Somewhere a woman was singing in Tilmuhlan while sweeping water from the front of a shop. Each stroke of the broom pushed the water into the street, where it collected with all the other water that nobody knew what to do with.

Koldin adjusted the golok at his side and began walking.

The road narrowed between timber buildings raised slightly above the mud on stone piers. Corrugated awnings dripped onto his hat. Smells moved through one another without separating: frying gulluk fat, sewage, wet rope, old smoke, coffee, animal dung, and hot oil. Above them all stood the green odor of the jungle waiting just beyond the last row of roofs.

The heat continued to rise. It would keep rising until afternoon, when it would seem impossible that the day could contain any more of it. Then rain would come or would not come. Men would quarrel over money. Things would break down. Somebody would lose a tool and accuse somebody else of stealing it. The mine would send bycite inland beneath armed guard. The town would rot a little further while carpenters and insects competed over the same wood.

Koldin walked through it with one hand resting near his belt.

Nothing had happened yet.

He did not mistake that for a promise.

Before beginning the patrol, Koldin turned off the eastern road and made for the Mabuk Zeerover.

It stood a short walk from the base where the buildings pressed close around a narrow junction and the mud had been covered with planks that sank a little beneath each passing foot. The name had been painted above the doorway in flaking white letters beside the figure of a grinning corsair holding a drinking cup. Rain had removed one of the corsair’s eyes and most of the hand around the cup. What remained appeared less like a pirate than a man surprised to discover himself drowning.

Koldin ate there most mornings. The food was better than what the base kitchen produced and the water was less openly questionable. It came in thick mass-made glass bottles sealed with crimped metal caps, the glass faintly green and scratched from repeated handling. The labels claimed it had been filtered and bottled somewhere farther south, in a province with paved roads and pipes that did not cough rust before delivering water.

Inside, the air was warm and carried a bitter chemical mist.

Koldin stopped just beyond the threshold. He removed his hat and tucked it between his right arm and his side.

Behind the counter stood the owner, a tall human with damp blond hair and skin browned by years beneath the Tilmuhlan sun. His shirt clung to his back. In one hand he held a brass pump sprayer, and with the other he worked its handle, spraying out a cloud of insecticide over the shelves and the shadowed spaces beneath the counter. 

Dead flies already lay among the bottles.

The owner saw Koldin through the mist.

“Meneer Koldin. Please, sit where you like. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Koldin nodded and went to his usual table. It stood beside several stacks of boxed pendelbeer, the cardboard gone soft at the corners and printed with the laughing face of a woman whose happiness appeared certain. Koldin placed his hat on the table and sat with the golok angled away from the chair.

At the next table, a small blue bird picked at crumbs scattered around an empty cup. It struck the cup twice with its beak and listened to the hollow sound. Then it looked at Koldin.

Koldin looked back.

The bird’s head moved by a fraction. Neither appeared impressed. It resumed searching for food.

The owner continued spraying. The pump squeaked at regular intervals. Chemical droplets settled across the room and mingled with the odors of old beer and the sweet rot of fruit stored too long in heat. Numerous ceiling fan revolved above them.

Someone at the rear of the room was on their hands and knees, cleaning the floor with a rag and a dented pail of hot soapy water. The rag moved over the boards and returned black. The water had already become the color of weak tea. Each stroke removed insects and dirt that didn't wear in.

Outside a man began shouting in Tilmuhlan. Another voice answered. A third joined them. Koldin listened long enough to determine that nobody was being hurt and then ceased listening.

The owner finished spraying, set the brass canister beneath the counter, and wiped his hands on a cloth.

“What today?”

“Algae slices. Fried ziphl mushrooms. Four bottles of water and a cup of coffee.”

“No eggs?”

“Not today.”

The man glanced at him as though this represented a significant change.

“No eggs,” he repeated.

“Zhat’s what I said.”

The owner nodded and disappeared through the curtain behind the counter.

Koldin sat back.

The bird hopped onto the rim of the empty cup and looked inside. Finding the interior no more generous than before, it thrust its head down anyway. Its tail rose into the air. The cup shifted beneath its weight and nearly overturned.

Koldin stood up, went over to the other table, and steadied the cup with one claw.

The bird withdrew its head and regarded him.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

It flew to the windowsill.

From the kitchen came the wet hiss of food touching hot metal. The smell of gulluk fat strengthened, although Koldin had ordered none. Perhaps it had been left over from another meal or was simply the universal substance in which the establishment cooked everything. Somewhere behind the wall, a pipe knocked several times. The worker with the rag emptied the pail through an open rear door and returned with water only marginally cleaner.

Koldin watched the street through the front window for a moment before sitting back down.

Lenkerk continued assembling itself for the day. Carts and motor carriages moved through the junction. People stepped from plank to plank or surrendered to the mud. A woman carried a basket of dried leaves under one arm and a sleeping infant with the other. Two mine workers stood smoking under an awning while a foreman shouted for them from farther down the road. Neither moved.

Above the roofs the sky had gone pale and colorless.

The owner returned carrying a plate and set it before Koldin with a fork and a broad butter knife.

The algae had been pressed into dark green slabs and seared until the edges curled. Beside it lay the ziphl mushrooms, pale and ribbed, fried until their surfaces shone. A mound of butter sat at the edge of the plate and had already begun to soften.

“Coffee is coming.”

Koldin examined the plate. He got what he wanted.

“Zhank you.”