“Sleep alright?” He hands me a bowl of barley gruel and a cup of water as we make ourselves comfortable. I nod my thanks, carefully savouring my first bland mouthful. This will be all I get until tomorrow. The Vitaeria we all wear mean we only need a fraction of a normal meal per day to subsist. Which is fortunate, because though I haven’t seen the garden yet—where Caeror says the Qabrans have figured out how to coax some meagre life from the underground soil—I know its crops are constantly stretched to breaking point.
