Amber thought about this as she did the washing—dunking each article of clothing, rubbing it all over with Meoraq’s latherless soap, dunking it again, wringing and rubbing and dunking some more—and ultimately decided it didn’t really matter. Scott was unlikely to let them go to any lizard-city anyway. It was one thing to pioneer their way east across the alien landscape with their native guide, but it would be something else entirely to be the ones who were outnumbered. To be the aliens, in other words.

And that only brought her around to the even more disquieting matter of just what they were going to do once Meoraq was gone. Not just for food, but for boot repair and heating-stones and stewing bags to dunk their dirty clothes in. Scott could kid himself all he wanted about how this was a colony, but once Meoraq was gone, she had a feeling things were going to fall apart in one hell of a hurry.

She didn’t doubt for a moment that Meoraq would leave them at the end of the road. The only question was whether or not he’d leave them even sooner. She would if she were him, especially after tonight. God, what had she been thinking? Just barge right in, little girl, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, by all means, sit around until he actually has to tell you to get out.

‘He didn’t,’ the half-drunk voice of her mother remarked.

“Didn’t what?” Amber muttered, wringing what looked like pure hot cocoa out of one of Nicci’s shirts. She really ought to dump out what was left in the bag and start over with fresh water.

‘He didn’t tell you to get out.’

“Well, no, not in so many—”

‘He told you to close the door.’

Amber froze, her mouth slightly agape, her arms jutting out stiffly before her with murky water dripping from the rat-tail of Nicci’s shirt, because there was a difference, wasn’t there?

“Bullshit,” she whispered, but she looked furtively back over her shoulder at the leathery peak of Meoraq’s tent.

Tie the fastens, woman. You’re letting the wind in. Not even ‘human,’ but ‘woman.’ Tie the fastens, woman.

And just why the hell was that running circles in her head instead of I beat him until I broke seventeen bones or He slept six days and died? But now the thought was there and her brain ruthlessly showed her how it could have been if she’d done it…if she’d closed herself in and then crawled over to the half-glimpsed shape of him and then what, for God’s sake?

Her hands were freezing. She was still holding that stupid shirt and her wet knuckles were actually throbbing with cold. Quickly, Amber dunked the shirt into the warm water and wrung it out again. She was doing the laundry, damn it, and that was it. He didn’t even like her.

‘You don’t have to like someone to fuck them,’ observed Bo Peep’s sly, smirking voice, and she ought to know. ‘Besides, it was nice in there, wasn’t it? Out of the wind. He had a real blanket, too. And he’s warm.’

“Shut up.”

‘You thought so even way back then, when he took the knife away and licked you. He’s not cold at all, like reptiles are supposed to be. He was so warm.’

She was not going to stand here and argue out loud with her dead mother’s disembodied, imaginary voice. Tight-lipped, Amber gathered up the chilly armload of dripping laundry and carried it over to the nearest tree. She began to tie things to the lowest branches. Double-knots. Extra secure. She wasn’t thinking about it. For God’s sake, he was a lizard!

‘He’s a man. And men are all the same. Go on and tell me you’ve never caught him looking at you when it’s just the two of you up at night and Eric and Maria are shaking the walls of that pissant little tent.’

Sure, she had. She’d seen those looks and, let’s face it, she’d seen them because she’d been looking for it, hadn’t she? Yeah, he was a lizard. Yeah, okay, no getting around that, but he was the lizard who, although he clearly didn’t like her, wouldn’t walk with her, and avoided even looking at her these days, he was the lizard who had touched her. Three times, in fact, his hand had stroked across her forehead in what could only be called a caress, and who could forget that endless moment after he’d decided not to execute her after all, when he’d put his arm around her waist and yanked her hard against him and licked her neck and pressed his scaly forehead against her shoulder?

“It isn’t like that!” she hissed, tying up the last pair of pants with a particularly savage twist. She knew she was talking to herself and she hated herself for doing it, but she had to say it out loud because the silence felt too much like shame-faced agreement.

And it wasn’t like that! It wasn’t! She’d had no trouble at all telling Crandall off when he’d tried to buy a blowjob with a lousy Fleet ration, and she’d done it a few times since on those nights when he decided that the privilege of his company was worth a kiss and a quick cop under her shirt. She had no pangs of conscience when it came to putting herself between Scott and her sister, or speaking up over his persistent efforts to convince everyone that a loyal pioneeress served her colony’s best interests by making babies. She knew some and maybe all of the other women were creeping off with certain guys from time to time and she didn’t blame them, exactly, but she was different. She was tough. Things were bad right now, but she was learning and she wouldn’t need to be taken care of forever. She wasn’t…God damn it, she wasn’t a little girl!

The wind flapping through the wet clothes sounded to her ears like slow, sarcastic applause. Her mother used to do that when she was feeling witty. Amber turned her back on it and went back to the fire, where the stewing bag was waiting to be washed out. After she’d done that, she could cut some more grass and bundle it up for fuel. Then as long as nothing snuck in and ate someone, Meoraq would wake up and think she was doing a good job. And maybe he’d tell her so and maybe he’d even give her one of those friendly knuckle-taps and maybe he’d never put his arm around her that way again, but that was just fine. Amber Bierce did not need a fucking hug and even if he were to open his tent this instant and order her inside, she—

…she…

…she’d go.

Amber sat in the grass with the stewing bag and the bar of soap stupidly clutched to her chest. She pulled her knees up, put her head down, and wept without sound until she thought she was going to pass out. Then she dried her eyes, finished washing out the bag, hung it up on its tripod, and got back to work on Nicci’s boot.

7

After being wakened for his watch, Moraq brought out the fires, meditated until dawn, then went out and found a saoq to kill. There were no herds nearby, nor was he likely to find any more save by Sheul’s grace, but the young rogues who had been defeated and driven out were still in plentiful number in the plains. His kill was a finer specimen than most, but it had been gored deeply across the face and the infection which made it easy for Meoraq to find and kill had also swelled half its head with poison. Perhaps not all the meat was bad, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Meoraq left the head and the bowels steaming over the cold, dead earth and came back to feed his many whining mouths.

He made certain to walk past Amber on his way through camp, and a short time later, as he was pulling the saoq out of its hide, she came yawning up behind him with her clean, white clothes blown wide around her. She didn’t look like a candle-ward anymore. Neither did she look like a tent or a windmill or any of the other humorous comparisons that might have at one time occurred to him. In the grey light of dawn, she looked like nothing but what she was: a sallow-faced, sunken-eyed starving person.

He frowned and continued to butcher his kill.