She waded forward, tripped and went under. She came up coughing and clutched at the rope. Death and the river, she thought over and over. Death and the river. I've done this before. In a dream.

As she clung to the rope the current tugged at her legs. She forced her legs to kick, her hands to move forward along the rope. Twenty-five centimetres. Kick. The other hand another twenty-five centimetres. Another kick. Until at last her eyes closed and her hands slipped from the rope.

Ark One

WHEN RUTH opened her eyes she was lying, wrapped in blankets, beside a blazing fire. She could feel its heat on her cheekbones, though her body shook with cold. Miriam, Paola, Grayle and Raef were busily rubbing her arms and legs. Slowly the numbness was replaced by a tingling, and the tingling by a throbbing.

“Oh, how it hurts!” she gasped.

“Thank goodness for that,” said Miriam briskly and laughed at the expression on Ruth's face. “If you can feel pain there is no damage to the nerves. The pain won't last. Hold on. Soon you'll be warm.”

I don't think I'll ever be warm, thought Ruth. Deep inside, where the fire and the Healers don't reach, is a lump of ice. But she was too tired to worry about why it was there. She drank a hot drink. The blankets were tucked around her and she was left to sleep.

She woke briefly for supper and instantly went back to sleep again. Next morning she was completely well except for this small nagging pain inside her. I suppose it's because I let Luke down, she thought, and pushed it out of her mind in the flurry of packing the tents and ferrying supplies across the river.

The boat worked splendidly, and after everything was safely on the farther bank they decided to leave it there for their return. “Then no one will have to go through what Ruth did for us,” the Initiator said. Ruth felt a warm glow at the implied praise, but then the sadness was back.

They made only ten kilometres that day, since most of the morning had been taken up in crossing the river, but on the sixth day they were off early, heading through the narrow valley between crumpled masses of tree-covered mountains.

The river seemed to have forced its way between these masses, which parted grudgingly for it, leaving only a narrow grassy strip on its south bank up which they were able to walk. As the day went on the path became steeper and the mountains crowded in on top of them. Even at noon they were almost always in shadow.

They walked silently, in single file. It seemed as if all the energy had been drained from them in the river crossing. Ruth saw the Initiator frown as she looked along the silent trudging line, and her face was anxious.