Only one was of any real value — a frail, wizened individual who remembered ‘the place, like it used to be. Long before they came, with their frosty ways.’ He it was who guided Barran’s men through the maze of passages to the different balconies, though, to his initial alarm but subsequent delight, they had to carry him much of the way.
When they returned him from this tour of the building he refused the handsome sum that Barran offered him with an airy wave. There was a sparkle in his eye that Barran hoped would be in his when he reached that age.
‘Put it away. Put it away,’ the old man said excitedly. ‘I should be paying you. Waited years for this. Seen the place going down — tragic.’ He cast a significant glance at the back of the Kyrosdyn, talking to someone nearby, and, laying a con
