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and the lines on hers rearranged themselves into an expression of softness.
    ‘When I want to comfort myself,’ she said, ‘I think of a great stretch of blackness, sweeping off for ever in all directions. And in this blackness, a host of little lanterns begin to burn. Those lanterns are our lives, burning bravely. They show us our surroundings. But what the surroundings mean, who lit the lamps,
why
they were lit . . .’ She sighed. ‘When we make the Long Journey, when our lamp goes out, perhaps we shall know more.’
    ‘And you say that
comforts
you?’ Roy asked scornfully. It was a long while since he had heard the lantern parable from his mother, and soothing to hear it again now, but he could not allow her to see this.
    ‘Yes. Yes, it comforts me. You see, our lanterns are burning together
here
.’ She touched a spot on the table between them with a small finger. ‘I’m thankful mine isn’t burning alone
here
, out in the unknown.’ She indicated a spot an arm’s length away.
    Shaking his head, Complain stood up.
    ‘I don’t see it,’ he confessed. ‘It might very well be better out over there.’
    ‘Oh, yes, it might. But it would be different. That’s what I’m afraid of. It would all be different: everything would be different.’
    ‘I expect you’re probably right. I just wish it was different here. By the way, Mother, my brother Gregg who left the tribe and went alone into the tangles –’
    ‘You still think of him?’ the old lady asked eagerly. ‘Gregg was a good one, Roy; he’d have made a Guard if he had stayed.’
    ‘Do you think he might still be alive?’
    She shook her head decisively. ‘In the tangles? You may be certain the Outsiders got him. Pity, a great pity – Gregg would have made a good Guard. I’ve always said so.’
    Complain was about to go when she said sharply, ‘Old Ozbert Bergass still breathes. They tell me he calls for his daughter Gwenny. It is your duty to go to him.’
    She spoke, for once, undeniable truth. And for once duty was coloured with pleasure: Bergass was a tribal hero.
    One-armed Olwell, carrying a brace of dead duck over the crook of his good arm, gave Complain a surly greeting; otherwise, he did not meet a moving soul. The rooms in which Bergass had his household were now far in the rear of Quarters. Once, these rooms had been at the leading barricade. As the tribe inched its way forward, they had gradually slipped back; when they had been in the midst of the tribe, Ozbert Bergass had been at the height of his power. Now, in his old age, his rooms lay far to the rear of anyone else’s. The last barrier, the barricade between humanity and Deadways, stood just beyond his doors. Indeed, several empty rooms separated him from his nearest neighbours: his former neighbours, weaklings, had evacuated some while since, moving back to the centre of things; he, stubborn old man, stayed where he was, stretching lines of communication and living in glorious squalor with an inordinate number of women.
    Down here had been no revelry. In contrast with the temporary cheerfulness of the rest of Quarters, Bergass’s passage looked sinister and chill. Long ago, probably in the time of the Giants, some sort of an explosion had taken place. The walls were blackened for some distance, and in the deck overhead a hole bigger than a man’s length gaped. Here, outside the old guide’s doors, no lights burned.
    The continued advance of the tribe had added to this neglect, for a few ponics, seeding themselves determinedly across the rear barrier, grew in shaggy, stunted procession along the dirty deck, thigh high only.
    Uncomfortably, Complain banged on Bergass’s door. It opened, and a babel of sound and steam emerged, wreathing like a cloud of insects round Complain’s face.
    ‘Your ego, mother,’ Complain said politely to the old witch who peered out at him.
    ‘Your expense, warrior. Oh, it’s you, Roy Complain, is it? What do you want? I thought every fool