I brush the sand away from the suits, searching for identification. But they too are plain: no labels even. The man is solid and muscular and at least seven feet tall. It takes all my strength to roll him away. As soon as I do, a weak groan emerges from the shattered helmet. I ignore it, and ease the smaller of the two into a position better suited to breathing.

As soon as I touch the body, I feel slackness within the sleeves. Whoever is wearing the suit is small and slight. The man is undoubtedly an adult – could this be a child?

Swearing, I unclip the helmet from the suit. A child: what might that do for my tally? I don’t dare think about it as I wrench the helmet free.

Black hair tangles around a small face grey with blood loss, the features lost beneath a cake of dried gore and sand. Desperately, I check the skull, searching for wounds. When I find the contusion on the scalp, three inches long and bleeding sluggishly, I let out a breath. If that is the only damage – and if the child regains consciousness – they should live.

Just as I bend to pick the child up, something strikes me hard in the side, sending me sprawling. Choking on dust, I scramble for my knife, cursing myself to falling into an ambush…

But no. There are no other blows, no figures emerging from foxholes dug into the sand, no swooping crafts. Reddened eyes stare back at me. The man is awake.

He croaks a word, blood staining his teeth, and his eyes go to the knife, then to the child. He tries to rise, only to fall again with a gurgle of pain.

‘No harm,’ I tell him, holding up my hands. ‘No harm. Medic.’

‘You… touch her,’ he says, in an accent I can’t place. ‘You die.’

He is not in a position to be making any kind of threats, but I nod. ‘I need to fetch my kit. I have supplies. I can treat you both.’

‘Where?’ He half lifts his head to stare around, ropes of strain in his neck. ‘Where is here?’

‘The Barrens. North of Redcrop.’

He raises his eyes to the sky, losing its beauty now, turning flat white. ‘Where?’ he insists.

I follow his gaze up towards Brovos, pinkish-red and just visible in the sky. The last planet in the system, and beyond its orbit, nothing but the Void. Has he fallen from so far he doesn’t even know which moon he is on?

Above, invisible in the air, they sway and shift the lights of other worlds.

‘Factus,’ I tell him, turning away. ‘We’re on Factus.’

* * *