“I was told right,” he said quietly. “There’s a big crack up near the top of the dome, in the north-eastern quarter. From where I was it was a bit hard to tell the size, but I figure it’s at least . . . six feet by four. I looked pretty hard up there, and that was the only break I saw big enough for anything man-sized or thereabouts to get in or out. Did you have a little glance around the base?”

Derkhan nodded. “Nothing,” she said. “I mean, plenty of little cracks, even a few places where a fair bit of glass was missing, especially higher up, but there were no holes big enough to get through. That must be the one.”

Isaac and Lemuel nodded.

“So that’s how they’re getting in and out,” said Isaac softly. “Well, it seems to me the best way of tracking them is to reverse their journey. Much as I damn well hate to suggest it, I think we should get up there. What’s it like inside?”

“You can’t see all that much,” said Lemuel, and shrugged. “The glass is thick, old and damn dirty. They only clean it once every three or four years, I think. You can make out the basic shapes of houses and streets and what have you, but that’s about all. You’d have to look inside to get the lay of the place.”

“We can’t all troop up there,” said Derkhan. “We’ll be seen. We should’ve asked Lemuel to go in, he’s the man for the job.”

“I wouldn’t have gone anyway,” said Lemuel tightly. “I don’t enjoy being that high up, and I certainly damn well won’t dangle upside down hundreds of feet above thirty thousand pissed-off cactacae . . .”

“Well, what are we going to do?” Derkhan was irritated. “We could wait until nightfall, but then the bloody moths are active. What we’ll have to do is go up one at a time. If, that is, it’s safe to. We need someone to go first . . .”

“I will go,” said Yagharek.

There was silence. Isaac and Derkhan stared at him.

“Great!” said Lemuel archly, and clapped twice. “That’s that sorted. So you can go up, and then . . . um . . . you can look around for us, chuck us down a message . . .”

Isaac and Derkhan were ignoring Lemuel. They were still staring at Yagharek.

“It is right that I should go,” said Yagharek. “I am at home so high,” he said and his voice clucked slightly, as if at a sudden emotion. “I am at home so high, and I am a hunter. I can look down on the landscape within and see where the moths might lurk. I can gauge the possibilities within the glass.”

Yagharek retraced Lemuel’s steps up the shell of the Glasshouse.