“Why islands?” Rashelope said and other girls echoed her question in murmurs. Caroni raised her hand for silence. “Let me tell you everything, and then you can ask your questions. Right. First of all, Sorrel got into Level 1 – real time. I don’t have to tell you – this is a huge advantage, like having an old-time eye in the sky. And yes, the Northerners are coming. We don’t know what they’ll do when they get here, but unless they’re working with the Domins, there’ll be war. I can’t see why they’ll want to stay on the Lowlands, so, eventually – we don’t know how long all of this will take – they’ll be up here, looking for higher ground. We don’t know what tech they have or what weapons. We don’t know how many of them will come. The most important thing, though, is we don’t have much time to decide what we’re going to do, because it seems the Amerikans are going to take their satellites down. Then the world will be truly dark.”

“How do you take down a satellite?” Rashelope said. “I thought they stayed in orbit forever, even the ones no one was broadcasting to. Remember there was all that fuss about space junk?”

“I think you boost them into a high orbit where no signals can reach them,” Sorrel said, thinking that Bibi would know.

“That’s not our focus right now,” Caroni said. “You all know we have to leave Jiba at some point, right? There’s still some water here, but too little to eat. We must get higher, maybe look for a cave. Somewhere easily defended but close to sources of food. Maybe we even have to split up into two bands.” She stopped.

“Are you finished?” Emrallie said.

“Yes.”

“Leaving is fine with me. We’ve been nomads before. We found this place; maybe there are others. We should stay together for now and split if it becomes necessary.”

“Sorrel should use Level 1 to look for a good cave,” Rashelope said. “If we find one, we go. But I don’t think we should just blunder around looking for somewhere better. Jiba still has water and trees for shade – not easy to find. It’s defendable too.”

“The trees are dying,” said Sarane, a quiet eighteen-year-old with curly hair and grey eyes who loved the ravine’s trees.

“Dying is not dead,” said her friend, Lunar. “And the ravine is still deep in shade.”

“Some of us can’t walk very well,” said Pia. She was a recent arrival and she had a twisted right leg. Lichen had discovered her hiding at the Oconuco dump and had defended her at the ensuing triage discussion.

“If we move too f-far away from B-Bana, we can’t scavenge there,” Lichen said.

“Maybe there are other towns in the hills,” Rashelope said, speaking directly to Lichen. “We’ve become lazy.” Lichen dropped her gaze.