A soft whuff of breath -- half-amusement -- and Maya's mouth takes a wry upturn. "You could say that, I guess," she says. "I came here in the hopes of avoiding too much contemplation."

Avoiding the view of the snow-covered skeleton of a city below the skyfurnaces, and the knowledge that whatever happens will not go well, for any side.

That tic of her mouth takes on a more positive tilt. "That, and enjoying the warmth."

The Scottish spring may not be a tropical paradise, but to Maya, after the infamous bitter Nokgorkan cold, it is temperate and exotic.