“What else do you know about the Toplanders?”

“Only what everyone knows. Elites. Slavers. Led by a man called Colonel Drax. I’m sure you’ve heard about him. Toplanders are vicious.”

All the girls were now in the cave, most of them sitting and listening intently to Kes. “Your turn,” he said to Sorrel. “Are you the band leader?”

How much should she tell him? “We lived in the ravine until the river started falling,” she said. “We ran out of food.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you the leader? How many of you?”

“There’re two more groups outside. Seventeen – no, sixteen.”

“You’re not sure?”

“One died getting up here. Ferals.”

“Are you the leader?”

“No. She’s outside.”

“What were you looking for in the tunnels?” Pia interrupted, speaking to Kes.

“Today, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“We knew the river was falling. We used to hear it rushing, but we couldn’t get down to it. Then it got quieter and quieter. Arc – our leader – sent us to try again; maybe there was a place we could live at the bottom. Time spent in recce is never wasted.”

“Recce?”

“Reconnaissance. Arc is – was – a Domin brat.”

“We couldn’t find an exit,” Emrallie said, staring at Kes. “I don’t believe your story.”

“The exit would be very hard to find from this end – the access is narrow and between two slanted slabs of rock. You’d have to be looking directly at it. We found a sinkhole close to our camp and it had the remains of a rusty ladder, too broken up to use, but we knew it must have led somewhere. From the other side, the path leads straight to the opening.”

“Can you find it again? This sinkhole?” Pia asked.

Kes rolled his eyes. “Of course. Our band is guarding it and there’s a rope. Like I said, it’s not far.”

Then they heard the sound of a scuffle at the entrance, a short scream, quickly cut off, and Rapt walked in, pushing Lunar in front of him. A bruise bloomed on her cheek.

“We’re wasting time,” he rasped to Kes. “We should take the PlAK and go. Decide what to do with them.” He nodded at the circle of girls. “There’s another one outside. I knocked her out. She’ll be okay,” he added, watching Kes’s face. He pushed Lunar forward and she fell to her knees.

“You guatan hit her?” Sorrel said, jumping to her feet, hand on the knife at her waist. “For what?” Emrallie took a step towards Rapt and he lifted the gun to his shoulder. Everyone froze.

“You okay, Lunar?” Sorrel said.

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know about Sarane, though. That one,” she nodded at Rapt, “he hit her with the gun. We tried to hide when we heard them, but there just wasn’t anywhere, it’s all rock and – ” She began crying.