He frowned, his fat cheeks pulling down. "Don't thank me until we find out if there's anything to be done. Even if he survives the trip back to Parz, there's no guarantee I'll find a doctor to treat an upfluxer like him."

Upfluxer?

"And even if I do I don't know how you're going to pay..."

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. "Toba Mixxax, I'd rather deal with these mysterious problems when I come to them. For now, we should concentrate on getting Adda into your box... your car."

He nodded, and grinned. "Yes. And that's not going to be so easy."

With a few brisk Waves, and with Mixxax clumsily following, Dura crossed to the little group of Human Beings. Farr's eyes swiveled between Dura's face, Mixxax's hat, and back again; and his mouth gaped like a third, huge eyecup. Dura tried not to smile. "All right, Farr. Don't stare."

Philas was cradling Adda's battered head. Adda turned his blinded face to them. "Clear off, Parz man." His voice was a bubbling croak.

Mixxax ignored the words and bent over the old man. Dura seemed to see Adda's wounds through the stranger's eyes — the splayed right arm, the crushed feet, the imploded chest — and she felt a knife twist in her heart.

Mixxax straightened up. His expression was obscured by his veil. "I was right. It's not going to be easy, even getting him as far as the car," he said quietly.

"Then don't bother," Adda hissed. "Dura, you bloody fool..."

"Shut up," Dura said. She tried to think her way through the situation. "Maybe," she said slowly, "if we could bind him up — tie him closely to splints made out of our spears — it wouldn't be so bad."

"Yes." Mixxax looked around. "But those ropes you have, and the nets, would just cut into him."

"I know." She looked appraisingly at Mixxax's clothes. "So maybe..."

After a while, he grasped what she was asking; and with a resigned sigh he started to peel off his trousers and jacket. "Why me?" he muttered, almost too quietly for her to hear.

—

He wore clothes even under his clothes. His chest, arms and legs were bare, but he wore substantial shorts of leather which covered his crotch and lower stomach. He kept his hat on.

He looked even scrawnier of limb, flabbier of belly, without his clothes. In fact, he looked ridiculous. Dura forbore to comment.

The Human Beings wore simple garments sometimes, of course — ponchos and capes, if the Air blew especially cold. But clothes under clothes?

Adda swore violently as they strapped him — with knotted trouser legs and sleeves — to a makeshift frame of spears. But he was too weak to resist, and within a few minutes he was encased in a cocoon of soft leather, his blind face twisting to and fro as if in search of escape.