Not really. Not to me.

  Peculiar sounds wrong, she said. Sea behind, sea ahead. I guess I mean distinctive. I’ll miss it.

  You think?

  Yes. And I guess I can say I saw it – the north’s last stand. Most folks wouldn’t have a clue. What it’s like on the frontier, I mean. I guess they imagine an outpost – bunkers and wild-eyed holdouts, not an actual settlement.

  Is that what you imagined?

  Pretty much.

  So why’d you come?

  It was a posting. You don’t get a choice.

  Well, I’m glad you came.

  She looked at me a moment. Appraising. Amused.

  You said you had something special to show me?

  I did. I do.

  Are we close?

  Very.

  Great, she said, hoisting the jingling harnesses back across her shoulder.

  As she made to press on across the lumpy ridge, I took her arm and drew her back.

  What? she said, more puzzled than irritated.

  Best not to go any further, I said, unclipping my pack and shrugging the coil off. Sit for a minute. Have a drink. We’re here.

  Where? I thought you said we were climbing.

  We are.

  Up what?

  Oh, I said, finally beginning to enjoy myself as I anchored the rope. The up bit comes later. First we gotta climb down.

  I heaved the coil across the rock and Sun gasped as it fell from view.

  Oh my God.

  Yes.

  That’s . . . that’s a very big hole.

  And that’s not the half of it. Here, let’s get you strapped up.

  How far down is it? she asked as I clipped her to the line.

  Pretty far, I said. But you just go down slow, push off the wall, simple.

  I showed her how to belay using the block and how to unclip at the bottom.

  You won’t be coming with me?

  There’s only one rope. I’ll come after you.

  I’m going first?

  Well, you could come down after me if you prefer. But you’ll need to talk yourself off the edge.

  Not much of a choice, is it?

  Not really.

  I showed her the braking technique again, switched her headlamp back on for later and coached her gently over the rim.

  As she made her first cautious descent, creeping backwards into the abyss, our eyes met. I’d expected terror, but her expression of concentration was almost bellicose.

  To urge her on and bolster her nerves, I said the kinds of things my mother had crooned from the hole’s lip when I was a boy. To her face. Then to the crown of her head. And once she was lost to view, I hollered into the darkness until her whoop rang out and the tension came off the line, and I knew she’d made the full thirty metres.

  When the rope was slack, I clipped on and paused a few moments to dampen my excitement. Last thing I needed was to rush this descent and make a mess. I went down briskly, but nothing showy.

  As I reached the floor of the chamber, Sun stood in a brightening shaft of light. Her gleeful smile suggested this day might be salvaged yet.

  I pointed to the deep vertical scars from the long-lost tree.

  Folks used to climb down freehand, I said. On the roots. Can you believe that?

  Sun craned to take in the long and slightly crooked shaft above us.

  The world made by water, she said. Unpathed waters, undreamed shores.

  I don’t know it, I confessed.

  And the earth standing out of the water, and in the water, she said. Sorry, I think it’s the rush!

  This is just the entrance. There’s more.

  We’re going further?

  Only if you’re interested.

  Well, hell, she said, grinning. I’ve come this far.

  We shed our harnesses and I led her to the vent in the chamber floor. I explained the nature of the chute below and how best to negotiate it.

  What if I fall? she asked. There’s no rope.

  No room.

  For rope, or for falling?

  Both, I said, setting myself into the crack and working my way down, one shoulder after the other.

  Just turn your body when you feel the ledge, I called up. Turn ninety degrees right on your bum. You’ll feel the foothold and the step down.

  Dear God, she said.

  You’ll be right, I said, my voice muted by the narrow passage.

  Sun came through slowly, but without a hitch. Once she was set beside me, squatting in the lateral, I explained the long crawl and the second drop-and-squeeze awaiting us at the other end.

  In the lamplight, she shone with sweat, and her coveralls were soaked through.

  What is this place?

  We’re nearly there. Just follow me.

  On hands and knees, with the ceiling clawing at our backs, we worked our way to the niche at the farthest end, and there I lowered myself feet-first and twisted through into the dank, briny atmosphere of the grotto. Once I was on the sill, I talked Sun down through the squeeze, and while she was still finding her feet I found a loose stone and dropped it into the pool. The sound of it reverberated around us.

  Fuck, she said. What was that?

  Here. Turn around.

  She gasped. In our lamp beams, every surface of the chamber danced with reflections.

  Is this fresh water?

  Used to be.

  I helped her down off the sill and showed her the long duct that filled the narrow floor of the cave, stretching back into the darkness. We sat. Shucked off our boots. Soaked our feet as the ripples scintillated every surface. That’s when I told Sun the story of my father’s people. The living water they found here. How they carried it up, day after day – men, women, and children – to the broad chamber above, where somehow, despite every hardship and danger, they endured in seclusion, under the baleful eye of the sky.

  Seriously? she asked. They lived here? How long?

  I don’t really know. A long time, I think. Through most of the Terror.

  This is sea water.

  Yeah.

  So they were forced out.

  Came down onto the plain.

  She reached in. Ran a hand through the water. Licked her fingers. And was quiet a while.

  What? I asked in the end.

  I envy you.

  Really?

  Yes. All your family stories, they start here, don’t they. In a real place you can come to. Like – I don’t know – like, a sanctuary.

  You don’t have stories? Your family?

  Refugees.

  My people were refugees too, I guess.

  Internal refugees. Mine were from the Hermit Kingdom.

  Well, they must have stories.

  No. Nothing. Nothing before arriving. Like a wound sealed by scar tissue. If my family had stories, they wouldn’t tell them.

  They were afraid?

  Of course. They left it all behind. Even the language. The only honest story we have is the one our faces tell. And maybe that was interesting once, when faces like ours weren’t so common. But these days, really, who cares?

  I wonder what happened there.

  Who knows, said Sun. They were always careful about food. Not just prudent – a bit obsessive. I used to hear them whispering some nights. About hunger. Or starvation. When we had no shortage of food. Best I can figure, their ancestors fled a famine, or maybe a series of famines, and I get the strong sense they had to do hard things, terrible stuff, to get out. But none of this was ever spoken of, not to me. All these generations later, the Kingdom’s this big blank.

  Undreamed shore.

  Oh no, she demurred. I think it’s dreamt of. One way or another. But those dreams are unspoken. Never shared. And the place? Well, it’s no place now. Not for us. Nothing to see, nothing to touch. So, yeah, I envy you.

  That’s . . . hard, I said.

  Sun sighed.

  Trauma, I said. That’s the word, right?

  This is where you come, isn’t it. When you’re not actually here. In your head. This is your secret place.

  Yes, I said, flustered at being understood.

  I took her hand. It was still wet from the sea welling beneath us.

  Listen, I said. Don’t go back to the city. Stay here.

  How? she asked. What will I do?

  I don’t know, I said. We’ll figure it out.

  We?

  Why not?

  We, she said experimentally.

  I know you could do better. Than here. Me.

  Yes, she said. Possibly. But you have me at something of a disadvantage. I’m deep underground and you’re my ticket out.

  You can think about it.

  Yes, she said. I’ll do that.

  Sun and I made a life together out on the plain. And although it was considered irregular, we were happy. Hamlet folks seemed uneasy about the absence of a ceremony, but my mother wasn’t troubled, and nobody dared raise it with her. Sun said formalities were of no interest to her, but should she ever manage to track down her parents, a wedding might be something we could entertain, for the sake of tidiness. I didn’t care either way. Conscious that I could be deployed at any moment, I was too busy savouring what we had then and there. I was as contented as I’d ever been.

  Sun had only been with us a few weeks, and had barely adjusted to our routines, when my mother suggested I take her on a foraging trip. So the two of us could have time together. And so that Sun could learn the salvage trade. I felt guilty leaving my mother by herself again, and so soon, but I needed no encouragement to hit the road, and Sun was curious to see the hinterland, so we packed my vehicle and trailer and headed off.

  I guess that was our grace period. A gift from my mother. But it wasn’t all largesse. Being suddenly three in the house was taking some getting used to.

  By that stage, my rig was well tested. It was sturdy and comfortable. We had plenty of provisions. The days were still relatively mild. We drove south, camping along the peninsula, prospecting for abandoned homesteads. Further east, on the mainland, in the back country, the red, stony terrain was interspersed with forsaken hamlets and old mine sites. The most accessible ruins were already well picked over, but out in the badlands, especially to the north-east, as my mother had suggested, there were places only the hardiest and best-provisioned prospector could reach. Here it was warmer, but there was plenty to be salvaged. Mines had been abandoned so hurriedly, workers had left clothes and personal effects in the habs. In mess huts, you’d find tables encrusted with petrified food.

  After a few days in that region, collecting steel, timber, functioning panels and fixings of every kind, I realized there was such a rich lode of trade material, I could stockpile it for later. So, working back from the remotest sites, where we could feel the proximity of the desert but never quite see it, we headed west toward the coast, establishing depots as we went, filling underground storm shelters with rolls of solar film, crates of wrenches, drums of drill bits, sheets of rubber, lengths of pipe, stacks of insulated wall panel, coils of wire. It wasn’t hard to shroud these caches. I’d learnt the craft of camouflage at Basic and, once I’d hacked the filtration stacks off the roofs of these shelters, there was plenty of junk with which to obscure their hatches. But the ground out there was stony and jagged. I spent many hours changing and repairing tyres. It was easy to see why few citizens ventured out so far.

  Sun was as game as ever. She was a staunch labourer and unexpectedly handy with the hot-cutter. But I could see she didn’t enjoy the thrill of the hunt and the taking of the spoils the way I did. For her, the work was something of a grind, a means to an end. What she appreciated about the trip was the freedom and privacy it afforded. Being able to lie out under the night sky. To make love without the risk of being overheard. And to strike camp on a whim without having to consult a third party.

  She never actually said so – she was always circumspect about her past – but I sensed her new lightness on that first salvage sortie was about more than the strain of living with my mother. I had the impression that before she’d come north, Sun had been living a life considerably more constrained than the one she had with us. Even in the compound, some mornings I’d seen her standing a moment to drink in the open spaces. As if physically relishing her freedom. Of course, to me this was hardly surprising, given she’d traded city living for life on the plain. Back then I lacked the imagination to consider what other forms of duress or bondage she might have known before.

  For both of us, these were precious weeks. We got grafting before first light. In the afternoons we dozed in the hot shade. And after dark we sprawled on our swags to watch the stars and explore each other’s bodies.

  When you look up there, she said one night. And you realize that every dot and blink is another place, a different world, does it make you feel lonely? Or is it comforting, somehow?

  I don’t know, I said. Sometimes, when I was a kid, I used to lie on the deck looking up and wonder if some other kid in some other place was seeing the same stars.

  Well, they probably weren’t. Unless they were at the same latitude, at the same time.

  Yeah, well I guess I figured that out later. Not comforting.

  We laughed.

  But I guess, when you were a kid, you already knew that.

  Yes, she admitted. But in the city, you can’t even see the stars, so what’s the use in knowing?

  You sure you don’t miss it?

  The city? No. I’m here. I’m happy.

  The rest of that winter, we shared the house with my mother. And although we all got along equably, Sun and I soon decided to build our own place. We planned a series of trips to source materials. But before we could set out, the season turned, and Sun had her first taste of packing down and retreating to life underground.

  It was a shock for her, our summer routine. We did our chores at night, after the worst of the heat had broken. We hadn’t replaced the hens yet, so it was mostly a matter of keeping the lamps up to the plants and checking pumps and moisture levels. We picked twice weekly, brining and bottling whatever we couldn’t dry or press. The hives required coolers and regular checking. During the day we slept as much as we could, and the rest of the time we lay in bed huffing choof, talking and daydreaming.

  In summer, I’d always slept in the same room as my mother. But that season Sun and I set up a nook of our own. We altered the hab, knocking up a couple of partitions so there were separate quarters either side of a central chamber where we all cooked and ate. It rendered every living space even more snug, and our sanctuaries were hardly more than alcoves into which you could squeeze a bed, desk and chair, with a couple of shelves bolted to the wall. But with the vent fans running throughout the hab, and the pipes humming day and night, we could speak in bed with a measure of privacy. Anything more intimate had to wait until the irrigation pumps kicked in.

  We fantasized about travelling to new places. Bold expeditions into the desert. Treks to the far north in search of marvels – refuges, remnant creatures, human survivors. It was mostly just choof-talk to pass the hours, but it was nice to imagine ourselves in the open, discovering strange frontiers and novel situations.

  Sun liked to quiz me about my childhood, and I was happy to oblige, but she’d only speak of her own upbringing when pressed. She told me her parents were scholars. That for a long time they’d worked as Association teachers. It was steady work in the city, but they grew restless and quit to travel, and as a child Sun roamed with them as they trekked right through the south. She saw residual patches of hardwood forest, open-sky farms, some rivers, and many small children. She said there was good trade in knowledge, but that it was uncertain work and sometimes dangerous. Association teachers were safe because they kept to the curriculum. But to avoid conflict, an independent scholar, especially one with ideas alien to a smaller settlement, was forced to keep moving. So it was a peripatetic existence, and for Sun a lonely one.

  What about your parents? I asked. Didn’t they ever get lonely?

  They were doing their own thing, she said. They’re very self-sufficient people. But when you’re a kid, you’re a passenger, not a driver. I was miserable, and in the end they sent me back to the city. To an academy. I was eleven.

  How long has it been since you’ve seen them?

  Two years. Maybe three.

  Can you imagine them here?

  They’re mentally staunch, she said. Fierce, really. But they’re not robust people. They’re intellectuals. They’d get bored pretty quickly. Besides, I’m not sure I’d want them here.

  They put you in an academy!

  They’re serious people. They were doing what they felt was important.

  See, this is what I don’t understand. Are they in trouble? I asked. Have they been disassociated?

  No, she said. They have full protection. They’re citizens. Co-ops recognize them wherever they go. The truth is, maybe it really was kinder for them to leave me. I was happier in the academy. People need to make hard choices. What’s best for the greater good.

  When Sun spoke like that, of hard choices and the greater good, I felt myself recoil. From apprehension. And remorse. Because I knew I had a reckoning due. Just didn’t know when it would arrive.

  The hours before sunset were the cruellest. Sometimes it was an effort even to talk, and much too hot to smoke. The only way to endure it was to pack a wad of choof, lie back, and chew yourself into a stupor. Trouble was, a dose like that slowed you down for the night’s work, setting you back even further, so as summer wore on your body felt as if it were leaking charge. You started every night with less juice than the evening before.

  Just before dawn, despite how drained we felt, one of us would prepare food while the others went up to secure the compound. In the roasting darkness, one checked the bund and oiled the turbines while the other dusted the array and made sure the shutters and films on the house were still cinched tight. We’d all meet at the bunker hatch to set the ventilators. And before going below we’d scan the sky for weather and sniff the wind for any sign of change.

  Have you checked the bund? my mother would ask.

  I have, I’d reply, running with sweat.