THE GARBAGE BENEATH Aluna’s hands and feet had been packed and smoothed. Unfortunately, the walls of the tunnel were less groomed. She bumped her head on a metal pipe and felt a sliver of plastic scratch her arm as she wriggled forward. The knife blade in her mouth made it impossible to talk, so she stopped and pointed at the obstacles for Hoku.

The tunnel had obviously been carved for bigger people. There was enough room for her to avoid dangerous-looking debris, now that she knew to look for it. They’d certainly swum through tighter holes and hidden in smaller spots than this back in the ocean.

She heard a whimper from behind her and paused. Behind Hoku, she could see Dash clambering on his three good limbs. But he didn’t look good. Even in the darkness, her eyes picked up the beads of sweat on his face. He jerked his head from left to right. His breath came out in ragged, uneven gasps. Apparently, the horse folk didn’t do well in confined spaces.

She pulled the knife out of her mouth and said, “Keep moving. Don’t stop. Focus on Hoku’s feet in front of you. Nothing else. Just Hoku’s feet.”

She kept the knife hilt in her fist and crawled forward, faster. Hoku kept pace with her — he’d always been agile, like a crab scurrying over a coral reef. He shifted from side to side, just as she did, trusting her to avoid the worst of the dangers.

They moved fast, but it wasn’t fast enough. They were losing Dash. His breathing had become labored, and Hoku had been forced to grab him by the hair and pull in order to keep him moving.

“Tell me about the horse folk, Dash,” she said.

No answer. Hoku looked at her, his brow furrowed with worry.

“Tell me about your mother,” she tried. “Or your father.”

Dash gulped and shook his head.

Too personal. He had some pain there, and now was not the right time to stir it up. She kept them moving while she tried to think of something else to ask.

“Tell us about running across the desert,” Hoku said. “Tell us about sunsets.”

They crawled another few meters before Dash started to speak.

“The sun,” he said, his voice cracking, “she commands the sky. She is our great mother, gifting life and granting death as she wishes. At night, she abandons us to darkness so that we may understand the world without her. We make bonfires and let our bodies become one with the cold. Our word-weavers tell stories to lure her back into our sky. They take turns sleeping so that their stories last the whole night, until the great mother returns and again grants us her gifts.”

His voice was not only stronger; it was beautiful.

“Were you a word-weaver?” she asked.

Silence, and then, “No, though I would have liked to be,” Dash said. “Many things would have been different had that path been open to me. But it was not meant to be.”

Meant to be, she thought. So many things were meant to be. She shouldn’t have been creeping through some tunnel of garbage trying to escape from an ancient, broken-down dome full of once-Human scoundrels. She was meant to be in the ocean, swimming around with her grown-up tail.

“I smell fresh air,” Dash said.

She hadn’t noticed, but he was right.

“Quiet now,” she said. “If the Upgraders came this way, they probably left someone behind to guard the exit.”

They crawled the rest of the way silent as sharks. Ahead of them, a rag hung across the tunnel, flickering firelight haloed around its ragged edges. Aluna crept slowly to the exit, sheathed her knife at her waist, and pulled aside the cloth.

A few meters from the tunnel exit, a monstrous animal stood grazing on scrawny tufts of grass sticking out of the packed brown dirt of the plateau. She’d seen animals like it in a picture book Hoku and Calli had shown her back at Skyfeather’s Landing. Its thick, armored body was striped black and white like a zebra. But unlike that slender animal, its legs were stout and muscled, more like tree stumps. And instead of a horse’s head, it had the round skull of an ancient rhino, complete with wicked metal-tipped horns.

Hoku and Dash crouched behind her. When the fresh air hit Dash, he sighed.

“What is it?” Hoku asked.

“No idea,” she whispered.

“It is a rhinebra,” Dash said. “A beast of burden. They can carry and pull great weights and are more aggressive than smaller pack animals.”

“Great weights?” she said. “It’s got a saddle. Do you think it can hold all three of us?”

Dash snorted. “It could carry ten of us and not even notice.”

“Okay,” she said, “then we’ve got a plan. Follow me.”

She stepped out of the tunnel before either of them could protest and snuck toward the rhinebra.

“Better be heading home after this smash and grab,” a woman’s voice said from the other side of the animal. “I need a fix-up. My skin’s itching fierce.”

Aluna froze.

“There’s no medtek in the wide world with skills wired enough for fixin’ you,” a male voice said with a laugh.

“Shut it,” the female Upgrader said. “No unmarked noob gets to high-talk me about tech.”

As long as they kept talking, everything would be fine. Aluna beckoned to Dash and Hoku. They tiptoed out of the tunnel toward her. She held a finger up to her lips, and they nodded.

“You hear something?” the woman said.

The man grunted. “You’re the Gizmo with the full-gold ear. You tell me if I’m supposed to hear something.”

None of them moved. None of them even breathed.

“Probably Pebbles chewin’,” the woman said finally. “Stupid striped cow.”

Aluna shared looks of relief with Dash and Hoku. Dash took another step forward and reached for the rhinebra’s reins.

Behind them, something squeaked.

A small gray streak of fur galloped out of the tunnel, raced across the ground, and launched itself into Hoku’s arms, chittering happily.

Hoku hugged Zorro to his chest and tried to cover the little creature’s mouth with his hand. “Zorro, quiet!” he whispered.

Aluna cursed under her breath. The animal had fallen silent immediately, but so had the Upgraders. She crouched low and readied her talons. The smooth metal weapons warmed quickly in her palms.

“Get on the animal! Both of you!” she said. “I’ll hold them off and catch up when I can.”