'I wish I knew how,' she said.

'I wish I could teach you.'

He had been tapping away with hammer and chisel while he was talking. Now he laid them aside, inserted the point of his pick into the cavity and levered carefully. A crystal wobbled. 'Want to catch that for me?'

It fell into her hands. 'You can take it, if you like,' said the miner.

'Thanks. But what if it turns out like the others? Have you found a new vein?'

'No, though there are some promising ones down on the sixth level.'

'Are you going down there next?' She looked hopeful.

'Not if I can help it.'

'Why not?'

'Rock's rotten there. Roof used to cave in all the time, before we sealed it off. A shear zone cuts right through the best area.'

'Oh well, I dare say you'll find your old stones somewhere else.'

'Dare say I will.' Joeyn stretched and yawned. 'Time to go. Air's not as good as it should be, down this end.'

Tiaan felt drowsy, now that he'd mentioned it, and saw that the lantern flame had burned low. She followed him to the lift, stepped into the basket and allowed him to wind them to the surface.

Out in the cold and the blustery wind that blew her drowsiness away, she said goodbye.

'Bye.' Joe turned down the track to the miners' village and his lonely hut. 'Now, you call me if that crystal don't work,' he said over his shoulder. 'I'm sure I can find a better one, with a bit more time.'

'Thanks! I will.' Pulling her thin coat around her shoulders, she set off up the slushy path. Tiaan shaped the crystal and, taking great care, began to wake it into a hedron. This was done with the pendant at her throat, her personal pliance, which enabled her to see the field. Without it she would be psychically blind. The pliance was the badge, almost the soul, of every artisan; making it had proved her worthy of being one. A small hedron of yellow tiger's-eye quartz, set in swirls of laminated glass and silver metal, it hung from a white-gold chain. Tiaan had used her pliance every day for the past three years and knew its every idiosyncrasy.