Though she had her own torch and the means for lighting it in the cylindricalleather case on her back, she did not use them. It was better to walk unlit andhence unseen into the streets. Though many of the lurkers in the shadows wouldlet her pass unmolested, since they had known her when she was a child, otherswould not be so kind. They would rob her for the tools of her trade and theclothes she wore and some would rape her. Or try to.

Through the darkness she went swiftly, her steps sure because of longexperience. The adobe buildings of the city were a dim whitish bulk ahead. Thenthe path took a turn, and she saw some small flickers of light here and there.Torches. A little further, and a light became a square. The window of a tavern.

She entered a narrow winding street and strode down its centre. Turning acorner, she saw a torch in a bracket on the wall of a house and two men standingnear it. Immediately she crossed to the far side and, hugging the walls, passedthe two. Their pipes glowed redly; she caught a whiff of the pungent and sicklysmoke of kleelel, the drug used by the poor when they didn't have money for themore expensive krrf. Which was most of the time.

After two or three pipefuls, the smokers would be vomiting. But they would claimthat the euphoria would make the upchucking worth it.

There were other odours: garbage piled by the walls, slop-jars of excrement, andpuke from kleetel smokers and drunks. The garbage would be shovelled into goatdrawn carts by Downwinders whose families had long held this right. The slopjars would be emptied by a Downwinder family that had delivered the contents tofarmers for a century and would and had fought fiercely to keep this right. Thefarmers would use the excrement to feed their soil; the urine would be emptiedinto the mouth of the White Foal River and carried out to sea.