Once Grifford and Tahlia had gone, Doctor Fos turned to Maddock.

"One of my staff has prepared a bed for you. You will stay here tonight."

"Aren't I going back to the dormitories?"

"No," said Doctor Fos, giving no further explanation.

She pointed across the garden, to where light from a glow-lamp illuminated a wedge of the veranda, where a door to one of the hospital's wards had been opened. Dak could see the shape of a white coated figure moving about inside, preparing a bed.

"Off you go now."

Maddock did not argue. Dak jumped to her feet to help her friend up, but he waved her away. "I'll be fine, Dak."

She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and watched as he limped away towards the open doorway.

"Night, Dak," he said over his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Maddock," said Dak. "I will be coming to see you tomorrow."

Maddock mumbled something in reply, but Dak could not catch what it was.

Dak had not been dismissed, and did not quite know how to leave, so she watched Maddock's silhouette recede across the garden and disappear through the rectangle of rippling light. Then she was left alone with Doctor Fos, and she felt suddenly nervous.

She had only been in the presence of Klinberg's senior doctor twice before, and she found her stern demeanour quite frightening. The last time Doctor Fos had spoken to her was when she had called to examine her mother in the last days of her fatal illness. The first had been two years previously, when her mother had brought her to the Infirmary after she had fallen from the workshop's barapane tank.

Her father had been worried that the tank might have sprung a leak somewhere, so he had sent Dak clambering up on top of it to see if she could see anything. She had not found a leak, but when she had pulled back a clump of red moss, which had flourished on the tank's warm curved roof, she had disturbed a nest of archapids and the new hatchlings had swarmed over her fingers. She had screamed and jumped away, only to find that she was too close to the edge of the tank's roof, her boot had slipped over into nothingness and she'd tumbled down to the stones of the yard.

She could not remember much of what followed; only of waking in the Infirmary, her head heavily bandaged and throbbing, as though it was being struck from inside with a hammer. The concerned face of her mother had appeared at some point, and then that of her father, looking relieved and regretful.

"Dakskansia!" said Doctor Fos suddenly, causing Dak to jump.

"Yes?" she said.

"Is it not a little late for you to be out? Does your father know where you are?"

"No! I should be at home now."

"Then we had better get you there. Come." Doctor Fos walked to the garden door without further word, and Dak followed. "How is your father?" the doctor asked as she led the way through the white corridors of the building.

"He is well, Mistress, er, I mean, Doctor."

"And is he looking after you, or are you having to look after him?"

"Something of both," said Dak.

"Hmm."

They walked on in silence.

"Put your boots on and wait for me here," said Doctor Fos, once they had reached the reception room.

"What? Why?" said Dak, in a sudden panic.

"I need to get my coat. I shall accompany you home."

"You do not have to be doing that, Doctor."

"No, but I shall. It is a nice night and the walk will do me no harm."

Dak did not have the time to form a reply before the doctor strode from the room. She hastily pulled on her boots and buckled them up.

Then she waited, as instructed.

* * * * *

Doctor Fos walked swiftly down the corridor to her office and pushed the door open.

"You have no need to stand there in the dark now," she said as she reached for the glow-light's lever.

The light's brightness filled the room, revealing its pristine neatness. It also revealed the massive form of Engineer Drasneval, standing before the window, hands clasped behind her back.

The old Guild Tutor turned to regard her, her secondary eyelids closed to compensate for the sudden light. She blinked, and the blackness went from her eyes.

"The darkness was helping me to think," she said.

"Are you having doubts?" said Doctor Fos as she went to retrieve her long wool coat from where it hung behind her desk.

"No."

Engineer Drasneval turned back to the window, which looked out over the Infirmary garden and had a view to its far side, where, on a section of the cloister's veranda, stood four recently vacated seats.

"We have just witnessed an event of significance, Doctor."

Doctor Fos draped her coat over her arm and went back to the door.

Engineer Drasneval turned back from the window to look at her again.

"In centuries to come, people will be traveling here, so that they can claim to have been in the place where those four children were together for the first time."

"Only if Anyadda's findings are to be believed," said Doctor Fos.

"When the sun is rising in two days' time, your belief in her findings will be discovering new strength. The pieces are set."

Doctor Fos put her hand on the door's handle to open it, but she didn't. She stood regarding the old Engineer, whose eyes held nothing but intellect and certainty.

"You know my concerns. If Anyadda is right, then her daughter will face horrors in the next few days that she is not currently capable of imagining."

"If Anyadda is right, her daughter will be surviving them."

Doctor Fos opened the door and stepped through to the corridor beyond.

"Do you think, Engineer, that if Anyadda were alive, she would stand by, as you intend to, and allow things to happen without attempting to change them?"

"Anyadda Padrid is no longer alive," said Engineer Drasneval. "So your question has no need to be given consideration."

Doctor Fos gave an aggrieved sigh and shook her head.

She reached for the glow-light lever and pulled it, sending the room into darkness again. Then she closed the door.

* * * * *

Dak could feel the worry rising inside her again. It seemed like the doctor had been gone for an insurmountable amount of time.

She was starting to summon up the courage to be disobedient, when the doctor returned, wearing a long coat of ghat wool. She sat on the bench beside Dak and began to pull on her shoes.

"How is your head?" she asked as she tugged the hide laces tight.

"Pardon?"

"Your head, girl. From the fall that you took from the barapane tank."

"It is fine," replied Dak.

"And I trust your father has not sent you clambering anywhere unsafe since then?"

"No," replied Dak. "He is very careful with me now. He promised mother."

"Hmm."

Doctor Fos stood.

"Let us get you home then, before your father begins to worry that you have come to some harm." She strode towards the Infirmary doors. "I would hate to have him think that he has broken a promise."

She pulled open the doors, and the warm scent of the herbs in the garden beyond drifted into the sharp clean scent of the building.

Dak got up quickly and followed, wondering at the sudden gravity in the doctor's voice.