Nobody talked as they trudged back to the ATV, and Mouth could think only about taking off this unwieldy gear and being warm again. She didn’t want to think any further than that. They had almost made it back when the puffed end of the squid’s tentacle lashed out and poked at the lorry, the edges of its feathers tearing a huge gash in the side.
The squid seemed to be trying to decide if the whole number-seven transport was worth hauling down into the ocean when Alyssa’s beautiful pyramid caught fire, a green flash far outshining everything else on the night vision. Like some sacred offering in the wilderness, the pyramid of food and accelerants blazed, sending smoke upward to join the low-lying cloud cover. Alyssa, Mouth, and Winston held their breath inside their helmets until the tentacle slid away from them to go investigate this new source of warmth and nourishing smells.
* * *
Mouth had an attack of lightsickness, climbing inside the well-lit transport, until she turned her night vision off. The gash in the side had let in the night air too fast for anyone to react, and their icy bodies were contorted into outlandish shapes, some of them with their mouths still opened to shout a warning or scream for mercy. Jimmy still lay where Alyssa had left him, like he’d never woken up. You would need heavy tools to dislodge these people from where they’d died.
Alyssa ran to the cockpit without bothering to glance at the dead, and gunned the engine, which miraculously still ran. She scooted them forward, as quiet as she could, fumbling at the controls with her thick gloves.
“We’re not seriously going to drive across the night in a lorry full of icy corpses.” Winston looked over his shoulder and shuddered at the unspeakable tableau.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Alyssa said. “You guys should strap in.”
“Good thing they’re frozen solid.” Winston gazed at the faces suspended in terror and agony. “When those defrost, it’s going to be revolting.”
Once they had gone a kilometer away from the undulating tentacle, Alyssa sped up, and soon they had gotten far enough away that it probably wouldn’t find them again. Then they drove past one of the remaining vehicles: the rumbler, upside down, with a busted axle and a hole big enough to do jumping jacks inside.
“So much,” Mouth said, “for the invasion.”
“We were always going to be outnumbered,” Alyssa said. “All the more reason to hit them before they see us coming. Just as long as the Command Vehicle survived.”
“There they are.” Winston pointed at the screen. “Damn, I didn’t think we’d make it.”
The Command Vehicle sat alone and motionless, but its lights still blazed, and the external shell appeared intact.
“Damn,” Alyssa said. “Damn. What are they—damn damn damn.”
As they approached, they could see a dozen huge, prayerful shapes in the darkness, clustered around the Command Vehicle: a congregation of Gelet. The scene looked utterly still, as if everyone had paused to reflect on their situation. Mouth let out a deep breath and tried to pull herself deeper into the frozen crevice of her passenger seat.
SOPHIE
I ignore the buzzing from my right wrist, and I take Bianca’s chin in my other hand, gentle as picking a pocket. I look down at her, bathed in the cockpit lights: wide perfect face suffused with bitterness and anger and, yes, love, but mostly just weariness. I stare, as if I had the power to preserve this sight in my memory forever. There are so many things I want to ask, in this final moment, but I don’t know if I would believe any of her answers.
“I have to go,” I whisper, and Bianca’s eyes widen. “I have to leave right now. They’re waiting for me. The Gelet. I think they want to take me to their city.”
“Sophie, listen to yourself. This is delirium. We’ve all got it, after so long in this nothing wasteland.” She grabs my arm, but I shake her off. “There’s no crocodile city. There’s nothing out there but frostbite and monsters. I get that you have a … a bond with these creatures, but don’t delude yourself. You can’t leave me now, in my literal darkest moment.”
“You can come with me.” I’m still close enough to murmur in Xiosphanti. I allow myself to believe for a moment that it’s not too late, that Bianca and I could still leave everyone else behind. “There is a city. I’ve seen it.”
I try to explain, so she’ll at least understand after I’m gone: “I can’t do this thing anymore, where we live in a tiny space and pretend it’s the whole world. People always have brand-new reasons for doing the same thing over and over. I need to see something new.”
The bracelet tugs my wrist again.
All through this conversation, I pretend Bianca and I are alone together—when we’re in a severely damaged all-terrain cruiser, soaked with the funk of despair, crammed with every last surviving member of our invasion force. Maybe twenty-five of us, including Mouth and Alyssa, who somehow found us after we gave them up for dead. Their friend, Winston, has removed his environment suit, and I start putting it on.
“We’re not going to let you just leave,” Dash says, and I ignore him, because this vehicle won’t go anywhere unless the Gelet allow it. They appear on the night vision: a dozen, on all sides, with their front legs bent and their pincers bowed in greeting.
“We’re almost home,” Bianca says. “Don’t do something stupid.”
I finish putting on everything but the helmet, which I hold in one glove, and I look into Bianca’s eyes one last time. All my rage has petered out, and instead I just feel a sadness so violent it’s like wings beating inside me, harder and harder, until they snap. I already told Bianca that our friendship belonged to the past, but now it’s really true. That’s the only way to explain why I’m leaving her like this.
Lucy keeps trying to use the flamethrower on the Gelet, until Dash has to pull her away and push her into the seat I’ve vacated.
“If you stay, you’ll die,” I whisper.
“I guess we’ll see.” Bianca actually smiles, as if she welcomes the challenge.
Just as I put my helmet on, Mouth says, “Can I come?”
I hesitate, and Mouth’s expression turns bleak. At some point, she lost any ability to hide what she’s feeling. She starts to say something else, about her senselessly dead nomads, and all the other deaths that make less and less sense. I wave for her to shut up and come with me, now or never.
Mouth turns to Alyssa, who says, “Fuck no. Not going to the giant frozen insect hive. I’m sticking with these assholes, because at least I understand them. And I still think we could win this. We were always going to be outnumbered.”
“Alyssa,” Mouth says. “I know I’ve let you down before, and you think these people are your crew now. But please, just trust me one last time. Don’t throw your life away. Please.”
“Just fucking go. Don’t give me a whole dance routine.”
I tug at Mouth’s arm. She aims one last gaze at Alyssa, like a lost child.
Alyssa scoots closer to Bianca, and the two of them exchange little nods—like, they’re in this together now. Mouth puts her helmet back on and turns to pull the tiny lever that opens the interior hatch, squaring her shoulders as if she’s going to lift something enormous instead of two centimeters of metal.
Dash makes one last lunge to hold me back, and I brush him aside. Mouth and I pass into the outer chamber, and then step out into the sleet-freighted wind.
The Gelet see us coming, and wrap our environment suits with sheets of moss, and a mesh of tentacles. We move away, and the transport growls to life with the hiss of a damaged motor. I shut my eyes for a moment, and then Bianca is gone, vanished into the white wind. The Gelet cradle Mouth and me, leading us into an underground tunnel.
PART
SIX
SOPHIE
I can’t stop crying for Bianca, the whole way down. Even with the environment suits, the blankets, and the shelter of the Gelet’s tunnels, thick gusts chill my bones, and I picture Bianca surrounded by murderers and thieves, in a failing vehicle. The tunnels lead deeper and deeper under the ice, until we emerge into a cavern where steam rises from hot springs, and I remember promising to hold on to Bianca as long as I have arms. A faint light, pale green in my night vision, comes out of the hot pools, from bacteria or algae, and reveals the sawtooth shape of the walls. Bianca probably hates me now. In her mind, this is just the latest betrayal in a chain that started with me hiding from her after my execution. The Gelet urge us to move faster, into the depths, and I hear the growl of some ancient mechanism.
One of the Gelet seems to feel my agitation, and brushes my arm with one tentacle as we return to a darkness that even my visor can do almost nothing with. I stumble and reel, even with the Gelet guiding me.
My feet throb. Mouth keeps grunting, too. Steam bursts out of the ground and startles me, followed by more intense chills. My legs want to give out, but we keep moving. My disorientation is the size of a million cities, and if the Gelet let go of me for an instant, I’ll be lost forever. I can’t even tell the size of the space we’re moving in, and have to close my eyes and breathe to fight off claustrophobia.