She could see nothing. Only the dull hiss of the filters in her breathing suit told her she was still alive and somewhere outside of the dome. Her head ached, a pounding sensation that pumped through her skull like a pulse. After several minutes of lying still, breathing, and concentrating only on the fact that her head hurt, Aurelia thought she might chance some sort of movement. She licked her lips, which were dry in the air of the suit, and took a deep breath. Okay, that was good; there was no pain in her chest. Experimentally she wiggled her toes. All good. Fingers. Okay. When she tried to flex her legs, she found them restricted. Hmmm. Arms? Pinned to her sides. If she concentrated, she could feel pressure just below the elbows.

She took in all of this information, analyzing it, compiling it, building a picture of the state of her body. But what the hell had happened? She remembered walking on the lunar surface, the hard-packed ground beneath her feet. She remembered swapping words with someone. A man, she thought. Then nothing. From the information she had, she deduced that she had been attacked in some way. Hit on the head and restrained.

She was still pondering all of this, the soft hum of her breathing suit calming her, when a white flash cut through her head. She heard herself scream and tightly closed her eyes. A heartbeat went by, then she chanced opening one eye a slit.

A bright beam of light cut through the darkness.

"Awake, are we?" a voice asked.

She started to nod, but the movement made her head hurt. "Yes," she whispered in a hoarse voice.

The beam shifted, and there was the sound of metal clanking against metal before the light became a softer yellow shade from above. Whoever was there had lit a lantern. Aurelia opened her eyes carefully, but she saw only someone else wearing the same kind of breathing suit she had on. The figure pulled a stool from somewhere and sat beside her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Who are you?" the voice replied. It was a man's voice. Rasping.

Aurelia didn't answer, taking the chance instead to look around. She was inside something. Not a room, she thought. The walls don't look solid enough for that. A tent, maybe. She was lying on something that was probably a bed, though she couldn't see it, and there were packs littered around the walls, like a squad of people had dumped them and gone off unburdened.

"Where am I?" she asked.

The figure next to her shook his head. "I don't think you get it, girl. You don't get to ask questions anymore. Tell me your name."

There could be no harm in that, surely. "Aurelia."

"Good start, Aurelia. What are you doing out?"

She thought back. What was she doing here? Then it came to her. Gods. Nicholas. "I'm looking for a friend," she said.

The man laughed. It was a dark laugh, deep and throaty. "Well, you might have found more friends than you were banking on."

Without warning, he stood and carelessly ran a hand over her body, feeling the shape of her under the breathing suit. Aurelia squirmed as much as she could, but being restrained meant that she couldn't get away from his touch.

"Shame I can't get your breathing suit off," the man said. "But you're more use alive than dead, I suppose." He paused. "At least right now."

"What do you want from me?"

He ignored the question, but Aurelia was coming up with answers of her own. She realized she'd been taken. Out was known to be the territory of criminals and brigands, those who had somehow escaped punishment inside the dome and had the wits or the money to arrange an escape. She had no doubt this man was one of those, and if the packs on the wall could be believed, there was obviously more than one here. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she schooled herself to keep calm. Panicking wasn't going to get her anywhere.

The man had been looking her up and down, and he seemed to come to some sort of decision.

"You're coming with me," he said shortly.

He pulled at something, and Aurelia felt the release of pressure around her arms. He was freeing her. Her breath quickened. As soon as her arms were unbound, he moved down to her feet, and instinct kicked in. Without even thinking about it, Aurelia pushed up from the bed, twisting as she did so. She aimed her shoulder to thrust into the face of the man's breathing suit. Her movements were flowing, smooth, and there was no thought behind them at all. But the man dodged, and the crash of a hand coming down around the side of her already aching head was enough to plunge her back into darkness.

***

The next time she awoke, there was light. The man was gone, but he had left the lantern. Her arms were tied again. Her head ached enough to make her nauseous, and she bit down on her tongue, concentrating on not vomiting inside her suit. When the wave passed, she closed her eyes and thought her situation through again. What she had done had been stupid. She saw it. She wasn't even sure why she'd done it; some kind of survival instinct had swamped her. If she wanted to survive this, she was going to have to use her brains, not her body.

This time, when the man came in, she was ready.

"I'm sorry," she said in a quiet voice. "It won't happen again."

The man grunted. He bent to retrieve something from one of the packs. "You'll pay for it if it does," he said when he straightened.

"I know," said Aurelia. She hoped that he would once again untie her. Her limbs were dead weight, the full flow of blood cut off by her restraints.

"You'd better make yourself useful, then," he said.

He came to her again and untied her arms. She lay still. He untied her legs but quickly fashioned the rope into two small loops. He put one of her feet through each loop, leaving a hands-width of rope between them so that she could shuffle but not walk fully. Aurelia lay patiently until he told her to sit up.

Flexing her arms to improve the circulation, she managed to push down on the mattress with her hands and force her body into a sitting position. It made her head swim, and she swallowed the desire to vomit again. Then she swung her legs around until her feet hit the ground.

"I'm going to put you to work," the man said before she could get off the bed. "But let's be completely clear here. Outside this room you talk to no one. You say not a word. You do as you're told. Disobey me, and you'll be punished, just like you were before." He drew closer to her, and she could see the glint of his eyes under his hood. "And there's no guarantee that a few blows to the head won't tear your breathing suit. Got it?"

She nodded. "Got it."

Roughly, he pulled her up off the bed by her elbow. Then he half dragged her to the opening of the tent, pulling the fabric doorway aside as he did so. Yanked through the door, Aurelia found herself in the middle of what was obviously some kind of campsite. There were ten or so tents in a circle around a clearing in which a small fire dome stood.

"They'll be back soon. I want hot food for them," the man said.

He pointed her in the direction of some supplies, and Aurelia nodded.

"You need anything, you talk to me and me only. Clear?"

Again, she nodded.

He left and went to sit in the entrance of one of the tents, half watching her and half doing something on a roll up screen. There was no need to watch her closely; it wasn't like she could get far with her legs tied. Sighing, Aurelia shuffled to the supply pile and began selecting things she could use.

She also tried thinking of a plan. Her provisional intention was to keep her head down and do as she was told. There was no point in getting beaten, and certainly no advantage in dying from a ripped breathing suit. She was going to have to be patient and wait for an opportunity to get the hell out of here. She kept her hands busy as she thought, glad to have something to keep her from breaking down and crying. She had never been hysterical, but she'd never been in the custody of brigands before.

She selected the packages she would need, adding dehydrated ingredients into a specially formed pot. Her head still ached. Carrying the pot to the fire dome was tough; it was heavy, but the man didn't stir to help her. He simply watched from across the clearing. The fire flickered under the small dome, flames licking up as she gently forced the pot through the material. The flames died as the oxygen leaked out, then jumped up as the dome reformed over the hole she had made. Finally she went back and got a water canister to thrust through the dome, waiting until the material closed around her arms before opening it and adding it to the pot.

So engaged had she been in her task that she hadn't noticed the arrival of others. When she looked up again, there were half a dozen figures scattered around the clearing. The meal was almost ready, so she made her way to the man who was still sitting, though another figure stood in front of him, gesticulating angrily.

She stopped a couple of yards away and stood patiently, head down, for all the world like an indentured servant. But she was listening carefully.

"We don't have room for dead weight," the gesticulating man was saying, his voice sharp. "No hangers on."

"But, Kardem, she's useful. She already made dinner," the man who had beaten her said.

"Useful, my ass. I know what you're wanting her for, Garda, and it ain't her cooking skills. She's just lucky neither one of you can get out of those breathing suits any time soon."

Garda hung his head sulkily. "Like you wouldn't do it given half the chance," he said.

"Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn't. But it makes no difference since we can't, and now we've got to drag her around and keep an eye on her, too. We get rid of her."

"But, Kardem," Garda whined. "She can cook and carry stuff too. You said we got too many packs to go around. Plus, you never know. We could, like, ransom her or something."

"Ransom? Yeah. Do you actually know how it works? You ransom the rich and famous, dumb-head, not some random Worker girl you picked up." Kardem paused for a moment. "On the other hand . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Who says we can't sell her when we're done with her?"

Garda jumped up. "See? Told you it was a good idea. We just use her to get the stuff back and cook and stuff. Then when we've got everything stored away, we can sell her to the highest bidder. It's not like there's a whole lot of girls to choose from around here."

Kardem nodded. "Alright," he said. "But she's under your care. You watch out for her, and you're to blame if anything goes wrong."

He turned around to leave, almost bumping into Aurelia as he did so. "M'lady," he said with a mocking bow. She could hear him laughing as he walked away.

"What?" Garda said, looking at her.

"Dinner's ready," she said.

He took her back inside the tent and tied her again before he left to eat with the others, obviously not trusting her to be around anyone else. Aurelia took the chance to rest her aching head, sitting up only when Garda brought her a small bowl of cold stew an hour or so later. Then, once more, she was left alone.

Later that night, she awoke from a deep sleep to feel someone climb into the bed next to her. She didn't need the light to figure out who it was. Thank the Gods for the breathing suits. Once again, he ran a hand over her, but he didn't touch her after that. After a while she heard him snoring and guessed it was safe to fall back into sleep. At some point during the night, she felt his body shift and come closer, but he didn't try anything, and in the end, she was grateful for the warmth.