The shuttle’s thrusters blasted dirt, dust, and hot, toxic-smelling gasses in a howling gale.
Talina ducked down behind the old tractor body, eyes closed against the storm of debris. Damn it! All she could do was cower when every instinct was telling her rise up, put a round through one of the turbines. Bring that damn thing down!
Her quetzal was screaming inside her, causing her mouth to salivate. Concentrated peppermint extract tasted bitter on her tongue. Quetzal rage flowed into Talina’s limbic system.
She shot Rocket!
Talina ground her teeth, impotent as her hair whipped, grit blasted her face, and her body was buffeted by the tearing air. It seemed an eternity. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen or twenty seconds.
The deafening howl changed; the hurricane wind suddenly shifted as the thrusters angled back, driving the shuttle forward.
Gasping relief, Talina blinked her gritty eyes and watched the delta-shaped craft as it veered wide around the dome and roared its way north.
She straightened, vision tearing from the grit. With a sleeve she rubbed at her eyes, managed to clear them. Rebecca—filthy and coated with dust—rose from behind the protective bulk of the old solar-powered pump.
A glance Talbot’s way showed him blown flat on his back, rifle still shouldered, but the muzzle now pointed up at the cloud-blotched sky.
Rocket’s body had been blown back a couple of meters. The young quetzal’s legs and tail continued to twitch.
“God damn it,” Talina cursed past clenched jaws as she ran to where the quetzal lay. Setting her rifle to the side, she bent down, laying hands on the creature. Looked for the wound.
“Rocket? You stay with me now.”
There, she could see the red-brown that served as quetzal blood leaking from the bottom of the creature’s throat. Where was the exit?
Talina shifted, lifting Rocket’s head, staring hard into his three eyes, now rimmed with dirt and mire. “You hang in there. We’ve got you. You’ve got to live for Kylee. Live for us.”
Rocket’s mouth opened, tongue flicking out.
Talina’s saliva began to flow. She let it leak out onto her lips. Rocket’s tongue played softly through the moisture and slipped back between the serrated jaws. A clicking, oddly muted, as if underwater, sounded from within.
“Damn you, don’t you die on me!” Talina shouted. “You live, damn it! Live, you hear?”
Rocket opened his mouth, tried to make a sound, but weakly vomited a gush of blood and bits of tissue onto Talina’s hands and forearms.
“Don’t you do this,” Talina pleaded. “Please, don’t do this.”
Rocket’s back legs twitched, kicked, and the tail made one last desperate slap at the ground. Blood and fluids were dribbling out of his dorsal vents.
Talina was staring into Rocket’s eyes, willing her soul into his. She watched helplessly. Felt a tearing inside her as the young quetzal’s gaze flickered and went dead.
A howling burst out deep within her as her own quetzal screamed.
“Rocket? Stay with me. Stay with . . . Stay . . .”
Too late.
Always too late.
She hadn’t seen Rocket. Hadn’t known he was close. Couldn’t figure what Spiro had shot at. Not until she’d stood, seen Rocket’s twitching body as it flickered black, yellow, and indigo patterns of fear and pain.
Fear and pain.
She’d seen those colors often enough when she’d killed quetzals.
“Damn it, why?” she cried, knotting her fists. Pounded them on the dirt next to the dead quetzal’s head.
In that moment she let loose the grief, the frustrations and guilt. Let every rotten thing inside her flow out as she bawled her impotence against the universe.
Someone knelt beside her. An arm slipped around her shoulders. Stilling the last of the sobs, she dragged a dirty sleeve across her face in an attempt to wipe up some of the mess.
“You did all you could,” a soft voice told her. Rebecca’s voice. The reassuring arm tightened across her shoulders. “Oh, God, this is going to destroy Kylee and Dya. The rest of us are just going to ache and grieve. But Kylee? What’s going to happen to her?”
Talina sniffed, hawked, and swallowed hard. Stared down at Rocket. Blood and fluids still leaked from his parted jaws. The colors now frozen. His three eyes seemed fixed on Talina’s. Vacant. Staring blankly.
“I don’t know.” A pause. “Why the hell was he here?”
“He should have been with Kylee.”
Talina forced the howling quetzal in her gut into submission. The damn thing was shooting its own waves of rage, grief, and pain through her. Talina ordered herself to ignore them.
She reached up, patted Rebecca’s hand, and felt the woman remove her arm before Talina struggled to her feet.
Sucking hell, Rocket looked so pathetic. Talina walked around, pulled his tail out straight, arranged his legs and head into a more dignified position. Nothing she could do about the blood and guts.
The tears threatened again. She beat them back.
“Better check on Mark,” Rebecca said.
“Yeah.”
Talina turned. Talbot hadn’t moved. Still lay flat on his back, the rifle pointed at the sky. Frozen.
What the hell?
If he’s dead, too, I’m flying straight to Corporate Mine and killing them all.
She hurried after Rebecca, kneeling down to peer into the transparent visor. Not only was Talbot alive, but he was hollering something barely audible through the confining helmet.
Talina got thumbs on either side of the release latches at the collar and clicked them free. Twisting the helmet to the right released the seal and let her lift it free.
“Thanks,” Talbot said between gasps for air. “Suit’s completely dead. Thought I was going to suffocate. What took you so long?”
“Rocket’s dead,” Rebecca told him. “Didn’t you see?”
“What do you mean, Rocket’s dead?”
Talina—working on the man’s gloves—said, “Spiro shot him as she was leaving.”
Talina got the rifle free and unlocked the bayonet-style locks at the wrist before pulling the gloves off. Rebecca was working on the arms, freeing them.
“This is going to kill Kylee, you know that,” Talbot said bitterly. “Why kill poor Rocket?”
“Because I kept her from killing him at the hospital that day.” Talina ground her teeth, forcing herself to concentrate on something besides rage.
Talbot said, “You kept him alive all right. Maybe, Dya, too.” Then, in a softer voice. “Me, too, I guess.”
Talina blinked back the tears. “Yeah, Mark. We were all fond of the little twerp.”
Finally pulling off the legs and releasing the carapace, they pulled Talbot to his feet. He wiped the sweat from his face, bit his lip, and walked slowly over to where Rocket lay.
Kneeling, Talbot ran his hands reverently over Rocket’s head, speaking softly.
Talina turned away, walked to where she didn’t have to hear. Instead she fixed her eyes on the horizon. North. Up there. Spiro would have headed straight back to Corporate Mine. Right to Aguila to report.
My next stop. And, Kalico, I doubt you’re going to like how this turns out.
The quetzal inside her hissed in support.
“Yeah, you piece of shit? That thing we’re feeling? That’s called grief. You getting the idea now? Figuring out why we’ve been hunting your sorry asses down and killing you every time you eat a human?”
Her quetzal echoed the chittering and clicking sounds of assent she’d learned from Rocket.
“Tal?” Rebecca called.
Talina reluctantly peeled her gaze from the northern horizon and plodded back. She tried to make herself see Rocket as just another dead quetzal. Couldn’t do it. Felt the tearing pain in her soul.
“How do you want to do this?” Talina asked.
“Get a stretcher,” Talbot said. “Carry him back to the Dome.”
Rebecca added, “Then we have a cemetery out back. He was one of us. He deserves to lie among our people.”
Our people. That meant Pak and Paolo along with the rest.
She turned, figuring to head for the tower base for the stretcher. Surely, between the three of them, they could carry Rocket’s corpse. He couldn’t weigh more than seventy kilos.
Talina froze, swallowed hard, her heart beginning to pound.
“Dear God, no!” She placed a hand to her mouth.
Rebecca and Talbot looked up, both stunned.
Emerging from around the corner of the shop, hobbling on her crutches, came Kylee.
“Now, sweetie,” Rebecca said, charging forward. “You shouldn’t be up! Shouldn’t be here! What are you doing?”
Kylee kept hobbling, seemed not to hear. Seemed not to see. As if she were in a trance. Possessed by something alien, something vacuous.
“Rocket?” the girl called, her voice eerie, almost a screech.
Rebecca stopped short, stepped out of the way as Kylee hitched along on her crutches.
Talina would remember the instant Kylee’s gaze fixed on Rocket. She’d remember the glazing emptiness that filled the little girl’s eyes, the hideous scream that tore from her throat.