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ry that came from deep within the soul.

Inarticulate, more animal than human, but which expressed his deep-felt

sense of loss and desolation in a way which mere words could not

encompass.

Falling to his knees, he pounded the bloodstained earth then furrowed

it with clawed fingers, scooping it up and smearing it over his neck,

arms and chest.

Roz knelt down beside him- this clear-skinned, smooth-boned Mute whose

future was now inextricably enmeshed with hers. They had met less than

24 hours ago, surrounded, as now, by the stench of death, but it had

only served to strengthen the instinctive bond between them.

She watched patiently as Cadillac, oblivious to her presence, continued

to claw at the crimson earth and daub it on his body. To the detached

medical side of her mind, he seemed, by these frenzied gestures, to be

trying to share the dying agonies of his clanfolk. Gradually, the raw

edge of his guilt and anger became blunted. He slumped back on his

heels, round-shouldered under the burden of sorrow and lapsed into

total immobility, hands hanging limply between his thighs, his

expressionless eyes blind to all external sensation - the classic

symptoms of catatonia. For nearly an hour, not a muscle twitched.

Nothing moved except for the occasional tear which rolled down his

cheeks then, suddenly, he jerked into life and when he turned his

bloodied, dirt-streaked face towards her, the eyes were dry and

clear.

'Come,' he said. 'We have work to do."

Using Tracker machetes, they cut down and hauled back a large quantity

of pine saplings which they hewed into eight-foot lengths and built a

square funeral pyre, interleaving the layers of slim logs with the

broken bodies of the women and the young children, laid on a bed and

under a cover of pine branches.

Despite her training, Roz found it a heartbreaking task. In the

Federation, dead bodies were whisked away by the bag-men. Some were

delivered to the Medical College for autopsies and dissection by

students but once again the bag-men collected the bits. And it

occurred to Roz that she had never enquired what happened next.

She had merely assumed that the mortal remains of its soldier-citizens

were disposed of with the same clinical efficiency that characterised

most of the procedures evolved by the Amtrak Federation.

True or false, she was certain of one thing. The operation was not

something the kin-folk of the deceased were required to perform or

watch - as she had to do now.

They piled more branches around the outside of the log squares to mask

the bodies from view, then Cadillac set light to it using a potful of

glowing ashes from one of the burnt-out huts. There was a pungent

smell of resin as the pine needles caught fire, and with a crackling

roar the flames leapt skywards, carrying the spirits of the dead into

the arms of Mo-Town on a rising current of air.

With his half-naked body smeared with grey ash in the traditional style

of the Plainfolk, Cadillac squatted before the column of fire, just out

of range of the blistering heat, his arms wrapped around his

rib-cage.

And so began the second period of mourning.

For the rest of that day and throughout the following night, Cadillac

rocked silently back and forth, his heart and mind imprisoned in a

private world of grief which Roz could comprehend but could not wholly

share.

The funeral pyre blazed throughout the evening, then around midnight,

as he maintained his vigil while she slept fitfully nearby, it slowly

collapsed with a shower of sparks into a mound of glowing embers. By

morning, all that remained was a grey-shrouded hump in the middle of a

blackened square of earth. But it still gave off a fierce heat, and

quickly ignited the odd branch and bits of debris that Roz threw onto

it as she tidied up around her seated companion.

Cadillac did not utter a word throughout the whole of that second

day.

And Roz did not attempt to engage him in conversation. She was content