13
THE TRIP TOOK a few hours, according to Jessica’s best guess. She wished she still had her watch, but it had disappeared with her clothes. She stared at the passing water, reeds and floating weeds in uneasy silence.
How long was the day on this world, she asked, and Iztho produced a little gadget that told her twenty-eight hours. That explained how her watch had seemed to lose huge chunks of time each day.
At long last, the boat glided into the long shadow cast by the island. On both sides of their watery thoroughfare, small figures waded through fields of grey grass or floating lettuce, cutting or picking crops and loading them onto barges.
The clattering sound that had been so incessant since she had stumbled down from the escarpment died away. Other noises took its place. People
