Now or never, Skyler decided.

“My name is Skyler,” he announced. They all knew this by now; he’d made his introductions to each, and promptly forgotten most of their names. “I came here from Australia, and the Netherlands before that.”

All eyes were on him.

“I’ve spent my years since the disease came traveling all over the globe. Half of it, anyway. Japan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, Russia, Hawaii. Everywhere, really.”

For ten minutes he recounted the events that had transpired on the other side of the planet. The Elevator they knew of, but the aura had only been rumor, discounted by everyone gathered. Skyler explained what led to his flight from Darwin to Belém, taking care to point out the sacrifices and heroics of all the others who’d come with them. He also told them of his old crew, and the sacrifice they’d made. “Immunes, like you,” he told them. “A voluntary band, six strong at our peak. We had an aircraft and went around looking for, well, whatever those trapped in Darwin needed. There’s a million people living there, by some counts, and just like you were trapped in that house, they are trapped in Darwin. Only they can’t ever leave. Not really.”

Skyler downed the last of his coffee and set the mug at his side. “Some made their way here when the new alien vessel arrived, and they found something remarkable.” He told them of the aura towers, and how pockets of safety were now possible for those without the immunity. He explained the lofty goals that Tania, Zane, and the others had set for themselves.

“The future,” he said in conclusion, “remains a mystery. If the Builders keep their schedule, according to the scientists they’ll be back in twenty months or so. What they bring, or do, this time is anyone’s guess. All we know is, we need to get this new colony established, defended, and prosperous before that time arrives.”

Everyone stared at him. Total silence, save for a meager cough from the child.

“That’s all in jeopardy now. Gabriel, and his … people … have overrun the camp. They’re preventing supplies from being shipped up to orbit, and the people up there will be forced to return to Darwin soon if the siege is not broken.”

He left out his larger concern, that of the strange black-clad subhuman he’d seen inside that cave. Routing Gabriel, he knew, would just be the start.

“I need your help,” he said. He made sure to look at each of them, and let his gaze linger on Davi. “You know firsthand what this Gabriel character is capable of. I plan to put an end to his group, but I can’t do it alone. Will you help me?”

One of the women cleared her throat. Skyler nodded at her.

“I’ve been held here, or places like this, for over a year,” she said, her voice even and thickly accented. “Raped almost weekly.” She paused to let those words settle, as if now was the first time she’d admitted it even to herself. “Made pregnant twice, both ending in miscarriage. Held in solitude with no one to talk to except those who came to attack me: Gabriel, and many of his circle.”

Skyler felt his hands ball into fists, his jagged fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. This woman would help—

“I cannot assist you,” she said, and Skyler’s heart clenched. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just want to go, to flee and find somewhere quiet to live.”

Others were nodding, but some were not.

“What you’ve been through,” Skyler said, “was horrible beyond comprehension. I cannot even begin to imagine the terrible things that have befallen you. But if you walk away now, Gabriel will just continue to do the same to others. He had a dozen of you here, but there are hundreds in Belém and a thousand more in orbit. This is the best chance to stop him before he hurts anyone else.”

“I’ll come,” Ana said. “I’ll fight that bastard.”

“Me, too,” said one of the men in the circle, a short, gaunt man with pale skin and distant blue eyes. He looked at the woman who’d spoken first. “I understand how you feel. I’ll fight for you, so that you can have peace.”

In the end, four others agreed to join Skyler and Ana. Davi was the last to speak.

He stared for a long time at his twin sister. For her part she alternated glances at Skyler and the ground in front of her, withering under her brother’s gaze. Skyler wondered if they’d agreed to leave now that they’d freed their friends, despite the deal they’d made.

Finally Davi shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Ana closed her eyes, and the hint of a proud smile formed on her lips.

“What’s the plan?” Davi asked.

“No plan yet,” Skyler admitted. That drew some concerned stares. “I’ve done enough missions in my day to know that plans are worthless if made too early. We go back to Belém, we scout, and once we have information we choose a tactic and act, immediately.”

Whether that assuaged their fears or not, he couldn’t say. But within an hour the goodbyes had been said. The two groups, those coming and those not, divided between the two armored trucks and went their separate ways.

Despite initial protest from Davi, Skyler first drove back to the lodge. While his volunteers watched from the humming vehicle, he built a small fire in the dirt just outside the door. When the flames took, he poked a long stick in until the end of it burned, then walked to the house.

Skyler stepped into the building one last time and threw the flaming log onto an old couch pressed against the wall.

By the time they drove from the valley, the entire building was engulfed in flames. A plume of ugly black smoke rose high above the rainforest, marring an otherwise perfect sky.

Chapter 20

Melville Station

6.MAY.2283

TANIA COULD NOT sleep. The semblance of peace that her shared meal with Tim and Zane conjured had already vanished like the bittersweet departure of a good sunset.

The sound of waves, lapping gently on a beach, failed to help, and she’d stopped the sound effect almost as soon as she’d started it.

Eight laps around the central ring hadn’t helped, either. She’d run hard, treated the people she passed like an obstacle course, ignoring their concerned stares. If they were concerned for her sanity, or the air she churned through exerting herself, she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. The only certainty was the question that waited on their lips: What’s your plan? What are we going to do?

Greg and Marcus called, at Tim’s urging no doubt, and offered to host her on Black Level for a few days. They ran the now-fledgling research station, flush with scientific equipment but lacking in computational power to handle analysis as Green Level was left behind above Darwin. They’d turned to old-fashioned methods—pen and paper, long nights in front of a whiteboard—and seemed wholly reinvigorated by the change in pace. To escape there tempted her more than she cared to admit, even to herself. It still constituted escape, a flight from her responsibilities.

Next Tim offered to find her sleeping tablets from the station’s supply rooms. When she declined, he offered to bring her a bottle of wine, an upgrade from chai, apparently. Drowning her failures seemed like a feeble move, though, and so she’d declined that, too.

Sleep lay beyond a barrier of horrors. Every time she closed her eyes, Tania saw an imagined version of the carnage that had befallen her so-called rescue team. She’d sat in bleak silence with Zane, Tim, and a few others, listening in total shock as the team was systematically butchered.

There’d been too much noise on the comm to know for sure what happened. Screams and gunfire and shouts of alarm. A horde of subhumans must have swarmed them the moment they stepped out of the aircraft. An aircraft that had cost her an entire farm platform, and now sat abandoned on Water Road northeast of camp.

A soft knock at her door broke the monotony.

“Go away,” she groaned. She knew who it was and found herself in even less of a mood to entertain him.

“It’s me: Tim.”

Tania sighed, stood, and crossed to the door. She opened it a crack, as if she weren’t presentable. Maybe she could pretend to have slept; if anything it would make them worry less about her.

“You look terrible,” he muttered. “Um, I didn’t mean … still can’t sleep, eh?”

“Nice to see you, too.” His concerned expression remained. He seemed to be staring through her. She had not noticed before, but he showed all the symptoms of sleep deprivation, too. Bloodshot eyes set behind dark rings. “What is it, Tim? Has something happened?”

“Would you come with me?” he asked. “I want to show you something.”

“I really should …” Her voice trailed off. His tone suggested the visit had nothing to do with their present predicament, but at this point she’d take any distraction over the war for sleep. “Sure, why not?”

He led her in silence to a section of the station called the quad—a large common room that ran the length of four of the station’s rings. The wide, open space had deep blue carpet contrasted by walls the color of desert sand, its floor dotted with groups of couches facing in on one another, tables for taking meals, an improvised bar, and two low-quality sensory chambers. Two crewmen sat on as many couches, both quietly reading from well-worn paper books. They barely looked up when Tania and Tim entered. A group of six crowded the small bar, sharing a box of white wine. They motioned for the newcomers to join them, but Tim begged off and continued to the back of the room.

Tucked into one corner was some sporting equipment, all folded up and stowed. Tim rolled out one wheeled piece. It looked like a folding conference table. He fiddled with some latches on it and gave it a shove near the center. The object transformed into a hard green table with perfect white lines and a net dividing the playing surface that dominated the space.

Tim grabbed two paddles and a ball from a small brown bag someone had tacked to the wall, and took the side of the table that faced in on the room, leaving Tania only a view of the walls and Tim himself. He threw one paddle to her.

Tania snatched it out of the air. “I haven’t played in—”

“Good,” he said in a comically shrill voice. “For I shall destroy you.”

She hefted her paddle and took a wide stance at her end of the table, bouncing from foot to foot in what she hoped was a taunting fashion. “Bring it on, tough guy.”

“One rule,” Tim said. “No talking about air, or water, or the colony.”

Tania grinned. “You read me like a book, Tim.”

He responded by striking an exaggerated server’s pose that looked halfway to something out of an old kung fu movie. He gripped his red paddle upside down in his left hand and glared at her. When Tania chuckled he served, bouncing the white ball past her.

The game was on.

By the third point Tania abandoned a sense of guilt for enjoying herself in such a dire situation. The repetition of the game, at once exhilarating and monotonous, cleared her mind of all other thought.

By the tenth point, she’d worked up a sheen of sweat and found herself wholly engrossed in the friendly battle. It was Tim who halted the game, as he nodded past her shoulder.

Tania turned to see Zane approaching. He looked haggard, as if he’d aged ten years since their meal the previous evening.

His lips formed a thin, grim frown. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come to the terminal room. Karl is on the line.”

“Karl?” Tania blurted, setting her paddle down.

Zane held up a hand. “It’s not good news, from the way he sounds. The way he looks.”

She nurtured a flicker of hope anyway. The game forgotten, they jogged together to the junction hallway and then toward the room two levels away where the ground-linked comm had been set up. Zane struggled to keep her pace, stopping at one point to steady himself against a wall, his breaths coming in gasps. She slowed for his benefit. “What did he say?”

“Just that he needed to speak with you, alone. He wouldn’t say anything else.”

“Should we wait outside?” Tim asked.

Tania glanced over her shoulder at him. “Why?”

Tim spread his hands. “Karl said ‘alone.’ ”

“So stay quiet and off camera,” Tania said, too terse. “I want you both there.”

Zane cleared his throat. “Er, he reiterated the ‘alone’ request a number of times, Tania. I suggest we honor it.”

“Fine,” Tania said. “But I’ll record the conversation so you can review it afterward.”

The two men exchanged a glance and kept to her pace.

At the door Tim and Zane stopped and took places on either side, like guards. Tania gave each of them a reassuring pat on the arm and warmed slightly at the smile this earned from Tim. Then she entered the comm room. She sat in the center chair at the desk and held a finger above the hold icon on the screen. After three long breaths to calm herself, she swept her hair back behind her ears with her left hand.

“Relax,” she whispered. Then she tapped the button.

Karl’s face did not greet her. Someone else stared back, someone she didn’t know. A man, his skin deeply tanned and smooth. Thick black hair parted to one side and closely shaved around the ears, as if he’d just visited a salon. His eyes caught her attention more than anything; brown flecked with yellow, and bright with cunning and vigor.

The man wore a smile so vulpine and false it made her squirm.

“You must be Tania,” he said, his voice thickly accented.

“Where’s Karl?” she asked. Inwardly she cursed the weakness and confusion in her voice. Tania willed herself to be strong.