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piled up their belongings, and unstrapped their belts. Billy tucked his gun inside his jacket and lay down on the grass of the central island. It was hard and cold, and he drew his knees up to his chest. Just as he was convincing himself that it was impossible to sleep in those conditions, his consciousness drifted away.
    Billy wasn’t sure what had woken him. He raised his head and looked around and saw to his surprise that the road was filled with people. He sat up in alarm, but none of them seemed to notice him.
    It was a long column of people, men, women and children, hobbling and stumbling through the twilight. There were young and old, grandfathers limping on crutches, and young mothers holding clinging babies. Every one of them looked sick and exhausted. Their clothes were ragged and torn. They moved on and on past where Billy crouched, coming from the same direction as he and the others had come.
    They looked neither left nor right. They just trudged on, staring at the ground. They made no attempt to avoid the holes, but walked straight over them as though they didn’t exist. Some pushed prams or carried suitcases, while others were bent under bundles on their backs. They came on and on in a never-ending, sluggish stream.
    At intervals along the lines were armed guards on tall horses. They wore dark uniforms, and their faces were hidden by their steel helmets. Even the guards seemed bowed in their saddles, as if they too had travelled a terrible distance. Each time one of them passed him, Billy tried to make himself as small as possible, but although even in the twilight he must have been clearly visible, none of the guards seemed to notice him. The thing that really scared him was that both guards and prisoners seemed to have a strange, unnatural, ghostly translucence. Billy felt a cold sweat begin to trickle down his face and body. He stretched out a hand and shook the Minstrel Boy.
    ‘What’s happening?’
    ‘Ssh!’
    Billy put a finger to his lips and pointed at the awful procession.
    ‘Look.’
    ‘Dear god.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.’
    ‘They don’t seem to be able to see us.’
    ‘Thank Christ for that.’
    For what seemed like hours, Billy and the Minstrel Boy crouched shivering as the inhuman column moved past them.
    When it was finally past, they waited a little longer and then woke Reave. He was reassuringly human as he bitched and complained, and gathered up his things.
    The three of them divided up the rations from Eli’s Store, and washed them down with the last of Reave’s beer. Billy and the Minstrel Boy didn’t eat too much, but Reave appeared not to notice.
    They disconnected the porta-pacs from each other, and hitched them back on their belts. The Minstrel Boy shouldered his guitar, Billy and Reave picked up their bags, and in single file they started down the gloomy highway.
     
    Uttering a strange high sound like the keening of high-tension cables, She/They gathered up Her/Their fallen third in Her/Their arms, and slowly began to move forward.
    ‘Grief.’
    ‘Gather data, it is a unique situation.’
    ‘We are wounded.’
    ‘We are wounded.’
    The wooden buildings of the township began to fade, and the multi-coloured mist flowed in its place. She/They noted that there was a greater density to the mist where there had been ground.
    ‘Chaos below total.’
    ‘Willeffort.’
    The ground-mist became thicker, and the air-mist grew thinner. She/They continued to move slowly forward. The oppressive silence jangled with the presence of chaos. Even the words that filled it were blurred and indistinct. With a gesture of what might have been reluctance in a being of different form, the right-hand figure raised the energy wand. The mist around the figures was bathed in an orange glow. It twisted and swirled, and then began to fold in on itself, coiling into thick viscous strands that sluggishly settled to produce ground and air around the