Her mother came towards her across the snow. She was carrying a Sun on her back, but it wasn't orange, old, failing like the real Sun. It was yellow, and it melted the snow.

Allel heard the shouting from the gloom of her teepee.

Nobody shouted these days. With the Sun never brighter than the twilights of her youth, there wasn't much to shout about.

Except...

She unhinged her stiff old legs and rose from her leather mat. Outside, Home was a bloodstained raft floating over the landscape. The Sun was bright enough to sting her watery eyes, and the breeze pricked at the scar bisecting her face.

All the excitement was at the north of the little settlement. She saw her grandson Damen standing there, massive and obstructive. A few other villagers were walking towards Damen, dull curiosity brightening their drab faces.

Someone brushed past Allel: Erwal, Teal's wife. When she realized what was happening Erwal began to run.

It was him. It had to be. He'd survived, and returned. Allel hobbled over the icy mud.

Damen heard Erwal coming. He turned and spread his arms to catch her. "No! Ignore him. Don't hurt yourself anymore..."

Beyond them a silent figure stood alone. Allel squinted, but found it hard to make out a face.

Erwal shook her small fist. "Keep away from here. Keep away! I lost my baby because of the hurt you caused me, you... madman. Keep away from me." Then, deliberately, she pulled Damen's head down towards her and kissed him full on the lips. Teal watched this with no sign of emotion.

Damen wrapped his arm round Erwal's shoulder and turned to Teal. "You'll have to stay away, brother," he said sadly. "There's nothing for you here. You're an exile."

Allel came alongside Damen, gasping with the exertion. It was the furthest she'd walked from her teepee since her injury. "Why?" she asked. "Why bother, Damen? He's lost his family already -- lost everything. What more can you do to him?" She looked around at the dozen or so villagers clustered around them. They were an array of shabby indifference, their eyes large and slack in malnourished faces. A baby cried feebly at its mother's shriveled breast. "We're at the end of things. Who cares anymore?"

Damen frowned doubtfully. Then he turned and led Erwal away.

The other villagers drifted back to their chores.

Allel was left alone.

In the gathering darkness Teal was obscure... changed. Allel walked towards him, wrapping her skinny arms around herself.

"Tell me what you saw. Tell me what was in the Eighth Room."

Teal smiled.

The far wall of the Eighth Room had been a great window, he said. He'd stepped cautiously through the door -- and then the other sides of the cubical room had faded to clarity.

Dressed in skins, and brandishing a stone weapon, a human being once more stared out of a cave at the stars.