I wipe my mouth on my shoulder, wincing as one of the cuts on my lip opens. ‘You see, your theory doesn’t work.’

‘What theory?’

‘What you told me before, that people can escape the past on Factus. They can’t. The past is at our heels, even here, at the edge of the system.’

He takes the pipe out of his pocket but doesn’t light it, just fiddles with the stem.

‘I didn’t fight,’ he says eventually. ‘I’m from Jericho. My mothers are both warehouse bosses there, farming and pharma. Meant we stayed out of the war and in on all the trade.’ His lips twist. ‘True neutrals. Original green. We made a fortune.’

It makes sense now: his once-costly clothes, his own ship, his lack of tattoos. Still, to run from that much wealth, from the security of a powerful home…

‘Why?’ I croak.

He shakes his head. ‘Parents wanted me to take charge of one of the businesses, but I… couldn’t stay. Thought I should come out here, see what life is really like, the places behind the names on all those shipping manifests. See freedom.’

I can’t help but laugh, at my beaten state, at the greasy, brutal ship, at the vomit on the floor. ‘And what do you think of it?’

‘Not exactly how I imagined.’ He tries to smile. ‘You ever been to Jericho, Ten?’

He’s still calling me that. Out of habit, or denial? ‘Once or twice,’ I say cautiously.

‘Then you’ll know how everything there is so vast, but there’s no space. Just the warehouse walls, and a ceiling somewhere miles above with solar bulbs instead of the sky.’ He squints at the ship’s metal walls, as if he can see through them. ‘I used to see those posters of Factus and Brovos, you know, the Land Dev ones. All that openness, it looked so beautiful.’

A hopeless smile twitches the corner of my mouth as I think of the pamphlets and bulletins that led me to leave the Congregations and join the FL. It had all seemed so true, their manifesto; the idea that these new planets and moons should be no one’s property, that they should be shared, places where new laws could be made, new societies that relied on each individual to do what was right, rather than being yoked to a system that failed so many.

But the General was right about consequences, and Silas was right about intentions – and I have seen the depths you can fall to, so long as your actions are justified. And the longer we fought the harder every choice became, until the fire we started to light our way began to consume the future.

I look up, and meet Silas’s eyes.

His face crumples. ‘Ten—’

‘Still talking to the traitor?’