"The temperature. It's cold out there."

Kendy had already found the source of the cold.

The present-time transmission showed Jeffer easing the CARM alongside one of the big birds. The other crew were in and around the airlock. Debby sent a tethered crossbow bolt into the bird. It twitched. She loosed another . . .

. . . while Kendy set a blinking light around the image of the pond.

Only Jeffer was there to see it. He said softly, "Stet."

They had pulled the bird aboard. Clave said, "Well, it's dead now."

"I've got something," Jeffer said. "Clave, there's a pond in that dense cloud. Do you see anything odd about it?"

"No life around it. That cloud's awfully thick for being so small. What does it mean?"

"I don't know."

Ice. The pond was a core of foamy ice within a shell of meltwater. Ice was rare within the Smoke Ring. The pond was huge now, several hundred thousand tons, but Kendy guessed that it had been bigger yet. A tremendous pond must have been flung out of the Smoke Ring by a gravity-assist from Gold. In the near-vacuum of the gas torus it would have boiled and frozen at the same time, and later fallen back, reduced by evaporation, reduced further by reentry heat. Now it cooled the sky around it as it melted. Kendy could hear the pings as bubbles of near-vacuum crumpled within the ice core.

"I don't like it here," Booce said. "It's too strange."

"Your wish is granted. Strap the bird down and take your seats." Jeffer waited while they did that, then fired the aft attitude jets. The CARM surged away.

Cariot pointed into the aft view. "Look!"

The shieldbirds tumbled in the CARM's hot wake. One by one they fluttered, then spread a rainbow of wings and tails and fluffy feathers. They basked in the heat, catching as much of it as they could. Now their shells were no bigger in proportion than a warrior's shield. As Discipline moved out of range, the birds were lining up and flying west, putting distance between themselves and the melting glacier.

"There's no point picking out a tree till you've got honey," Booce said. "You can find a tree a hundred klomters from the Clump and still go half a thousand klomters to find your sting jungle."

Their catch was moored by cargo hooks, divested of skin and guts and some of the scarlet meat. Booce was holding raw bird flesh sliced thin and rolled around a stalk of lemon fern. He used it to point into the dorsal view. "And that is a sting jungle. The green dot, straight out."

"Stet." Jeffer tapped attitude jets to life. The CARM turned. Cariot squeaked and grabbed Rather, startling him awake. Booce dropped his meal to snatch at a seat back.

Jeffer hid a grin. These sophisticated Admiralty folk found the CARM as unsettling as Jeffer's own citizens did.