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The barge rumbled for an interminable time before she could shake the numbing horror from her mind. She tried to think of what Faja would do. Or Marchella. What would be practical? Useful?

She folded back her velum and touched the woman next to her. ‘There is a medi-pack on the door. Can you help me?’

The woman took Vito from her and leaned hard against the next female, giving Mira space to uncramp her legs. She grasped for finger holds on the wall as she stood up and pulled the pack free. Hands reached out to steady her as she sank back. The barge whined on and weapon fire started up again. She raised her voice above it.

‘Pass the word to shuffle the worst-injured to me,’ she said.

The instruction echoed into the depths of the barge. While some protested that it was too cramped, others began the process of shuffling bodies around.

‘Is anyone trained in medico?’ Mira asked.

No one spoke up but a woman close to her passed an injured body across. ‘It’s my daughter. Please see to her first.’

‘What is her name?’ Mira asked.

‘Davina. The things . . . they clawed her head. Save her, Baronessa Fedor.’

Mira started. ‘You know me?’

‘Si. Most do.’

Davina moaned and twitched.

Mira stripped off her gloves and felt carefully over the child’s head. Blood trickled from wounds. Nothing serious, she thought. Then, as she moved her unsteady fingers down one side of the ragazza’s skull, her finger dipped into a warm, sticky hollow. Mira’s heart faltered. ‘I need light!’ Hysteria made her voice sound sharp. She did not want to see the injury. She did not want to stare at death.

The child moaned and her arms spasmed.

Mira fumbled blindly in the pack for a skin adhesive and antibiotics. As she sprayed the synthetic membrane over the fracture the child convulsed and went still. Too late. And now she had wasted precious medic. Mira found herself clutching the small body, wishing that she could peel the adhesive off. She made herself let go, shocked by the callousness of her own thoughts.

‘Davina is dead,’ she said flatly. ‘Who is alive?’

As the barge lumbered on, she blocked out the moans from Davina’s mother as she clutched her ragazza’s body.

Other injured people were passed to her and she laboured on, doing what little she could to help them.

When the barge finally stopped, Mira was drifting, no longer sure if the darkness before her eyes was the crowded barge or a state of waking sleep.

Cass opened the doorbridge and peered in. ‘The Saqr stayed in Ipo. We’re on our own now and Kristo has found us a water station.’

Water. Fresh water.

A small cheer went up and Mira’s spirits lifted. The women surged down the doorbridge. When the last of them was out, Cass peered in again.

‘Fedor?’

Mira crawled out and blinked at the light.

Cass recoiled. ‘Crux. Look at you.’

Mira’s fellala was dirty and blood-soaked and flecks of human tissue had dried between her fingers and under her nails. ‘I couldn’t do anything for her.’

‘Who?’ Cass herself was covered with the white sap of Saqr blood. It had dried on her arms like peeling scabs.

Mira looked for the distraught mother carrying her dead ragazza among the crowd of women. ‘They put a hole in her head. My fingers . . . my fingers touched . . . do you know what I thought?’

Cass waited in silence, letting her speak.

‘I thought... I wished I had not wasted the antibiotic on her.’

Cass gripped Mira’s shoulders and shook her a little. ‘What you thought was practical, Mira. Practical is what we need.’

‘Is it?’ Mira said hoarsely. ‘And afterwards ... who will I be?’

Cass let go of her and looked at her squarely. ‘Just who’s guaranteeing an afterwards?’

* * * *

The bore had been sunk at the base of a rocky dune, surrounded by a light scattering of rust-brown thorn bushes that survived on the hint of spilled underground water. From the top of the dune it could be seen that the plains stretched all around, bare and red. Heat shimmers distorted the horizon and Ipo might