Alone

  Gaston stares down at me, his eyes wide with rage and his upper lip curled into a wicked snarl. He looks like a madman.

  “Tell it to shoot, Em! Kill them!”

  I start to do just that, an automatic reaction to the chaos unfolding around us, but I pause. Yet again, Zubiri’s words rip through my thoughts. If the Goff Spear malfunctions, will I cause all of our deaths?

  The room shudders. Cracks appear in the walls. Trails of dust puff down from the ceiling.

  “That was close,” Spingate says, looking at her pedestal display. “Only a few blocks from the Observatory.”

  We didn’t attack the Basilisk. It attacked us. The aliens inside that ship started this fight.

  If it’s war they want, they messed with the wrong girl.

  I have a spear, and I will use it.

  “Ometeotl,” I say, “fire the weapon.”

  “By your command, Empress Savage.”

  The floor, walls and ceiling thrum. They pulse like the heart of a planet-sized stone giant. A buzzing sound drowns out everything except for baby Kevin’s piercing wail. My hair stands on end. I feel the vibration in my bones, in my teeth.

  There is a whooshing sensation, as if the room’s air is sucked out for a split second, then rushes back in. My eardrums flutter in complaint.

  The thrumming stops.

  The display above the shaft changes. Gaston’s multiple scenes vanish, replaced by the lone image of the Basilisk.

  From Uchmal, a long red streak flashes toward it. At the head of that streak, a metal ball that sizzles and bubbles and shimmers with godlike energy.

  It seems to take forever for the red streak to close the distance.

  The Basilisk fires weapons at the ball, to no apparent effect. The massive ship starts to move, but it is far too slow, far too late.

  The red streak punches into the Basilisk’s copper hull.

  I have a moment to think That didn’t work, then the enemy ship’s hull starts to swell. Another childhood memory of Matilda’s: pork sausages on my father’s grill, heating and swelling until the skin splits and bubbling meat pushes through. The Basilisk’s copper hull tears—flashing red energy pulses out, somehow solid and gas and liquid all at once, curling like the dissolving tentacles of some demon monster.

  The copper hull snaps in the middle: the ship breaks in two. The halves slowly spin for a moment, then they, too, break up, shattering into a hundred pieces.

  Only moments ago, there was a ship with who knows how many living souls aboard. Now, there is a cloud of wreckage.

  “Gods,” Spingate says. Her voice is a whisper, but I hear it clearly.

  Kevin stops crying.

  “Ometeotl,” Gaston says, “status report.”

  The room’s dispassionate voice confirms my fears.

  “The Basilisk is destroyed. No escape ships detected. Entire crew presumed to be dead. Enemy salvos one and two have either impacted or were destroyed in flight. No incoming projectiles remain.”

  Gaston shakes a fist at the shattered ship.

  “I hope it hurt.” His voice is hoarse with bloodlust. “I hope your last moments were full of panic and terror, you godsdamned bastards!”

  I think of the room that holds the Goff Spear rounds. One was missing. I wonder if what we saw just now happened before, in the two centuries before we arrived, to some other alien ship that we will never know about.

  I stare at the display, at the spreading wreckage. How many intelligent beings just died at my command? Yes, they bombed us, but how many of them had no choice in that matter? How many of them had nothing to do with this war, nothing to do with the decision to attack?

  How many civilians did I just kill?

  An arm around my shoulder. It’s Spingate.

  “You had to,” she says. “We didn’t have any choice.”

  She always seems to know what I’m thinking. I resist for a moment, then let her pull me in.

  As she hugs me, rubs at my back, I see Joandra holding little Kevin, jostling him lightly to comfort him.

  Babies.

  When the Basilisk blew up, were there families?

  Were there babies?

  If there were, now they are dead.

  I have killed them all.

  I am the wind…I am death.

  There is one final meteor shower. Everyone comes out to watch.

  We find ourselves in a world of flame: Uchmal burns around us, while high above the wreckage of the Basilisk rains down, a thousand streams of blazing light that scar the nighttime sky.

  Humans and Springers ascend the Observatory steps. Hundreds of us, climbing together, as if taking step after step is some kind of quiet ritual celebrating our mutual survival.

  Some stop after only a few layers. Some make it only halfway. Some of us, like me, march steadily upward. I have never felt this tired. My soul feels dead.

  Ten layers climbed.

  Then twenty.

  At twenty-five, the vines are stunted things. Past twenty-six, we’re too high for the vines to grow at all. I don’t stop until I’ve climbed all thirty layers—three thousand steps—watching my city burn as I go.

  The day’s high heat was the worst thing that could have happened to us. Steady sunlight dried out the vines that have clung to Uchmal’s buildings for centuries. The results are tragic. All around and below us, the black night is turned to day by spreading flame. Fire follows the vines that cover almost everything, jumping from yellow leaf to yellow leaf, from blue stem to blue stem, from tree to tree, sheathing every ziggurat and building in a shimmering cascade of blazing orange.

  The Observatory is isolated from the fire, it seems, thanks to the project that cleared plants and dead leaves from the plaza and the surrounding streets. I think of how I argued with Borjigin, told him that was a waste of energy. I’m grateful he kept bothering me until I gave in.

  Those who made the climb with me stand at the pinnacle of a mountain island rising high from a sea of fire. It’s not just Uchmal—beyond our circular walls, parts of the jungle burn as well. Not as intensely, though. Perhaps the ground there holds water longer than our stone streets, slowing the blaze. I hope the Springers out in the jungle are safe. We have no word from Schechak. Barkah and Lahfah were with us in Uchmal when this attack began. They have no idea what’s happening in their city, and they won’t know until the fires burn out. Right now, the Observatory is the only safe place.

  High above, the Basilisk’s remains continue to rain down. The flaming pieces break apart as they fall, creating showers of smaller glowing trails. Spingate told me most pieces will burn up completely before hitting the ground. I watch them with an insane mixture of emotions: primitive satisfaction that I have killed those who tried to kill us; anguish that I have taken lives, maybe thousands of them; fear that the fires below will not stop, that they will spread across the planet, turning everything to ash; a haunting sense of failure I couldn’t find a way to end this without violence.

  There are about thirty people and maybe ten Springers on the Observatory’s top layer. Bishop is up here, as are Borjigin and Bawden, Lahfah and Barkah.

  I was wary of Barkah’s ambition, but not any more. He had the perfect opportunity to destroy us—he chose to help us instead. My tribe and his are bound together now, temporarily united by the presence of a third that wants all of us dead. For now, at least, the fates of our two peoples seem intertwined.

  The Springer king hops closer to me.

  “Hem, tragedy,” he says. “Why?”

  Why. The question I need answered more than any other. Why did the Basilisk come here? Why did the other ships? Why did the Springers?

  Why did the Grownups?

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  I look into his two good eyes. Those green orbs are filled with rage and sorrow. He’s silhouetted by the burning horizon.

  “Underdirt,” he says. “If we go underdirt, you with us.”

  The words are slightly off, but my he
art breaks with their meaning. If he and his people have to return to their subterranean villages and towns, Barkah is inviting us to go with them. He’s offering my people shelter.

  “Thank you,” I say. I point at the long flames streaking the sky. “The attackers are dead. Nahnaw. We destroyed that ship.”

  He points straight up, to the stars.

  “Two more come,” he says. “Tomorrow, will prepare underdirt.”

  Three more, actually, although Epsilon-One—the Eel—is more than a year away. Goblin and Dragon will be here in days. Every ship that has come to Omeyocan has brought a cargo of war. There is no reason to think the next two will do anything different.

  I see a boy on the far side of the top layer, facing north. Huan Chowdhury. He made the climb.

  Why? Barkah asked. Why have so many races come to this planet? That is the most important question right now. That is the missing piece of the puzzle.

  Huan has spent a year digging, studying. He might be the only person who can venture a guess.

  I sit down next to him. Our legs dangle over the edge, heels bouncing against the top layer’s stone sides. The fire has spread to the northern part of Uchmal. Buildings seem to shiver beneath a living sheen of flame.

  “It’s horrible,” I say.

  Huan jumps a little. He didn’t notice me sit down.

  “It is,” he says. “Just horrible.”

  Huan and I are both Birthday Children, which means we’re basically the same age even though I’m physically six or seven years older than he is. He always seems to be smiling, but he’s not smiling now—fear makes him look like a different person.

  “There are three more ships coming,” I say. I’m sure he already knows. News spreads fast here. “Plus us, and the Springers.”

  “And the Vellen,” he says.

  Vellen is the Springer name for the race that came before them. Strange, one-eyed creatures with backward-folded legs, a middle set of arms and a second set of smaller arms that grew from the sides of their heads.

  “And the Vellen,” I agree. “That’s seven races. I need to know why you think they came to Omeyocan.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know, Em. I’m just a circle.”

  I nod. “So am I.”

  He glances at me, checking to see if I’m having fun at his expense. I’m not.

  “But you’re our leader,” he says.

  I point to my forehead symbol. He knows it’s there, looks anyway. Maybe he forgets that I’m an empty, just like him. Sometimes I do, too.

  He starts to talk, stops. I see in him what I see in so many circles: self-doubt.

  “Go ahead, Huan. A bad guess is better than no guess at all.”

  He gazes out at the sea of fire.

  “I don’t think the races came here on their own,” he says. “I think they were drawn here. Maybe…lured here. There’s something about this place that calls to the races. I feel it. Do you?”

  I do. I felt it when I was in the Crystal Ball and saw Omeyocan for the first time.

  “This feeling, or call or whatever it is,” Huan says, “I think it creates a desire to not only possess Omeyocan, but also make sure no other race can have it. That’s why the Springers wiped out the Vellen. That’s why the Grownups tried to wipe out the Springers.”

  He points up, to the rain of fire slashing our skies.

  “That’s why the Basilisk attacked us. That’s why the Goblin will attack us next.”

  Huan’s words don’t solve the puzzle, but they rearrange some of the pieces. That buzz in the back of my brain again. I feel like I almost have it. Almost.

  “The Grownups traveled for over a thousand years to get here,” I say. “Who knows how long the other races traveled. If everyone came because they were called…who did the calling?”

  Huan shrugs. “Nothing I’ve found tells me why the Vellen came. Or the Springers.” He shivers, rubs at his shoulders the way Bello used to do when she was afraid. “I don’t know why I came up here. This building feels spooky.”

  Spooky. He said the same thing about the Well shaft in the Control Room, where he started his archaeological project.

  So many races coming to this place…

  Races that slaughter each other…

  The Basilisk bombed us, but it didn’t target the Observatory…

  The puzzle pieces stop spinning. They click home. They fit.

  At least seven races aiming for the same place, but that place isn’t actually Omeyocan. It isn’t Uchmal. It isn’t the Observatory.

  It’s the very ground the Observatory is built upon.

  “Go back to the Well shaft in the Control Room,” I say. “Start digging there again, immediately.”

  His head snaps toward me.

  “No,” he says. “That place scares me.”

  I gesture to the burning city. “Scares you worse than this?” I gesture to the stars. “Worse than the other ships coming to destroy us?”

  He starts to nod, then half shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to react.

  “It’s not a request,” I say. “It’s an order.”

  I see the terror in his eyes.

  “Please, Em. I don’t want to. There’s something wrong down there.”

  “So find out what that wrong is. Our lives might depend on it.”

  He holds my stare for a few moments, then gives up and looks away. He’ll do what he’s told. I won’t give him any other choice.

  “Huan, go be someplace else,” says a voice behind us.

  It’s Spingate. She’s standing over us. Huan takes advantage of the chance to escape, scurries away.

  “You start at dawn,” I call after him. “Be there or I’ll come find you.”

  Spingate sits in Huan’s place. She does so carefully, cradling her swollen belly with one hand.

  “We need answers,” she says.

  I nod. As if I needed a gear to tell me that.

  Spingate seems distant, cold. There’s no hint of the warmth that was once as much a part of her as her red hair.

  “We know who has those answers,” she says. “Bello is one of them. She knows why the Xolotl came here.”

  I can’t stop my annoyed sigh. “I’ve asked her so many times I’m sick of it.”

  “Then stop asking. Make her tell you.”

  Her eyes bore into me, insistent, almost commanding. I feel my heart tearing into a thousand pieces. It’s bad enough when Bishop asks for this. Not Spin, too…not her.

  “You think we should torture Bello,” I say quietly.

  She shrugs. “If that’s how you want to phrase it.”

  My temper flares, but I control it.

  “I phrase it like that because that’s what it’s called. We won’t stoop to torture, Spin. We’re better than that. We’re civilized.”

  Expressionless, she turns her attention to the burning city.

  “You don’t understand,” she says. “I’m a mother. You’re not. We were lucky tonight. The Goblin will arrive soon, and when it does, that luck might run out. They could hit us harder than the Basilisk did. My son could die. My unborn child could die. Everyone could die. Why? Because of your precious honor?”

  I rarely cry, but the way her words carve at my soul I’m surprised I don’t cry now.

  “Honor has nothing to do with it. Torturing people is wrong.”

  She slowly shakes her head.

  “I hope your version of right and wrong doesn’t wind up killing my family.”

  She stands, heads to the plateau’s edge. She starts down the wide stone stairs, opting for the three-thousand-step descent instead of taking the elevator.

  A flashfire of memory. A flash, and a fizzle. Matilda knew Spingate. Brewer told me that before, but this is different. I feel it this time. I can’t place the memory…an image of Theresa Spingate being…cruel.

  Something about that intangible memory makes me wonder—if Bello was a gear, not a circle, would Theresa still be willing to torture her? Or is it on
ly because Bello is an empty?

  I stand, brush off my legs and butt. The wind has increased. A swirling gray snowstorm of ash filters up from the sprawling fire.

  The ash looks just like the Xolotl’s endless dust.

  I circle left, Bawden circles right.

  Our boots press into the fine white sand of our training circle. We point wooden practice spears at each other.

  “This isn’t dance class,” Bishop calls out.

  He wants us to attack. I’ve sparred with Bawden enough to know she’s blindingly fast with a block and counterattack. I’m trying to figure out her footwork, wait for the right moment to strike.

  All around us I hear the clack-clack of spears and farm tools bouncing off each other or thudding into bodies.

  After we destroyed the Basilisk, the Goblin slowed its approach, stopped, then moved a little farther away from Omeyocan. We’ve shown what we can do, and the ship reacted accordingly.

  Still, we’ve prepared hard. Our weapons are cleaned, loaded or charged. We’ve set up primary plans for responding to any landing craft. Barkah and Lahfah have returned to Schechak.

  In short, we are as ready as we can be. If we’re attacked, we don’t know when we might be outside again. Bishop insisted on one last training session here on the plaza, so we might enjoy the sunshine while we still can.

  I agreed, but not for his reasons. I’ve been so busy running here and there, answering endless questions, pushing Huan to keep exploring the shaft, and seeing to a thousand other things that can’t happen at all without my input…I’m frustrated. I want the release that hard training brings; I want to forget, just for a few moments, the endless pressure we’re all under.

  In other words, I want to hit something.

  Bawden finally thrusts. I parry, blocking her attack. She grins.

  “Come at me, little empty,” she says. “Prove you’re a real warrior.”

  “Taunts won’t work, sweetheart,” I answer as I circle. “Your mouth says such mean things, but your eyes tell me how much you love me.”

  Bawden laughs—when she does I snap out a knee strike. She barely blocks it.

  Hardness settles into her eyes.

  Farrar, our other trainer for the day, shouts at us. “Didn’t Bishop tell you you’re not dancing? Finish your foe, now.”