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is pushing it.”
    “Well,” says Helton, looking down at the bodies, “that helps the water problem, anyway.”
    The others have scattered, putting distance between themselves and the violence, though a few grabbed water bottles during the confusion. Adults shield their children behind them. As Helton and Harbin walk over to the small heap of remaining bottles, everyone falls silent, motionless, suspicious. Helton squats and takes a bottle, then hands a second to Harbin. They look around, evaluating their position.
    A frail elderly man in a monk’s habit, sitting between two groups of passengers, slowly rises to his feet, then walks stiffly toward them. They watch him silently. He stops a few yards away and regards them intently. His face is ashen and jaundiced — even the whites of his eyes are yellow — but his expression is sharp and inquiring. “What now, my violent young friends?”
    “Well,” Helton takes a drink, “we make a plan, and we get everyone to safety.”
    “I admire your faith, my son,” the monk says with a small smile, “but you seem to have more hope than sense.”
    “Doesn’t your God preach ‘God will provide?’” Harbin asks skeptically.
    “Yeah,” says Helton, “Right now all He’s provided is an abundance of shortage.”
    “Perhaps. But He provided them,” the monk waves at rest of the passengers, “with you .” He nods at the fallen bodies.
    “Which only proves He’s got a really odd sense of humor,” Helton says.
    “Perhaps. But you don’t look like a punch line to me.”
    Harbin says grimly, “Not a perfect situation, but we’re not dying of thirst just yet.”
    Helton looks sharply at Harbin, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and says (mostly to himself), “Liabilities are obvious. Assets. Observe, orient, decide, act.” He looks at the people, the water bottles, the terrain. Suddenly he squints, peering at one of the mesas. Surprise lights up his face. “Hey, hey-hey-HEY! I … I know that rock outcrop! I know this place. I’ve been here before!” He paces back and forth, gesticulating like a crazy man, energetically pointing out things and muttering to himself, trying to recover an old faded memory. Everyone else eyes him cautiously.
    “The basalt was over there, and the granite that-a-way, terraforming cut through silicates there .” He snaps his fingers sharply. “GOT IT! Sun’s coming up over there. Gonna get hot, damn hot. That valley he pointed us down is a long way to the mine, but it should be easy walking. There’s a shorter way around that side, but it’s rough. Lots of sharp igneous rock, an old TFP cut. How, how, how?”
    “Could we cut ahead, take a transport, come back to get them?” Harbin asks.
    “Huh? Oh. Um… No. Well, maybe. Let me think.” Helton taps his chin, looks around acutely at the features of the landscape, becomes oblivious to the people around him. Then the monk collapses, hitting hard. His face is pale, jaundiced, and sweating. Helton snaps back and moves to the monk’s side. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing that has not been going wrong for months,” the monk says between labored breaths. “I was headed home to the abbey for my final voyage. Looks like–” he winces at a jab of some internal pain, “-it might be a shorter trip than I planned.”
    “No, you’re going to make it!” Helton insists. “We’ll all make it!”
    “Would that it were true. But no, I … I’ve done my work in this world. It’ll spread the water.”
    “No, you’re not done yet!”
    “With my kidneys, I’ll be visiting with God in a couple of hours. Sorry to disappoint you.”
    “Well,” says Helton, “we’ll do what we can do.” The monk smiles at him faintly. Helton stands and looks around again, focusing, thinking.
    He sees: Harbin, searching the dead men for useful items, taking their jackets and belts. A mesa. Six groups of passengers. An outcropping of rock. Ten water bottles in a heap. The sun, about twenty