«But she'll be back,» Jane muttered. «Her kind always are. Your file's in her memory now.»

«She'll have no reason to come back,» Amanda said. She handed Guy over to Lenny, then went back into the farmhouse.

Blake was helping Fakhud to limp up the stairs from the cellar. Both of them were shivering.

«Did you give people cancer?»

Fakhud drew a strained breath as he reached the top of the stairs. «Is that what the police said?»

«Yes.»

«They lied. I oppose many issues on this planet, but I am not a monster. I would not use weapons like that. Do you know why?»

«Tell me.»

«Because we have children, too. If the Legion started a terror campaign of that nature, others would begin similar campaigns against us.»

«They already are. All of you are fighting each other. All you maniacs.»

«Yes. But not like that, not yet. So far we confine ourselves to sabotage and assassinations of key opponents. Allah grant that it does not move beyond that. If it does, we shall all suffer; this whole world will drown in pain.»

«Why? Why do you do this?»

«To defend ourselves. To defend our way of life. Just as you would do if anything threatened this farm. We have the right to do that, to resist Govcentral's imperialism.»

«Just go,» she said. Tears of frustration were swelling behind her eyes. «Go, and don't come back.»

The pick-up was loaded with boxes of apples for one of its regular runs to the station in Knightsville. At the same time, several of the male pickers went in and out of the house, all of them wearing wide-brimmed sunhats which obscured their faces. Fakhud, dressed in Lenny's clothes, emerged and went over to the van. He lay in a coffin-sized gap between the boxes, while more were stacked over him.

Blake drove away as the sun was less than an hour from the mountains. Amanda tried not to show any concern, keeping the rest of the farm's activities normal. The pickers remained out in the orchard, working until dusk. Their evening meal was prepared on the large solar accumulator grill in the barn. Everyone had their shower then sat around in the farmyard until the food was cooked.

Amanda stood beside the gate to eat her chicken wing. From there she would be able to see the van's headlights as it returned along the track. If Blake had kept to his schedule, he should have been back forty minutes ago.

Guy climbed up the low wall and sat on top, his skinny legs dangling over the other side. «I didn't like today,» he said solemnly.

She leant forward against the wall, and put her arm round his shoulder. «Me neither.»

«Was that fat woman really a police officer?»

«Yes, I'm afraid so.»

«She didn't like anybody. Are all police officers like that?»

«No. You don't have to be a police officer to hate other kinds of people. Everybody on Nyvan does it.»