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"I don't know, Luke."

"What can we do? Look at the chap. Look at him. He's miserable. Don't you want him to have what we have? Don't you want everyone to have what we have?"

"Yes, but.... It's so risky. How do we know the same trick will work twice? How do we know that either of us will be able to help him?"

"We have to try, Jess."

"Help me, please, mates. I want to sleep, you see. I've not slept for five days. My alarm clock stopped five days ago so I don't dare drop off."

This was the country of dead things, of circles worn thin in the sky by birds of prey, lazing and looping out of genetic habit rather than the prospect of something among the rocks yet to be killed. Were the heartbeats of tiny things still tap-tap-tapping their fear in the grass, they would have been stopped by the swoop of talons and beak. The rock, the steppes and the shelves, all yielded nothing except bits of scrub, roots gently grinding the lichen and the half-food. This was his favourite mountain, and he climbed it whenever he could.