Ade looked scared, as shell-shocked as Hao had, the pale hair fringing her bald head quivering.

  "Tell him what you told me," the Knife said.

  His tone was friendly, but the kid shook like a weather vane in a storm.

  "I don't know how," she said, her voice high and shrill. The Knife put his hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes. No need to crouch. They were the same height.

  "Start at the beginning," he said, and the kid nodded.

  "When you left the Gash," she began but the Knife interrupted.

  "The real beginning," he said.

  He might as well have punched her, the way she shrank back. He wouldn't let her go, though, his grip on her shoulders keeping her rooted.

  "I..." Ade began. "I heard you talking. You and mistress Hao. About the ship, and shooting it down with the rifle, and magic, real magic, not the vid kind, then you promised to get us off Remba, and I thought that you might do it, and I talked to some people and then the ship crashed and there was smoke all over the sky, and everyone knew."

  She paused, and straightened, and there was a feverish glow in her eyes.

  I knew that kind of glow. Fanatics had it. Extremists had it. True believers had it. People who thought they could do no wrong, or someone else couldn't had it. And she was directing it at me.

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  "You promised to take us off Remba," she said. "When you shot down that ship, everyone knew it was the truth."

  "She talked you up, Jake," the Knife said. "You're the savior of Remba, a veritable one-man army who destroyed a hunting blind with a magic word that turned it into flame, then shot down a Syndicate armada in orbit, bringing a lone cruise ship to carry everyone away."

  "What?" I squeaked.

  "The story gets better with each retelling," the Knife said, and there was mirth in his words, and panic. Well-hidden panic, but panic the same. If I said the wrong thing, he'd burst out laughing, and he'd laugh and laugh and laugh until he cried.

  "Crud," I said. "We have to stop them."

  "Too late," the Knife said. "The only thing that will stop them now are the Syndics."

  "What?" I said.

  He laughed, a shrill sound. I wondered whether I'd have to slap him. That only worked in the vids, but it was the one option I had.

  The laugher cut off as suddenly as it had started.

  "Everyone is coming here," the Knife said. "The word is going round that there is a way off Remba. The Syndicates will notice, if they haven't already. Even if they didn't, there isn't enough food or water to keep everyone in the Gash. They've brought everything they had, and it's not enough. You can't scavenge when there are too many people. They will starve, or everyone will turn on each other and we'll have a nice, little massacre, or the Syndicates will mount a major raid and break this up."

  I could imagine how they'd break it up. The way they broke up the goat-horses. The way that munging Syndic sniper had shot out of the transport, pulling the trigger until nothing moved.

  There would be no time to create wards, no slow infiltration, no preparations, planning, and raids.

  "We need to get back to City," I said. "Stir up the Syndics so bad that they don't look to the desert."

  The Knife nodded.

  "If we can," he said. "And we'll need to storm that ship."

  I looked at him, staring without seeing, hating him for being right. For the first time, I regretted not letting Stanko send an assault company with us.