Page 2

"My grandmother..." she said, still trying to pull her arm out of the iron grasp. "She needs me."

"Should’ve thought about that before you went stealing sun, shouldn’t you?" the man snapped. He’d pulled her past the bend in the village street, and now she saw the hovercraft, sitting squat on its thick skirts. They must have been waiting since the previous night, then, for harvesters like her. The man pulled her up the ramp and pushed her into a seat. "Sit there and don’t talk, if you know what’s good for you."

Mimi had never been in a hovercraft before, though she’d seen them often enough, their heavy bulks hissing as they passed. Under other circumstances, she might have looked around with interest. But now she could only hunch in her seat, miserable and increasingly afraid.

In only a few minutes, the hovercraft’s engine started up and it moved off, across country, the frozen fields rushing by beneath. From her seat, Mimi could only see steel-coloured sky and an occasional glimpse of the distant hills. Once a drone buzzed past overhead, spray attachments visible under its long wings. She knew what that meant – it was on patrol against unauthorised agriculture. Only the Corporation was allowed to grow food.

Her captors sat on both sides of her, not talking. "My grandma..." Mimi ventured at last. "What will happen to her?"

The man who had caught her shrugged. "Why should anything happen to her? She wasn’t the one caught stealing sun."

"But she’s so old, and she needs me."

The man did not answer.

"What will happen to me?" Mimi asked at last, working her tongue to moisten her mouth. She remembered the tales of other children having been caught harvesting sunshine and being taken away, never to be heard of again. "Can you tell me that?"

The man glanced at her again. "The judge will decide," he said after a pause. "But I can tell you what she’ll say."

"What?" Mimi asked.

"It’s the Sunshine Mine for you." He turned away and would say no more.

The hovercraft rustled across the fields.

The tons of rock overhead seemed to grumble and heave, like a fat old man settling himself in bed and trying to find a comfortable spot.

Mimi paused, hoping desperately that it was only her imagination, that the tunnel would not collapse on her and crush her flat. She had just about drawn a cautious breath again when she felt an impatient tap on the sole of her boot. "What are you waiting for?" the supervisor snapped, crossly. "Get going."

Mimi clenched her eyes shut and began to crawl along the tunnel. It was so narrow that she had to squeeze along on her side part of the way, fumbling with her hands for the supporting struts. The coldsuit she wore was thick and padded, but the rock was so rough that she could feel the scrape of stone on her chest and thighs right through it.

Though she had been in the mine for days now – how many, she could no longer recall – Mimi had not been able to get used to the crawlspaces in which she and the other children had to operate. These crawlways could not accommodate an adult, but the supervisors were always watching, their cameras scanning every bit of the tunnel right up to the seam of sunshine ore.

The dull glow of the sunshine ore began to show red through Mimi’s eyelids, and she cautiously opened her eyes. Once she could see a little, she felt less afraid of being buried under tons of rock – though, of course, the ore face was the most dangerous point, where too much cutting might cause a cave-in. Mimi had already heard talk among the older workers of collapses and deaths. The mine management didn’t care particularly. As long as the ore kept coming, the workers could drop dead, she’d heard.

After all, as long as there were laws for people to break, there would be as many workers as the Corporation could want.

Mimi had not worked this particular section of the seam before. It was a new crawlspace, by far the narrowest she’d ever been in, so narrow that it could only accommodate her if she lay on her side and hacked at the ore with her arms over her head. It was exhausting work, and the coldsuit ensured that she received no warmth from the ore as she cut out blocks and passed them down between her legs to the next in line. Mine workers were not entitled to any of the mined sunshine. It belonged to the Corporation.

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