He came to a clearer patch of Air. He twisted, his hips and lower back protesting, and Waved to a halt. He looked back toward the City, now about a thousand mansheights away. The great wooden carcass was tilting noticeably, leaning across a Magfield which no longer cradled it. Its Skin was still a hive of activity, of kicked-out panels and scrambled evacuations; Adda was reminded of corruption, of swarms of insects picking over a dying face.

There was no sign of Farr.

Adda looked back to the upper Downside, to the location of the Hospital. He could see motion inside that widened gash in the Skin, but he couldn't make out Farr himself. Damn, damn... He shouldn't have let go of the boy; he should have dragged him physically away from the City, from the damn Hospital, until either his strength ran out or the City fell apart anyway.

I'm an old man, damn it. He'd had enough; he'd seen enough. Now all he wanted was rest.

Well, it looked as if he still had work to do. Shaking his head, he dipped his body in the Air and Waved back toward the groaning City.

In the Hospital of the Common Good, patients continued to be brought to the exit. Another dull explosion sounded somewhere in the guts of the City, but — to Adda's disbelief — the laboring volunteers scarcely looked up. He wanted to scream at them, to slap faces, to force these brave, foolish people to accept the reality of what was happening around them.

There were no cars returning to the port now. But nevertheless a volunteer hauled a helpless bundle — age and sex unidentifiable — to the breached Skin. The volunteer climbed out after the patient, gripped the bandaging with both hands, and, Waving backward, began to drag the patient away from the collapsing City. The volunteer was a young man, nude, his skin painted with elaborate, curling designs. This was evidently one of the acrobats who should have been taking part in the great Games spectacle today; instead here he was, his body-paint smeared and stained with pus, dragging a half-dead patient out from a dying City. Adda stared at the boy's face, trying to make out how the acrobat must feel at this implosion of his life, his hopes; but he read only fatigue, a dull incomprehension, determination.

"Adda!"

It was Farr's voice. Adda peered into the gloom of the ward, blinking to clear his one working eyecup.

"Adda — you must help me..."

There. Farr was close to the rear of the ward; he was hovering over another patient, a massive, still form wrapped in a cocoon. The boy seemed unharmed still, Adda saw with relief.

He pushed his way over the heads of the crowd.

The patient was lost in the cocoon with only a little flesh showing: a huge, crumpled fist, an area of shoulder or chest about the size of Adda's palm. The exposed flesh was surfaceless, chewed up.