‘You did,’ the Ratt argued. ‘You came from over there. No one made you.’

Kim pointed around angrily. ‘We didn’t come to this planet willingly, did we!’

‘We’ll die if we don’t get inside,’ Chantelle told Kim.

‘What are the terms and conditions of entry?’ Kim persisted.

‘No one ever cares about them,’ she protested. ‘And I need to get out of this sun.’

‘I always read the T&Cs,’ Kim said.

‘Big surprise.’

‘We need to know the terms and conditions,’ he told the Ratt.

The Ratt leaned back on his seat and grunted. ‘Troublemaker here.’

Immediately a further Ratt came up; Chantelle recognised it as the creature who’d spat on them and taken them here, and she took a faltering step back – as the Ratt slammed down the tip of its broad tail on the back of Kim’s neck like a cosh. Kim fell down hard in the dust and cried out as his hands and knees were cut open.

The Ratt in the booth peered out, blinking in the sunlight. ‘The terms and conditions simply confirm you are freely making a charitable donation to our organisation.’

Chantelle helped the bleeding Kim to his feet. ‘Donating what?’

‘Yourselves,’ said the Ratt.

The other stuck its snout in Kim’s face. ‘You know how it is where you come from,’ it said. ‘You know them bags of unwanted stuff you leave at the end of the drive for charities to come round and collect?’

Kim nodded dumbly.

‘Well, basically, you are a bag of unwanted stuff. Aren’t you?’ The Ratt showed off its filthy teeth. ‘And we have collected you for processing and brought you to our plant here.’

Chantelle stared. ‘We’re not charity donations!’

‘The homeless people, the runaways,’ Kim said quietly. ‘I interviewed some of them. They all said they felt worthless, discarded, given up on by their families. When you’re younger, especially, you feel all that stuff so sharply …’

‘Those kids weren’t bagged up and left at the end of the garden, were they!’

‘Metaphorically, maybe,’ Kim said.

‘But we’re not homeless. I’m successful.’ She glared at the Ratt in the booth. ‘I’m a celebrity. I’ve got fans, for God’s sake!’

The Ratt behind her held up a small metal gadget that blew up a holographic bubble. It was her from last night, being spied on. ‘I’m sick of it. Sick of what it almost turned me into, sick of the never-ending parade of weirdoes that come crawling after me …’

‘They’ve been spying on us,’ Kim realised.

‘We know trouble when it comes sniffing around our business, don’t we,’ said the Ratt. ‘And we know a loophole in the law when we see one, too.’