Louis went across to the cylinder that they had dumped on the beach, and sat down on one end of it. He inspected it, bending over with his head tucked down between his knees to examine its hollow inside. An old piece of air circulation ducting, by the look of it. About as able to fly into space as Louis himself.

The sweat was trickling down his inverted face and into his eyes. Louis straightened up and mopped again with the sodden cloth. The sea, a hundred yards away across the beach, was cool and tempting. Louis would have been in for a dip hours ago, if he hadn’t long since learned of the fanged horrors that swam beneath the calm surface. They made the Zardalu seem tame.

He might as well head for the tunnel system and see how Atvar H’sial was doing. It would be dark there, and clammy, but it would be cooler.

Louis eased his way off the air duct and stood for a moment in thought. Something felt a little bit different. What was it? Maybe sitting with his head down had made him dizzy. It sure wasn’t any improvement in the weather. It was hotter than ever. Even the top of his skull felt as though it was burning up.

He put up a hand to rub at his dark matted hair. He was burning up. His hair felt hot. Maybe he was getting sick. That would be just what he needed, to catch some alien planet’s bug, out in the ass-end of nowhere, where the native drugs and painkillers didn’t work unless you happened to have a beak and blue tentacles.

Louis removed his hand from his head. As he did so he caught a flicker of movement on the ground in front of him. He stared, blinked, and stared again. He was seeing something there: something that could not be. He was seeing a shadow.

His own shadow. Louis spun around and stared up. The unshielded sun was visible, bright and glaring. For the first time since he and Atvar H’sial set foot on Genizee, the swirling light of the annular singularities had vanished.