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Colin got them to sit in the back of his Martian trike, one of many parked in neat rows to the side of the station. It had big spindly rubber-lyred wheels and a gaily coloured rainhood over the rear seats.

'What makes it go?' asked Zamina.

'I do,' said Colin getting astride the driver's saddle. He pointed out the pedals and the gear train that drove the back wheels. 'Couldn't do this in heavier gravity,' he said.

'I thought we were going to be put in camps,' said Zamina.

'Dangerous things, refugee camps,' said Colin, 'all that negative emotion sloshing about. Often they breed more problems than the crisis that created them. Dispersion's the way to go.'

'Australia,' said Benny.

Colin grunted and stood on the pedals, steering the trike out of the bikepark. Low gravity or not, Zamina noticed that he had strong well-muscled legs. She also realised why the short trousers he was wearing were always called 'pedal pushers'. They turned on to a tarmac road that headed further into the gorge.

'Most of the people around here are descended from Australian refugees,' said Colin. 'Including me.'

'Is that why you volunteered?' asked Zamina.

'No, I'm a specialist in population trauma,' said Colin. 'This is my job.'

'But there's thousands of us,' said Zamina.

'Most of the rest are volunteers.'

Zamina felt a sudden chill.

'He's the awkward squad,' said Benny.

'Right,' said Colin. 'But don't worry, I'm not the police or anything. You are supposed to be screened before you get on the trains, we're only supposed to get what we call the PTPs, passive trauma population, here. But you always get mistakes in an operation on this scale.'

'So what are we then?' asked Zamina.

'PDEs,' said Colin. 'Potentially Disruptive Elements. But like I said, don't worry. What you've done isn't my business.'

'Where are you taking us then?'

'Home,' said Colin, 'to meet my mother.'

Home was a bungalow built from blocks of cut Martian sandstone and roofed with white tiles. Colin's mother fed them grilled steak and iced tea at a table of laminated hardwood in the small kitchen. She smiled more than she talked but there were lines of pain etched into the comers of her eyes.

Colin didn't stop talking. A constant stream of anecdotes and trivia, most of it funny and all of it engaging, Zamina felt like she was being wrapped up in streamers of cotton wool. She wondered if it was natural talent or whether Colin had trained for it.

She found herself growing tired in big sudden waves. It was like the time she and Roberta had tried working right around the world, a punter in every time zone. Nearly got ripped off in Los Angeles when she fell asleep under a trick.

Transitlag, Roberta called it.

There were two single beds waiting for them, with clean sheets of yellow calico, side by side in the spare bedroom. The sheets felt cool and abrasive against her skin as she climbed between them. The pillow was soft and smelt of flowers.

She woke up with a hand across her mouth.

'Be quiet,' whispered Benny, 'I've got to tell you something and I don't have much time. Do you understand?'

Zamina nodded and the hand was removed. Benny loomed over her, a faint wash of light from the window illuminating her face. Her expression was strained, vertical lines on her forehead, the lips pinched and tight. Her eyes were in shadow.

'You remember the. man in the cavern, the one I called the Doctor?'

'Yes.'

'You have to find him and give him this.' Benny put something in Zamina's hands. It was the little book that she always carried with her. 'Tell him that "its" control is restricted outside of the transit system.'

'How?'

'Hurry,' said Benny, 'I can't fight it for long.'

Zamina rolled from the bed, casting around for her clothes.

'No time,' said Benny. 'Go, Go!'

Zamina actually saw Benny's face change as if an enormous shutter had clanged down in front of it.

'Hey, girl,' said Benny, 'you wouldn't rat me out?'

Zamina slammed her fist between Benny's eyes. The eyeballs rolled up in their sockets and