‘Hi, what are you doing here?’ she smiled, thrown from her usual caution by unchecked surprise. They shrugged.

‘Those men came, got us,’ Marshan said, staring out the window.

‘My dad didn’t want me to go, but they insisted,’ Meade complained. Neither boy smiled.

‘Oh,’ Layla said, and sat opposite them. No one said anything else. She’d never seen this many little kids so quiet. Marshan chewed on his sea-cane, bending his head to squeeze juice from tough flesh. The stalk was frayed at one end like a paintbrush.

There were no more passengers, it seemed. After the attendants checked their palm computer and conferred, the engine started and they began the journey. The vehicle turned and then they could see their parents, standing on the pavements in a small huddle, talking with their heads down until the van went past. Almost in unison, the adults glanced up at the windows, breaking into sudden smiles, waving. The 375y7 children waved back, but her father’s countenance was something Layla never forgot: still, without emotion, his eyes damp. It made her sit back in her seat, feeling tears burn the back of her throat without knowing why.

They drove through the buzzing streets and markets of their township, and on to the quiet, scattered villages on the outskirts of their borough, where the people wore long robes and rode huge lumbering scaramonds that were short and squat, and red as the barren deserts to the east, where they roamed in prides of hundreds. Still the dusky van kept going, into the land where there was nothing but land, further than most of the children had ever gone. Though there was chatter among the dozen, no one spoke to anyone they didn’t know, and the talking was low, as if they were in a place of worship. The attendants paid them no more interest, whispering among themselves. Meade, Layla and Marshan played Running 7 on their visors. When Layla grew sleepy, she swapped places with Marshan, took off her visor and dozed on Meade’s shoulder.

She woke to find they had stopped. One of the children, a youngster no older than six, was wailing from the front seats, face ablaze, calling for his mother. The ceiling above them was churning with a seething black mass, flashes of bullgrass green. One of the attendants had grabbed the boy, and was trying to lift him, but he kept fighting, and it took both attendants to do it, passing the boy to another man behind them, this one black-suited, tall, masked. A Kepler soldier. Why would they need soldiers? Layla turned towards Meade. Over his shoulder, outside the van, was a huge transport, bigger than she’d ever seen. Only this one wasn’t silver like most. It was red like the earth beneath its wheels, the tracks it had been placed upon.

‘What’s going on?’ she whispered.