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Danny shook his head. "We'll find that out when we question him. If he lives."

I looked across at Danny. "You hope he dies?"

He weighed the question. "He dies, and that's one less mouth... He lives, and what he knows might be valuable. Take your pick."

It was late when we returned to the lounge. The pilot was still unconscious, his leg swaddled in bandages. "Broken in a couple of places," Edvard reported. "He'll pull through. I'll stay here with him. You get some sleep."

In my berth, I stared through the canopy at the flaring night sky, too excited at the prospect of questioning the pilot to sleep.

The rocking of the truck brought me awake. Outside, the desert was on fire. I pulled on my shorts and lurched into the lounge. Kat must have been driving because Danny was sitting in his armchair, leaning fonvard and staring at the pilot.

"You don't know how grateful..." the invalid said in heavily accented English between slurps of water - a half ration, I saw. He indicated his leg with the beaker. "You could have left me there."

Guarded, Danny said, "We reckoned it was a fair trade, the wreckage of your plane, the supplies. We'll feed you, keep you alive. But you'll have to work if you want to be part of the team."

Edvard sat on the battered sofa against the far wall. He said, "What can you do?"

The man's thin lips hitched in an uneasy smile. "This and that, a bit of tinkering, engineering. I worked on solar arrays, years ago."

I said, "What's your name?"

He stared back at me, and I didn't like the look in his eyes. Hostile. "What's yours?"

"Pierre," I said, returning his glare.

He nodded, increasing the width of his smile. "Call me Skull," he said.

It was obviously not his given name, but considering the fleshless condition of his head, and his rictus grin, it was appropriate. Skull.

Danny took over. "The meat you had in the glider. Where'd you get that?"

"Down south. Still some game surviving. Shot it myself."

"South?" Danny sat up, hope in his eyes. "There's water down there, sea?"

Skull looked at Danny for a second before shaking his head. "No sea. The place is almost dead."

Edvard said, "Where did you come from? With supplies like those, a plane. My guess is a colony somewhere."

I didn't like the way Skull paused after each question, as if calculating the right answer to give. "I was with a gang of no-hopers holed up in what was Algiers. Conditions were bad. The only hope was to get out, move north. But they didn't want to risk it."

"So you stole the supplies and the plane and got the hell out," Danny finished.

That sly pause, again. A shrug. "A man has to look after himself, these days."

I thought of the failing colony in Algiers, confirmation that there were others still out there.

"You're one lucky bastard you spotted us," Danny said.

Skull made a quick pout of his lips, as if to debate the point, then said, "Where you heading?"

Danny said, "The Mediterranean," and left it at that.

The stranger had this way of trying not to show any reaction, as if to do so would give something away. I wondered at the company he'd kept, where he'd had to hide his emotions like this, wary and mistrustful. At last he said, "You're joking, right?"

Danny shook his head, serious. "We've crossed Europe I don't know how many times, drilling for water. I think it's just about all dried up. My reckoning is, at the bottom of the Med, or where the sea used to be, there'll be a better chance of striking water."

"Salt water. Undrinkable sea water."

Danny smiled and played his trump. "So what? I have a desalination rig all ready if that's the case."

"But south ... the Med?" Skull shook his head. "You're mad, you know that? You heard about the scum down there? The feral bands? They'd kill you for what you got, no questions asked."

Danny shrugged. "We can look after ourselves," he said, and the confidence in his voice made me feel proud.

Skull licked his lips. "Madness."

Edvard said, from the couch, "Well, wel was at the wheel of the truck could always leave you here, if you don't wish to accompany