‘I—’

‘A horse. That’s big, right? You stumble across a dead horse. Biggest horse you’ve ever seen, and it’s freshly dead. You could cut it up and eat it right now. It’s there for the taking. But the leaders of your group, they say, no, no, we need to talk about this. We can’t do this now. We need to talk about how to do this fairly. We have to make sure everybody’s getting the exact same amount of horse. We’re going to cut just a little bit of horse off, but oh, wait, no, now we need to reorganise all our satchels so we have room for the horse bits. And while we’re doing that, we should really talk about which of us could use some horse more. So everybody sits in the sand, doing fuck all but talk about the horse instead of actually using it. Meanwhile, everybody’s hungry, and they’re getting hungrier. Your family is getting hungrier, and that horse isn’t getting any better as the days go on. So some of your group, they decide to just cut up the damn horse already, because the people in charge are going to talk forever anyway, and you can feed a few mouths in the meantime.’ He shoved an armful of sofa stuffing into the nearly-full autocart. ‘What’s the harm in that?’

Sawyer stared at him. ‘That’s . . . this isn’t a horse. The Oxomoco isn’t rotting. And nobody’s starving. Nobody’s gonna die without . . . without . . .’ He gestured emptily at the cart.

Oates opened a closet and began working his way through the floating clothing. ‘I didn’t say it was a perfect analogy. But we’re getting people the things they need. We’re not hurting anybody. We’re helping. If the council’s gonna sit on its ass, somebody else is gonna step in.’

‘But you’re . . . you’re . . .’ Sawyer tried to work some moisture back into his mouth. ‘You’re stealing.’

Oates laughed. ‘You’ve filled half this cart yourself, kid.’

Sawyer’s head swam. He pulled his fingers into his gloved palms. ‘I – if I’d known—’

Oates’ expression grew serious. ‘You heard the boss. If you’re not happy, you walk away after this. After this. We are your ride home. We put food in your mouth and air in your lungs.’ He took a step forward, knife still in hand. ‘Right now, you owe us.’ He smiled as if nothing were wrong. ‘Now, we’ve eaten up a good chunk of time with this. To make up for it, I want you to take the other cart and check out the other homes while I finish up here.’ He clapped Sawyer’s shoulder. ‘Are we good?’

Sawyer would’ve given anything in that moment to be a stronger person. A smarter person. He wanted to tell Oates to fuck off, he wanted to run out of the room, he wanted to get back to the ship and into an escape pod and beat them back to the Fleet, where he could tell patrol what had happened, and they’d understand, they’d know he hadn’t known, they’d be reasonable and fair and . . . and . . . would they? Or would they scoff at him for being stupid? Would they lock him up? Would they kick him out?

The moral high ground didn’t look any safer. What would happen if Sawyer simply did nothing, if he refused to help any further with this? Would they leave him? Would they . . . He looked at Oates’ knife. Stars, they wouldn’t, would they?

Would they?

Sawyer couldn’t see any path of refusal that ended well. He didn’t have any clue what he’d do when they got back to the Fleet, but Oates was right. They were his ride home. He had four more days with these people. There wasn’t much else he could do.

He looked at the floor, and nodded.

‘Good,’ Oates said. He handed Sawyer his satchel of tools. ‘Go quick, and holler if you need a hand.’

Sawyer gestured for the cart to follow. He left the home. He walked to the next home over. There was nothing else he could do. Nowhere else he could go.

The front door was firmly sealed, and as unresponsive as the first had been. There was no big hole made by Aeluon bots. No one had opened this place up since the accident.

Sawyer stood motionless for a moment. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be there. Sanitation, he thought. That’s where he should be. Maybe he’d tell that to patrol when he got back. Maybe if he mentioned that he was in the sanitation lottery, they’d go easy on him, they’d see that he was serious about being there, that he hadn’t come all this way to cause trouble. Or would he go to patrol? Maybe it was better to do like Muriel had said – shake hands, walk away, no problem, never speak of it again.

‘Shit,’ he said. He leaned his forehead against the inside of his helmet and shut his eyes. He had to do this. He had to get back home. Back to the Fleet, anyway. He wasn’t sure he had a home. At the moment, he wasn’t sure he deserved one.

Sawyer reached into Oates’ satchel and found another power pack. He gestured. Nothing happened. He connected his scrib, like he had before. He went through the code, like he had before. This one was the same as the other had been, and he blazed through it in a blink. It was keyed differently, that was all. Keyed for someone else. Another family. Another wall full of hands.

Focus, he thought. C’mon, don’t fuck this up even more.

He punched in the last command.

Sawyer would never be sure of what came next. The sealed door slid open, and with it came force, and fear, and pressure, and Sawyer was in the air – no, that wasn’t right, there wasn’t air in space, there was – there was air, all the air that had been behind the door, and it was carrying him, and the contents of the home, all the things Oates wanted, all the things that family had needed, rushing, rushing, flying, thudding, falling. Then there was a bulkhead, and a split second of pain, pain everywhere, an inescapable shatter. But that was all. He didn’t have time to process what dying felt like.