She didn’t stop until the sound of the voices was gone. The search would keep going, though. There would be drones. There would be thermal scanning. If the soldiers helped, there would be visuals taken from orbit. She stayed under the canopy of fronds. There were plenty of large animals in the forest. It wouldn’t be easy to tell which heat came from them and which came from her. At least she hoped it wouldn’t.
The sun tracked through the sky, changing the angle of the few, thin dapples that pushed down into the permanent twilight of the forest. Cara felt herself getting tired. She’d have to rest. She’d have to eat. And at some point she’d have to find her way back to the pond. She had to be there when the dogs came back with Xan. After that, everything would be better.
She found a place where a long brown stone pushed up out of the land. It was too round to be a real bench, and whatever the blue moss was growing on, it felt slick and oily. She sat there anyway. The fruit and rice tasted better than it ever had at home, and the water was sweet. She hadn’t realized how dry her throat had become until she drank. Her muscles twitched with fatigue. It wasn’t a bad feeling.
The forest around her was hushed, but not silent. Little things the size of her thumb ticked at her from the trees. They had big wet eyes and tiny mandibles that looked like they were frozen in permanent comic alarm. A bird fluttered by on wide leathery wings, landed on a frond across the way from her, and muttered to itself like a bored child in school. The soft breeze smelled like burnt coffee and fresh grass and rubbing alcohol. An insect buzzed past on bright wings that left a little rainbow afterimage on her eyes.
A sense of peace crept over her, and it felt like the world had sat beside her, opened its own lunch bag, and was just being with her. Everything about the little space was beautiful and calm and rich with a million things that no one had ever seen before. And every place was like this. A whole planet and a solar system beyond it. There would be caves somewhere, with fishlike things living in the waters. There would be ocean coves with tide pools filled with living systems that weren’t animals and weren’t plants. That didn’t have names or an idea of names. She tried to imagine what it would be like going back to Earth, where everything was already known and there weren’t any miracles left. It seemed sad.
She pinched the last grain of rice between her fingertips and dropped it on her tongue. She didn’t know if the adults were still searching for her. She didn’t know how long it would take the dogs to bring back Xan. She’d have to go back home eventually for fresh water and food. But just then, just for that moment, she could let herself feel at peace.
She pushed the empty water bottle back in her pocket, folded the empty bag and shoved it in too. She didn’t want to hurry for fear of hearing her name called in a familiar voice. She couldn’t stay for fear of missing the dogs. There wasn’t a perfect answer, but she didn’t need a perfect one. Good enough was good enough.
Making her way home was harder than leaving had been, which made some sense to her. Going away from a point, there were any number of paths, and all of them were right. Going back to the point, most paths were wrong. The rock-deer trail wasn’t as clear, now that she was walking back along it. Branches and turns she hadn’t noticed on the way out confused her now. And as the sunlight changed its angle and warmth, the colors under the forest canopy changed. Twice, she backtracked to a place she was almost sure was part of the right way and tried again, making other decisions.
The sunlight had started to shift into gray and orange, the air to grow cool, when she came around a stand of trees and the dogs were scattered there, legs tucked primly beneath their bodies. Their embarrassed, apologetic eyes shifted toward her as she came forward. Excitement or fear or both raced through Cara’s body like an electrical shock. And then Xan sat up, his head turning toward her.
He was changed, that was obvious. He was still wearing his funeral whites, but a long black stain ran from his left shoulder down to his belly. His skin had a grayness where the red of blood should have been. His eyes had gone pure black. When he moved, it had the same utter stillness broken by considered action as Momma bird, like every muscle that fired had been thought about for a fraction of a second first. But his hair still stood out in all directions the way it did when he’d just gotten up in the morning. His mouth was the same gentle curve that he’d inherited from their dad.
“Xan?” she whispered.
He was still as stone for a moment, then he shifted his head. “I feel weird,” he said, and his voice was his own.
Her grin was so wide it hurt her face. She rushed the last meter between them and hugged him, lifting him up in her arms. For a moment, it was like lifting the dead weight of his corpse. Then his arms were around her too, his head against her neck.
“I was scared,” he said. “There was something wrong. And someone was talking to me, only they weren’t talking to me.”
“There was an accident,” Cara said. “You got hurt. Really hurt. Killed-hurt.”
A hesitation. “Oh,” Xan said. She stepped back, but she kept hold of his hand. She didn’t want to let go of him. He blinked. “I feel pretty good for killed.”
“I brought you to the dogs. They fix things.”
“Like me,” Xan said. And then, “There’s something wrong with how things look.”
“I guess they had to change you some,” she said. The nearest dog shifted and looked away, as if chagrined by the limits of their powers. Cara shook her head. “It’s okay. This is wonderful. Thank you.”
“There are things I didn’t see before,” Xan said. The words sounded faint. Like he was speaking them from farther off than right here in front of her. “There are other things here. I don’t know what they are.”
Cara tugged on his hand, pulling him along with her the way she used to sometimes before.
“Come on. It’s getting late. We should get home.”
“What does it mean to be in a substrate?”
“I don’t know,” Cara said, tugging him again. “Let’s go ask Mom. If I can figure out how to get there from here.” She turned to the nearest dog and bowed. She didn’t know why that seemed like the thing to do, but it did. “Thank you so much for bringing my brother back to us. If there’s anything I can do to help you, just let me know and I’ll do it. Really.”
The dog made a chirping noise, and then they all rose as one, walking away through the forest on their strangely jointed legs. She half expected them to start their ki-ka-ko song, but they didn’t. They only faded into the forest again, as if it was the place where they most belonged. Cara started out for what she was pretty sure was the south, and Xan followed along behind, his cool gray hand still in hers.