Everyone saw it coming. Nothing remained for us here but bad memories and a jagged hole in the ground. The burials we held were brief, perfunctory, as if it really was just dust and sand we were burying. Even the people who’d been most enthusiastic about my dad’s plan couldn’t wait to clear out now that his plan had so tragically failed. Other than the burials, we’d spent most of the previous day fulfilling Araz’s quarantine order. Everyone lined up outside headquarters and, one by one, submitted to the trials, which Araz and his cronies conducted in the same room where I’d seen Petra’s interrogation. I watched people come out shaking from the ordeal, mouths and hands bloody. The old woman had to be carried out by two colonists. When it was my turn, Yov took obvious delight in tightening the clamp on my fingers, jerking the pliers back and forth inside my mouth. But I didn’t say a word, kept the pain to myself. Whether he and Araz really cared about ferreting out Skaldi or just relished the chance to inflict torment on the camp was anyone’s guess.
