So he had assiduously learned how to maintain the systems of the car on which his life depended... The Speaker system, for instance. The Air he breathed was supplied by reservoirs carved into the thick, heavy wooden walls of the car. The Speaker system was based on fine tubes which pierced the reservoirs; the tubes linked membranes set in the inner and outer walls. The tubes were filled with Air, kept warmed to perfect superfluidity by the reservoirs around them, and so capable of transmitting without loss the small temperature fluctuations which human ears registered as sound.

But the narrowness of the tubes did tend to filter out some lower frequencies. The upfluxer savage's voice sounded thin and without depth, and the resonances gave her a strange, echoing timbre. Despite that, her words had been well formed — obviously in his own language — and tainted by barely a trace of accent.

He frowned at his own surprise. Was he so startled that the woman could speak? These were upfluxers — but they were people, not animals. The woman's few words abruptly caused him to see her as an intelligent, independent being, not capable of being cowed quite so easily, perhaps, by his technological advantage.

Maybe this wouldn't be so simple after all.

"What's wrong?" the woman rasped. She shook her spear at him. "Too scared to speak?"

"My name is Toba Mixxax, freeman of Parz. This is my property. And I want you out of here."

The injured old fellow swiveled sightless eyecups at Toba. He shouted — weakly, but loud enough for Toba to hear: "Parz bastards! Think you own the whole damn Mantle, don't you?" A fit of coughing interrupted the old fool, and Toba watched as the stronger woman bent over him, apparently asking him what he was talking about. The man ignored her questions, and once his coughing had subsided he called out again: "Bugger off, Pole man!"

Toba pursed his lips. They knew about Parz. Definitely not as ignorant as he had supposed, then. In fact, maybe he was the ignorant one. He bent to his Speaker membrane, trying to load his voice with threat: "I won't warn you again. I want you off my property. And if you don't I..."

"Oh, shut up." Now the strong woman thrust her face into his window; Toba couldn't help but recoil. "What do you think that means to us, 'your property'? And anyway..." She pointed at the injured old fellow. "We can't go anywhere with Adda in that state." The old man, Adda, called something to her — perhaps an order to leave him — but she ignored him. "We're not going to move. Do what you have to do. And we..." — she raised her spear again — "will do whatever we can to stop you."

Toba stared into the woman's clear eyecups.

At his side was a collection of small, finely carved wooden levers. Maybe now was the time to pull on those levers, to use the car's crossbows and javelin tubes...