‘Because they know you belong to them.’
‘Do you… feel them too?’
When she speaks, her voice is like the scraping of sand across the roof. ‘You remember what Mala said, about my being one of the first to arrive on Factus?’ The bench creaks as she leans back. ‘The moment I set foot in the dust, I felt them. We all did – soldiers, engineers, convicts – no matter what people say now, we all felt them, and we knew instantly that we were not alone on this moon.’
I shiver as she voices the thoughts that I have always been too afraid to acknowledge.
‘I can’t describe how it felt,’ she continues, ‘to come face to face with another life force, to finally have proof that we are not all there is in the universe, and to be summarily dismissed. The wardens didn’t believe us, neither did the Settlement Bureau; no one did. They put it down to mental strain, fatigue, low oxygen levels, mass hysteria, bad food. But they were far away, on their bright stations, or on Prosper. They were not here.’
She shakes her head, her eyes fixed on me. ‘While we stayed on Earth, they were spread thin, ranging so far to reach us. But here.’ She points towards the Void. ‘Here is where they are born, where they are strongest. And in those early days we were like sheep that had wandered to the mouth of a wolf den. They could not help themselves. They flocked to us, they lapped and gnashed and clawed at our lives and everything that could have gone wrong in those first years did. Many people died, many more fled Factus, driven mad by fear.’ She pauses, her jaw working. ‘It was how we began.’
‘We?’ I’m held in place, desperate to hear.
She nods. ‘A group of us – all convicts, all deemed expendable – were assigned to Search and Rescue. It was our task to scour the reaches of this moon and bring the lost workers home. Only, their tracks went into the Edge. We followed them in.’
Cold runs through me, deep as the marrow, as I remember the endless dunes of the Edge, the pitiless darkness; the horrible fear that I had not emerged the same.
‘I was in the Suplicio,’ I whisper.
‘Then you know what we experienced.’ Esterházy’s eyes are haunted. ‘Just when we thought there was no hope, they came. They showed us a path, a way out, and for the first time, we knew the truth of what they are. How they are made of nothing and everything: pure potential. They let some of us live, and we knew why.’
She looks at me, without seeing. ‘What use is a heart in the chest of a corpse when on another moon a child will die for want of one, and take a life’s potential with them? They feed upon those latent futures, and so we had to save as many as we could. That’s how we justified what we did. What we became.’
‘You’re a Seeker?’
‘I was,’ her voice is barely a whisper, ‘perhaps I still am. We never truly let anyone go, once we recognise them as one of us.’ Stiffly, she rolls up her sleeve. There, in the wrinkled flesh, is an old scar, the mirror of the one on my chest.
‘No.’ I take a step back. ‘No, I’m not like them. I never joined. I promised to save lives.’
‘And they don’t? Tell that to the young man who will die without a new lung, or a mother who needs blood for her child’s transfusions. The Accord won’t help them, out here. So who can they turn to? The land barons? The mine owners?’ Her voice is sharp. ‘I saw it in you, tonight. You would have cut Joliffe’s throat, had I not stopped you.’
I can’t deny it, and she smiles. ‘You see, the only difference is that the Seekers would not feel remorse, knowing his death would bring new possibilities into the world, would be a gift to them.’
‘I have seen them kill innocent people—’
‘How do you know they were innocent? We never did anything without reason.’ When I don’t speak, she continues. ‘We believe the Ifs grow stronger, every time they influence the world. And if we continue to feed them, soon we’ll be able to see what they can see. We’ll be able to escape the boundaries of this reality into a multitude of others.’
‘Are you Hel?’ I ask.
She laughs, her sunken eyes bright. ‘We are all Hel.’
I’m not looking at Ma Esterházy. I’m looking at the thing that wears my face, the bloodied hand that reaches for me, skin scored with lines. Her eyes are a bird of prey’s, filled only with purpose. In her hand is a scalpel…
I stumble away, and am back in the yard of Angel Share. Except now, all around me the air is thick with something that makes my stomach churn.
‘They are here,’ Esterházy says breathlessly. ‘Something’s coming.’
I hear the scuffing of footsteps in the dirt, the clanking of gun-belts from the front of the saloon. Without a word I run into the dark building, until I can see the street outside.
The flickering light of the solar lamp above Esterházy’s door illuminates a posse of a dozen figures, vigilante Peacekeepers, heavily armed and armoured. And at their head, his face swathed in stained bandages, eyes blazing with hatred, is Marshal Joliffe.
* * *
‘Esterházy!’ the Marshal bellows. Blood oozes from the bandage, down onto his lips and teeth. ‘Esterházy, give the bitches up or this place burns.’
‘You cannot touch us, Joliffe,’ Esterházy calls through the door. ‘Every crew from here to Delos will seek retribution upon you.’
‘Let them!’ The Marshal is crazed. ‘Let them come! I’ll kill them all.’
Flames, breaking glass, Bebe’s bloodied face, the bartender screaming… I stagger and Esterházy catches me, gripping my hand tight.
‘I saw—’ I gasp.
‘I know.’
In the front of the
