THE STENCH OF DEATH masked all other scents, but it was the silence Morgan noticed most. Not a whisper of air stirred the leaves or cooled his face. Whatever could fly had already left. What lived in the trees was hiding or gone. He gripped the railing with both hands, knuckles white, and wondered how long a forest took to die.
The water had gone first, stolen before dawn. The black muck left behind had squirmed with the desperate and dying for hours. Nothing moved now.
He supposed he should be comforted that the Tikitiks’ Makers hadn’t rained fire upon the planet. Yet.
Other, smaller, hands appeared, gripping the rail beside his, and the Human closed his eyes in relief. “You’re back.”
“Twenty from Tuana, thanks to Andi.” Sira’s voice had a ragged edge. Rage, that was, not exhaustion. He didn’t know if the Vyna had given her the locates for the remaining Clans or if she’d ripped them from their minds.
She’d sent him back first. Ripped, then.
“Barac brought nine from Amna,” he told her. “And some coats.”
Coats?!
His sense of Aryl faded after that outburst. “Is she all right?”
Sira sighed and leaned into him. “As right as anyone. The Vyna didn’t exaggerate. The Oud have devastated every Clan but theirs.”
“And Sona’s next.” The rastis had folded their fronds to preserve moisture; so doing only served to let the sun through to evaporate what water remained and bake the mud-coated corpses. He nudged her gently. “Look.”
A solitary esans stood at a distance, striped in sun and shadow, its rider sitting astride. Morgan couldn’t see who it was.
He didn’t need to. On impulse, he raised his hand.
As if in answer, the beast gave its shuddering shriek, then turned and walked away.
“Thought Traveler has the right idea,” he said after a moment. “This is no place to be, Sira.” They’d saved all they could of those willing to be saved, the Vyna confident in their sanctuary. A sanctuary too small and rumn-infested to offer hope to anyone who didn’t want to be a “servant.” “So, chit. Here we go again. Where do we ’port?”
Her pause had a little too much thinking in it for his comfort. Morgan turned, taking Sira’s hands in his. “You did hear me. We might as well leave sooner than later.”
She looked up, an unexpected gleam in her eyes. “It’s a starship.”
“You can’t be—” serious, but he didn’t finish. Of course she was, so he made himself think out loud. “A starship half buried in muck and dead swarm bits. A starship with no power source. A starship older than the Trade Pact. Need I go on?”
“You pushed the Fox through the M’hir.”
To save her life, at the cost of—taking that determined chin in his fingers, he tilted her face to look up. “This is bigger. And yes, in this case, that matters.”
She kept looking up, her nose wrinkled. “Came here, so it’s flown before.”
“Not necessarily. Could have been dropped from orbit like lifepods.” Morgan shook his head. “Sira, I’m the first to believe you can do the impossible, but we don’t even have a manual for the thing.”
She lowered her gaze to meet his. “Say that again.”
“We don’t know how it works—”
“That’s not what you said.” The gleam in her eyes had become a glow. “You said a manual. I know who—what to ask. The ship!”
He shouldn’t encourage her. Any delay—still. Morgan looked up. The petalled walls, the shaping. A beautiful design.
Once. “Lifepods aren’t intended to go back into space on their own.”
“The ship told me the Om’ray were supposed to go home. What if that’s the conclusion to the experiment—the finale to all of this? We just go home.”
“In this.”
“Why not this? It’s tech.” She glanced up again, making a face. “Okay, it’s big, but it’s still a machine. What we’ve seen of it so far works. Maybe all it needs is—us!” Her hair lifted in a cloud.
“Promise me—” what? To consult, to waste time, to—“I’m coming with you.”
That smile he loved, then the dying jungle disappeared . . .
Replaced by the Dream Chamber.