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By using the bough as a support for the carriage axle, repair of the damaged wheel rim is effected speedily. Chan praises your practical skills, and within the hour the caravan column is moving eastwards once more. An overnight camp is pitched on the highway itself, near a sleepy hamlet called Sansei, and the following day you make good progress on the sun-baked highway.

Shortly before noon of the third day of your journey to Rakholi, the caravan column crests the rim of a wide valley that lies 50 miles from the banks of the Tkukoma. Spread out before you now is the Vale of Nahba, a spectacularly strange region of the Chai Plain that is punctuated with hundreds of bore holes and geysers. Great columns of steam and scalding water are hurled skywards, driven by the pressure of gases escaping from deep below the surface. Some of the fissures descend for miles, passing close to the planet’s molten core.

The highway traverses this alien landscape and, as darkness approaches, you find yourself at a place near the eastern rim of the vale. A night camp is established here among the bubbling pools and hollows, and an evening meal of poached eggs and steamed fish is prepared. After supper, you settle down and try to get some sleep, despite the constant distraction of the eerie noises that echo across this strange valley.

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