We walked for hours, Hao carrying a semi-conscious Geir, until the ground suddenly fell away. Beneath us, outlined for me by the vision ward I'd activated in my stockman, lay a ravine.

  "What's this?" I said. To my surprise the woman answered.

  "The Gash," she said, her voice strong in the night. "Home." She said that last word with disdain.

  The Gash went two- or three hundred meters deep, and so long I couldn't see the ends, but it was only ten or so meters wide. It was as if a giant had taken a knife and tried to separate the plateau in two. Or someone had fired a giant plasma cannon into the ground, boiling it away. The sides were pock-marked with dark holes. In a few of them, light glimmered, but most of it was darkness, even to my ward-enhanced eyes.

  We followed the sand people, carrying Geir down a steep footpath no wider than my hand. I expected the rock to flake like soft sandstone, but it was cold and firm. Slightly polished, too, as if it had melted at one point. Or a lot of hands had climbed this way, wearing it smooth. I didn't know which was worse.

  We passed dark holes. Some were shallow, mere cracks in the rock. Others went deeper, with chiseled floors. Sometimes, we heard snippets of conversations. Other times, we heard moaning, or sobs. Mostly, we heard the wind. Yet, there couldn't have been many people here. The Gash smelled dry, slightly metallic. Get enough people together in one place, and it will smell of sewage.

  "Where do you depose of your waste?" I said.

  "We don't waste," the man replied.

  "Can't afford it," the woman said, and the man chuckled, like you do at an old joke that has been said so many times it’s lost its luster, but you smile at its familiarity. "Here," she said, leading us into a large hole.

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  A pipe went over the edge and into the depths of the ravine. I tapped it with my boot. Aluminum. Light and fragile. Maybe they didn't have steel or polymer. Or maybe they used what they could.

  There was a light before us, a tiny LED, powered by a hand-crank. Entering the circle of light, the sand people took of their camouflage coats, leaving them in the shadows. A rite, of some sort.

  "Thank Raz," the woman said.

  "Your deity?" I asked, before I could stop myself. Thinking with my gut again.

  "My son," the woman said. "I am Widen, my husband is named Darrow."

  She introduced the rest of their crew. Most of them were opening cans, the ones we'd brought, using chipped rocks to crack the lids. Their names flowed together in my mind. They stuffed the food into their mouths with dirty hands, smacking their lips.

  "Share," Darrow, the man with the squeaky voice, said, poking one of the tall, thin men in the arm. Cheap crudmucker. He already had a can of his own in his hand, something sticky and orange. Canned peaches.

  "Halen," Darrow said, "share or you'll end up with gut cramps and puke it all up."

  One of the other men handed his can away, got another one in return.

  "It's easy to overeat," Widen said, licking traces of cold, brown sauce from her fingers. No forks. No knives. Nothing to eat on.

  "Why do you thank your son?" I said, opening a random can with my engraving drill. His name hadn't been among the people in the circle. The drill bit through the metal, shearing it away. Sweet and sticky and massive, tasting of sugar and roses. Halaweh, a sesame desert. This one was compact, lots of sugar, not much sesame paste. The rose water-flavor smelled of harsh chemicals. Cheap, bottom shelf quality. I dug out another piece and shoved it into my mouth.

  "Share?" I said, holding the open can out to the girl next to me. Eating a whole can of halaweh would give you stomach cramps, too. She took it, took two big bites, passed it on. Everybody munched.

  "Raz used to use this as a toy," the Widen said, pointing to the LED light. "It reminds me of him."

  It struck me how somber they all were. Quiet, in the faint light. Faded, almost, as if there was little difference between themselves and the cold rock they were sitting on.

  "Who are you?" Hao asked.