“Sleep.”

She followed the others’ lead, stripping off hood and boots and sliding fully clothed into her bag. She thought she saw a look of approval on Aoife’s dark and broken face.

They were up the next day in the thin gray light before dawn. Marghe was not offered food, nor did she see any of the Echraidhe eating. They rolled up their nightbags, donned hoods and boots, and began unpegging and stowing the leather tents. Marghe wondered if Aoife still had the FN‑17. She could not escape without it.

The small muscles over her ribs and stomach tightened in dread as Aoife walked a horse toward her. The bruises from yesterday’s journey were just beginning to show and her face was red as skinned meat.

“Hold him.”

Marghe took the rein. She did not know what else to do. Aoife strode off and returned with Pella. The tribeswoman stood by with folded arms while Marghe patted her mare and ran her hands down her neck. Her gear was neatly slung behind the saddle. She checked her pack and found it was all there, her FN‑17, her wristcom, her map. Only the knife and the food were missing. Her relief was so great, she nearly turned to Aoife and thanked her.

The tribeswoman mounted and gestured for Marghe to do likewise. The other horses were wheeling and thundering northward.

As they rode, Aoife pulled strips of dried meat from the pouch by her thigh. She handed some to Marghe. They slowed a little to eat and Marghe took the opportunity to strap the wristcom back across the pale skin over her left wrist. With it back in place she sat up straighter, could regard Aoife coolly, and she understood suddenly that her relief at the presence of the wristcom on her wrist was not just the practical comfort of having the compass: while she could record things, she still had a professional persona. She was Marguerite Angelica Taishan, the SEC rep; she was not lost and alone, helpless as any other savage on a horse.

Aoife had the power to take away from her that so‑slender thread of identity any time she wished.

She touched the compass function key. It seemed to be working. Good. She turned a casual circle in her saddle. She had horse, vaccine, map and compass. Aoife’s spear was strapped down securely and her small, shaggy mount was probably no match for the longer‑legged Pella at full stretch.

Aoife was watching her. She tapped the sling at her belt. “I can kill a ruk with this at nine nines of paces. You–” she looked Marghe and her mount up and down, “you I could bring down before that summer mare lengthened her stride.”

Marghe said nothing. Perhaps, if it came to it, Aoife would hesitate to kill.

“A stone can stun a rider, as well as kill,” Aoife said.

Marghe turned her face away, winced as the wind bit into her raw cheek.

“Here.”

Frustration made her angry, and stubborn. She refused to look at what Aoife offered.

“Grease for your face.”

Marghe ignored her. Aoife swung her mount in front of Marghe’s and wrenched them both to a halt. She pulled Marghe’s face to hers by the chin. Her eyes were flat and brown.

“You will take this grease.”

Marghe stared at Aoife’s broken nose, the thick white scar that writhed over her cheekbone, nose, and mouth, and made no move to take the small clay pot.

Aoife sighed and pulled off a glove. “Hold still.” Strong blunt fingers smoothed the grease delicately over Marghe’s face. Nose first, forehead, chin, then cheeks. Marghe flinched, then relaxed. It did not hurt.

“Close your eyes and mouth.”

This time she obeyed, and Aoife stroked the thick, milk‑colored stuff onto her lips and eyelids. Then she stowed away her pot.

Marghe touched her lips, the sore place on her cheek; the grease was a kindness. “Thank you.”

Aoife nodded. “The others are far ahead.” They kicked their mounts into a gallop. Marghe checked her compass and saw that they galloped northwest. Ollfoss, and the forest, lay northeast.

They rode hard for three days and Marghe began to understand Aoife’s contempt for Pella. The mare looked gaunt and dull‑eyed, while the shaggy horses seemed tireless. They ate on the move, strips of dried meat, and drank a sour, half‑frozen slush called locha. It was made from fermented taar milk. Marghe hated it, but she drank it; it put warmth in her gut.

As they neared the main camp, the tribeswomen seemed to relax. They talked more among themselves. Marghe listened and learned: the triple handful of riders were returning from the annual ceremony at the ringstones.

“Did I interrupt your ceremony?” she asked Aoife as they swung back into the saddle one afternoon.

“It was finished. The Levarch was showing us the southern pasturelands. We were on our way home when Uaithne found you.”

She remembered Uaithne’s threat. Intrusion in some religions carried an automatic death penalty. “Have I disturbed the… rightfulness of the stones for you?”

“No.” Aoife paused. “It’s happened before. Twice.”

Marghe’s heart thumped. Winnie? She licked her lips, swallowed. “What happened to the women?”

Uaithne galloped past. Aoife shook her head and would not answer any more questions.

At the end of the third day, they came to the winter camp of the Echraidhe.

Chapter Five

DANNER TURNED AWAY from the lists on her screen and looked instead at the tapestry on the wall behind her. It was an abstract of blues and golds about a meter square, a present from her deputy, Ato Teng, about a year ago. She wondered if Teng had made it herself, this marvelous picture that made her feel hollow inside, like homesickness. Or had the artist given it to Teng? In exchange for what? It bothered her that she did not know the answers to these questions, that she did not know her deputy well enough to even guess.

Her office had no window. Port Central followed Company design: the nerve center, her office, was protected by myriad other rooms, corridors, and storerooms. There were no external signs for indigenes to read and follow; the usual procedure. More than one Company security installation had suffered sabotage. But here on Jeep, the precautions were ridiculous. The natives simply stayed away. Port Central had become a sophisticated prison for its inmates, while the natives roamed a whole world.

She wished she had a window because sometimes, sitting here in her box of an office, with the air always the same temperature and officers all wearing the same uniform, she could believe that this was a normal situation, one that could be resolved by the application of all those wonderful scenarios and procedures taught at the academy in Dublin. But Jeep was not normal. What other Company planet was under the charge of a lieutenant?

She fingered the insignia sealed to her epaulets. She might wear the two stars of a commander, but in her head she was still a lieutenant, playing at command, as though it were a test after which the real brass would unplug her from the simulator and point out all her mistakes, patting her on the back for any smart moves. But here there was no one to tell her if she had made any smart moves, no one to talk to about anything. Command isolated her more effectively than a deadly disease.

When she had first realized how it was going to be, that she was the superior officer, she had been scared. Hundreds of people relied on her. Hundreds. In those first weeks she had been too scared, shaking too hard, to spend time with anyone. In front of others, she was not allowed to be Hannah Danner, the newest lieutenant on Jeep; she had to be Acting Commander Danner, the one with all the answers, her orders crisp, clear, and fast as the breaking of a bone. It reached the stage where she could not even bring herself to eat or drink in front of other officers. It took her a long time to learn that patterns of command were well laid; as long as what she asked people to do made some kind of sense, they would be glad to have someone in charge. Then she relaxed a little. But the habit was already formed: isolation, loneliness, solitude.