“Roland?” Ulysses repeated.
The pilot’s body was not in the helicopter—or what was left of the metal wreckage. I craned my head to see that Will was still strapped into his seat, although the steel trusses on which the seat had been fastened were ripped from the bottom of the helicopter’s frame. Ulysses was pinned between the door and the roof and struggling to free himself. But there was no sign of Roland.
Then I saw him, lying in the geno-soy about twenty meters from the left door. His head was snapped back at an unnatural angle, and one arm was twisted beneath him. I knew he was dead before I even noticed the bright red pool that stained the brown plants. Bile rose in my throat, and I forced down a strangled cry.
“What is it?” asked Ulysses.
“He’s dead,” I sputtered.
“No time for mourning,” he said. “Help me out of here.”
Will slipped from his safety harness and climbed through the twisted debris to help Ulysses. “He needs a proper burial!” Will exclaimed.
“Can’t wait for that.”
As if to punctuate his words, the jet roared overhead. White contrails in the sky; a light mist like rain.
“Have to get moving,” said Ulysses. “They won’t leave us alone for long.”
I released my seat beat and felt a stabbing, electric pain through my shoulder. Before I could stand, I fell to the ground.
Will was next to me, and then Ulysses. His brisk and indifferent demeanor suddenly melted. “What is it, little sister?” he asked.
“My shoulder,” I managed.
Ulysses gently manipulated my arm. The pain was like a thousand knives in an open wound. “Dislocated,” he concluded. “I can fix it, but it will hurt worse first.”
“How much worse?”
“Like stretching the muscle until it tears.”
“And then it will feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
Ulysses looked at me long and hard, as if he were weighing the pain against his ability to inflict it.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
He took my good arm and gripped it tightly. The hard calluses on his palm scratched my skin. His other hand was on my shoulder. His chest was pressed close up against me. I could see every line in his face, the fine hairs on his cheeks above his beard where no beard grew. I could feel the thumping of his heart, the hard steady rhythm that matched mine. He steadied himself with a deep breath and turned away. Then he pulled.
The pain was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was as if every fiber in my arm cried out at once, then was ripped from its anchor. A swirl of violent colors washed over my eyes, and my face burned as if on fire. Then something slipped and fell back into place, and just like that the pain subsided. I was left dizzy and nauseated, covered in a cool, clammy perspiration.
“It’s done,” said Ulysses.
Then I did vomit, in a wrenching spasm that doubled me over. Nothing but a thin stream of spittle emerged, however, and once it was gone the nausea passed. I wiped my mouth and sat up straight. “I’m okay,” I said.
Ulysses tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied a makeshift sling from my neck to my wrist. “It’s not what the doctor ordered, but it will hold your arm.”
Will was staring at me with something like awe. “Did it hurt?”
“Not that much,” I lied.
The jet thundered again overhead and dropped two flares into the geno-soy. Plumes of red smoke rose toward the sky.
“They’re flagging us,” said Ulysses. “Let’s get moving.” He put an arm around me and helped me stand, then beat a path through the soy with his free hand. The plants were thick and hard to bend, but Ulysses held them down until we could pass. The stalks reached higher than my head. I kept looking up to make sure the sky was above me, but it only made me lose my step, and I still felt trapped and claustrophobic.
After a few minutes, I noticed Ulysses had slowed and was limping.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
But his leg was dark red with blood. It had soaked through his pants and the wound appeared to still be bleeding. I insisted we rest, but Ulysses refused. “In about five minutes, they’ll be here with robo-sniffers and guns,” he said. “They won’t stop until they’ve caught us. They’ll leave the bodies in the fields.”
His tone was calm, but there was something in his voice that betrayed him. It took me a moment, but I realized he was frightened, and his fear made me more nervous than anything he could have said.
“These are not ordinary people,” he continued. “Pirates steal, and we’ll cheat if we need to, but we do it to survive and because our enemies do the same. Even PELA has a code, though they don’t always live by it. But Bluewater cares only about money. They don’t even care about the water, really. They have no loyalty and don’t look out for their own. It’s greed, pure and simple. Nothing will stand in their way. Not laws, not governments, and not any pirate with a gun.”