“No,” he said, rubbing shaking hands over his face and through his sweat-soaked hair, pushing it back from his eyes and forehead. Tonight’s dream was proving more difficult to shake off. “I’m fine. Just leave the main light on.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she said regretfully, stepping into the room. “Power is still rationed in Landing, but I have brought you a spare bedside lamp. It runs off a small atomic cell.”

He glanced up at her as she walked across to his bedside and placed the lamp on his night table.

“Touch the base to turn it off or on,” she said, demonstrating before turning to check that his left leg was still held firmly in the traction unit.

He lay back among his pillows, watching her. Something was different tonight.

“Tell me again how you found us,” he said abruptly.

Keeping her back to him, she gave a small laugh as she busied herself tucking the blankets around his uninjured right leg.

“I tell you this every night. We picked up the signal from your scouter before it exploded, and a party of the men went out to rescue you. You were extremely lucky, you know. There was a ledge just above you that took the brunt of the avalanche. You were only buried under a few feet of soft snow, and somehow you’d managed to push an air hole up to the surface.”

Her laugh sounded forced, unnatural.

“How’s Weis? When can I see him?”

She said nothing at first, just finished straightening the bed. “You need to sleep, Jensen, otherwise your leg will take longer to heal.”

Straightening up, she turned to face him, a bright smile on her lips. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow, shall we? Once you’re rested.”

“What’s happened to him? I want to know now!”

She hesitated, the smile fading. “It seems the blow to Weis’s head was more severe than we thought at first. I’m afraid he died a few hours ago.”

“What?” He sat up again, staring at her, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. “But you said he was fine…”

“It was very sudden,” she said, turning to leave. “Dr Kingston will be in to see you again tomorrow. He can answer all your questions.”

“I want to know now!”

“In the morning,” she said firmly, turning out the light and closing the door behind her.

“Damnit!” he snarled, reaching for the lamp and hitting the base to turn it on. It wasn’t bright, but it did push back the darkness immediately around his bed.

Why had the Company left them on Kogarashi instead of taking them back to the Deigon to be treated? None of the colonists had wanted them there; in fact, once they knew the Company had sent them to scan the mountain range at the back of Landing, they’d been as near hostile to them as they could be.

His instincts were telling him there was something wrong about the whole setup, that even the nurse was hiding something from him. It was a hell of a time to be stuck flat on his back with a broken thigh!

He froze, hearing a small sound from behind the drapes off to his right. Slowly, he turned his head.

“You better have a good reason for…” he began quietly.

“There’s nothing wrong with your leg now,” she said, pushing the curtains aside and moving closer to the light so he could see her. “They’re lying to you. And your friend isn’t dead. He escaped.”

He scanned her face, taking a moment or two to recognize her. She’d been at the town meeting when they’d been asked to explain why they were there. What was her name? Avana! That was it.

Small, her long, fair hair now drawn back in a single plait, she was clad in the ubiquitous jeans and sweater of the colony. He knew he was focusing on irrelevancies, but what she was saying, after the events of the last few days…

She moved closer, walking around the bottom of his bed to his injured side, then stopped. Seeing a flash of metal in her hands, he uttered a wordless cry, lurching forward to stop her.

The knife flashed, slicing through the cables holding his leg up. Released, it fell to the bed. He braced himself for pain that never came.

“I told you,” she said, leaning down to sever the bindings on the cast that encased his leg from groin to foot.

“Hey!” He grabbed her hand, holding it firm against her attempts to pull free. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She stopped struggling, eying him up and down. “They certainly don’t choose you Company men for brains, do they? Mind you, you are quite cute, though. Nice green eyes. I’m taking off the cast; what do you think I’m doing?”

The compliment threw him for a moment, until he realized it was what she’d intended. “My leg’s broken…”

“What makes you think that? Does it hurt?” she demanded.

He stared at her, taken aback by her vehemence.

She took advantage of his loss of attention and pulled free, her knife quickly slipping under the remaining fastenings and severing them.

“Stop!” he hissed, instinctively jerking his leg away, then wincing as the blade grazed his flesh. “Damnit, woman! You don’t have to slice me up to prove your point!”

Slipping the knife back into its sheath, she stood, hands on hips, and regarded him dispassionately.

“If you don’t believe me, look at the palm of your left hand.”

“Why?”

“You hurt it, probably on the side of your scouter. There was a dressing on it when you arrived here.”

He closed his hand into a fist, determined not to do what she wanted. “What does that prove?”

“So don’t look then. You can fly a shuttle, can’t you?”

He frowned, thrown again by her sudden change of topic. “I can, but what has that to do with anything?”

“The Deigon’s left. The Company believes you both died in the avalanche.”

“What?” Stunned, he sank back against the pile of pillows.

“They won’t be back for another ten years, ’cause winter’s just started here.”

“They can’t have left… Why would they think we’re dead?”

“Because the town told them you were.”

He felt a tug on the cast and immediately turned his attention back to her. “Dammit! Leave my leg alone!”

“Only if you look at your hand,” she said, continuing to work her way up the form-fitting cast, pulling the sides apart.

“All right! Just stop!” he snarled, unclenching his hand and turning it over to examine. There wasn’t a mark on it.

Nothing made sense right now, but somehow, what Avana was telling him seemed more credible than anything he’d been told since he and Weis had crashed on the mountain.

“How?” he asked, leaning forward to take hold of the top of his cast, where it was against his groin, and pull the sides apart. If his hand could have healed that quickly… He had to know if his leg had been broken.

“I’ll tell you if you help me,” she said, reaching out to help him.

He batted her hands away and pulled the cast apart. “I can manage.”

She pouted briefly. “You’re spoiling my fun.”

Ignoring her comment, he stared at the pink jagged line on the top of his thigh, the one that hadn’t been there a few days ago.

Her hand reached down, one brown finger lightly tracing its length. “That’s where the broken bone came through. Not bad for only three days. You might find your leg a little painful for another day, so be careful,” she said, her tone very matter-of-fact.

“I want to know what the hell is going on here, and I want to know now!”

“I’ll tell you when we’re in the air,” she said. “The nurse will come to check on you again shortly. You do want to be gone by then, don’t you?”

“Help me get this off,” he said, suddenly making up his mind and releasing her. He began pulling at the cast again.

“That’s not the way,” she said, stopping him. “Roll over on your side, with your back to me. I’ll cut it down the center, then it’ll just fall off.”

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, watching as her face lit up in an elfin grin.

“What, don’t you trust me? I’d never take advantage of a man in his sickbed… unless invited.”