Surprise surged through Ujurak as Tom and the other flat-face lifted the whole bed out of the firebeast and started to trundle it along. Ujurak realised that it had small round paws, a bit like the huge black paws of the firebeasts.

A bed with paws! Wait till I tell the others!

Moments later, Tom pushed the bed up to the doors of a huge white stone den. Ujurak craned his neck to stare; it was bigger than any other den he’d ever seen before. Its walls were filled with shiny squares, reflecting the pale grey sky.

‘Welcome to the Eisenhower Medical Center,’ Tom said.

Ujurak’s belly fluttered with the beginnings of panic. He’d be cut off from his friends for sure once the flat-faces took him in there. He fumbled in the pocket of his pelts and managed to drop another of the carved bears to the ground before he was swept inside the doors, which closed behind him with a hiss.

Warmth and light enveloped Ujurak as Tom brought his bed to a halt. Sniffing, Ujurak picked up a mixture of unfamiliar scents: he could pick up traces of blood and fear, and even death. His skinny flat-face paws clenched hard as he tried to stay calm.

Two flat-face females dressed in white pelts headed for Ujurak and looked down at him as they reached his bedside.

‘Welcome,’ one of them said. ‘Don’t worry about a thing. We’re here to look after you.’

For a moment the women and Tom talked together, their voices too soft for Ujurak to make out what they were saying. While he waited, he looked around. The walls of the huge den were white, like the outside. Off to one side, more flat-faces were working inside a kind of cage made of the same transparent stuff that was in the gaps in the wall. Chairs lined the walls, and there was a table that held a huge bunch of flowers; the flower heads were the biggest Ujurak had ever seen, and their colours much brighter than the flowers he knew in the wild.

Flat-faces even have special kinds of flowers!

A touch on his shoulder distracted him; Ujurak looked up to see Tom smiling at him. ‘I gotta scoot now, Ujurak,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later.’ With a last squeeze of Ujurak’s shoulder, he strode away, his feet making little squeaks on the floor.

One of the females bent over Ujurak, adjusting his blanket. ‘So you’re the mystery boy,’ she said with a smile.

The other female was smiling too. ‘Hey, Ujurak,’ she said in a kind voice.