Well, I had achieved that.
I look down. The General sleeps, curled in a tight ball. Dust has settled on her face, in the wrinkles at the edges of her eyes that should not be there. Which planet or moon did she come from? Does she even know? Gently, I slip the coat from my shoulders and cover her with it.
‘She looks so small, don’t she?’ Pegeen whispers, as I climb down. ‘Like a real kid.’
I try to smile. A real kid. Were any of us real, anymore?
‘I keep thinking,’ Peg continues, as we start to make a fire and Falco and Boots see to the wagon, ‘I could’ve been like that. If I’d been a few years younger.’
‘How so?’
Peg sighs, balling up leaf fibres. ‘Minority Force are mostly orphans, right? Pulled outta the camps and shelters. Like me.’
‘Was it the war took your parents?’ I ask carefully.
‘Nah. Folks didn’t have politics. They were scrappers on Delos for years, finally saved enough to buy a farm, near Renown. It’s what Ravage used to be called.’
I wince. ‘Yellowrot?’
‘Accord always said it spread from black-market fertiliser, but everyone knew it came up out of the ground.’ Peg bends, squinting at the dry matter as a flame takes hold. The flickers of light catch upon the deep pockmarks that scatter their face and neck. ‘Folks died quick and that were a blessing. My sister fought it for months…’ Peg trails off. ‘They put me and my brother Joby in a quarantine unit for a year before we shook it. Took the ranch as payment for the medical bill.’
I throw a ball of fibre onto the crackling flames. I’ve heard the same thing many times over, on Factus and on other neglected moons. The FL made a point of collecting stories like these.
‘What happened to you both?’
Peg shrugs. ‘Put in the Institute, in Otroville. Cracked out of there when I was sixteen and hooked up with a raiding party. Joby joined the Accord when he was old enough and got posted to some satellite at the other ass-end of the system so I was on my own. Until I tried to rob one of Falco’s couriers.’ Peg’s eyes light up with a smile. ‘She offered me to join, and now—’
‘Now I got the best damn shot from here to Delos at my side,’ Falco says, dropping down beside the fire, planting a loud kiss on Peg’s face.
Peg laughs, pulling the goggles from Falco’s head. ‘Look at these. Filthy again.’
‘Why bother cleaning both lenses?’
‘What about you, Doc?’ Boots asks, dumping down an armful of blankets. ‘You got family?’
I hesitate, unsure of what to say.
‘Enough chat.’ Falco reaches for the supplies. ‘I want my dinner.’
I catch her eye, grateful, and she gives me a small nod.
Together, we prepare the food – or rather, I get in the way while Falco, Peg and Boots work in well-practised unison. Boots is the best cook, having laboured for a time with a prison detail on a mining satellite. ‘Damn machines ate better than we did,’ she says as she stirs pseudosalt and cricket powder and dried protein into a thick porridge. ‘Fine oils, fancy lubricants, all we got was dehydrated nutrient paste. Got so sick of it, we boiled it up with whatever we could find.’ She sticks her foot out. ‘And since prison-issue shoes are made from bovine collagen…’
‘Boots?’ I laugh.
‘Boots,’ she agrees. ‘Was probably half out of my mind but I swear it tasted better.’ She doles out the food. ‘At least this is salty.’
‘Close your eyes and it could be grits,’ Falco says, looking doubtfully at her bowl. ‘Almost.’
‘Gabi told me leave her alone. Says she’d rather sleep than eat whatever muck we’re cooking,’ Peg says, coming back from the wagon, where the General is curled on the seats.
‘Kids these days got no manners.’ Nevertheless, Boots spoons out a portion to set aside.
We eat, Boots telling funny stories about her time in the mines, Falco and I laughing around mouthfuls of food, Peg rolling their eyes, and for a few minutes, we could be any group of travellers sat in the night, filling our stomachs. But then the food is finished, the plates and pots scraped clean with sand. Falco and Peg go off for a few moments together, Boots to relieve herself, and I am left alone. I should go and check on the General. There’s every chance her absence is due to illness rather than any lingering resentment, but in that quiet, I find myself letting go, thoughts unravelling like cotton thread.
‘You won’t save her.’
I look up, my eyes dry and hot from the fire, no idea how much time has passed. Beyond the light’s edge, Boots already dozes on her blanket. There’s no sign of Pegeen. Falco sits opposite me, her fine-boned face drawn, the shadows pooling in her empty eye socket.
‘What?’ I ask, as Falco takes a swig from a bottle of benzene.
‘I said, you won’t save her.’
I scuff my boot through the dust. ‘I have to try.’
‘Then try, but don’t hold out hope.’ Falco sighs. ‘I’ve known kids like her. Not ones from the M-Force. Just kids who had everything taken from them, their memories, even their names, had it replaced by war and learned too soon to hate. Can’t think of many who lived long enough to learn a different way to be.’
‘She might.’ I toy with the scarf around my neck. ‘Anyway, I think they want her to live.’
‘The Accord want her dead.’
‘I don’t mean the Accord.’ The fire crackles between us, struggling with its own meal.
‘You talking about the Ifs?’ Falco says slowly.
‘Something has been happening to me, Mala,’ I murmur to the sand. ‘I know you’ll think I’m mad but I’ve been sensing them. More and more these days. Sometimes, it’s like they’re showing me things that haven’t happened, or that might happen.’
I risk a glance at her, waiting for her to scoff or laugh, but she doesn’t, just stares at
