No, said Sun. I understand that well enough.

  Where’s this coming from? I asked.

  Sun’s right, said my mother. It’s hard to give up a child. But it’s inevitable. You only have them a short time. It’s as if, from the moment they truly become themselves, they’re leaving you. You give them up to the world, to the greater good. Despite yourself. However much it hurts.

  Maybe we should talk about something else, said Sun, glancing sideways at me.

  Again, I’m sitting right here, I said. And, Mum, I live across the compound. I haven’t gone anywhere.

  You’ll see. Both of you.

  Sun got up abruptly and left the deck.

  What is this? I hissed at my mother. What’s got into you?

  I’m perfectly fine, she said, her gaze averted.

  You sound bitter. Are you jealous?

  I don’t have the luxury of feeling jealous.

  I don’t understand you, I said.

  You’re a very young man, she said. I’ve lived longer and seen so much more than you.

  Oh, I doubt that, I said.

  Son, a few excursions don’t make you worldly. Nor do they make you wise.

  Time for bed, I said, getting to my feet.

  You shouldn’t be angry, she said, remaining in her seat.

  No? What should I be?

  Careful, she said. Staunch, yes. But always careful.

  I gestured toward the stairs, and she went meekly, as if she’d yielded.

  But she hadn’t yielded. Not in the way I thought. And that year, because of the state I was in, I was not careful. Not in the way she meant. Probably not even in the way I thought she had meant.

  I took them both for granted – Sun and my mother. I underestimated them. Misread them entirely. And I’ve had a long time to regret it.

  The child stirs. I see the bowman peering at her.

  It’s something, isn’t it?

  He stiffens, suddenly self-conscious. Then he sniffs. And attempts to regain his tactical demeanour.

  You ever have kids? I ask.

  He shakes his head. I draw a breath to speak but realize I have no idea what to say. The bowman notices the hesitation.

  So what’s this, then? he says. Some sort of do-over?

  What?

  You had ’em. You lost ’em. Now you want to redeem yourself?

  How do you know I lost them?

  Well, for one thing they’re not with you, are they. And this yarn you’re spinning – I can feel it coming.

  This is not about making up for my mistakes. I’m just trying to do the right thing.

  I don’t believe you.

  I made a promise.

  To who?

  A woman.

  What’s her name?

  She’s dead. I never knew her name.

  You took in a stray for a woman you didn’t even know?

  I knew her.

  But not her name. Jesus, I figured you for a bullshitter. But maybe you’re just soft in the head.

  I’m just trying to be decent.

  He offers only a scowl.

  The kid deserves somewhere safe, with honourable people. Some kind of future.

  Good luck with that.

  I don’t need luck, brother. I need help.

  He snorts.

  That’s funny? Seriously?

  Listen to yourself, he says. You’re like some wild-eyed pilgrim looking for paradise.

  No. Not me. They’re searching for the end, those folks. I’m looking to start something.

  Grind me down, more like.

  I’m trying to show you who I am.

  You’re just buying time. I’m starting to think your story’s full of shit. All this talk and somehow you never get around to Utah. You were never on that job. Probably weren’t even one of us.

  I shake my head. Close my eyes. Draw a ragged breath. And begin to sing in a dry croak. Fitful at first. Stuttering, almost. Because my gullet burns. And my gums are pasted to my cheeks. But once I find my stride and get my wind, the song fills me, lifts me, bears me forward. And out they pour, the forbidden names.

  Shut up with that! he yells, waking the child.

  But I can’t. I won’t. My blood is up, and my spirit stirs. It has me now, and all I can do is submit until I’m the song, not the singer. So on we roll, the song and me, the song and my comrades, down through the descant of secret victories, until it returns me to myself, and I open my eyes to see the waif startled, and the bowman weeping.

  I never saw the List. And neither did anyone else. Such a prospect was impossible, the idea absurd. Even if, by some miracle, you gained access to the catalogue, you’d never get through a roll of names as massive as that. It was so large and dynamic, no single human could read it, let alone retain it. Before you could run your eye all the way down the myriad columns, names would have multiplied, metastasized. From its earliest days, in the era of the pioneers, when the List was but a primitive inventory, the register was constantly growing. Every acquittal and interdiction, rather than reducing the number of names, brought more and better intel. New networks and bloodlines came to light. Fresh objects found their way onto the roll. There was no single cache or dossier capable of accommodating such an endlessly branching web.

  It’s said that in the old world, as late as the first years of the Terror, data machines could contain information at that sort of scale and transmit it across vast distances. But by our time, this was the stuff of fancy. At its best, the tech we had was patchy, and with transfer systems so localized and intermittent, something like the List could only exist and move in fragments. Which was safer anyway. And just another way in which smallness, like citizen syndicates and loose federations, helped keep the peace.

  Some criminal clans still had tech and comms from the old days, stuff we’d log and destroy after an acquittal, or sometimes confiscate. But their superior kit didn’t keep us from their door. Wherever they were, and from whatever part of the world we came to find them, we got there in the end. No matter how archaic and gruelling the means.

  The List was never the property or the project of any single tribe, province or association. It was the secret we shared across frontiers. In shards and slivers. To protect the security of the enterprise, and the lives and sanity of the individuals who gave themselves to it. Me, I never wanted to see every name. Just hearing one said aloud could turn my blood to copper wire. It was enough to know the List existed. That it was something I could act upon in concert with others. This was a mighty idea. It was liberating. Enlarging. And in its scope and implications, a little terrifying. Right? The List shaped the life we gave ourselves to. This was the vessel in which all our aspirations were set afloat.

  You know all this. But no harm in comparing notes, right?

  After Basic, I never discussed the List. Not explicitly. We were sworn not to. But it was ever-present. We knew its grand and secret hope had been nurtured and handed on for generations. And that gave us power. Remember? Power beyond the sum of our parts. Power despite our inferior kit. Strangers, all of us. And yet at one purpose. That’s what the promise of agency feels like when you’ve never known it before. That’s what every child should inherit.

  So, no, we never saw the roll and we never uttered the few names that fell our way in the field. And yet, over time, we came to sing them. Together. On the march, or after dark. This, I think, was a late-stage phenomenon. It arrived organically, unheralded, and without discussion. It happened in our time, comrade, during our years of active duty. What does that tell us, you think? A cultural elaboration like that? Was it a signal of vigour, or evidence of decay? Maybe we’ll never know. But I do think about it. Because, originally, the singing was forbidden. And in my early days it was still frowned upon by Planning and Intel. But over time the practice seemed to establish itself as worthy. Because it was bracing, wasn’t it? Singing built solidarity. Kept us on our feet. And somehow, without us really noticing, I suspect, it became integral to culture in the field. It was like the letter home you could never write. The explanation you were forbidden to give to family and community. We sang it from pride. And fear. For the blessed relief of utterance. We sang it for the dead and for those who’d come after us.

  Of course we could never sing the full List itself. No march would be long enough. No, we just sang of it, from it. Because all we ever had were fragments. The names of the acquitted. Clans extinguished by operators before us. Successes old enough to be safe to utter. But then, as years passed, as the work progressed and their collapse became wholesale, fresh names arrived – more and more all the time – and we sensed we might be singing our own deeds, the achievements of our moment, and that, brother, that was intoxicating.

  But I never expected to live long enough to chant the most dread name of all.

  I think this might be what you want to hear but don’t dare ask of me. All your talk of Utah. I note the tactical face on you. I see it.

  Well, I was a scarred old stager by the time I uttered that name, but I sang it with special fervour, secret pride. Because, as you’ll know, and I can see it in your eyes, only one vanquished name retained power enough to inspire our weary limbs on its own. You should know that, in the field, I could sing it with the authority of experience. With the faces of men and women in my mind. People I knew, who’d given their life to wipe it from the face of the earth. By what authority could I claim this? Well, because I’d been there.

  You want me to tell you, I know. But I need to work my way there. You need to be patient. The path wasn’t direct. Hell, I didn’t even know it was a path.

  Comrade? Where are you going?

  The bowman’s gone a while. Time enough for me to cool off and gather my wits. But also long enough for me to wonder if he’s gone in search of something to beat me with. But when he returns, he has a fresh canteen.

  You didn’t need to do that, he says.

  The singing? I don’t know, brother. Feels to me I did. I needed the knees-up anyway.

  You’re taking the piss.

  I’m telling you the story.

  You sing the song and you leave the name off. You’re dicking with me, aren’t you?

  No, I say. I just don’t want to get ahead of things. Jumping ahead – it’d be cheap. It wouldn’t be honest.

  Fuck you, he says, shoving the canteen through a gap in the wire.

  I accept it silently. It takes all my self-control to palm it, then examine it appreciatively, as if it’s a keg of pure plains honey. I twist the cap. Sniff the contents. It smells like caught water, not made water. Useful to know. And so much more enticing to drink. But I stop. For effect.

  Like I said. It’s a long story. I’m getting there.

  Dear God, he says. You’re doing my head in.

  Then I drink. I drain the whole thing in one long draught.

  So, I was relegated. Didn’t like it one bit. And for a while, wasn’t very smart about it. Made things strained at home. Worried Sun. But in time I mastered myself. Trained myself to rest. Or to appear, when awake, as if I were at rest.

  The fear of sleep was harder to manage. I couldn’t simply smoke myself into a stupor every night. No matter how I got to sleep, the dreams would be lying in wait, so I had to find ways of yielding to the darkness and embracing – or at least facing – what lurked there. Which is, I guess, just a fancy way of saying I learnt to put a kind of spell on myself.

  I convinced myself I was doing it for Sun’s sake. To relieve her of the nightly turmoil and the day of brooding absence that followed. But I also did it for myself. I know that. With the hope of getting back to active duty. Look, I loved Sun. Needed her. That was real. Fierce. But I loved and needed the cause, too. And I enchanted myself into believing I could be faithful to both. How? By sheer willpower, I suppose. And quality of performance. That doesn’t mean my loyalty to either was bogus. You know what it was like, having to play a role for those we knew and loved. But divided fealty – it has consequences. Collateral damage. You know, for a while I thought things could have been different if I’d had someone close I trusted. Some mentor, maybe. I mean a comrade. Not some random medico from Planning. A friend who really knew me and understood my predicament, who could pull me aside, confront me, show me I was kidding myself. Perhaps they could’ve gotten through to me. Helped me draw a line, make the hard choice.

  But even if I’d had all that, I can’t honestly tell you what – or who – I’d have chosen. My own happiness, or the common good? Sun, or the cause? They were both selfish choices. False choices, as it turned out. And there was never a friend, anyway. Never could be. Besides, I wasn’t the only one ensnared in a performance. Ugly choices were being made all around me.

  Now, of course, for you and me, options are narrower. Makes that earlier time look golden. Even so, opportunities to shape the present and future still exist, surely. Aren’t we facing them right now? Another place, another moment? The fresh torment of another decision? But I’m game to take a chance if you are.

  Anyway, that winter furlough was rough. Still, for all the deceptions and delusions of that season, we had good days, and the more I got myself in order, the better they became. Sun was closer to her old self again – bright, sharp, funny. She seemed glad to have me within reach. After the initial weeks of turmoil, things gradually grew equable, and we enjoyed long intervals of contentment, moments of great tenderness. Yeah, there were still times when I caught her watching me. That searching gaze. And between Sun and my mother there was a coolness now. But although things were not truly as they were before the April job and the thing with the kids, the three of us managed to work together. Peaceably. Without strain. And our holdings prospered.

  I think what finally broke me free of my funk was our excursion to the rock shelter. It was something I’d been meaning to show Sun all along, a trip that had been so often postponed or supplanted by other obligations. But I saw her peering at the little scatter of bone fragments and stone flakes on the sill of the kitchen window, artefacts I’d collected and kept over the years, and I sensed this could be something to bind us.

  We left in the dark, took the long way around the cape in my rig, and as the light came up we hiked out into the western terraces. Compared to the eastern approach, across the range and the canyons, it was an easy walk. We had the sea breeze and the roar of the surf at our backs.

  There’s coral everywhere, she said.

  Yeah, I replied. I think all these terraces are coral.

  You didn’t bring climbing gear. Is that a good sign?

  I angled us up to the jumble of broken slabs at the threshold of the cave.

  It’s just here, I said. I found it when I was a kid.

  We clambered to the lip where a lintel overhung the dim recess. I beckoned Sun in, and we stooped to crab across the jangly bed of the shelter.

  Crouching, I ran my fingers through the shards of shell and bone. Showed her the charcoal stain on my fingertips.

  God, she said. This is ancient. Is this your family?

  No. Before us. Before anyone.

  The Countrymen.

  You know about that?

  Only a little. Some say they go back a thousand generations. That they’ll outlast us all. Look! That’s a mammal bone. This one is fish.

  My mother says these bits of stone are blades.

  Whatever they are, said Sun, they’re not from here.

  Of course they’re from here.

  No, she said. Look around you. Everything’s limestone. But this fiery-looking chunk here – there’s iron in it. This is from the desert. Or at least mine country. There’s nothing hard enough on the cape to make a blade from, or a hammer. See? This black one. That orange piece. Look how smooth they are. Feel the edge!

  They were brought here?

  Yeah. I think so. Like steel. Solar film. They must have traded for it. With folks from the desert.

  Sun held up a nub of jasper. Rubbed it with her thumb. Set it into the pocket of her dungarees. We stayed a while, caught up in our mutual wonder, until we became conscious of the mounting heat of morning. We chattered excitedly all the way home. It was a blessing to have something other than our domestic predicament with which to occupy our minds for a little while.

  Weeks later, one morning in the growhouse, as we swept the cuttings into the mulch hopper and Sun’s ingenious system trickled and dripped all around us, she asked, apropos of nothing, whether I had regrets.

  Regrets? I said, knocking the stems from my broom.

  I mean, would you do it all again?

  You and me? Here? Of course. In a heartbeat.

  You could’ve had a different life, she said.

  I doubt it. You think?

  I don’t know, she said. Sometimes I suspect we lack imagination. That we could have tried different things.

  You mean live in the city?

  No, she said. I’ve done that. Maybe we could have just lived like nomads on the road.

  We can go back out for a while. There’s always stuff to trade.

  I don’t mean that, she said. I mean just travelling place to place, seeing the world. Living as we go.

  Like your parents?

  No. Just being in the world, not trying to . . . shape it.

  You think that’s what we’re doing, the two of us?

  Yeah.

  Huh, I said. And what about family?

  You can have a family on the move.

  We’d, what, just live hand to mouth, day to day?

  Follow the seasons, the food, the stars. Life’s been lived like that for longer than we can imagine.

  Sounds romantic.

  I know it’s just a fantasy, she admitted. But sometimes I wonder why we don’t live like that. Is it because we don’t know how? Or because we’re too small and scared to dare?

  It’s a nice thought. I like the road. I’d like to see places. The southern sea.

  Sun pushed a matted snarl of corn silk into a pile with a listless twitch.

  What is it?

  Nothing. Really.

  I see.

  Do you want a family?

  I have a family, I said.