Adda's legs, below the knees, were a mangled mess: the long bones were obviously broken in several places, the feet reduced to masses of pulped meat. The surface of Adda's chest was unbroken but oddly uneven; Dura, fearful even to touch, speculated about broken ribs. His right arm dangled at a strange angle, limp in the Air; perhaps the shoulder had been broken. Adda's face was a soft, bruised mess. Both eyecups were filled by gummy blood, and his nostrils were dimmed... And, of course, the Xeelee alone knew about internal injuries. Adda's penis and scrotum had fallen from their cache between his legs; exposed, they made the old man look still more vulnerable, pathetic. Tenderly, Dura cupped the shriveled genitalia in her hand and tucked them away in their cache.

"He's dying," Philas said, her voice uneven. She seemed to be drawing back from the battered body, as if this, for her, was too much to deal with.

Dura shook her head, forcing herself to think. "He'll certainly die up here, in this lousy Air. We've got to get him away, back into the Mantle..."

Philas touched her arm. She looked into Dura's face, and Dura saw how the woman was struggling to break through her own shock. Philas said, "Dura, we have to face it. He's going to die. There's no point making plans, or struggling to get him away from here... all we can do is make him comfortable."

Dura shook off the light touch of the widow, unable — yet — to accept that.

Adda's mouth was phrasing words, feebly shaping the breath that wheezed through his lips. "...Dura..."

Still scared to touch him, she leaned close to his mouth. "Adda? You're conscious?"

A sketch of a laugh came from him, and he turned blind eyecups to her. "...I'd... rather not be." He closed his mouth and tried to swallow; then he said, "Are you all right?... The boy?"

"Yes, Adda. He's fine. Thanks to you."

"...And the pigs?"

"We killed the one that attacked you. The sow. The others..." She glanced to the nets which drifted in the Air, tangled and empty. "They got away. What a disaster this has been."

"No." He stirred, as if trying to reach out to her, then fell back. "We did our best. Now you must... try again. Go back..."

"Yes. But first we have to work out how to move you." She stared at his crushed body, trying to visualize how she might address the worst of the wounds.

Again that sketchy, chilling laugh. "Don't be so... damned stupid," he said. "I'm finished. Don't... waste your time.

She opened her mouth, ready to argue, but a great weariness fell upon her, and she subsided. Of course Adda was right. And Philas. Of course he would soon die. But still, she knew, she would have to try to save him. "I never saw a pig behave like that. A boar, maybe. But..."