She turned and made her way back towards the camp.

The two figures were about twenty metres from the tent. They wore matt-black suits which covered their faces, and they each held small hand guns. They were creeping slowly closer to the tent, coming from the direction of the fjord head down a small ridge.

Her mind raced. Her gun was in the tent. The two figures hadn’t fired yet though they were well within range and must have realised there was no guard posted. They didn’t seem to have seen her. If she simply shouted, rousing Miz and Dloan, the two figures might shoot straight into the tent.

She shrank back and ducked, then ran downhill and curved round to get behind them. She tried to go as quietly as she could, slipping twice on buried roots but not making any appreciable noise. She found the rear of the ridge and ran up it, crouching.

The two black figures were right in front of her, still creeping toward the tent. She stayed where she was for a moment, getting her breath back, keeping her mouth wide so that her breathing didn’t make a noise.

The two figures were separating; one stayed where he was, crouched on one knee, gun pointed at the tent, while the other started to circle.

Zefla drew both her gloves off, placed them on the snow and crept down towards the kneeling figure, her hands out in front of her. There was a tickling feeling in her throat, probably because she’d been breathing hard. Fate, girl, she told herself, this is no time to cough, or sneeze, or get the hiccups… She got within five metres of the crouching figure, then something in the fire collapsed with a snap and a cloud of orange sparks swirled into the air.

She froze. So did the person circling round to the front of the tent. If they turned to look at the kneeling figure in front of her, they’d be bound to see her. She wasn’t close enough to make a dive for the kneeling figure. She watched the one near the tent, her heart thudding.

The circling figure kept its gaze on the tent, then moved slowly closer. Zefla relaxed fractionally and crept on towards the kneeling figure, her breath silent. The tickle in her throat wasn’t so bad now. Four metres; she would get to the kneeling figure with the gun before the other one got to the tent; three metres.

The snow fell from a tree immediately behind her without any warning.

She heard it, started to straighten as she thought there might have been another attacker behind her, then-realising, but knowing it was too late-pounced, shouting, at the man in front of her as he whirled round, bringing the gun up and firing as he rolled.

Miz had woken from a dream. He had been aware of somebody getting out of the tent. He felt stiff and sore and incredibly hungry. He still had the machine gun in his arms. He started to ease his arms and shoulders into a different position, then heard a whooshing, thumping noise, followed immediately by a scream and two shots. He tore the tent entrance open to see a black-suited figure right in front of him looking to one side, then turning to point a gun at him.

He had gone to sleep dreaming about this; his thumb flicked the safety an instant before his finger pressed the trigger. The gun shuddered and roared in his arms, trying to burrow back down past him and blowing the figure outside backwards, gun firing up into the trees.

Miz threw himself out of the tent. He felt Dloan follow.

There was a body lying in the snow, and an impression of move-ment downslope. Miz ran after the fleeing figure. The black-suited figure dropped the hand gun it had been carrying, dived into the water, swam for a few seconds then dived, disappearing in a black swirl of moonlit water.

Miz raised the machine gun and sighted at where the black suit had disappeared, then raised the gun a fraction. After a few moments there was a hint of turbulence to one side of where he was aiming; he corrected and fired, moving the gun around as though stirring the distant, fountaining water. The magazine ran out and the gun fell silent.

He remembered the nightsight and clipped it on. The body in the water floated darkly, oozing warmth.

Miz let the machine gun drop to the ground, then picked it up and started walking back up to the tent, shaking. He had just realised: the body on the snow had been wearing fatigues, and Zefla hadn’t been in the tent.

A sickness worse than any hunger grew in his belly as he walked, then ran, back up the slope to the tent.

Sharrow had woken with the noise, still groggy; then she saw Zefla’s pale, slackly unconscious face, and the blood oozing from the wounds in her chest and head.

Now their earlier roles were reversed and Sharrow knelt in the tent, tending to the shallow-breathing, trembling Zefla. Dloan looked on, his body shaking more than his sister’s. He held her hand, staring at her face, his eyes wide and terrified.

“Call for help,” Sharrow told Miz.

“What?” he said.

“Of course,” Dloan said, his eyes shining. “The Franchisers. We can call the Franchisers.”

“But-” Miz began, then looked from Sharrow’s face down to Zefla’s. He shook his head. “Oh, Fate,” he said with a moan. He took his phone from a pocket and opened it. He tried pressing a few buttons, frowning. Dloan saw the expression and looked, wide-eyed, for his phone. Sharrow dug hers out from her satchel and found Zefla’s.

None of them worked; it was as though they had been turned off from outside.

There was little they could do for Zefla. The bullet in her chest had gone right through, puncturing a lung; the front wound bubbled with each shallow breath. The bullet that had struck her head had left a long gouged mark along her temple a centimetre deep; tiny shards of bone marked its edges. They couldn’t tell if the round had pierced her skull or grazed off. They sprayed antiseptic on her wounds and bandaged them.

Feril arrived back twenty minutes later; it had heard the noise from its position near the tower. It tried broadcasting a distress message using its own comm unit, but didn’t hold out much hope of it being picked up unless somebody was deliberately looking with a targeted satellite.

It put its hands gently to Zefla’s head, feeling carefully around, and told them there was a bullet lodged inside her skull near the back.

The android suggested it went on guard now. Miz gave it the machine gun. It closed the tent and left them to tend to the wounded woman as best they could.

It knew now that it should have spoken its mind earlier when they were trying to decide what to do; it ought to have suggested that it stay here, on guard, but it had not felt it was its place to say anything. They were experienced at this sort of thing, their lives were more totally at risk than its was, and it had not wanted to be thought presumptuous or patronising.

Fool, fool, it told itself, taking the safety off the machine gun. Fool, Feril; fool.

It sat down in a pile of freshly fallen snow near the top of the small ridge above the camp, and nursed the gun until the bitter dawn arose.

They set off just after dawn, leaving Dloan behind in the tent with Zefla. She was still breathing shallowly. The bandage round her chest was soaked red, and they had to keep her turned on her side to let her cough up blood without choking. Dloan just sat there with wide, frightened, child-like eyes, stroking her hands and whispering to her.

“She’ll be all right,” Sharrow told him, not believing it but feeling it was the only way to dam his despair. The big, powerful man looked about five years old.

Dloan said nothing but looked at Sharrow with a faint, tremulous smile, and kept on stroking Zefla’s hand. Sharrow ran her hand over Zefla’s pale, hot face and stroked her cheek.

“You’ll pull through, eh, girl?” she said, trying to keep the choke out of her voice, then pulled away and stood shakily outside the tent where Miz and Feril were waiting.