sharp as the rim of a plate. The boiler's face was like a mask. She had no eyebrows, and her downy, white hair was cut to within a finger's breadth of her bumpy scalp. Thick slap was plastered on her gaunt cheeks. She wore heavy, angular earrings carved from a dark wood Carl couldn't identify – and these had dragged deep slits in her earlobes. As tall as the Driver, she looked down on both Carl and Böm, her black eyes lambent in deep sockets. To Carl she had the otherworldliness of all those who came from off the island.

Staring at the earthen floor of the room, so as to avoid the fanatic eyes of the Exile, Carl was seized by a peculiar irony contrivance, which had manyEye sed. They advanced together on the Driver.

Carl knew that, despite his long stay on Ham, the Driver had never lost his initial revulsion for the motos; now, in this charged moment, Tyga's gaping jaws and peg teeth struck terror into him. Dropping his staff, the Driver reared back, tripped, then fell headlong to the ground, where he lay motionless. Wassamatter wivim, Cawl? Issë urtë? Tyga goggled at the black stain of the Driver's robe on the carpet of leaves. Antonë knelt and lifted up the Driver's head. Ees it a brik, he said, ees aht cold. Nah we reelë gotta moovit. Swiftly the two men stripped and coated themselves with a slather of moto oil.

Carl had splashed in the shallows with the motos, yet he had no