“The firewall won’t let us into the city,” she said. “We don’t have anyone…human enough, not anymore. There was some talk about making one, but… the argument would last a century.” She sighed. “We like to argue, in the sky.”

Kosonen grinned. “I bet you fit right in.” He checked for the wrinkle before continuing. “So you need an errand boy.”

“We need help.”

Kosonen looked at the fire. The flames were dying now, licking at the blackened wood. There were always new colors in the embers. Or maybe he just always forgot.

He touched Marja’s hand. It felt like a soap bubble, barely solid. But she did not pull it away.

“All right,” he said. “But just so you know, it’s not just for old times’ sake.”

“Anything we can give you.”

“I’m cheap,” Kosonen said. “I just want words.”

The sun sparkled on the kantohanki : snow with a frozen surface, strong enough to carry a man on skis and a bear. Kosonen breathed hard. Even going downhill, keeping pace with Otso was not easy. But in weather like this, there was something glorious about skiing, sliding over blue shadows of trees almost without friction, the snow hissing underneath.

I’ve sat still too long, he thought. Should have gone somewhere just to go, not because someone asks.

In the afternoon, when the sun was already going down, they reached the railroad, a bare gash through the forest, two metal tracks on a bed of gravel. Kosonen removed his skis and stuck them in the snow.

“I’m sorry you can’t come along,” he told Otso. “But the city won’t let you in.”

“Otso not a city bear,” the bear said. “Otso waits for Kosonen. Kosonen gets sky-bug, comes back. Then we drink booze.”

He scratched the rough fur of its neck clumsily. The bear poked Kosonen in the stomach with its nose, so hard that he almost fell. Then it snorted, turned around and shuffled into the woods. Kosonen watched until it vanished among the snow-covered trees.