People were standing, watching me, grey as the ground under their feet. Men, women, children, infants in arms, old folk, people in little clusters. There were maybe thirty of them.

Lian stood close to me. ‘Sir, I don’t understand. The way they are standing together—’

‘These are families,’ I murmured. ‘You’ll pick it up.’

‘Dark matter.’ The new voice was harsh, damaged by smoke.

A man was limping towards me. About my height and age but a lot leaner, he wore a tattered Navy coverall, and was he using an improvised crutch to hobble over the rocky ground, favouring what looked like a broken leg. His face and hair were grey with the ash.

I said, ‘You’re the Academician.’

‘Yes, I’m Tilo.’

‘We’re here to get you out.’

He barked a laugh. ‘Sure you are. Listen to me. Dark matter. That’s why the Xeelee are here, meddling in this system. It may have nothing to do with us at all. Things are going to happen fast. If I don’t get out of here . . . whatever happens, just remember that one thing - dark matter.’

A woman hurried towards me. One of the locals, she was wearing a simple shift of woven cloth, and leather sandals on her feet; she looked maybe forty, strong, tired. An antique translator box hovered at her shoulder. ‘My name is Doel,’ she said. ‘We saw you fall.’

‘Are you in charge here?’

‘I—’ She smiled wearily. ‘Yes, if you like. Will you help us get out of here?’

She didn’t look, or talk, or act, like any Expansion citizen I had ever met. Things truly had drifted here. ‘You are in the wrong place.’ I was annoyed how prissy I sounded. I pointed to the Conurbation, on the other side of the valley. ‘That’s where you’re supposed to be. The evacuation point.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, bemused. ‘We’ve lived here in the village since my grandfather’s time. We didn’t like it, over in Blessed. We came here to live a different way. No replicators. Crops we grow ourselves. Clothes we make—’

‘Mothers and fathers and grandfathers,’ Tilo cackled. ‘What do you think of that, Lieutenant?’

‘Academician, why are you here, in this village?’

He shrugged. ‘I came to study the mountain, as an exemplar of the planet’s geology. I accepted the hospitality of these people. That’s all. I got to like them, despite their - alien culture.’

‘But you left your equipment behind,’ I snapped. ‘You don’t have comms implants. You didn’t even take your mnemonic fluid, did you?’

‘I brought my pickup beacon,’ he said smugly.

‘Lethe, I don’t have time for this.’ I turned to Doel. ‘Look, if you can get your people across the valley, to where that transport is, you’ll be taken out with the rest.’

‘But I don’t think there will be time—’

I ignored her. ‘Academician, can you walk?’