Fiffe Floria looks up contemptuously at the ugly unnatural form of the flying ship as it moves silently, blindly overhead and disappears beyond the tall trees to the east. She cannot regard the Hitek, the beings inside it, as human. How can you be human if your life is sustained by mechanical contrivances, and you have to eat food that is made by a machine?

With a dismissive sneer she pulls the coarse veil over her face and tucks it into the fibre belt of her tunic. Then she removes the lid from her beehive and waits for her swarm to settle in the smoke from her torch before inspecting the combs. Good. They are filling up nicely, and it will soon be time for the harvest. There seems to be nothing untoward in the hive: no thieving by wasps, no break-ins by mice or rats, no sign that the queen is going to decamp and take half the workforce with her – but it is really past the season for that now. Yes, the harvest is going to be good this year.

Fiffe closes up the hive once more and turns back down the slope towards the settlement. They have been lucky this season. The patch of growing crops is beautifully healthy and the smoke house is full of fish caught in the stream earlier in the summer. Further down the slope lie the overgrown hulks of the great buildings. Once these were completely submerged in the ocean, but now, year after year, the sea retreats further and exposes more of them. This is probably something to do with the climate becoming gentler and cooler. Centuries ago when the world was teeming with people this used to be a great city. It must have been a terrible time, with everybody living on top of everybody else, and no room to expand and breathe.

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