It’s almost night. Out in the Barrens the sands sigh, the air is cold blue and voices from between the stars ride down on the winds. None of that here. The smell of cook-smoke and pepper and unnamed meats from the Chuan stands mixes with the hot oil and frying protein-maize from the arepa sellers to remind my stomach it once knew real food. The air fizzes with sparks from engine repair shops, competing with the lights of the snake-soup canteens, the wire-and-picture sellers, liquor stores hawking scorpion whiskey and snake wine and distilled venom “for medicinal purposes only”. At a metered water fountain, people queue with their drums and buckets, gossiping, coughing, glancing at the sky. Folk aren’t so afraid of the Ifs, here. With enough activity, the implausible is just that: happenstance, coincidence, bad luck.

I’m glad of it. I don’t want them here, not now, when this business is almost done. Perhaps they will transfer their interest to the General. Perhaps they will follow her to whatever planet she is posted to next and leave me be. Did they venture beyond Factus? I have never heard reports of them anywhere else.

I sigh. ‘We are almost there.’

The General nods. Though she looks around with narrow, searching eyes, I can tell she is struggling. Her jaw is tight, beads of perspiration on her forehead. Not my problem. Her people can heal her, with the seemingly unlimited resources they so rarely share with the rest of us.

Soon, the base comes into view, high metal and wire fences surrounding clean-edged, utilitarian buildings. A flag flutters in the faint wind that finds its way here from the desert.

‘About goddam time.’ She strides forwards. When I don’t follow she turns, impatient. ‘Well?’

‘I am not going in there.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Tiresome. What of your payment?’

‘I will wait.’

‘It’ll take time to make an inventory of supplies, to see what can be spared.’ When I don’t move, she sighs. ‘Alright. I’ll order it to be delivered to you. Where will you be?’

She has become a military official before my eyes; that flag, with its golden triangles, has swallowed up any part of her that seemed lost or in pain.

I jerk my chin. ‘There’s a benzenery, in Tiger Town. Malady Falco’s. They will know of it at the camp.’

‘Just the sort of place for you. Fine. Expect delivery there by 2230.’

‘And if it does not arrive?’

‘I made you a promise by the First and Last Accords. Or have you forgotten what honour looks like?’

I half smile and shake my head.

She frowns at me for a moment longer. ‘I won’t say it has been a pleasure, knowing you. But even if you are a traitor, you kept your word. Perhaps the times are changing, after all.’