his anxious, angry concern for his sister, which wound up tighter as the day of the Mantlecraft's launch neared. To this end Adda was pleased with the friendships Farr had made in his brief time in the City — with Cris, and the Fisherman Bzya — and tried to encourage them.

When Cris offered to take Farr Surfing again Farr at first refused, unwilling to break out of his absorption with Dura; but Adda pressed him to accept the invitation. In the end it was a little party of four — Cris, Farr, Adda and Bzya — who set off, two days before Dura's launch, through the corridors for the open Air.

Adda had taken a liking to the huge, battered Fisherman, and sensed that Bzya had given Farr a great deal of support — more than Farr realized, probably — during Farr's brief time in the Harbor. Now Farr was free of his indenture, thanks to the whim of Hork V, and — here was the boy showing his immaturity again, Adda reflected — now he seemed to sympathize little with Bzya, who was stuck with the situation Farr had escaped — the huge, stinking halls of the Harbor machines, and the depths of the underMantle. Instead, Farr complained at how little he saw of Bzya.

Adda had no qualms in accepting Bzya's help as they made their way through the busy corridors; the presence of Bzya's huge arm guiding him was somehow less patronizing, less insulting, than any other City man's.