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before tonight's do.
    â€“ And tomorrow's Council. Greaves looked over at Carl as he said this.
    â€“ Yes, and tomorrow's Council. Shall we go?
    They walked away, the Driver taking his first few paces backwards before spinning on his heel; yet neither – in the mirror
or directly – gave the slaughtered moto so much as a backward glance.
    Once the off-islanders were all gone, the Hamstermen set to work with a vengeance. From an oilcloth bundle Fred Ridmun drew
out a hooked knife the length of his forearm. Fukka Funch dragged a large piece of oilcloth beneath Runti's dangling head.
Carl put his weight on the dead moto's arms. Ozzi Bulluk pulled the rope that kept one of its hind feet lashed to the gibbet
as tightly as possible, splaying the moto's legs. Its genitals, tank and ribs were all thrown into prominence. Taking a deep
breath and crying out, Stikk í 2 im, Dave! Fred thrust the knife into the notch beneath the rib cage and, sawing vigorously,
yanked it up. Hide and flesh parted with a loud popping sound, and Runti's guts flumped down in a tangled mass on to the cloth.
Fukka moved in at once with a shorter knife and, feeling around in the moto's abdominal cavity, cut the intestines away. Behind
him came Carl with a pail of sea water, which he sloshed up into the gory hole, slooshing out any shit or half-digested fodder.
Carl was laughing as he barged Fukka out of the way, and instead of clumping him the dad laughed as well. It mattered not
how old or how dävine you were – butchering a moto was always a joyous occasion so far as the Hamsters were concerned.
    The mummies and opares now came out from where they'd been waiting in a huddle behind the Brudi gaff. Hitching up their cloakyfings,
they crossed the stream and came towards the slaughter site. All that morning the Hamsters' huge irony kettle had been simmering
over a fire a few paces away from the gibbet. Now the women went to this, formed a chain, poured pails of boiling water and
passed them, hand to hand, to Carl, who attached them to a rope and winched them up so that they could be tipped over the
carcass. Once it was well and truly scalded, the dads dragged over boards and trestles to make up the skinning table. This
was assembled immediately under the scaffold and the dead moto lowered down on to it.
    Next the daddies lined up along one side of the table and the mummies along the other. Short, broad-bladed knives were taken
out from another cherished bundle and distributed among them. Then the company set to, scraping the thick bristles from the
hide. Carl was too young to take part in this work; nevertheless he loitered near by and even risked smiling at his mum, Caff.
She smiled back while the others chose not to notice this exchange.
    For twelve long years the Driver had sought to snuff out such intercourse between the sexes; however there were some of the
Hamsters' rituals that he could neither proscribe nor modify. When the Hack's party came and the moto was slain, the dads
and mums spoke to one another with warm vitality, exchanging news, opinions and especially gossip about the strangers, their
remarks shooting back and forth across the table as rapidly as their knives scraped at the hide. Had the Hack accepted the
rent? What illnesses or deformities did the Chilmen have? Was there any news of Chil, or even of the world beyond? What business
did the Hack have with their Driver? And most importantly: what had been brought to trade? Was there fresh seed? Woolly? Fags?
Booze even?
    The foglamp beat down on them out of a blue screen that tinted at the southern horizon, the sea pitter-purled against shingle,
the gulls cawed over the Gayt, the flying rats coo-burbled from the top of the home field, the sweat stood out on the grafters'
brows, and the mummies – with the Driver gone – risked loosening their cloakyfings. When free-flowing, the Hamsters' chitchat
had the intimacy of thought, so when the old moto-skinning rap started