They froze. Everything froze. Everything except the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Movement. Invasion.

‘Fuck,’ Ras whispered. ‘I think it’s patrol.’ He scrambled. ‘C’mon!’

They scurried behind a large bush, and everything was bad now, loud heartbeat and metal muscles and screaming edges. The footsteps got closer. With every step, Kip willed himself to be more still, more invisible. He would turn into stone, and they’d never find him. They couldn’t find him. Shit, they couldn’t find him. They couldn’t.

He wished the tingles would go away for a minute.

He could feel Ras beside him. They weren’t actually touching, but he could feel him, buzzing like a living thing. Ras was wrong. They were sharing this. It wasn’t a good thing to share, but it was better than being alone.

Someone was in the grass now, the sounds told him. Someone was standing in the grass, turning in a careful circle, looking around. Someone was sitting down, coughing, opening a bottle, drinking. Staying put. Kip was sure the someone would know he and Ras were there, that xe’d hear their breath, their blood. But the someone surprised him. The someone didn’t notice. The someone waited.

Then, all at once, there were two someones. The new one spoke. ‘Looks like you’ve been hitting that hard,’ she said.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t,’ the first someone said – a male someone.

The woman sat. ‘I know this shit’s been rough—’

‘Rough? Rough? Rough is when you haven’t been laid in a while, or when your engine breaks, or . . . I fucking killed that kid, Muriel.’

Kip and Ras looked at each other. The ground fell away. Everything was wrong.

‘Keep your voice down,’ the woman said calmly.

‘There’s nobody here.’

‘Still,’ she said. ‘Keep it down.’ She sighed. ‘How could you have guessed he’d do something that stupid? Stars, my niece knows not to open a sealed door in a vacuum, and she’s six.’

‘I should’ve said something, I was distracted, I—’

‘You should’ve, yes. But it was an accident. Accidents happen.’

‘Somebody ever accidentally die on you?’ There was a long pause. ‘Yeah. I thought not.’

‘Oates. It happened. It’s done. All we can do is clean up and move forward.’

Kip felt like the giant cake was back, only now it was the air itself, pressing in and smothering. ‘Is this real?’ he mouthed to Ras.

Ras said nothing, which said everything.

Beyond the bush, the bottle glugged. ‘You got everything ready?’

‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘Food, fuel, every favour I had. We can be out of here this time tomorrow.’

‘Thank fuck. Every time I see a patrol, I nearly shit myself.’

‘Just keep your head down and your mouth shut, and it’ll be fine.’

The bottle glugged again. ‘Where’d Dory put him?’

‘Do you care?’

‘Yes.’

The woman was silent a little too long. ‘We didn’t have great options.’

‘Where?’

‘Cloth processing. Bottom of the pile.’

‘Cloth processing? Are you fucking high? They’ll find him in a—’

‘—in several days, which is all we need to get gone. Look, where could we have put him where they wouldn’t find him? We couldn’t space him or leave him there without those fuckers on the Neptune finding him – and you know they wouldn’t hesitate to use that against us one way or another. We couldn’t risk a second punch, especially a blind one. We couldn’t keep him on the ship, because there’s no chance import inspection would overlook a body, no matter how many creds we sent their way. The gardens aren’t deep enough, he’s too big for a hot box chute without us getting disgusting about it, the foundry’s always got people there, cargo bay’s too closely patrolled these days – and where do you get off, anyway? We clean up, and you complain about the details?’

‘I’m sorry. I just—’ The man’s voice broke. ‘I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t—’

‘I know. And that is why we’re doing this for you. Because you’re crew, and shit happens. If you’d meant to hurt that kid, we wouldn’t be busting our asses to make this right.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I—’

‘I know.’ There was a touching sound, a friendly pat. ‘Now are you going to share that kick, or what?’

Kip shut his eyes. He tried to ignore the voices. He tried to ignore everything. He wanted to go back to the grass and the weird toes, but that was gone now. Lost. Now everything was sharp and hot, and – and he didn’t want this. He didn’t want his brain to be like this anymore, but he was pretty sure he was stuck this way forever, and someone had died, and oh stars, what if he died? What if he was going crazy and then something went wrong in his brain and he died? He looked down at the dirt he was crouching in, the dirt smeared across his palms, the dirt staining his knees. There were dead people in that dirt. Lots and lots of dead people. They were dead, and he’d be dead, and he’d be dirt, too. He didn’t like smash anymore. He didn’t want to feel like this. He wanted to be okay. He wanted to live. He wanted to live so badly.