He crouched by her side. Thrym refused to budge. Romy didn’t want to look at Atlas with Thrym so close.

“I wanted to tell you everything, Rosemary. But I couldn’t. The Mandate maintains their presence in each settlement. I knew someone would be watching us, monitoring, reporting back. It could have all fallen apart. Now we know Lucas was their ear.”

“How is it that Lucas didn’t report you were on Earth?” Phobos asked.

He shrugged. “Atlas is not the name I use aboard the orbitos. As far as Commander Cronus and the Mandate know, Atlas is my top psychiatrist. I have a number of different aliases.”

For some reason, Romy hated that his name wasn’t Atlas. “Atlas . . . isn’t your real name?” She frowned.

He brushed a thumb over her cheek. “Atlas is my real name, Rosemary.”

“Why did you even take us back to Jimboomba?” Deimos asked. “Why not bring us straight to the bunker?”

Atlas stood. She wished he’d come back. “Because you wouldn’t have made it here alive, Deimos. They would have searched the immediate area and closest settlements until they found you. We had to prepare your body doubles at our main base. This was simple enough; we used 3D printers to alter the appearance of five of our recently deceased soldiers. Houston created your faked results from the samples he took upon your arrival at Jimboomba. The transportation of the bodies to Jimboomba took the longest. Our main base isn’t close on foot, and air travel is strictly monitored by the Mandate. We only use it in emergencies and never if we mean to keep a secret. The body doubles had to be transported via the ground, skirting around the settlements on the way. They arrived a week ago. All I needed to do was make the call that you’d discovered the subterfuge and I had to put you down. The fake bodies would be analysed by our own men in the system, leaving the simple matter of getting you to the bunker.”

He’d disappeared for a full week. This is where he’d gone? “You came here when you left for that week,” whispered Romy.

“There was still equipment we needed here. Once here, we wouldn’t be able to leave for some time, until the Mandate turned their eyes elsewhere.”

“I can’t believe you were going to leave me to die,” Deimos exploded.

“He carried you," Phobos said quietly.  "All the way here when you lost consciousness. Over the hill, on his back.”

Deimos snapped his mouth shut.

One of the machines was whirring faster and faster, the sound building. Romy tried to look back, but was held in place.

“This will fix her?” Thrym asked Houston.

He surveyed Romy with tight lips. “I’m not sure. There’s never been anyone like her. No one has ever come through what she has . . . mentally intact.”