Everything was going wrong. The dust was getting worse: another fissure must have opened on the west side of the shield. They were being subjected to a taste of the outside storm, which darkened the twilight sky as though it was night. Teena switched on the fog lights and leaned forward as she drove, peering through the windscreen. Sebastian looked out too. It was a dystopic scene. He saw pedestrians struggling through the conditions, attempting to find their way, and their hunched figures made him think of the cancer patients he had passed in corridors. The thought came to him that he was looking at his future. He would become one of the craven, the poisoned and irradiated, the hairless, shrunken people grimly hanging on, scouring online forums for miracle drugs and superfoods. This was what lay ahead, he thought. Welcome to the war.

As they swung around a corner he realised where they were. At the top of the street, he discerned the outline of the embassy for the Allied Planetary Co-Security Union, a monolithic stone building topped by a steeple-like flagpole. Teena pulled up and parked.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Happy?’ They got out. She had to shout over the wind and the snarling traffic. ‘Well, what does it matter anyway, hanging around for a memorial? Zoe’s dead. So what? That doesn’t mean anything to you.’

He rounded on her, and spoke with a fierceness that surprised him. ‘It means something to me! It means a lot, in fact. Zoe’s gone, and I’m really sorry, but I can’t change that. Tonight matters to Dino. And life is for…’ He paused.

‘For what?’

‘For whoever is still here!’

Teena stopped on the road. He thought she would leave him there, she would turn around and drive off. Maybe she thought so too. Then at last it was as if she had seen something new in him. ‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘If that’s how you feel, okay.’ She caught him up, drew her coat about her and shoved her hands into her pockets. ‘Come on then.’ She still sounded severe, but was beginning to relent. ‘Those shoes. It’s embarrassing.’

‘Dino won’t care.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll order a new pair, promise.’

Then the traffic was surging forward, the road having cleared ahead, and tipping their faces against the wind they made for the party.

High country

In the morning, when we set out, Mr Noffey was still asleep. Not because he was lazy; Bea said he’d been up all night trying to deliver a calf that had got all twisted.

‘It died,’ she concluded. ‘He had to shoot the mother.’