After a while he takes a pouch out of his jacket. Breath. My muscles jerk in anticipation and longing. I watch as he places one between his teeth and shatters it. I clench my palms, to stop myself from reaching for them.

‘Reckon you’ll go with her, if she can buy passage off-moon?’ he asks.

The question strikes me. In truth, I haven’t thought about my own fate. If the General can get access to her money, if she can pay me what she has promised – enough to buy more supplies, a new mule – should I take it? Ride alone back into the Barrens and continue as before, patching up desperate settlers, adding each life to the tally, like trying to repair a crumbling dam with paper? On the other hand, if I leave Factus, will they follow?

People don’t care about your reasons for killing them when they’re dead.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, if you want a lift back east, I’ll give you one. Wouldn’t even need to hijack me this time.’ He holds out the pouch of beads.

Laughing a little, I take one, and Silas laughs too.

I stare out at the horizon. As the shards melt on my tongue and dextro rushes through me, bright and pure, what I see looks a lot like hope.

* * *

Silas was not lying about At Least. It’s the roughest trade post I have ever seen, and that is saying something on Factus. The only buildings are the temporary living containers dropped years ago by the Accorded Bureau of Land Development to get people started.

Only out here, there is nothing to start. It’s so arid that seeds and crops just blow away; the monthly water distribution is barely enough to keep the throats of the inhabitants from closing with thirst, and according to Silas even that has stopped. Without crops, they can’t access a legal water subscription, and without a legal subscription they have no access to the seed banks for crops. That’s the Accord way of doing things.

We land in a whirlwind of dust. Everything looks as though it’s been used and reused a dozen times. In the middle of a rough square stands a wire tower festooned with wind catchers that flap madly in our wake.

‘Nice place,’ the General says, as we step from the ship. ‘What’s that stench?’

Silas pulls the tattered collar of his flight jacket up and over his mouth. ‘Muckbrick. You get used to it.’

‘Muckbrick?’

He nods at the latrine.

‘Ugh.’

‘Look on the bright side. After this place, travelling on a mining freighter will seem like a luxury.’