“I’m afraid to leave Jiba,” Sarane said. “Maybe the Northerners won’t find us; no one else has.”

“We might starve on the journey. Starve here, starve in the open. I’d rather starve in Jiba. At least we can fight off ferals here,” Emrallie said.

“We can’t fight off anything if we’re starving,” Rashelope said.

“We can’t travel if we’re starving,” Sarane countered.

“Caroni?” Sorrel spoke for the first time. “My mother always told me to make a plan. Let me use Level 1 to look for a good place, hopefully within a few days walk. I could look for other towns too. Check out the army camp at Cibao as well – it’s really high.”

“The PlAK needs charging, you said?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“It’s old now. Could be two, three hours.”

“Next time you boot it up, the satellites could be down, right?”

“Maybe. But not all of them. Not at one time.”

“I don’t see why we need to worry about the satellites – we didn’t have a working PlAK for a long time,” Rashelope said. “We managed.”

“We should avoid that c-camp,” stammered Lichen. “I’ve heard terrible things about it.” No one asked her where she got her information.

“Does anyone have anything else to say?” Caroni asked. The lines on her forehead seemed to have grown deeper overnight. No one responded.

“Okay. I’ve heard you all. I’ll decide nextnight about leaving Jiba. Sorrel, charge the PlAK. Then, do some more research. Look for places to shelter and sources of food. Get some rest, people. And no more discussion until Sorrel has done her work.”

Nextnight came quickly. Sorrel had tried to sleep, but only managed short, fitful naps as the heat of the day rose and then fell. When she booted up the PlAK at dusk, at least three of the satellites she used regularly were gone and signals were weak and intermittent. She scanned the hills. It was hard to see caves from above, because likely places such as cliffs were often in deep shadow. She spent some time looking at the army camp, but there was a lot of haze and she couldn’t see it clearly. There were small figures moving about at the El Dorado cable car – the males were back. And Bana: what was not underwater looked pulverized. Crushed. No retreat, then.

An hour after dusk, Caroni came into the hut Sorrel had so briefly shared with Bibi, and then with Emrallie for almost a year. The Zorah sat beside her. “What did you find?”

“The Northerners won’t stay in Bana. There’s nothing left. They might land there, but they’ll leave as soon as they can. They’ll do just what we did – look for a way to get up high. In fact, they’ve probably already done that.”

“Did you find a cave?”