Doran held her close with one hand while using the other to tug on his earlobe, something he only did after an argument or when he had to apologize to her. She wondered if he was worried about sharing her fate, assuming he couldn’t clear the charges against him.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “Your dad’s probably got loads of money stashed away. I’m sure you won’t end up crashing on my sofa.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face as if he hadn’t listened to a word she’d said, and then he refocused on the landscape. “If someone sent a distress call, there were survivors. Where’s the nearest town? Maybe they went there.”
“About a four-day walk south of where we landed the Banshee,” the captain said. “But their wounded wouldn’t be able to make the journey. They probably built a temporary camp.” He pointed to a thin finger of smoke curling up from a vacant stretch of landscape with no structures or people in sight. “Like that one.”
The captain landed the shuttle on a hilltop about twenty yards away, but instead of opening the side hatches, he raised an antique pistol for show, the kind that fired metal slugs instead of energy pulses.
“Ever shoot one of these?” he asked. When they shook their heads, he handed them each a sheathed dagger. “Then tuck this in your belt. And don’t be afraid to use it.”
“I thought we were here to help,” Doran said.
The captain strapped a pistol across his chest. “You’ve never tried to save a drowning man, have you?”
“No,” Doran said, wrinkling his forehead. “What’s that got to do with—”
“He panics,” the captain interrupted. “Grabs onto you and pushes you under. He can’t help it. He’ll do anything for one more breath.” Rossi pointed a second pistol at them before adding it to his holster. “Desperate people kill to survive. I’ll do what I can for these settlers, but not at the expense of losing one of my own. Are we clear?”
They nodded.
“Good,” he said, unlocking the hatch. “Now, watch each other’s backs.”
The noise of the shuttle had drawn a dozen survivors from their hiding places. The settlers blinked at them with bloodshot eyes that seemed to bulge from their skulls. So much filth covered their faces and matted their hair that Solara couldn’t tell the men from the women, or even their ages. Their clothes hung in tatters from sharp, thin shoulders, and bony ankles jutted from torn trouser hems.
Whatever they’d been eating, there wasn’t enough of it.
“Picked up your distress beacon,” the captain said, making sure to open his jacket and display both pistols. “Might be able to transport your injured. How many are there?”
One person stepped forward and answered in a man’s deep timbre. “None. At least, not anymore. The last one bled out a few days ago.”
“Survivors?”
“What you see here.” The man hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Plus fifty more in the dugouts.”
Now that Solara paid attention, she noticed a few shelters excavated from the hillside behind the group, basically caves made of dirt. A small fire crackled in the center of camp, smoking a few strips of meat into jerky. Sudden movement caught her eye, and she spotted a mud-streaked child poking his head out of his cave to study her. The whites of his eyes grew when they met hers, but someone quickly snatched him out of view.
“If you want transport to the next settlement,” Captain Rossi said, “we can probably arrange it.”
“Thank you, friend,” the man replied with a coolness that negated his words. “But we’ll stay and rebuild. There’s only a month till harvest, and the crop looks good this year. It’ll get us through the winter.”
“What will you eat in the meantime?” Rossi asked. “I don’t see any livestock.”
The man indicated the long red strips dangling over the fire. “We just butchered our last steer. The meat’s well preserved.”
“Will it be enough?”
One bony shoulder lifted in a shrug. “If not, the slave traders will come around soon. They always do. Our weakest will fetch a bushel of grain per head.”
“You would sell your own people?” the captain asked, not sounding surprised.
“Better a life of servitude than death by starvation.” A spark of inspiration lit the man’s eyes, and he added, “We have widows. And orphan girls. They’d make excellent traveling companions for your crew. If you’re willing to trade—”
“I don’t deal in flesh.”
The man looked taken aback, as if insulted by the quick dismissal. He tipped his dirty head and studied each of them in a way that raised the hairs at the back of Solara’s neck. Then his gaze returned to the captain’s pistols, and he asked, “How many are in your crew?”