Shaan laughed, a harsh, dry laugh. For years people had been crunching around through the canal sage, harvesting it sometimes for fuel and other purposes. All that time they had not realized they were wading through a layer of breathable oxygen at their very ankles.
The foliage trapped the daytime heat, too. That was why Shaan was only cold, instead of nearly frozen.
Carefully, he got to hands and knees and began to crawl. At once, he ran into a tangle of plant stems. He could make no headway. He subsided and lay down again, thinking it over.
He was hungry and thirsty. Canal sage was better cooked, but it was edible raw. All he had to do was reach out his hands and cram the thick leaves in his mouth, being careful not to denude too much of the canopy above him.
After a while, he was well fed. The leaves had partially assuaged his thirst, too.
As long as he stayed below the canal sage foliage, he could live. He had air, food and water. The roof of plants kept out the night cold. But he could not get to his feet. If he wanted to reach the dome, he would have to crawl twenty miles on hands and knees, without the sun and stars to guide him through the tangled stems.
At least he was alive. That was more than he had expected. He went to sleep.
When he awoke, he was lying on his back and the canal sage foliage was a sheet of golden green above his face. It was daytime. No shaft of sunlight broke through the leaves, but they were a pulsing foam of translucence.
The sun itself was a brighter spot in the roof of light.
The stems of the canal sage plants were not nearly as close together as they had seemed in the darkness. Most of them were at least a foot and a half apart. There were no leaves on the plants below their bushy, flattened tops, and the ground below them was a springy mattress of decaying leaves and twigs. He could move through it, though it would be hard on his hands and knees.