Quarter drives, equipped with goggles stolen from a raider's corpse, while Erasmus crouches miserably on a small seat meant for a gunner. That leaves Agni and I shoved into a single seat in the back, while Mercy hangs on to the luggage rack one-handed, letting the gritty wind whip into her face with every indication of enjoyment.

  "You okay back there?" I shout.

  "Murdeeeeer!" Mercy yells excitedly.

  Fair enough. I squirm around trying to get comfortable. Agni is unavoidably kind of half-sitting on my lap, and she's not a small woman. I have to work to keep from taking her shoulder to the chin when we go over a bump.

  "Sorry if I bleed on you," she says.

  "Horrifyingly, you won't be the first today," I say, practically in her ear. The deep drone of the trike's oversized engine drowns out most normal conversation. Behind us is a fishtail of sand and a rising cloud of dust. After a moment's thought, I clear my throat. "You need rockwater, or you really are going to die."

  "You don't fuckin' say," she drawls.

  "Sorry. You seem …"

  "Blasé?" She manages a tight smile. "I promise you I'm screaming on the inside."

  The trike goes over the top of a dune, and we're all briefly weightless. Mercy gives an excited squeak. Agni's ass thumps down in my lap and I can feel her go tight with pain.

  "I am -- was -- a soldier," she says through clenched teeth. "Quarter stitched me up a bit, but I know what happens when a wound festers."

  "Maybe they'll have some rockwater at the camp," I offer. "There must have been a supply on the cruiser, right?"

  "Probably. If the fuckers didn't just drink it all as soon as they found it." Agni winces at another bump. "If there isn't, I may need to ask you for a favor."

  My throat thickens at the thought of the only favor she might need. I barely know this woman, but the calm with which she faces her probable fate is both impressive and somehow alarming. Then again, we're driving full-speed toward a camp full of cannibal cultists; she's only marginally worse off than the rest of us.

  It makes more sense if she was a career soldier. Most of the people who wear Earth-as-in-Heaven's uniform are conscripts, just hoping to serve out their time and return to their families. But a few enlist of their own accord and grow tough as bug jerky over a long career. I wonder what she did that was bad enough to get her sent to the Edge Mine.

  kal.

  "Would you excuse me for a moment?" I tell Agni. "I need to, um, pray."

  "Don't mind me," she says, closing her eyes.

  "You've been awfully quiet," I mutter under my breath. Volume doesn't seem to make any difference to whether or not Gray understands me.

  you seemed to be doing fine, Gray says. besides, i've been busy.

  "Busy with ? Are you sneaking off to play tennis?"

  Stolen novel; please report.

  i'm thinking.

  "Thinking about what?"

  more than you could imagine.

  He pauses. more than someone with a better imagination could imagine, even.

  I clench my jaw. "You could contribute ."

  i'm about to, Gray says. you've made a reasonable start. once you secure reliable transport and supplies, you must head north.

  "Are you me right now? How is that helpful?"

  in the far north, he goes on, there is a weapon. you must claim it if you are to have any hope in a struggle against the princeps and his exemplars.

  "I don't have any intention of struggling against anyone, much less First-in-the-City," I hiss. "I am just trying to stay alive here."

  i told you of my purpose, did i not?

  "Yeah, well, it's not exactly been top of my mind. I'll get around to it eventually."

  you will not be able to avoid it. not if you want to survive.

  I am getting a little sick of this fucking skull. I take a deep breath.

  "Fine. North. Another weapon. Something like Mercy?"

  no. like nothing you can conceive.

  I stew in silence for a few moments.

  "I could still chuck the skull under the tires, you know." It sounds petulant, even to my ears.

  then your chances of survival will go from slim to none.

  "Fuck." I say it out loud. "Fuck!"

  "God not feeling chatty?" Agni says.

  "If anything, the fucker talks too much," I mutter under my breath.

  ***

  Finding the raider camp is easy enough, since the mass of vehicles that left the wrecked cruiser made no attempt to hide their trail. When we get there, though -- carefully tucking the trike behind a dune to avoid attracting attention -- the sight of the place is disheartening.

  "That," Quarter says, lying next to me on the sand, "is a fuckin' lot of cannibals."

  I'd expected dozens. The camp looks like it holds hundreds. They've thrown up tents and lean-tos haphazardly, small groups gathered around their own cook fires. It's not total chaos, however: vehicles are parked in ragged lines around the perimeter, bikes and trikes and four-wheel sandcars brimming with black and red paint and unnecessary spikes. Icons of the Fifth, a twisted pentagonal shape, are everywhere, daubed in paint or wrought in steel.

  The camp is sited for defense, backed on to a triangular promontory overlooking a rocky, jagged-edged cliff. At the rear, near the cliff-edge, is a larger vehicle -- a small sandship, with treads and a hanging metal skirt, like a miniature version of the .

  Most of the excitement in the camp is focused on a clear space in front of the ship where a crowd of raiders have gathered. They're engaged in some kind group activity, but from this distance I can't tell if they're praying or eating or both.

  "There's guards on th' bikes," Quarter says. "Lookouts, too. We can't go over the dune without gettin' spotted."

  My eyes narrow. "Does that guy have a for an arm?"

  "Prob'ly a priest." Quarter shakes his head. "Fifth priests are all lunatics."

  "All priests are lunatics." It's something of a proverb.

  "More so than most. Big part of the sacrament is killin' people to serve you in the afterlife. Assumin' you die in glorious battle of course."

  "Lovely." I frown. "That ship looks Navy under all the spikes."

  "Aye, an escort cutter. Fast as a thief but not many guns. Though Second knows what the nutters have done to her."

  An idea is coming to me. It's one of ideas, I can tell already. The ones that come to you unbidden and make your whole body fizz with the excitement of a game about to unfold. It means either someone is about to get taken for everything they're worth, or you're about to land in the

  deep shit.

  "Would a cutter like that outrun those trikes, do you think?" I say, as though merely curious.

  "Aye," Quarter says guardedly. "If the ground stayed good. What're you thinkin'?"

  "I'm thinking it's a nice looking ship." I can feel a smile spreading across my face and the old buzzing in my fingertips. "Maybe we should steal it."