The air felt fresh and cold and natural against the planes of my face. The platform touched the ground and I stepped off without waiting for the others. “One hour,” I called over my shoulder. Neither of them answered, but I didn’t care. After the tense atmosphere aboard the Trouble Dog, the wide horizon and ramshackle settlement were hitting my soul like a tonic, and the touch of the sunlight felt like a blessing.

Lacking a better direction, I set off through the main thoroughfare, taking care to avoid the muddiest stretches of boot-churned ground. The locals appraised me from their doors and windows. This was, I imagined, exactly the kind of out-of-the-way craphole in which an unwary trader might find herself knifed and robbed before she’d taken two-dozen steps. Chin high and eyes narrow, I returned their stares, confident that nobody would try fucking with me. Traders were one thing, but the personnel of a Carnivore were another prospect altogether. The class had a ferocious and well-earned reputation, and even though she now wore the colours of the House of Reclamation, these hicks had no way of knowing how much of her original weaponry had been retained.

Halfway along the street, a few dozen metres from the edge of the landing apron, I came upon a saloon. The walls had been built from stacked chunks of local rock, thick turf sods covered the sloping roof, and smoke issued from a chimney made of old tin cans. A wooden sign propped beside the door advertised the bill of fare. Inside, I found a rough flagstone floor, chairs and tables long ago printed from a generic pattern, and a long wooden counter, behind which the barman stood cleaning a ceramic mug with a once-white rag.

The strip lights on the ceiling were bright. The only thing they weren’t short of here was energy.

The local drink was lichen-flavoured ethanol. It cost three times less than fruit juice and half as much as clean water, and smelled like mouldy laundry. The first sip had all the fetid charm of dung mushrooms, and, when swallowed, felt like bleach scouring my oesophagus. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

The barman smirked. “It can take a while to acquire the taste,” he said.

I pushed the glass across the counter for a refill. “I don’t plan to be here that long.”

The back door led out onto a wooden veranda. The clarity of the winter sunlight slanting across the planks made me want to reassess all the choices in my life. I perched on the rail and nursed my second drink, staring out at the plateau’s flat horizon.

I hadn’t always been this lonely. I had been in love once, and been loved in return.