One sniff tells me that it’s not mezcal, just cactus juice left to ferment in the sun, with a drop of benzene mixed in. But the woman pushes the cup towards me, her withered lips twitching, and I know that to refuse it, when she has so little, would be unforgivable. Bracing myself, I knock it back in one. It goes down my throat like rat’s claws.

‘Much obliged,’ I wheeze.

‘You walked a long way.’ There is a strange expression on her face, as if she’s seeing straight through my head, to the desert beyond.

‘We didn’t walk. We flew here, in—’

A crash makes us both jump. The woman drops the cup, her hand flying to the gun. There’s another crash and the sound of something splintering, followed by a stifled cry. I run before the woman has the gun from the holster.

I find the General crouched beneath the wire booth. The device is smashed to pieces, the cords ripped out, the box hanging from the wall like a tooth from sinew. The floor is littered with carbon printouts.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ There’s no one else, no signs of a fight, only the General kneeling on the floor, her knuckles bleeding as she clutches the broken receiver.

I kneel beside her. In her other hand is a notice. I wrench it away, smoothing the creases from the flimsy paper.

LEADER OF THE NORTHERN AIR UNIT ASSASSINATED

General Doe Thackeray, Leader of the Northern Minority Unit of the Accorded Nations, was killed yesterday in a terror attack on the Spargo Waystation. Six individuals affiliated with a radical offshoot of the Free Limits, have been apprehended…

I scoop up another notice, then another.

CHIEF OF THE MINORITY PEACE FORCE AWOL

Captain Uma Roche, Chief of the Minority Peace Force has officially been declared missing. She was last seen a cycle ago on her way to reparation talks with representatives of Delos’s new administration. Roche’s private physician has been treating her recently for a nervous condition. She is urged to contact…

WING COMMANDER GIANG PHAN LOSES BATTLE WITH ILLNESS

We have been informed that Wing Commander Phan finally succumbed to the debilitating illness that has affected their health for many months. Phan passed peacefully, at a private hospice clinic in Bleu Shallal on Prosper…

Twelve notices, with dates spanning the past weeks and months, from different publications all across the known system.

‘C Class.’ The General finally looks up. ‘It’s the whole of C Class.’

I stare numbly at the papers. The deaths and disappearances are too many, too varied to be coincidence; this was calculated.

‘The Augur was right,’ the General chokes. ‘I am already dead. They’ve killed me.’

I toss the bulletins aside. ‘You don’t know that. Whatever they have done to you, there might be a way to undo it. If we can find an Accord hospital, one with a good laboratory—’