Terra Nullius

Jacky, certain that the troopers are right behind him and that he faces imminent prison time or—worse—being sent back to the station he fled to be punished extrajudicially by his former enslaver, ekes out his survival on the very fringes of the habitable country. One night, he breaks into a homestead and rifles through the pantry. There, he gorges himself on fresh fruit, cheese, and cooked meats while stuffing his sack with provisions. The homesteading couple hear and catch him in the act, but he escapes.

Elsewhere, Tucker saunters into camp with a good-sized kangaroo draped across his shoulders. He has saved the group again with his almost preternatural ability to find food and water even in the most impossible places. After the men eat, he tells them about the first time a roo saved his life (this meal being the second). On the day that Settlers found his community, he and his brother had been out hunting. Tucker had caught a big roo and had been slower in returning under its weight. So it was his brother who stumbled into the band of Settlers and was instantly shot. Tucker ran back home for help only to find that the Settlers had brutally murdered every last person in the community.

Crow Joe speaks next, explaining how he and his parents worked for a so-called circus that was little better than a zoo. His father, who performed an axe-throwing act, died from alcoholism. Crow Joe’s mother died of overwork. Crow Joe took over his father’s act but often got in trouble for violence. Then one day, when his boss yelled at him, Crow Joe snapped and killed the man with an axe. He’s been running since. Deadeye, once employed by the Settlers as a tracker, fled when he killed his sergeant after being ordered to guard a group of Indigenous detainees. Dip and Dap don’t speak, but their dark looks imply that they’ve seen and experienced their share of horrors, too.

Elsewhere in the outback, Sergeant Rohan has given up on Mick and employed an Indigenous tracker whose enslaver swears that he’s trustworthy. At first, things seem to be going well. The tracker follows Jacky’s trail confidently, even as it leads deeper and deeper into country choked with maze-like rock formations and forests. The tracker finds water where the Settlers can’t imagine there is any—in the trees themselves. Rohan, despite himself, begins to trust and even perhaps to like the tracker. But then he and his posse wake up one morning to find that the tracker has absconded with their map, leaving them lost and helpless. They have to struggle on by themselves. Rohan swears that he’ll murder the tracker the next time he sees him.

Late at night in the mission school, Sister Bagra sits in her room, mulling over who might be the traitor. She suspects Sister Mel, the youngest and most outspoken about her doubts. Indeed, Sister Bagra suspects that Sister Mel somehow helped Jacky to escape after he broke in. Unfortunately, she can’t prove anything. As Sister Bagra considers her next move, a commotion from the dormitory draws her attention. She walks swiftly across the grounds—running would be beneath her dignity. Sister Mel and another young nun, the one who teaches math classes (despite having no aptitude for either teaching or math) are already there. This seems odd to Sister Bagra—she’s always first on the scene.

Inside one of the dormitory rooms, the Indigenous man who serves as the mission school’s tracker holds a writhing Indigenous child. Sister Bagra demands to know what’s happening, and the tracker says that he’s trying to return a child whom he found sneaking around the grounds to bed. In a flash, Sister Bagra sees that the tracker—and likely the junior nuns in the hallway—are conspiring to protect the girl from punishment by trying to quietly return her to bed rather than delivering her to Sister Bagra for punishment. Imperiously, she sweeps from the room, beckoning Sister Mel, the other young nun, and the tracker to follow her. She orders the Indigenous man to throw the girl into one of the punishment kennels, then she sends him back to his camp for the night.

Sister Bagra turns on Sister Mel and the other young nun, demanding to know how long they’ve been protecting potential escapees from punishment. Neither woman answers, and Sister Bagra detects no guilt in their eyes. Still, she orders them to remain in their rooms, praying and meditating, until they’re ready to admit their faults. Belatedly, she realizes that Sister Mel is staring at her hand. Just before the commotion, Sister Bagra had taken the letter from her pocket, and it still dangles from her fingers. Unwilling to discuss its contents yet, she storms off.

Elsewhere, a stranger (later identified as Paddy) wanders into Esperance’s camp from the northeast early one morning. No one ever comes from that direction, beyond which lies the least habitable parts of the desert. As campies stumble from shelters with weapons in their hands, Esperance offers the man water and asks his business. He tells her a horrifying yet familiar tale. He and his people live in the deep desert, where they thought they were safe from the Settlers. Nevertheless, a group of Settlers found them and brutally slaughtered most of them with their superior weapons. The man doesn’t know how many or who survived, but he hopes that one day, he will find the others.