Strata

of habitation, where a stream flowed between low sandy banks.
    Kin stripped off her suit as soon as she landed and, while Silver scrabbled at the sand, switched the dumbwaiter to one of its least complicated settings. Soon it gushed hot water, filling the hole. She wallowed.
    Marco prowled uneasily along the bank and disappeared up a steep, tree-shaped slope. A moment later he came bounding down.
    ‘We must leave! There’s a track up there!’
    Silver looked at Kin and shrugged, then wandered up the slope. She came back looking thoughtful.
    ‘There is a distant odour of humans,’ she said, ‘but it is a forest track that’s all, and there are plants growing undisturbed all over it.’
    They glared at Marco.
    ‘People use it,’ he said. ‘They may have weapons.’
    ‘Only axes, I should think,’ said Kin. ‘Anyway, superstition will protect us. There are tidal forests on Kung, aren’t there?’
    ‘I understand so, yes.’
    ‘Well, what would be the reaction of a simplepeasant kung forester who suddenly chanced upon strange and fearsome monsters in his forest?’
    ‘He would fall upon them and destroy them utterly!’
    Kin bit her lip. ‘I guess he would, at that. Well, humans are different. Don’t worry.’
    Later she dialled for soap and did her laundry. Silver had paddled off downstream and found a deep pool, nicely cold, in which she was floating contentedly. Marco relaxed sufficiently to bathe his broad feet in the stream.
    There was a sudden movement in the water and he hissed shrilly, jumping up and landing ready to fight. Kin watched wide eyed, then reached down and quickly grabbed a small yellow frog.
    She showed it to him without speaking. Marco glared. Finally Kin ran out of air and burst out laughing. The kung looked from her to the impassive frog, hissed menacingly, turned and stomped off along the river bank.
    That was unfair of me, she thought. Kung have no sense of humour, even kung brought up on Earth. She released the frog and paddled further out into the stream.
    It was clear, and slow enough for yellow water lilies to have established a roothold. Water boatmen rowed furiously underwater to escape her as she dived.
    She drifted in the golden brown waterbetween the lily stalks, moving with just the faintest motion of wrists and ankles. There were ramshorn snails with red skin, and small fish darting like swallows in the shadowy cathedrals made by the weeds …
    She rose in a cloak of bubbles and surfaced in a clump of flowers, shaking the water out of her hair.
    The archers were well disciplined. Kin looked at the row of arrow heads, wavering only slightly, and quickly decided against diving. Refraction of light or not, they could still hit her under water.
    There were eight archers in rough clothing and a haphazard assortment of armour and chain mail. They wore close-fitting metal helmets and beneath them their blue eyes bored into Kin stolidly.
    A voice was squeaking in her earpiece.
    ‘… and don’t start anything stupid,’ it said. ‘There’s too much risk of being hit. We must handle this carefully.’
    Kin looked round slowly. There was nothing to be seen downstream but stands of reed-mace and thick bushes.
    ‘I like the
we,’
she said aloud.
    ‘Just don’t stare too intently at the big bush with the purple flowers,’ said Marco.
    Before she could answer, a man pushed his way between the archers and grinned down at her.
    He was short and built like a wall. Even his skin was brick coloured. A thatch of yellow hair and wide moustaches framed eyes that glittered enough to remind Kin that intelligence didn’t necessarily start with an industrial revolution.
    He wore leggings, a belted smock that fell to his knees, and a red cloak. They all looked as though they had been slept in, if not worse. One calloused hand tapped thoughtfully at the hilt of a half-concealed sword.
    Kin smiled back.
    Finally he stopped the grinning contest by kneeling down and extending a hand. Jewels gleamed on the dirt-engrained fingers, with a suggestion that they had once belonged to other people.
    Kin accepted the hand as gracefully as she could, and climbed out onto the bank. There was a faint sigh from the men. She treated them all to another smile, which caused them to step back uneasily, and plucked a waterlily flower from her hair.
    Brickface broke the spell with an appraising glance and a short comment that caused a general snigger.
    ‘Turn up the gain control,’ said the voice in her