‘I’m from the Congregations, did you know that?’ I ask eventually.

Falco shakes her head, thoughtful, as if filing everything I say away for later use. ‘Always wondered why you speak the way you do. Sort of old fashioned. Didn’t have you down as religious, though.’

‘I’m not, not now. My faith didn’t last long, once I left. But back on Ty-Hala, my fathers used to talk about God’s will, God’s grace. I didn’t really understand at the time, but…’ I grip my arms, hard. ‘What if it was never God’s will? What if it has always been theirs?’ I was raised to believe that what I am about to say is the worst kind of heresy, but I force myself on. ‘Perhaps they have always been with us, but people were too noisy to hear them, too distant, back on Earth. Perhaps we only felt them faintly and people called what they felt God or luck or fate, but now we are out here, surrounded by so much space and silence, and some of us can feel them properly for the first time. Feel their will.’

Falco’s expression is indecipherable as she takes a long drink of benzene. ‘I don’t know about God,’ she says at last, passing over the bottle, ‘but you’re crazier than I thought.’

There’s no answer I can give. I raise the bottle to my lips when out of the darkness comes a yip, and a whistle. Falco’s head jerks up, her hand flying to her gun.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘Peg’s seen something.’

She draws the weapon. The next second Pegeen appears, breathless, holding a pair of night-vision binoculars.

‘Birds, a whole flock of them. Coming from the east.’

‘Seekers?’

‘No. Not Accord neither. Looks like bandits.’

‘How far?’

‘Twenty klicks. Maybe less. They’ll have seen the fire.’

Falco swears and kicks sand over the embers.

I grab up the blankets while Peg shakes Boots awake. ‘There is still a warrant on me for that Kwalkavich business,’ I say. ‘And if they’ve come from Landfall…’

‘It won’t be that.’ Falco looks over her shoulder. ‘They’re hunting.’

Within a minute she hauls herself into the driving seat, arming her guns. I scramble up behind her as she starts the engine.

That’s when I hear it, the distant churn of engines cutting the still air, growing louder. For a moment, the stars spin in my vision. Cold metal, hot blood, pain on the wings of black birds…

The wagon screeches forwards.

‘What’s going on?’ The General is awake, grabbing hold of the seat.

‘Company,’ I yell, snatching up a pair of binoculars that hang beside Falco, blinking hard to clear my vision.

In the pale light of the near and distant moons, I see twin clouds of dust: Pegeen’s and Boots’s mares racing behind us. And beyond them…