“Stop shaking, or you’ll bleed harder,” the skinwelder said. Bee couldn’t. She was still wet and filthy in the dark.

“Sorry,” she stuttered, trembling. “I’m sorry.”

Its thickly lensed eyes turned back to her braced arm. With a hand made of a thousand thorny needles, it knitted loose pieces of her flesh back together, the joint a mess of sliced skin, bone and sinew. Its second arm ejaculated ribbons of caustic gel, hissing and burning, glueing flesh back together. Its third arm tugged at the wound’s edges with delicately hooked claws, exploring the damage.

It hurt — the amputation, the tourniquet, everything. Bee tried to stop whimpering. She couldn’t.

The skinwelder’s workshop, one of the smaller, newer buildings on the outskirts of the Oasis, was dirty. He was an outsider, one of the dwellers of the desert. Still, unlike most, he was quite willing to deal with those fleeing the city-slug — taking what they had while they were still here rather than waiting for them to drop dead out there.

A freak was slumped over in one corner, between a flesh bank of spare augs and a shelf of preserved biomass. Bee was almost certain he was dead.

Impatient, Ay inhabited the doorway to the world beyond, blocking out the hot sun with his massive body. The hunter kept an eye out, analysing everyone that dared pass, two arms folded, and the other hand vanished into the pockets of his rags. The tip of his tail twisted side to side, lashing with barely suppressed rage.

“All done.”

“Thank you,” Bee said. “T-thank you...”

Ay swept across the room, towering over them both. He took Bee’s welded wound in one hand, turned it this way, and saw the results for himself to ensure it wasn’t fatal. It must have passed his inspection.

“Well,” Ay croaked down to Bee. “Are you going to pay the freak?”

Bee cringed. She didn’t have anything to pay him with. The Skinwelder leaned back, stood up and paced around the room, looking unimpressed. He wiped what passed as his hands on a spoiled rag.

“No?” Ay asked, raising his voice.

“I can’t,” Bee said.

Ay grunted. He pulled out her mother’s steel bowl from under the rags wrapped about his chest. Ay then pulled out her severed hand, dumping it into the vessel and offering it out. Bee seized with apprehension, realising she wouldn’t get it back.

“Should work,” Ay told the skinwelder, who turned, picked up the hand and appraised it with distorted eyes.

“Bit small,” the skinwelder said.

“Still has growing to do,” Ay countered.

“It’ll do,” the skinwelder decided after inspecting the exposed tendons and ligaments. Then, retreating to the aug bank, he went about stitching his new prize onto the enslaved creature so that it could be kept nourished. The aug bank groaned but knew better than to flinch.

They left the skin welder to its work, continuing their journey through the maze of the Oasis. Bee clung to Em with her good arm. Back on their wagon, they made slow progress through the crowds, headed outwards, escaping back into the furnace. Even Em had the sense to be silent.

Bee was cold despite the harsh sun. She had been told to sit in the back and stay there this time. Ay worked the lash and shouted out to clear the way. The starving freaks did — slowly, reluctantly.

“We don’t have any food,” Bee said, voice weak and unsteady. A moment passed, then another. Then, finally, she realised Ay was ignoring her.

“We need food,” Bee repeated more loudly, desperation seeping into her voice.

“We have food,” Ay finally said.

Bee looked at her other sisters, still bundled up. The fear, which was becoming a persistent state of being for the child, robbed her of words. Suddenly, her right hand, wherever it was, felt as if she had plunged it into a pool of hot oil and glass. Looking down, Bee realised that her limbs had strung tight with anger. Her breath escaped her throat and flutes, hot.

Bee tried to spy Ay’s lance in the wagon whilst he was distracted by the staggering freaks that blocked the road. She looked around the bone and the steel reinforcements, but she struggled to find it in her daze.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ay said without looking back, catching Bee off guard. She had thought he wasn’t paying attention. Frozen still, she hugged Em close again.

“Please... We need something else to eat,” Bee struggled with the words.

Ay looked back, and the fleshy eyes between his beaks narrowed.

“Fine.”