"I'm in prison. Where am I going to go?" She smiled and waved.
Walt slid the tablet back to Toru. "Tell the big guy to get her out of there."
He sighed deeply and set his laser on the floor. With the weight gone from his hand, he felt like he was floating. He chuckled, then laughed, the hitching of his ribs mixed with sobs. Ness grinned and jogged toward him, spreading his arms wide.
Walt stepped forward to meet him. As soon as his foot left the floor, he collapsed. Another rush of tingly heat gushed across his head. It was the last.
* * *
Raina cradled the canister in her hands. It felt as heavy as a boulder, yet she knew she could bear its weight. Across from her, the lone alien stood in a field of suicides. Its eyes were as hollow as jars.
Human footsteps slapped toward the gate. "Raina!" The voice was Kelly's, one of the scouts. "A jet's inbound from the mothership. We have to get out!"
"Take everyone out front," she said to Bryson. "Stay away from the runways. They'll hit those first."
"Roger," he said. "What will you be doing?"
"Go!"
He muttered something, then waved to the warriors. "You heard the chief. Let's move!"
Her people gathered up, jogging back the way they'd come in. Tristan and Lowell remained with Raina. Lowell held a pistol by his hip. Tristan kept her laser trained on the Swimmer.
Raina beckoned to the alien, gesturing down the terminal. It turned its head that way, then closed its eyes, reached toward a sheath on its side, and drew a small, pale knife.
"Hey!" Tristan yelled.
Raina jumped forward, tucking the container under her arm like a football. She grabbed the alien's tentacle as it brought the blade to its throat. The Swimmer's eyes popped open. Raina shook her head and pointed back down the hallway to where moonlight glowed through the unblocked windows.
"Raina." Lowell's voice was gravelly. "Not much time here."
The Swimmer stared back at her. A small spark entered its bottomless eyes. It dropped the knife with a dry click.
Loosening her grip on its limb, Raina guided the alien away from the halls of the dead. It broke into a trot, keeping its body level as its legs churned beneath it.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?" Tristan said.
"Saving it from itself," Raina said. "I don't think its story is over."
They crossed from the globbed-up windows to the relative brightness beyond. The stench of the dead remained thick in the air. They ran through security, past ticketing, and into the street beyond. Outside, the cold air held a trace of the sea. It was the cleanest breeze Raina's lungs had ever held.
A single engine wailed to the west. Down the sidewalk, Bryson jogged with the warriors, slowing, eyes fixed on the patchy clouds. Raina soon caught up with him. The jet was approaching from the sea, crawling through the air, less than five hundred feet up and descending by the moment.
"I don't think it's here to bomb us." Bryson's voice sounded funny. "Looks like the damn thing's landing."
They ran beyond the terminal, following a road around a hangar standing between them and the runways. The jet slowed further, lights blinking as it disappeared behind the hangar. Raina heard the screech of its wheels landing, the whine of its engines spooling down.
As they came to the edge of the hangar, the warriors slowed, readying rifles. Raina spied around the building's corner. A few hundred feet away, the jet taxied, rolling toward the half-ruined remnants of the maze. It eased to a stop. Its engines shut off.
"Hold here," Raina said. "They may be here to do us harm. But once they step forth, they won't be able to escape."
Crickets chirped hesitantly from the weedy fields around the tarmac. Raina assigned Kelly to keep an eye on the captured Swimmer, then got out her binoculars. A hatch opened in the side of the jet. A human dropped to the ground, gazing over the silent runways.
"Hello?" the man called. His voice was familiar. "Raina? Anyone?"
"You know that dude?" Bryson murmured.
Raina cupped her free hand to her mouth. "Who are you?"
"It's Ness!" The man's voice drifted on the damp air. "From the submarine. I need to talk to you right away!"
Raina's mouth fell open. "Cover me. But do not shoot unless I give you the order."
Bryson nodded, kneeling against the side of the hangar and sighting down the scope of his rifle. Raina walked forth. It was a long way to the jet. As she neared, three Swimmers exited from the hatch to stand behind Ness.
He jogged out to meet her. "Raina, you have to get everyone out of here. Like right now. The rebel aliens have a terrible weapon here at the airport. We were about to bomb the whole place when we saw you were here."
"You don't have to bomb it," she said.
He laughed coarsely. "We ought to be nuking it. This thing, it's—"
"Mine." She held out the canister.
His eyes went as wide as a Swimmer's. He signed to one of the aliens, who motioned to one of the others. The alien approached her with a rattle of spiked feet. Seeing the can, its eyes flared wide, too. It gestured furiously.
"That's it," Ness said. "The Worldpoison. Uh, you mind turning that over?"
She eyed the three Swimmers. "So you can give it to them?"
"Right. So they can get it back to the vault it never should have been taken from."
"You trust them with it?"
"We just flew down from the mothership, didn't we?" His taut face broke into a smile. "Raina, we've won! These guys are the ship's officers. Their commander came to Earth to sort things out, not to fight a war, but he got overthrown. But guess what? We just put him back in command. That's why nobody flew out here to bomb the crap out of you when you attacked the airport—they were in the middle of a revolution."
"If I give this back to them, they won't be tempted to use it?"
"If they wanted to drop this on us, they've got plenty more up on the ship. Giving this can to them isn't the threat. Keeping it here is the last credible threat to the human race."
Her eyes danced between his. He was animated with a passion capable of confusing his reason. Yet the things he claimed fit together like a sword in a sheath.
She held out the canister. Ness accepted it, gripping it in both hands, and transferred it to one of the Swimmers.
"I didn't take the weapon," she said. "It was given to me by one of the aliens. I think he was supposed to use it, but he didn't. I want to know what stopped him."
Ness looked back at the aliens. "I'm sure they do, too. Let's go see him and we'll get everything sorted out."
Wishing to get the weapon back to the ship on the spot, the Swimmer who carried it took it into the jet. The others moved clear of the runway. Once they were out of harm's way, the jet lifted into the sky, winging toward the mothership.
At the hangar, Raina explained to her warriors that the aliens with her were on a mission of peace. Her troops exploded with questions, relief, and disbelief. As soon as she'd calmed them down, she brought the captured alien to face Ness and the newcomers, who waited a hundred feet away from the crowd. The alien's eyes had gone hollow again. One of the Swimmers gestured to it with great interest. The other joined Ness and Raina.
"Is it true?" Raina said. "Is it really over?"
Ness grinned, teeth white in the moonlight. "It's finished, Raina. Commander Toru has sworn it. They've got a few last things to take care of, and then they're leaving—for good."
She couldn't remember the last time she had cried. Many of her people were right there, watching her. Yet she let her tears flow, tipping back her head to take in the stars. The moon was still slanted, watchful, but it had turned a warm, buttery yellow. She felt no anger in its stare. She felt as though she could reach up and pluck it down.
She gave herself ten seconds, then composed herself. "Tell me everything."
Ness told her how the Deepfinder loyalists had found the submarine, only for it to be destroyed as they met, costing the life of one
of their crew. How they had then gone to the mothership and arranged to retake it, only to be thwarted—and had gone on to thwart the thwarters. And then how, as the triumphant Deepfinders moved to bomb the airport while Ness talked Walt Lawson down from destroying the ship, the Dovon—for that was their name—had seen that the humans had already conquered the airport.
"That is a glorious story," Raina said once he was finished. "You'll have to repeat it to Mia."
"Mia?"
"Our historian. If what you say is true, and the Dovon bring peace, she must record every word of how it came to be."
While Ness had been speaking with her, the Dovon named Llen had finished his interrogation of the captive from the terminal. Llen gestured the details to Ness' friend Sebastian, who gestured in turn to Ness, who spoke to Raina. It was an absurdly convoluted system, yet it was what they had.
"The Dovon you found is named Bbek," Ness said. "He says things have been coming unglued in the airport for a while now. After the initial Deepfinder rebellion, they released the Farschoolers Toru had taken captive. The Farschoolers turned on their jailers. Beat them up. Tortured them. Bbed says that after it got real bad, they blacked out the walls so the others wouldn't see what they were doing."
Raina nodded. "It looked as if they'd all gone mad."
"The first mothership showed up here thinking we'd all be dead from the flu. Instead, they found they had a war to fight. One they weren't really prepared for. Even so, they could have won—until Walt dumped their ship in the bay. After that, the Farschool had to hide wherever they could. Most of them were spread across the planet, cut off from their gutbrothers, scrambling to make it on an unfamiliar world, where the surviving humans hunted them down and killed them on sight—or used them for sport. Think about how crazy we've gotten in the last six years. Now multiply that by what the Farschool's been through. It's no wonder they've gone nuts."
"You almost sound like you pity them."
Ness shrugged. "Pity? I wouldn't go that far. But at times, I think I might be able to understand them."
"What about Bbek? What was his role in this?"
"Tonight, they got the order to release the Worldpoison. A civil war broke out, with some Dovon insisting they had to follow orders, and others saying they'd rather die than kill an entire planet. Well, a lot of them got their wish. After the smoke cleared, the loyalists had won out. They got the can and prepared to open it. But then, this…" He gestured searchingly. "It's hard to translate this. A feeling came over them. A despair. They knew they had to release the weapon for the sake of their gutbrothers, but they knew they couldn't live with themselves afterward. So they gathered together. Bbek volunteered to open the can once the others were dead. He waited for them to commit suicide, then tried to unleash the Worldpoison. But he couldn't."
Ness stared down at the pavement. Raina said, "But why?"
"He thought about the billion years of growth and evolution it must have taken for our world to fill itself with life. A planet like that is one in a million. Then, he thought about how it would be better to kill himself—and condemn every Dovon here—than to destroy something so vibrant and rare."
She was silent a moment. "Tell Bbek that as long as humans live, so will the honor of his name."
Ness passed that along. Receiving her words from Llen, Bbek didn't so much as move.
"There's one more piece to it." Ness gave her a significant look. "He said that, when he spotted you, he was tempted to open the can anyway. To pay us humans back. But then you looked at him. Like you actually saw him. And he couldn't do it."
This time, she had no more words. She turned to Bbek and bowed. After a second, he dipped his head in return.
"What now?" Raina said. "I hope in my deepest heart you're right about this. But I won't disband my army until the skies are empty of Dovon."
"If I were you, I wouldn't either." Ness folded his arms. "Right now, we wait. Toru's still regaining control of the ship. He'll need a day or two to finish that up. Once that's done, then we'll start to see real progress."
"Then I'll keep messengers here at the airport. For now, I need to inform my people of the news. Is there anything else?"
"Yeah," he said. "Tristan came looking for you a few days back. Did she find you?"
Raina nodded. "She's right behind you."
* * *
Ness spun. As he'd been hashing things out with Raina, her citizens had edged closer, sniffing for scraps of news. There were about thirty of them in total, but now that he knew Tristan was here, he singled her out right away.
Her face was caked in dirt and ash, striped where beads of sweat had cut through the muck. Her hair was greasy, tied behind her head. He was reasonably sure she hadn't bathed since the last time he'd seen her.
Even so, the sight of her made his throat ache.
"Hey," he said.
She laughed once. "You're alive."
"So are you."
"You did it, didn't you?"
He glanced toward Raina's warriors. "Been gossiping?"
"A little. But I can see it on your face, too."
"I think we did it. We'll know for sure in a day or two."
She laughed again, shaking her head. Her expression sobered. "Where's Sprite?"
Ness jerked his head up at the mothership. "He's fine. We needed somebody to stay up there in case the Dovon needed a human perspective while I was down here."
"Glad to hear he's okay. So. You're not going to say 'I told you so'?"
He smiled crookedly. "It had crossed my mind. But I'd rather not get punched."
Tristan's eyes sank in on themselves. He'd meant it as a joke, but he'd forgotten all about the way in which they'd parted.
His face burned as hot as the Core. "So what've you been up to?"
"My story's not quite as exciting as yours. I ran all the way to the Dunemarket, only to find it was empty. Then I hooked up with the San Diego cavalry on their way to find Raina. I led an attack on a Swimmer base—they'd started expanding from the airport—and then we came here."
"Well, I'm glad you're not hurt."
"Same here."
He nodded vaguely. Nearby, Sebastian was in talks with Llen and Bbek. "Oh hey, so check this out. Sprite and I weren't the only humans on the ship. Walt was up there, too. The Farschool was using him as a pawn in their conspiracy to take over the ship, but meanwhile, he was playing them to bring it down. He would have done it, too, except we talked him out of it after we'd put down the rebellion. He was beat all to hell, but he's in their hospital right now. Good chance he makes it. Can you believe that?"
"Somehow," she said. "With that guy, you could drop an anvil on his head and he'd slide out from under it with no more than a lump." Tristan touched her cheek. She looked surprised by the dirt that came away on her fingers. "What's next?"
"With the Dovon?"
She glanced away. "Yeah."
"They're still figuring that out. From what I've heard, their first step will be to get the human prisoners off the crashed ship. After that, they're gonna round up the Farschoolers that never made it to L.A. Most of them sent beacons when the Deepfinders showed up hoping they'd be picked up. And once that's done…well, they're going to leave."
"Just like that? No destination?"
"Just like that."
"I can't believe it." Her smile, lost since his reminder of that afternoon on the road outside Malibu, returned to her face. "You really did it."
"We did it. We wouldn't be here without you."
"Maybe not. The last few years have made for some strange bedfellows. I don't think any of us would be here if we hadn't found each other."
She was close enough that he could have reached out and touched her. He smiled at her. Behind them, Raina called to her soldiers. Tristan turned halfway.
"Gotta go," she said. "Keep them to their word, okay? You're the only one who understands them. The only one who can talk to them. If anything goes wrong, we'll need you to make it right."
She gave him another smile, but this one was almost sad, like the way you'd smile at a friend at a funeral. She held up her hand and waved at him, then jogged to join the others.
It should have been the best day of his life. But it felt like he'd lost after all.
29
Lowell sat on the low concrete wall running beside the bike path. Randy was standing beside him, watching the shore, so instead of holding his pistol in hand, Lowell let his hand rest above it on his hip.
Randy took a bite of flatbread. "What's taking so long?"
"They'll be here any minute," Lowell said. "Wait and see."
Inside, he felt no such confidence. Down on the beach, three dozen Swimmers—Dovon—waited around the giant plastic tube that emerged from the shallows onto the sand. He was certain that, in another minute, dozens more of the crabs would boil out of the tube's entrance, slaughter the twenty-odd Catalinans waiting anxiously along the bike path, and lead a strike against Raina's holdings at the airport, betraying the peace they'd all been promised. He'd known the Swimmers too long to trust them.
Thin figures appeared in the mouth of the tube. Humans dressed in rags, when they were dressed in anything at all. They stumbled into the bright sunlight, spreading their hands above their brows to shield their eyes.
He recognized at least half of them by face. On Anson's orders, he'd put them there, pacifying the aliens. How delusional they'd been. Anson, for thinking the Farschool wouldn't betray him. The Farschoolers, for thinking the inbound Deepfinders meant to back them. And him, for believing Anson's claims that there was nothing more important than survival.
He made himself watch. Penance. And a lesson, too. The half-naked prisoners trudged up the beach. When they recognized a waiting face, they broke into a run, sand flying from their bare feet, and embraced the friends and family who'd shown up to greet them. It was February, so the morning was on the cool side, but the sun was full and it would reach the seventies soon.
"Told you," Randy said. "They wouldn't be here without us. And if we hadn't come back for them, then we would have died, too."
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