Barkah slams into me, knocking me off the path to the right. We crash hard in the wet underbrush.
I scramble to my feet, crouching, hands tight on the shovel. We’re under attack. Tohdohbak is dead. Coyotl or Beckett must have killed him. Back at the shuttle, Borjigin was working on the spider cannon. Did he fix it? Is that cannon like the Grownups’ bracelets—the weapons that killed El-Saffani?
I can’t see through this fog.
O’Malley, shouting for help, terrified.
I stay low, in the cover of the underbrush, and move toward the trail’s edge. Barkah is on my right, doing the same thing, musket clutched in his odd hands.
A burst of red light blinds me as a whump rattles my ears, knocks me flat to my back. The world spins. I hear a Springer screaming in agony.
I roll to my hands and knees, ignore the pain as I slowly push myself up. My legs feel weak. I grab my shovel.
I see Barkah, his musket barrel leveled over a fallen log made fuzzy by blue moss that gleams with tiny spots of wetness. The hammer of his weapon is cocked back. He’s trying to find a target through the fog. I run to him, kneel down.
I look over the log—something fist-sized and black, spinning through the air toward us. It hits the jungle floor, bounces once, then bursts with a whump and a flash of red light—an invisible punch slams me backward through the underbrush. I hit the ground hard, skid, roll into a thick bush.
Every part of me hurts. My ears ring. The ground seems to lurch and buck beneath me, even though I’m lying flat. What is happening? Where is O’Malley?
A groan: Barkah, maybe twenty steps away, crumpled and unmoving, on his side at the base of a tree, his musket next to him. He’s hurt. Together, he and I can stop a war—I have to help him, protect him.
Somehow, I held on to my shovel. I lean on it, fight to regain my balance as I struggle to stand.
I hear footsteps. I drop down, let the underbrush cover me.
Through the thick fog, someone is approaching Barkah. Black coveralls. Coyotl? Beckett? Moonlight gleams blue and maroon off the person’s arms and legs. No…those reflections are from a metallic frame worn on his body…
…a pitch-black, gnarled body…
The bottom falls out of my world…those aren’t coveralls.
I’m looking at a Grownup.
It’s big, not quite Bishop’s size, and wears some kind of suit. A mask covers its face, clear bubbles of glass showing the red eyes beneath. Lines of reflective metal run down its thick arms and legs. On its right arm, just below the elbow, is a silver bracelet, white stone glowing softly, long point ending behind the wrist.
A spider cannon didn’t kill Tohdohbak—a bracelet did. Just like the bracelets that killed El-Saffani.
In that horrid instant, everything becomes clear. That thing I couldn’t place, that feeling that I had missed something: Bello wasn’t the only one in the lumpy ship.
Brewer said the Grownups couldn’t survive on Omeyocan, couldn’t breathe the planet’s air—it never occurred to me that they could bring their own air with them.
Overwritten Bello was nothing more than a decoy. We focused on her when the real threat had left the lumpy ship before we even arrived. When I sent Coyotl, Beckett and Muller out, the Grownups must have grabbed them.
Someone joins the Grownup—it’s Beckett, dressed in black coveralls, wearing a bracelet on his right arm.
Beckett has been overwritten.
Coyotl, too. He must be. And, if he’s still alive, Muller.
Beckett and the Grownup cautiously move toward Barkah. They don’t see me. I am a camouflaged black blob crouching in the black shadows, hidden by leaves and vines.
I could slink away into the jungle. If they catch me, I will be overwritten. Everything that I am will be erased.
Barkah moves weakly, one of his three eyes a wet, ruined wreck.
The Grownup takes a step closer to him.
That tingling feeling, spreading down my scalp. Rage detonates inside me like a crater-making bomb. Our creators…they bring death everywhere they go.
Yes, I could run, but the time for running is over.
I am the wind…
My pain forgotten, I lean forward in a careful jog that grows to a silent sprint.
Barkah struggles to rise, looks up, sees the Grownup.
“Ugly bastards,” the Grownup says, and points his bracelet right at Barkah’s face.
…I am death.
My foot cracks a branch. The Grownup turns, sees me coming, swings the bracelet-arm in my direction, but the wrinkled abomination is too old and too slow.
I thrust the shovel forward, putting all my strength, weight and speed behind the blow. The point punches into the black throat, through it. I feel metal on bone, the impact shuddering down the wooden handle, and then no resistance at all.
A head tumbles through the air, trailing a curving arc of red-gray blood. The mask flies away. The body, lifeless and limp, sags to the ground. The head lands, rolls, stops.