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"Then—?" I gestured at the print-out. "What do you mean? You said there were colonists?"

She stroked my jaw, almost pityingly.

"Of course there are, but we couldn't just revive them to ... to this. That would be... cruel."

"Then what?" I began.

She jumped from the bed and crossed the room, kneeling beside a curtained window and gesturing for me to join her.

Bewildered, I did.

She eased the curtain aside and inclined her head towards the revelry outside. A dozen men stood around a blazing fire, singing drunkenly. They were swigging from plastic bottles and eating something.

I turned to Samara. "What?"

Her hand, on my shoulder, was gentle. "The fire ..." was all she said.

I looked again at the fire, at the spit stretched across the leaping flames, and at what was skewered upon the spit.

I felt suddenly sick, and in terrible danger. My vision misted.

I said, "Skull?"

Samara murmured, "He was a traitor. He was against our plans. He stole supplies, water."

"But ... but ... " I said, gesturing to what was going on out there.

"Pierre, Pierre. Life is hard. The Earth is dying. There is no hope. We must do what we must do to survive. If that means—"

I said, "The colonists."

She did not say the world, but her smile was eloquent enough.

Meat.

She led me back to the bed and pulled me down, facing me and gently stroking my face. "Pierre, come with me. Life will be good. We will rule the Mediterranean."

Despite myself, I felt my body respond. She laughed, and we made love again - violently now, like animals attempting to prove superiority. This time, I did not lose my sense of self. I was all too conscious of Skull's words, his warnings. I was in control enough to know that however much I revelled in the pleasures of the flesh with Samara, this had to be the last time.

She gasped and closed her eyes. Fighting back my tears, I rolled over and reached down beside the bed.

"Pierre?" she said. She sat up, but she had no time to stop me. She merely registered sudden alarm with a widening of her eyes.

I shot her through the forehead, sobbing as I did so, and only in retrospect hoping that the sound of the gunshot would go unheard amid the noise of the party outside.

I stood and dressed quickly, then moved to the door. On the way I stopped, returned to the bed and picked up the print-out.

At the door I paused, and forced myself to take one last glance. Samara was sprawled across the bed, the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life.

I fled the room. I passed through the chamber housing the solar arrays. Despite the desire to get away, I knew what I must do. I spent a long minute looking over the couples and leads, then judiciously snapped a bunch of connections and removed a capacitor. The hovercraft would be going nowhere for a long, long time, if ever.

I hurried along the corridor until I came to the water canisters. I grabbed two, made it to the hatch and stumbled into the night, gasping air and hauling the canisters towards the truck. I imagined some drunken reveller finding Samara and chasing me, catching me before I reached safety...

I barged into the lounge, startling Edvard, Danny and Kat. They stared wide-eyed as I staggered towards them.

"Pierre?" Kat said.

"Start up! We've got to get out of here!"

Kat, closest to the cab, needed no second telling. She scrambled through the hatch and seconds later the engine kicked into life. The truck surged, heading west.

Sobbing, I collapsed into a chair.

Danny and Edvard knelt before me. "Pierre ...?" Danny reached out and touched my shoulder.

I passed the print-out to Edvard and told them about Samara and her men.

For the next four hours, as the truck headed along the ridge of the crest, I was afraid lest the cannibals repair their vehicle and follow us, crazed with the desire to avenge their dead queen. I sat at the rear of the truck, staring through the dust of our wake.

An hour or two before dawn, Danny turned the truck and we headed nose-down into the trench. We bucked