Pin and Mai's demonic captor loped across the yellow plain for what seemed like hours. Pin, bonded uncomfortably to the sticky web, eventually drifted into a kind of doze that was closer to unconsciousness. Beside him, Mai's head also drooped and caught against the net.
When Pin came round again, he saw that the sky above them was beginning to lighten, but this time it was boiling with cloud, a yellow-gray billow, moving fast. Then the demon turned and Pin saw that it wasn't cloud at all, but smoke, roaring out of the chimney of a sprawling factory.
"What is that?" Mai whispered.
The factory covered the floor of a wide valley. Pin saw great derricks reaching out of the soil, gouts of flame shooting out of refinery chimneys, and huge open containers in which fires blazed. The churn and pound of industrial processes filled the air. It was like an amalgamation of every heavy industry that Pin could imagine: mining, steelworks, oil refineries . . . .
Soon, they came upon the freight rail: a group of sweating, panting demons, their skin burned and cracked to black, pulling a cart behind them. The cart was loaded with yellow ore.
"Pin," Mai whispered. "Remember how we glowed? I think this might be some kind of uranium mine."
"In Hell?" Pin asked, but then he thought: Where else?
The demon strode alongside the track. More and more carts were coming out of the mine, all of them heavily loaded.
"Where are they going?" Pin asked.
"I don't know. I've never heard of such a place even being here. I thought this level was empty."
"Silence!" the demon said in a voice as thick as the yellow earth. "Your chatter is annoying me."
Pin and Mai shut up. They were moving between the chimneys now and it was difficult to see what lay ahead, with the smoke pouring out into the already soupy air. Then the air cleared a little and Pin saw that they had entered a compound: an ordinary looking place, like any of the hastily erected warehouses and office sheds that appeared so readily in Singapore Three. The demon walked straight into one of the office sheds without knocking and threw the net down on the floor.
"Couple more for you."
"Thanks, Oshi," a voice said. "Where'd you find them?"
Footsteps approached. Squinting up, Pin saw a squat demon in a leather apron, with tough yellow skin and a flat head, as though someone had sat on it. Pendulous breasts, however, proclaimed the demon's gender.
"Out in the desert," Oshi said.
"Whatever were they doing there? These are ghosts." The new demon bent close over Pin and sniffed. "No, wait. This one is not even dead. Odd."
"Is that so?" Oshi sounded only mildly surprised. "All sorts of shit finds its way down here. You know that."
"Curious." The demon stood. "Undo the net, Oshi, if you would."
Oshi stretched out a hand and the net unwound itself and flowed back up the demon's arm beneath the skin, forming alarming twists and bulges. Then it disappeared. Oshi shook himself like a dog.
"I am Foreperson Tung," the squat female demon said to Pin and Mai. "You're to be placed on cart detail and kitchen; we're short a couple of workers."
"What happened?" Oshi said.
"They ran off into the desert last night. They won't get far." Tung gave a snuffling laugh. "There's nowhere to go from here, after all. They'll be demoted to toilet detail when they get back, though. Get up, you two."
Mai and Pin did as they were instructed. It was surprising, Pin thought bitterly, how stiff you could become even when you didn't have a proper body. He stifled a grunt of pain.
"Never mind!" Tung said, clapping him on the shoulder. "You'll soon get fit. It's not a bad life for a lad down here. You'll soon work your way up through the ranks. You might even make Foreperson someday! And you," she turned to Mai. "Can you cook?"
"Yes."
"Good. We have provisions sent down by elevator from the upper levels, so you'll actually have something to cook with, you'll be pleased to hear."
"Tell me," Mai said. "What is this place?"
"This?" the Foreperson looked surprised. "Why, this is the feed-mine for the Lowest Level Nuclear Plant. We power the whole of Hell."
"Hell runs on nuclear power?" Pin asked blankly.
"What else? Where do you think your electricity comes from?"
"I thought it might be magic," Pin said.
Tung roared with laughter. "Magic! That's a good one. I'll have a laugh today about that—wait till I tell the lads! No, Hell used to run on woodburners in the old days, then coal, then steam. But now we're fully modernized and up-to-date under the Ministry of Industry. Who do you think introduced atomic power to Earth?"
And thinking about it, Pin supposed that was logical.
The next few days passed in a routine that was almost peaceable. Pin had never undertaken hard physical labor before now, unless one counted prostitution, although the routines of the Opera could be rigorous. He wondered occasionally whether he would have held up so well if he'd still been in his actual human flesh, now who knew where. He suspected that he would not. Here, in this incorporeal form, he rarely suffered from tiredness or hunger, except in moments of a curious ravenousness that had to be assuaged in the kitchen. He could not bruise or bleed, although strangely, he still seemed to sweat. The worst thing about lugging the ore-laden carts from the feed mine through the gap in the mountains to the plant itself was the tedium, but given that his life had been somewhat too exciting so far, Pin didn't mind this. He kept to himself and the demons with whom he worked were undemanding company, enjoying a joke and a bit of a laugh. Given a choice between the kind of teasing favored by Maiden Ming—now also who knew where—and the demons, Pin found that he had a marked preference for the latter: they chuckled when he fell over or dropped something, rather than making spiteful remarks that stung like needles, and quite often they'd give him a friendly slap on the back afterward. He didn't miss the artistic temperament, either; at the mine, people woke up and got on with their work rather than indulging in endless personal dramas which ran for weeks and ended in a blazing row. In ways, Pin thought, he wouldn't have minded staying here all that much, had it not been for his guilt about Mai and his worries about the kuei.
They still had not seen the kuei that had fallen with them through Hell, and Pin was beginning to hope that Mai was right, that it had become trapped on one of the higher levels and had given up. But the thought of it still nagged him at night, and sometimes he dreamed of centipedes.
He caught sight of Mai occasionally in the kitchens, but she was always busy. It was clear that he was not exactly a prisoner, however, so one evening, Pin went to the kitchen doors and sought her out. She was scrubbing dishes vigorously.
"Hello, Mai," Pin said.
"Pin!" She gave him a thin smile. "How are you getting on?"
"All right," Pin said with a shrug. "I don't mind it, to be honest. How's the kitchen?"
"Much the same as any kitchen. Prepare food, cook food, serve food, clean up after food. It's not as interesting as Epidemics but I've always enjoyed cooking and they certainly appreciate it. And you don't get the politics. To be honest, the worst thing about it is that I miss Ahn and talking to my mum. I'd really like to know how my son's getting on—I worry about him dreadfully."
"I'm sure your mother is looking after him," Pin said.
"She will if she can," Mai said doubtfully, "but she's old and if the kuei are after me—I can't stop thinking about it, Pin."
"You've heard nothing about the kuei that came after us?" Pin asked.
"No, and I have made enquiries. I spoke to Tung, who's not a bad old sort. I didn't say why I wanted to know, just that there had been rumors in the kitchen. She said she hadn't heard of anything but there's all kinds of shit out in the desert and maybe it had been one of the oldest demons, from the far past. They're very big, apparently, but very slow and they're afraid of the plant so they don't come near it."
"So we've heard nothing of the kuei," Pin said. "Well, that's good."
But it was not long before they did.