“Ow!” she complained.
“S’matter? Too tight, Your Furry Highness?”
“Watch your mouth, fat boy—”
“Hey, guys!” yelled Milo. “How about you two shutting up? I mean, seriously? Is now really the time?”
Shark laughed as he snugged himself into a chair, and he whistled for Killer, who sprang into his lap. Evangelyne glowered at them both. Iskiel crawled onto one of the control panels against the far wall, jumped up to catch the edge of an open air vent, and vanished inside. They could hear the skitter of his claws as he disappeared down the duct.
Shaking his head, Milo belted himself in.
The bridge, like all Dissosterin tech, was simple, unadorned, and smelly. The air stank of rotting eggs, old garbage, and other items Milo chose not to name. Everything was slimy and felt wrong. Everything. Even the air around them seemed to throb with a sense of threat.
It doesn’t want us here, he thought, then scolded himself for the stupid idea. He couldn’t shake it, though, and as he studied the controls to re-familiarize himself with them, the uneasy feeling persisted.
Bug ships did not have actual physical piloting controls and instead used holographic steering. As soon as Milo had sat down in the command chair, a 3-D hologram of the craft had appeared in the air in front of him. Milo knew that all he had to do was stick his hand inside the projection and then move it in whichever direction he wanted the ship to go. The tech was designed so that even the dimmest of the Bugs could operate it, and configured so that any kind of hand—or insectoid claw—would work. All that was required was a living body sitting in the pilot’s chair. It was shockingly uncomplicated, but it required absolute focus. Insects weren’t easily distracted and they were conditioned to follow procedures, so they could steer the ship. It was a lot more of a challenge to Milo. He couldn’t, say, wipe his nose or scratch an itch, because the ship would follow his hand movements and very likely crash.
He slipped his hand into the glowing hologram, then immediately snatched it back as if stung. It wasn’t because anything had actually hurt him. That might have been easier to deal with. Instead it was a weird kind of emotional reaction.
It doesn’t like the way my hand feels.
As if the ship was repulsed by his touch.
As if it was disgusted.
Greasy sweat popped out on Milo’s face.
“What are you waiting for?” demanded Evangelyne.
“Yeah,” growled Shark, pounding the arm of his chair with a fist. “We gotta go, go, go!”
Milo steeled himself and slowly and carefully eased his hand back into the hologram. The ship around them trembled. Everyone looked around, and Milo could see the nervous expressions on their faces. Were they feeling it too? He was sure they were. Even Killer looked nervous: his little tail drooped and he began to whine.
“Hold on,” said Milo, as much to himself as to them, and he slowly raised his hand. Immediately the ship responded by spinning up the main engines and firing the antigravity drives. It was so easy.
Except that on a deep level he could feel the ship resisting him.
Hating him.
Had it done that when they’d stolen it that day? Had the ship felt this level of hatred? Had he been so caught up in the urgency of their escape from the hive ship that he simply hadn’t noticed?
He could feel it now, though.
This ship belongs to the Huntsman, he told himself. And it knows it.
Way down below the surface of his conscious mind, he heard another voice echo that feeling.
Be warned, child of the sun, whispered the Witch of the World. This ship is sick. It has become polluted by the darkness that dwells within the Huntsman.
Milo almost yelled. It had been days since the witch had spoken to him. At first he’d feared her presence, thinking that maybe it was proof he was bonkers. Then he’d come to trust her. She wanted this world saved from the Swarm. She wanted him to rise, to become a hero who saved the world. Crazy as that thought was.
Then she’d given him a final, cryptic warning and vanished from his mind, from his waking thoughts, from his daydreams, and from his nightmares. The last words she’d spoken were burned into him. Two statements, and Milo didn’t know if they were connected or not.
There are horrors more dreadful than the Huntsman, Milo Silk.
That was something too horrible to contemplate. Nothing seemed more terrifying than the Huntsman.
But then, as Milo had begun coming out of his dream, he thought he heard her say something else.
Your father lives.
If they were separate thoughts, then one was frightening and one was the best news he’d ever had.
If they were part of the same thought, then Milo knew his world was doomed.
Now she was back. And as always she spoke in riddles.
The ship is sick. Polluted.
“You’re not helping,” he growled through gritted teeth.
“What—?” asked Shark.
“Nothing.” Then he repeated his warning. “Hold on.”
As he continued to raise his hand, the whole front wall of the bridge blossomed with a dozen holographic high-def screens that showed the exterior from every possible angle. He saw the camouflage cover slide off and fall away as the red ship began to rise. Milo was careful to do everything as slowly as possible, because a twitch of his hand could send the craft crashing into one of the live oaks or ponderous elms.
“Cool,” said Shark. “I was afraid this wouldn’t work as well with a human hand.”
“Did before,” Milo reminded him. “Guess any kind of hand would work.”
The ship shuddered and the engines whined.
“Come on,” he said under his breath. “Come on . . .”
Then the ship moved. Reluctance notwithstanding, hatred aside, it moved to his commands, rising from the muddy ground, first equal to the tops of the trees and then higher, higher. He moved his hand to the right and the craft responded by swinging out away from the ruin of their camp, away from the burned trees. One of the screens displayed a topographical map of the landscape, and Milo angled his hand and began steering the craft that way.
“Nice job!” called Shark.
“Go faster,” urged Evangelyne. “You’re going too slow, boy.”
“Hey,” snapped Milo, “do you know how to drive a spaceship?”
She said nothing and her eyes flashed cold fire at him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he thought sourly.
The ship began swinging toward the bayou, but almost immediately he realized that it was moving too fast. It overshot the water by a thousand yards, and when he tried to compensate, it swept half a mile the other way. Inside the ship it felt like they were on a big pendulum, and with each swing Milo’s stomach lurched. He tried to force the craft back and overshot again. And again.
“Okay,” said a green-faced Shark, “I’m going to hurl.”
Evangelyne said nothing, but her face was turning the color of milk that had been left in the sun too long.
“Sorry,” Milo said as he fought to steady the ship. The engines whined in protest as he forced it to change direction over and over.
By the time he managed to stop the pendulum sway, everyone looked like pieces of moldy cheese. Evangelyne sat clutching the leather pouch and muttering something—possibly prayers—in an ancient language Milo couldn’t identify. For his part, Shark seemed way beyond the capacity for speech. He sat clutching Killer with sweaty hands, and there was a strangely plastic smile on Shark’s round face.
“Sorry . . . sorry . . . ,” Milo kept saying, even after the reluctant craft settled into a mostly steady flight path. He bent forward—careful not to move his hand while he did so—and studied the map. There was a glowing red dot imposed on it to show the location of their ship. It was a tiny but precise replica of the Huntsman’s ship. “Okay, here we go.”
With infinite care, Milo eased the craft forward, keeping to just above the level of t
he trees, following the winding brackish waters of the bayou. Flocks of birds exploded from the trees and scattered to the winds. Milo wondered if that was just a reaction to the presence of a flying machine, or if it was something else. Was that the reaction of Earth animals to the presence of a Dissosterin machine? Could fear and hatred of the invaders pulse inside the hearts of ordinary birds and beasts?
He didn’t know for sure, but his own heart told him that this was a horrible truth. And if that was the case, then the whole world—from rocks and trees to animals and people—had learned to fear the Swarm.
There was something very sad about that.
At the same time, it made Milo feel he was a part of something great. Something beyond his understanding but not beyond his imagination. He would have to think about it when there was time.
If there ever was time.
“How far is it?” asked Evangelyne.
“Not far. Another couple of miles,” said Milo. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Yeah,” said Shark, “but don’t push it. I don’t like the sound of those engines.”
Evangelyne cocked an eyebrow. “And how would you know what they’re supposed to sound like, boy? You were only on this ship twice and—”
“Same number of times you were, Vangie.”
“Do not call me that.”
Shark ignored her. “When they took us after the raid and when we escaped the hive ship, I listened to the engines. And before you ask, yes, I paid attention even then. Milo and me are scavengers, but I want to be an engineer. Machines talk to me.”
“That’s nonsense. Machines have no life force.”
Milo opened his mouth to argue, to explain what he’d felt when he sat down in the chair and touched the controls, but Shark was already in gear.
“Not saying that, Vangie. What I’m saying is that if you know what you’re doing, you can listen to any machine and tell if it’s running smoothly or if there’s something wrong.”
“He’s right,” said Milo. “Shark’s pretty good at machine diagnostics. Always has been. He gets the best grades in mechanics classes.”
“Whatever,” she said, clearly out of her depth. “If you can hear this ship, what is it saying?”
“I wish it could just come right out and say what was wrong. But from what I can hear, those are not happy engines. Something’s busted or maybe loose, but in any case, Milo, be careful.”
“Not sure how much more careful I can be,” muttered Milo as he slowed the ship even more, letting it drift along below the treetops, only a few yards above the rippling water. On the screens he saw the cold eyes of the patient, merciless gators watching, watching, watching.
“If we have to ditch,” added Shark, “try not to put us down in the water. I don’t want to be the main ingredient in Cajun Shark soup.”
“Yum,” said Evangelyne, and both boys shot her a look. Shark actually recoiled from her.
Then a slow, sly smile curled the corners of her mouth. “You should see your faces,” she said with a giggle.
Shark’s face turned a furious red. His mouth made a dozen different shapes but he couldn’t force a single coherent word out. Milo laughed.
“Oh, dude—she sooooo got you.”
“Just drive the ship, loser,” said Shark nastily, which made Milo and Evangelyne laugh even harder.
Then the ship bucked as if it had been struck. Were it not for the seat belts, they’d have been flung from their chairs. Killer began barking furiously.
“What was that?” yelled Evangelyne.
“Are we hit?” yelled Shark.
Milo’s eyes clicked from screen to screen to screen as he sought to understand what had happened. But there was nothing. No drop-ships, no hunter-killers, not even a Bug on a sky-board.
“I . . . I don’t know,” said Milo. He managed to steady the ship, and it flew on with no evidence of damage. “Turbulence—?”
“Not this close to the water,” said Shark.
“Not the right kind of clouds for lightning,” observed Evangelyne.
The ship flew on and there was no repeat of the disturbance.
After ten more minutes of careful flying, Shark pointed to one of the screens. “There’s the bolt-hole. I can see rock-guy, too.”
“His name is Mook,” said Evangelyne.
“Yeah, sure. Okay. Mook. There he is. Lizzie, too. Looks like everyone’s ready to roll.”
It was true. All the wounded lay on makeshift stretchers, and the others were clustered protectively around them. Every face was pointed upward with what Milo thought was an even mixture of hope and dread. They’d all been captured and dragged aboard this same ship, so it had to be hard to watch it approach and not feel some serious doubt.
As gently as he could, Milo set the ship down. The landing struts deployed automatically as soon as the undercarriage radar detected a clear landing spot. Another bit of smart, simple Bug tech. The ship settled onto its steel legs, wobbling slightly on the ones Milo had damaged with a grenade during a fight with the Huntsman and his ’troopers. Then Milo withdrew his hand from the hologram and exhaled so long and hard he felt like he was a deflating balloon. He closed his eyes and mumbled a long, detailed, and earnest prayer of thanks.
Then he unbuckled himself and ran for the exit.
Chapter 17
It’s hard to be fast and careful at the same time. Most of the wounded could be carried aboard without risking further injury, but there were a few who were very bad off. Barnaby, of course, was the worst. When Milo came to help move him, his heart sank. The young Cajun had lapsed into unconsciousness, and his face was so pale that he already looked dead. Milo had to hold his fingers to Barnaby’s throat for a long time before he could feel the flutter of a pulse.
It was so faint, and if it followed any normal rhythm, Milo couldn’t tell. He turned in panic to Shark and Evangelyne, but the expressions on their faces only confirmed his fears.
Shark shook his head slowly and offered no comment, but Evangelyne said, “I know he’s your friend, Milo. You have to prepare yourself for letting him go. Not everyone can be saved.”
“No,” he fired back, “Barnaby’s not going to die. No way. We’re going to get him onto the ship and find an EA team and . . .”
His words trailed off as a shadow fell across them, and he glanced up to see Lizabeth and Mook standing there. They were as unalike as two creatures could be. She was frail and tiny, and Mook was at least eight feet tall and made of dense rock. The little girl had one hand resting on the stone boy’s arm, and she held a bunch of herbs in her other hand.
“I found these,” she said. “Mook helped me look.”
“Mook,” he said, but Milo thought he heard some doubt in that gravelly voice.
“He helped,” repeated Lizabeth, as if in reply to Mook’s denial. She knelt beside the Cajun. “It would be better if he ate them, but I don’t think he can. No, of course he can’t. Maybe this will be enough.” She crumbled the herbs between her palms, rubbing them slowly back and forth until the plants were reduced to small particles. Evangelyne watched her with a mixture of fascination and apprehension.
“How . . . how do you know about those herbs?” she asked. “How do you know about that mixture?”
“Yeah,” said Milo suspiciously. “This is like the stuff you gave me in the woods. Or . . . maybe it’s like the stuff the Daughter of Splinters and Salt gave me. I don’t know. This is making my head spin.”
“Shark already told you that I was here at the bolt-hole,” said Lizabeth. “How could I have been in the woods with you at the same time?”
“I don’t know. My question is how you suddenly know all this herb stuff.”
“Yes,” said Evangelyne, “that troubles me, too.”
Lizabeth didn’t look at them, but once more there was a strange smile on the girl’s face. A very private smile. It was clear she was keeping some secret to herself. Milo exchanged a glance with Shark, who only shook his head. It was a myst
ery to them, too. Ever since the raid on the camp, Lizabeth—who was always strange—had become stranger still. So strange that even the Nightsiders thought she was odd, and that creeped Milo out all the way down to his bones.
“Barnaby is dying,” she said. “Does anything else really matter?”
“Maybe it does.”
But Lizabeth shook her head. “Here,” she said to Milo, “hold out your hand.”
He hesitated for a moment, but Evangelyne finally nodded. Milo held out his hand and Lizabeth brushed the mixture onto his upraised palm.
“Put it in Barnaby’s mouth,” Lizabeth said, “between his gum and his cheek. Rub it on his lips, too.”
“My hands are dirty,” Milo protested.
Lizabeth looked at him with eyes so pale a blue they were almost as silver as Evangelyne’s. “Do you think that will matter now?”
Milo had read once that eyes were windows to the soul, but if that was true, then he wasn’t sure he recognized who was at home in Lizabeth’s frail little body. The expression in her eyes was a strange blend of childlike innocence and something else—something far older and stranger. It made him afraid for her. He and Shark used to joke privately that Lizzie was crazy. Now he wondered if she had actually gone insane, if her connection to reality had been fractured by the things they’d all experienced.
Or was something even stranger happening here? Either way it scared the heck out of him and made the whole day fit the wrong way in his head. He looked at the crushed herbs in his palm, shot a quick look at Evangelyne, who chewed her lip in doubt for a bit, then nodded.
“Do it,” she whispered.
Milo gently parted Barnaby’s slack lips and pushed the herbs between cheek and gum as Lizabeth had directed. He saved a few pieces and rubbed them over the Cajun’s lips. Then he wiped his fingers vigorously on his shirt and used the tip of his index finger to push some of the herbs into place along the gum line. It was a strange thing to do, and under any other circumstances Shark would have been making some kind of crude joke. No one spoke. Milo was pretty sure no one was even breathing.