I’m not, I said. Not really. I have been. But not anymore.

  I can take you at your word?

  Have I ever harmed you? Deliberately?

  I don’t have access to your deliberations.

  Well, that makes two of us. Sorry – that was a joke.

  She nodded.

  I’ve done harm, I said. Plenty. I’ve caused pain to others, those I love. I’ve done a lot of hard things. But truly, I don’t want to do you any harm. I promise, I won’t dishonour you.

  She nodded again. And then she turned back for the shelter and the sleeping child.

  After that, things seemed to right themselves a little. I was more mindful, more careful. And, sadly, I think she was more watchful. I can’t say my feelings for her ever diminished, but I hope they were better governed, or at least more thoroughly disguised. I’m a man schooled in doubleness, but in this instance I was not a success.

  The child was fearful of me at first, and always vigilant, as if dreading some change in my mood or behaviour. And although she eventually seemed to accept my presence – the blunt fact of me, if you will – she never acknowledged me directly. Except, perhaps, to look me in the eye. But that was later. Given how I’d initially thought of her, including the possibility of disposing of her out of mercy, I tried not to take it to heart. I hated to think what she’d endured before being rescued. But that didn’t stop me wondering where she’d come from, how she’d arrived in that port.

  The girl rarely left the woman’s side. She was reluctant to break physical contact with her for any purpose other than to privy or to eat. In time, though, she took to fossicking alone in the cool hours. Once she’d grown comfortable and confident enough, she began to wander out into stony paddocks or up through stands of scorched stumps to scrape the blackened ground for shiny objects. Bright stones, pieces of glass.

  The woman combed the girl’s hair and coiled it on her head to keep it out of her eyes and, I suspect, to make it less conspicuous in the event we should unexpectedly encounter strangers. I didn’t understand why a child’s hair might be problematic. But then, living alone or in the company of adults so long, I’d been slow to register just how uncommon children had become.

  Some evenings the woman and I would stand at a distance to watch the girl go about her solitary prospecting. After the grim efficiencies of the day’s travel, these moments were a rare indulgence. There was no distorting tension between us then, and little sense of self-management. We were comrades united by service.

  The girl never brandished her treasures. She secreted them in a drawstring bag I once carried nut loaves in. She has it still. There in her pocket.

  See how she sleeps? Like she’s been thrown down. Hit by lightning. I never sleep like that, comrade. And I’ll bet you don’t either.

  As to what happened at the end. I don’t know why I was so unprepared. How I could have let it happen. Maybe it was because I was happy. Perhaps I’d begun to convince myself we could go on like that indefinitely. After all, we got to be pretty good at living this way. And we were so careful.

  But I hadn’t accounted for luck. For just how exceptional ours had been. A basic mistake, I know. Such a rookie error. To think a good run is the result of your own skill and discipline. The truth is, we could have run into trouble on day one. Because the south is nothing like the all-but-deserted peninsula, where any approach is heralded by a plume of dust visible for kilometres. The terrain we were passing through was undulating. With skeletal thickets, granite tors. Blind corners, hollows, obstructions everywhere. Good for hiding. But if anyone approached, we never had the luxury of an early warning. And in those more clement southern districts, people seemed to be everywhere. If they weren’t out policing what they had, they were like us, on the move in search of a viable situation.

  I guess it was just a matter of time. And there came an afternoon when we were caught unawares.

  We were camped in the gap between some high granites. I had a shade cranked out. The child fossicked contentedly at a distance. I was working on a valve in the watermaker, showing my companion the adjustments I’d made, and submitting to her corrections because her calibrations were always superior. She’d bound her head in a length of green fabric I’d traded for the previous day. And with it she seemed happier, more secure.

  The morning before, I’d left her with the child while I drove into a tiny crossroads hamlet to trade surplus vegetables and pastes. Our plan was to strike out further east in a day or so, to test conditions beyond the old farming districts and try our luck in the gimlet woodlands. I’d seen these from the air a time or two, heading out or back from long-haul jobs. Before the fires had chewed through them year upon year, they’d been a sea of green. Now they looked more like a chain of ponds. But I hoped they’d still be dense enough to give us shade, cover, and maybe somewhere safe to settle. Obviously, my intel was outdated. But I still wish we’d set out a day earlier. Maybe if we had, there’d be four of us down here in this hole, comrade, and my prospects would be rosier.

  Anyway, I went in, cased the little vill from a distance. Figured it was safe enough. Went ahead and traded tomatoes for what I could. I think the emerald sash was an afterthought, a last-minute bid from a rough-looking dullard with ruined teeth. His mates, bigger men with a truck on a hoist, laughed at the parley but wasted no time getting their share of the spoils. I didn’t like the look of any of them. I should have gone back to the granites and hauled us all away.

  But the sash pleased the woman. And her pleasure disarmed me. I don’t blame her for a second. It’s just that I hadn’t enjoyed such a feeling in years: the glory of making someone happy.

  So, yes, we stayed the night. And the next day was so peaceful. Full of promise. As if our arrangement might be turning into something almost familial.

  And there was a conversation we had, the woman and me. Late in the day, after we’d fixed the watermaker. I remember every word. Because it was our last, really.

  You’re a perfectionist, I told her, amused to see her tweaking the valve of the maker one more time.

  Perfection is something to strive for, she said. But rarely achieved.

  You’re too modest.

  Modesty is a virtue. It also increases safety.

  I think you’re taking me too literally.

  No, she said. I am entertaining myself – respectfully – at your expense.

  Ha, I said, delighted. Banter!

  And I have made a discovery, she said with uncommon brightness.

  Oh? I said, alert to her elevated mood. Something technical?

  No, she said. I believe the child has her letters. She can read and write.

  Really? How can you tell?

  I observed her yesterday, while you were gone. She was making the words stamped here on these gloves. See? The name of the manufacturer and the size – they’re embroidered here at the cuff. I saw her forming the name and the number with her mouth.

  So, you’re saying she knows English? I said, taking the spanner gently from her.

  Yes, but she does not sign. I’ve tried all variants. And we both know she hears well. I believe she has been a speaker, that she isn’t congenitally aphonic.

  I turned the spanner over in my hands, stirred by the animation in her voice, the glitter of her eyes.

  You think she might write something?

  This is my hope, she said. Perhaps she will. Otherwise, she’ll have to learn to sign. She needs to be understood. For her dignity as much as her safety.

  I nodded, thinking of what this could mean for the child, and, perhaps, for us. And I’ll confess, I was too preoccupied by implausible thoughts to properly register the woman’s subtle change of posture, the way her head swivelled. Oh, the seconds you wish you could have back.

  The child, she said.

  Yes, I said. We’ll teach her.

  She reared up, knocking me aside. And that’s when I heard the judder of a vehicle approaching. The child was squatting in the dirt at least a hundred metres beyond the farthest boulder. The last light flared off the crown of her hat. The woman got to her in less than three seconds. She swept her onto one shoulder. Then wheeled around and streaked back toward me. No human could move so fast or bear such a load at speed. And failing to remember this was the only mistake I ever saw her make. Because what she’d done was not lost on the men in the truck trundling across the burnt ground toward us.

  When she set her down, the child was wailing and the woman herself was agitated, turning, peering, reckoning hectically.

  You have lethal means, she said, gesturing at the driver’s-side door of our vehicle. The child batted at her, outraged at the interruption and containment.

  Yes, I said over the girl’s cries. But that mightn’t be necessary. We need to stay calm.

  She’s distressed. Can’t you see?

  Yes. But listen, we’re just an ordinary family heading east, okay?

  I made an error, she said.

  Too late for that.

  I should have fled. It was a mistake to turn back. We could be gone already.

  No, I said. You won’t make it anywhere, not carrying her. And now there’s no time.

  The truck rattled in and pulled up. The child stopped wailing. In the sudden silence, the whine of the flatbed’s motors sounded unnaturally loud. Then they too cut out. For a moment all I heard was the blood in my ears and the child’s panting. Then the truck doors opened. There were three of them. The men from the crossroads. Two were tall and burly. The other, the feeble-minded fellow who’d traded me the sash. Which he began pointing to as soon as he saw it on the woman.

  G’day, said the driver, the sun in his eyes.

  Evening, I said, resting a hand on the woman’s shoulder, for comfort as much as performance.

  I know you, he said. You’re the bloke from yesterday.

  Tomatoes, yes. But I’m all out.

  Hn, he grunted, sizing up the child.

  These two weren’t with you, though, were they?

  No, I said. They stayed out here.

  Our place not good enough for ’em?

  They just preferred to stay out here. They like prospecting.

  The girl cowered and retreated behind the woman, who stood tall, one hand behind her to comfort the child, the rest of her taut.

  Quite a runner you’ve got here.

  I said nothing.

  You’ve frightened the child, she said.

  Well, that’s a pity, said the driver. But you’re not her mother.

  You’re not a citizen, said the other man. You’re not even fuckin human. And that means you’re some kind of slaver, he said to me.

  She turned her head my way. You’ll serve the child?

  The kid’s not your problem, said the driver.

  Stay, I said, trying to grip her arm.

  But she brushed me off. Sprang forward. Knocked the driver and one of his companions flat on their arses. The child sprawled, clutching and squalling in the dirt, while the woman glanced off the truck fender and sprinted through the burnt skeletons of the acacias beyond. I caught a last glimpse of the scarf trailing from her neck as the strangers scrambled to their feet and then to the truck. I clambered across the child to reach the tool in my vehicle, but their truck was turned around and gone before I could wrench it free.

  I knew I’d need as much speed as possible, would never catch them with the weight of the trailer to haul, so I unhitched it. But that cost me precious time, and while I was labouring at that the waif bolted, so I was a minute or two chasing her down to bundle her into the cab, and by then it was properly dark. Once I got us clear of the granites, I got a fix on the lights of the truck jerking to and fro in the distance. I primed the tool and wished, for the first time in years, that I had a pair of night glasses.

  Without lights, I picked my way slowly along the track. The girl cried and tore at her cheeks. I had to hold her and fend her off all at once.

  She’s fine, I told the girl. She’s clever, remember. And she’s fast. She’ll hide until we reach her. I can stop this.

  If the child heard me she gave no sign of it. She ripped her hair, grabbed at the wheel.

  Stop it, I said, cranking up the windows to dampen the noise. You have to stop. So we can save her. She’ll run them around a while, and then she’ll hide. She’s smart.

  But the woman didn’t hide. You could tell by the mad progress of their lights. I could see soon enough what she was doing. She was showing herself time and again, running full tilt, traversing the landscape in wild arcs that were so methodical her intention could not have been clearer. She was giving us time to break free. But I had no intention of breaking free, not even for the child.

  I kept my distance. Watched for an hour. Then crept forward. Carefully. Steadily. It took another hour to close on them. We all seemed to be wheeling around in long semi-circles, tracking back and forth across the same lumpy terrain. And it became clear that if I wanted to recover the woman, the child would need to be restrained. So, yes, I stopped long enough to bind and gag her. Later, when the lights finally stopped moving, and I sensed I was close enough, I locked her in the vehicle and went ahead on foot. It was the only thing I did that night I’m glad of.

  It was warm out in the open. Starless, mostly. The country ahead rose in a long, gradual incline. At what seemed to be a ridgeline there was a diffuse penumbra, a kind of hidden glow. Underfoot, the ground was stony and stumpy. Broken by pools of ash. Snarls of petrified wood snagged at my shins. I went as fast as I dared. But it was slow going.

  Near the crest of the ridge, I heard voices. Laughter. Then screams. That’s when I understood why the lights had stopped. They hadn’t lost her. She hadn’t even hidden. She’d just pushed herself too long and hard in the dark. She’d run out of juice.

  But she clearly had enough charge left to scream. The sound curdled my spirit.

  I bellied up to the ridgetop and beheld the wide, pale crater on the other side. It was an old farm dam. Empty but for a dark sump at its deepest point. At the edge of that, lurching and bobbing in the glare of the headlights, were feverish shadows and splashes of colour. The rear of the vehicle was slightly right of me, its doors open. I wasn’t close enough to hear it humming, but I could easily make out the two upright figures in front of it as they bent and rose in the lights. From this position, I knew I could kill one, possibly both. But the third shape, the one on the ground defiling her, was too low. All I could see was the pale hull of his back. There was no way I could hit him without destroying her. I needed to be closer.

  I came down from cover and got to the lip of the dam. The bank was steep, riven with fissures and washaways. And despite the nature of what I was hearing, and my desperate need to stop it, I had no choice but to pick my way down slowly to avoid detection. The closer I got, the more the backspill of light from the truck illuminated me, but I reached the passenger door without being noticed. And I soon saw why.

  There was a sudden roar of exaltation. And a hideous wavering shriek. I smelt the molten polymers before I saw the flames. The three of them were upright now, clear in the lights. And they were avid, gleeful, intoxicated by what they were seeing. My comrade was down on the pale clay. On her back. Writhing. A pillar of flame flaring from her belly. Blue and green and orange, it hissed in her pelvis and then ran down over her snapping legs.

  I took the feeble-minded fellow first. Cut him down with a clap that showered the others, sent them reeling, patting at their faces and arms before they even thought to turn my way. When they did, they were staring blindly into the headlights.

  Now look here, fella, said the driver.

  The burst that cut him in half also killed the bloke beside him. I vaulted over their charred trunks, and the miasma of ozone and scorched flesh that came off them. When I got to her, she was still flailing – a twitching mess of flame and noxious fumes – but she was silent now. Her limbs were livid, her skin molten. Only her smoking boots were still solid enough to grip, so that’s how I dragged her. By the feet. I hauled her, rattling and jerking across the clay, until I stumbled into the soft, black heart of the dam, where the mud was wet and deep enough to press her down until she hissed, and a grey ooze rose to partially obscure her. But she burnt on regardless. Masked by bubbling muck and acrid steam. Shuddering. Roiling. Suffering. All I could do was watch to the end. When I clawed her out, there was nothing of her but a snarl of blackened mesh.

  I stood a while, a horrible scouring sensation boring through me. As if my own insides had caught alight. I staggered back into the muddy hole to cool myself, put my own flames out. And I sat there a long time, settling deeper into the mire, until the truck’s battery alarm began to chime. It was only later, when its lights began to fade, that I remembered the child. I lurched up, hauled the poor woman’s frame back into the muck to conceal her, and staggered up onto solid ground to the juiced-out vehicle.

  I didn’t have time to burn the bodies or the energy to drag them down into the gut of the dam. I left them where they lay, took whatever was useful and portable from the truck, and climbed back out into the scorched country beyond.

  I went mad when I lost Sun. And if not for the child, I might have gone to pieces after the woman was murdered. I’d only known her a few months. But the world in which I knew her was different to the one in which I knew Sun. When I had Sun and Ester, potential expanded every thought and experience. The world felt steady. The future stretched before us. Sure, there were threats across the horizon, but it felt as if we had so much promise to meet them with. Now the horizon is the future. Or so it feels. Hopes and loyalties live and die faster than the wriggling creatures that hatch in the desert after rain. Opportunities for intimacy – well, they’re momentary. Perhaps even extinct.

  I loved her. The sim. Sure, go ahead and laugh, twist your face in revulsion, I don’t give a damn. Yes, she was only a machine. But you and me. Have we never been used as instruments?

  Those of us who served. We wanted something pure. We dreamt of a world of fair-dealing and open prospects. The best for the most. We were prepared to make sacrifices for it. We thought that if our suffering was for the common good, then it was just a detail along the way. And now it seems details are all we amount to.