by Scott Sigler
Just like before, O’Malley is in the coffin to my right, Bishop in the one to my left. They’re both already asleep. I lie back in mine.
My lid closes. It’s dark, cramped, but this time I don’t care. As the world around me goes quiet, the questions in my head roar out loud.
Who were the people in the Observatory? Are they Grownups? Or are they young people like us, blank kids who somehow found a way down here before we did? Could they be a group that has nothing to do with the Xolotl at all, perhaps people who were here before that ship’s thousand-year journey even began?
Ometeotl said Matilda was a hero, that she saved lives. That’s a lie…isn’t it? Was Matilda fighting against evil, at least in the beginning? Part of me desperately wants to believe that. A bigger part of me wants to block out the thoughts of something even more disturbing—what if Matilda started out doing the right thing, protecting people, then power changed her, made her into a monster?
If power changed her, power could change me.
I try to push the thought away but it refuses to let go, right up until exhaustion finally drags me into darkness.
I wake to bad news, and from an unexpected source.
“Get up, Em,” Zubiri says. “The mold has spread.”
I roll over, nestle my face into my coffin’s padding. If I ignore her, maybe I can sleep for another fifteen minutes.
A hand on my shoulder, shaking me.
“Em, it’s serious.” Gaston’s voice.
I groan. I roll to my back, blink against the shuttle’s bright lights. Gaston and Zubiri are leaning in over me. So is skinny Borjigin. I notice that his face is smooth, hairless. All the other boys my age are showing some stubble—even little Gaston—but not Borjigin. I wonder if that’s the way his creator made him.
The two boys look worried. Their eyes are flicking around the room, as if to watch out for anyone listening too close. Zubiri is as calm as can be. Few other people are up; it must be early in the morning.
“How serious?” I ask.
Borjigin looks at his inner forearm. His sleeves are rolled up—he’s written numbers on his skin.
“We have one day’s worth of food left,” he says. “Maybe. And that’s if we cut everyone’s rations in half.”
One day?
I try to sit up. Thunderous aches in my legs stop me. My thighs feel like they’re made of bricks—I’m so sore from the Observatory climb. Gaston grips my shoulders, helps me rise.
“You’re counting wrong,” I say to Borjigin. “We have to have more than that.”
Gaston shakes his head. “He has a full inventory of everything on the shuttle. He knows our food situation down to the calorie.”
I don’t care. Borjigin hasn’t been part of the decision-making process. It’s been me, O’Malley, Bishop, Gaston and…
I notice Zubiri is wearing a golden bracer.
“Where’s Spingate?” I ask.
“Medical,” Gaston says. “Her elbow will be fine. Smith wants her to rest a little longer, though.”
It’s one thing after another. Why can’t someone bring me good news for a change?
“We had five days left,” I say. “What happened?”
“I told you, the mold,” Zubiri says, her tone matter-of-fact. She runs her hand over the bracer. “Spingate was hurt, so I asked Gaston if I could use this. I adjusted the sensitivity levels so I could scan food that was still inside sealed containers.”
Her little face…so innocent. She can’t be right—she’s just a child.
“Zubiri surprised me, too,” Gaston says. “She knows how to use the bracer better than Spingate does.”
We’re all the same age, basically, but I guess I assumed that because we looked older, we were smarter. That was stupid. I need to trust that the younger kids are just as capable as I am.
“I think the mold is a weapon,” Zubiri says. “Bioengineered to destroy food stores. It secretes a chemical that makes microscopic holes in the bins so it can get at the food.”
A weapon? If Zubiri is right, that explains why all the food in the warehouse was bad. And come tomorrow, I’ll have hundreds of hungry people on my hands.
I think we only have three options: defeat the mold ourselves, find safe food, or find the fire-builders.
Spingate and Zubiri should keep working in the lab. Maybe they can figure it out. The jungle is full of life—if we search, we might discover plants or animals that are safe to eat. And, while doing that, we can return to the fire pit. Visca is a tracker…maybe he can track the fire-builders.
If those three efforts fail, a return trip to the Observatory will be our last chance.
“Gaston, wake up Bishop and Visca,” I say. “We’re going back to the jungle.”
—
We head out beneath a sky that glows yellow-orange with morning light. My group consists of Bishop, Visca, Coyotl, Borjigin and a young tooth-girl named C. Kalle. Kalle has the second bracer and knows how to use it—she’ll check any food we find.
I’d rather have Spingate, but her arm will be in a sling for another day, and it makes more sense for her to continue the mold research. Zubiri will assist her. Or is Spingate now assisting Zubiri?
O’Malley stays behind as well. He’s wiped out from the Observatory climb. We all are, but he’s worse off than the rest of us. I leave him in charge of organizing a larger search of surrounding buildings. We’re out of time and can’t afford to play it safe; everyone will be involved. I’ll also have him put Aramovsky to work, make the tall boy so busy he doesn’t have time to spread lies.
My food ration is so small it easily fits in my coverall pockets along with some bandages, a water bottle, a few medical supplies and my flashlight. I don’t even need a bag. One small grain bar and a cube of protein—perhaps my last meal. At least the last one that isn’t full of poison.
Moving as silently as we can, we head for the city gate. The rain has dropped off to a drizzle. The sun is out again, making this city of vine-covered pyramids gleam as if it is sweating from the heat.
We stay close to buildings, ready to hide under vines at the first sign of a spider. Bishop, Visca and Coyotl are far out in front, scanning for threats, leaving me with Borjigin and Kalle. She keeps sliding the loose bracer back up her forearm—it clearly wasn’t intended for a small, rail-thin twelve-year-old. She and Borjigin each carry a knife sheathed on their thighs.
“I don’t understand why I have to go,” Borjigin says.
It’s the fourth time he’s said that. I try to stay patient.
“You know our food situation better than anyone,” I say. “If we find any, you’ll figure out how far it will go, how many people we’ll need to carry it back to the others, stuff like that.”
“I can do logistics from the shuttle—someone could just report back to me. It’s dangerous out here.”
“Shut up,” Kalle says without looking at him, without breaking stride. “I’m half your size and you don’t hear me complaining about the danger. We do this or we die. Stop being a godsdamned baby.”
Borjigin glares at her. Kalle ignores him.
I’m not happy this little girl curses, but I like her already. She has curly blond hair that sticks up more than it hangs down. It reminds me of Latu’s hair, so I try not to look at it.
“Just listen to the circle-stars,” I say. “If you want to survive, do exactly what they tell you.”
Kalle says, “Yes, ma’am,” but Borjigin blanches. Maybe his definition of “dangerous” didn’t include the possibility of him dying.
We walk on in silence. It takes us four or five hours to reach the city wall. We join the circle-stars at the gate. The tall doors are closed, just as we left them a few nights ago.
“Still no sign of spiders,” Bishop says. “Everyone, on the door. Together now—push.”
The six of us lean against the thick metal slab. The hinges screech, and the solid door slowly opens a crack. We slide through. Best to leave it open a little, as we do
n’t know if we’ll have to come back this way again.
The jungle ruins lie before us. I’d hoped I might see a smoke column snaking into the sky, but no such luck. Of course it can’t be that easy.
Bishop scans the tree line. I do the same, but I know he will see any danger long before I do, even danger I would never see at all.
“Looks clear,” he says. “Visca, go.”
Visca moves out, the vine-choked wall on his right, his eyes fixed on the ground. He thinks he can follow the trail we left a few nights back, which should lead straight to the fire pit. That saves Bishop and me the time of trying to remember where we were when we first found it. From there, Visca will look for signs of the fire-builders.
Bishop gives Visca a head start, then follows. I’m next, then Kalle, then Borjigin, with Coyotl guarding our rear.
“I still don’t like this,” Borjigin says. “I hear animals in the jungle. What if they attack us?”
Kalle sighs and shakes her head.
Coyotl pats his thighbone against his open palm.
“Don’t worry, Borjigin,” he says, smiling wide. “If anything happens, I’ll protect you.”
Bishop stops, turns, waves me forward—Visca has found our trail.
—
The midday sun beats down, hot on my hair and face whenever it punches through the canopy. Mist curls up from the muddy ground, from water beaded on yellow leaves. The jungle simmers in a low-hanging mist. Despite this steamy heat, despite scratching branches, the jungle’s natural beauty grips me. Brightly colored blurds whiz through the air. We hear small animals scurrying in the underbrush. Maybe those animals are what the mystery people cooked in their fire.
Kalle stops every time she sees a new plant, waves the bracer over it. And every time, she says the same thing: non-edible.
Finally, Visca leads us to the fire pit. It’s now a puddle of black water filled with wet charcoal. The five-walled building shows no sign of anyone having been here since we left.
“I’ll start a sweep,” Visca says, and creeps off into the jungle.
“Let’s rest,” Bishop says. “Stay inside the walls, out of sight. Spiders could be out here.”
Borjigin is only too happy to sit. Kalle waves her bracer over moss on the walls. At first I think she’s being ridiculous, then my stomach rumbles, and I wonder if moss is tasty. The bracer jewels flash orange; looks like I don’t have to worry about that.
I find a place to sit and rub at my sore thighs. They’ve loosened up some, but still ache plenty.
Bishop drops down next to me. He takes a drink from his water bottle, then offers it to me. That’s so nice of him. I take a swig, hand it back.
“Do you think Visca will find a trail?”
He shrugs. “Maybe, but don’t get your hopes up. He’s way better at it than I am, though. Perhaps—”
“I found a path,” Visca calls out.
Bishop is up instantly. In moments, we are on the move again.
—
At first I couldn’t see the path, I just kept following Bishop, who was following Visca. After two hours of marching through the jungle, though, I recognize it, could easily follow it on my own.
At eye level, I see it as a narrow gap winding through the underbrush. At my feet, it is a wet, irregular strip of brown notched in among the creepers and ground cover. Shallow depressions filled with water might be footprints, although there is no way to tell how big the feet were. On either side of the path, branches scrape at us, vines smear us with juice.
The going is tiring and messy, and I don’t care. The fire-builders made this path. It has to lead us to them.
I hear my footsteps, the rustle of vines and fronds being pushed aside before flapping back into place. As usual, the circle-stars don’t make a sound. Except for Coyotl far behind us—I can hear his movements. Kalle makes very little noise, perhaps because she’s tiny, but Borjigin is so loud he might as well be shouting.
Bishop raises a fist. Kalle and I stop instantly. Borjigin stumbles into us, making all kinds of noise.
“Sorry,” he says.
Bishop strides toward us.
“Borjigin, please be quiet,” he says, making a visible effort to control his annoyance. “Watch where you step. Put your heel down first, then let your weight roll forward to the ball of your foot.”
Borjigin nods quickly, intimidated.
“Good,” Bishop says. “You’re behind Em, so just watch how she does it.”
Bishop slides silently forward to join Visca, and we’re moving again.
Borjigin glances at me, nervous and awkward.
Despite the heat of the jungle, my face feels even hotter than it did a few moments ago. Bishop pointed me out as an example of how to move quietly? I’m stunned, embarrassed in a good way. I can’t even get my head around it. He’s impressed by what I can do, not just by the way I look or my position as leader. In my short memory, in everything I can recall from Matilda’s childhood, what Bishop just said is the best thing anyone has ever said to me.
I walk, Kalle right behind me. Borjigin isn’t as loud as before, but he sure isn’t quiet. I make each step a careful thing—I don’t want to let Bishop down.
The jungle’s animal noises fade, then die out. Save for the buzzing of the blurds, everything is silent. Neither Bishop nor Visca raise a fist, but they don’t have to—we all stop walking.
Something is coming, something that the animals fear.
A new sound: a rustling, a fast scurrying across dead leaves and past soft vines.
Bishop looks at me, makes a motion for me to hide. I kneel, look back down the trail: Kalle is already out of sight, but Borjigin is standing there like an idiot.
“Borjigin,” I whisper, “get down.”
He looks at me, dumbstruck and afraid, then slips under a yellowish-green plant with leaves bigger than he is.
The rustling increases. I hear it from several areas at once, all to my right. Something is coming our way.
A creature runs across the trail—brown with yellowish spots, four legs, about the size of the pigs we saw on the Xolotl. It doesn’t have eyes like us, but rather a line of three shiny black dots down each side of its strange head. The creature vanishes into the underbrush on the other side of the trail.
Could we kill that, eat it?
I remember how good the pig tasted.
On my side of the trail, rattling and rustling; more of the odd brown creatures, following the first. And behind them, something strange—it looks like a big snake, dirty-yellow and as thick as my thigh, silently rising up from the underbrush. Long, wicked-looking barbed pincers spread wide, ready to strike.
A second brown animal scurries across the trail, then another, and another. A chubby little one scrambles between Borjigin and me. Smaller than the rest…it must be a baby. Its foot catches on a root; it tumbles forward, rolling, splashing up mud.
It is so close I could reach out and grab it.
The snake-thing shoots forward: pincers snap together, punching through the little animal’s flesh. The baby squeals in pain and terror. The snake rises up, its prey held between the pincers. Short legs kick helplessly. Pinkish blood pours down.
The underbrush shudders and parts as something big rises up—the snake is only part of this predator, some kind of elongated nose. The beast stands on four long legs. Tawny fur splotched with brown stripes. Below where the thick snake meets the head, a wide mouth filled with white teeth as long as my fingers. Powerful shoulders and chest slim to narrower hips and muscular legs. Just like with the pig-creatures, the three glistening black dots on either side of the head must be its eyes.
The baby’s squeals, so loud.
The snake-trunk suddenly whips down, smashing the baby into the trail so hard I feel the impact through the ground.
The squeals change to wet grunts.
The snake lifts it again—the baby is still twitching—then slams it down again.
No more grunts. No more moveme
nt.
The snake-trunk curls inward, placing the dead animal into the long-toothed maw. Close, chew, crunch.
Swallow.
The snake-trunk suddenly rises up, stops. I see four little flesh spots on the end, above the pincers. They open, draw in air, close, open.
My blood runs cold: Does it smell me?
The snake-trunk twists this way and that, sniffing.
The monster’s head is heavy, bony. Beneath the dirty fur, I see twitching muscle and shapes of ribs so flat and thick they make me think of armor. Its chest is a solid plate of curved bone, a shade darker than its fur. My hands tighten on my spear—if this thing attacks, I don’t even know where to stab it.
Sniff-sniff…
Without a sound, Bishop is crouching next to me, axe clutched in his hands.
The snake swings to Borjigin’s plant. The only thing between him and those gore-smeared pincers is a single wide, thin leaf.
Sniff-sniff…
The yellow-furred animal takes a step back. The trunk contorts, the pincers lurch up and away—a stream of goo shoots from each of the nostrils.
Did it just sneeze?
The beast turns and runs into the jungle. As big as it is, it instantly vanishes into the underbrush.
A few moments pass. Then, almost as if someone slowly turns a hidden dial, noise returns to the jungle.
Coyotl slides out of the jungle onto the trail, runs past us, straight to Borjigin’s plant. Coyotl rips the leaf away, revealing a shaking, terrified boy, then kneels, puts his arm around Borjigin and speaks so softly I can’t hear.
Bishop and I stand. I feel wobbly, like I was just in a fight, even though nothing touched me.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why didn’t it attack? That little animal couldn’t have been more than a mouthful.”
Visca appears as unexpectedly as Bishop did. I will never get used to how the circle-stars move with such silence.
“We didn’t smell right,” Visca says. “We must not smell like food.”
Kalle steps out of the underbrush.
“An allergic reaction, perhaps,” she says. “Maybe it has never smelled anything like us before.”