She grins. “But what, Mickey?”
“You know,” I say. “I’d rather let Marshall shove me down the corpse hole than risk having anything happen to you.”
“Okay,” she says. “I get that. So why didn’t you bring it back?”
“Oh, that’s easy. If I’d turned both bombs back over to Marshall, he definitely would have killed me on the spot, and then he would have sent Nine down into the tunnels to finish his genocide. The only reason I’m still alive, and the only reason the creepers are still here, is that he thinks I’m the only thing keeping the creepers from popping this thing off underneath the dome.”
“I guess you’re probably right about that,” she says. “The part I don’t get, though, is why the creepers let you walk out with both bombs. Weren’t they worried about deterrence or whatever?”
I laugh again, a little harder. “Seriously? You think I actually told them what we were carrying? You think I told them we came into their home with the intent of committing genocide? Holy crow, Nasha. I’m no genius, but I’m not that dumb.”
She seems taken aback by that. Apparently she thought I actually was that dumb.
“So what did you tell them?”
“I mean, the language thing was a major barrier, but I tried to tell them we were emissaries. They never actually asked about the packs. They don’t really look like doomsday weapons, do they?”
“No,” Nasha says. “I guess not.”
I shove the pack back into the hollow, and then carefully push the rocks back into place until it’s invisible again. When I’m done, I get to my feet and take a half dozen steps back to examine my work.
“What do you think?” I ask Nasha. “Will it stay hidden there?”
She shrugs. “Maybe for now. Probably not forever. Do you have a long-term plan, or are you just going to wait around until somebody stumbles across this place and accidentally kills us all?”
I sigh. “My plan was to wait until Marshall dies, then come back here and get it, and tell whoever the new commander is that the creepers decided to return the bomb as a gesture of goodwill.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. If you’ve got a better plan, I’d love to hear it.”
She stares back at me for a long moment, then shakes her head. “I’ve got nothing. How long do you expect this to go on, though? Is Marshall sick?”
“Not that I know of.”
She takes my hand. “Do you have a backup plan, just in case he doesn’t die?”
“I do not.”
She cups my cheek in her free hand, then lifts her rebreather and leans in to kiss me. “You really aren’t a genius,” she says, then lets my hand fall and turns to start back up the gully. “It’s a good thing you’re cute.”
I turn to look back at the bomb’s hiding place. It just looks like a jumble of rocks, no different from all the other jumbles of rocks that cover ninety percent of this planet.
Is it good enough?
Marshall seems pretty healthy.
I guess it’ll have to be.
With a final backward glance, I put our would-be war crime behind me.
I follow Nasha out of the shadows, up the gully, and into the sun.
Acknowledgments
The list of people who contributed to this book is a long one. I’m probably going to forget some of them. If you’re one of those, I hope you will forgive me. As you are probably well aware, I’m not nearly as smart as I look.
First, the obvious: my deepest gratitude to Paul Lucas and the good folks at Janklow & Nesbit, without whose guidance and encouragement I would almost certainly have given up on this business long ago, and also to Michael Rowley of Rebellion Publishing and Michael Homler of St. Martin’s Press, both of whom were willing to take a chance on an odd little book written by an extremely obscure author. Slightly less obviously, I would also like to give sincere and heartfelt thanks to Navah Wolfe, who read this story when it was a modestly depressing novella and encouraged me to turn it into a much less depressing novel. If you read this, Navah, I hope you see your fingerprints on the final product, and I do hope that you approve.
My sincere thanks also go out to (in no particular order):
? Kira and Claire, for their tough but fair criticism of the earliest drafts of this story.
? Heather, for buying me endless chais on my own credit card.
? Anthony Taboni, for being the future president of my nascent fan club.
? Therese, Craig, Kim, Aaron, and Gary, for reading through multiple versions of this manuscript without ever telling me to just pack it in already.
? Karen Fish, for teaching me what it means to be a writer.
? John, for being my go-to sounding board on all things literary.
? Mickey, for not getting mad after I put him into a book and then murdered him multiple times.
? Jack, for keeping my ego in check when it was needed most.
? Jen, for finally reading one of my manuscripts prepublication.
? Max and Freya, for never letting me forget what’s really important in life.
As I said, this is a partial list. This book would not be what it is without any of these folks, and probably a whole mess of others besides. Thanks, friends. Now on to the next one, right?