Alight (26 page)

The thing I’m looking at, up high…it’s the
top
of a machine that stands on the ground. A moss-speckled machine shaped roughly like a person, a
giant
person made of rusted blue metal. One arm ends in a wide, thick scoop, the other in a huge, three-pincered claw. In some places I can see right through the giant to the rusted-out wall behind it.

Borjigin is nodding, mumbling to himself. I’ve seen this enough times to know what is happening to him—a flashfire.

“A builder,” he says. “It’s…it’s a Besatrix Terraformer. Model C-4. I…” He looks at me, confused. “I’ve seen these before. But I haven’t. I couldn’t. My creator…I think he helped design Uchmal. He knew how to operate these machines, how to maintain them. Maybe even repair them.”

So the halves can do more than whisper in a leader’s ear and count food. As organized and methodical as they are, I suppose it makes sense they would be the ones to design cities. I’m surprised they operated these machines themselves, though—but perhaps something so complicated couldn’t be left to a simple empty.

Borjigin looks down the length of the building, nodding, eyes hovering on more giant machines. Each one he sees makes him mumble gibberish I don’t really understand: what the machine is called, what it is supposed to do. It’s nice that he remembers, but it doesn’t matter—these machines are dead. Some are squat and look more like small buildings than people. Some have scoops. Some have great spikes. Some have saws so big they would neatly slice our shuttle in half. Some have wide, walled, empty areas that could hold a small mountain’s worth of dirt and rock.

Borjigin laughs. His eyes dance with delight and with life, his fatigue forgotten for the moment.

“That’s why we haven’t seen anyone in this city, alive or dead,” he says. “The Grownups didn’t build Uchmal—these machines did.”

Bishop shakes his head. “But the Grownups had to tell the machines what to do, didn’t they? Where to go, what to build?”

“Yes, but they could do that from up there.” Borjigin points a slim finger skyward.

His words overwhelm me. When the Observatory said we were the first people to set foot on Omeyocan, I thought it was wrong. It wasn’t. We’ve searched hundreds of buildings and found nothing. No Grownups, no bones, no sign of anyone ever having been here before us.

The machines built Omeyocan. Matilda and her kind have
never
come down.

That means the Observatory was telling the truth. It is a place—the only place—where we can get actual answers. Was it also telling the truth about Matilda? Was her rebellion made of murder, or did her actions actually
save
lives?

My knees give out: only the spear keeps me standing.

Bishop cups my elbow. “Em, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say. It’s a lie. He knows it. My shoulder is killing me. If I don’t get to the shuttle soon, Bishop will have to carry me yet again.

“We’re leaving,” I say. “We still have hours of walking before we reach the landing pad.”

Borjigin shakes his head. “Give me a few minutes. I’m guessing the spiders are programmed to come back here after a fight.”

“So
what
?” Bishop’s words are a growl. “Em needs Doctor Smith. The sooner the better.”

I would have expected Borjigin to shrink away from Bishop, but the boy stands tall.

“I think I can give the spiders new orders,” he says. “I need a few minutes, and Coyotl’s help. The spiders can get us to the shuttle faster than if we’re on foot.”

Borjigin is nothing like the stammering coward he was in the jungle. He’s confident, believes in what he says.

“Make it quick,” I say.

Coyotl and Borjigin run to their spider and get to work.

Bishop wants to disagree, but we’re back in the city, and I hold the spear—it’s my turn to give the orders again, and I’d much rather ride instead of walk.

S
mith said I had a “flesh wound.” Nothing serious, at least according to her. I was in her coffin only long enough to make sure the bleeding had stopped, long enough for Spingate and Gaston to take a quick look at what we brought back. There isn’t time for anything more right now—decisions have to be made.

My people are once again packed in the coffin room on Deck One. I stand on the makeshift stage with Gaston and Spingate, who each have something important to say when I am finished. So many emotions on the faces that look back at me, a mixture of pride, disgust, respect and doubt, of love, fear and anguish. We are too many to all think the same way.

I tell my people what happened. The snake-wolf, the Springers, our run through the jungle, the spiders, the “nest” that must have come from the
Xolotl,
and—of course—Visca.

Many of the younger kids are crying. This is their first experience with death. Even if they weren’t close to Visca, they knew who he was, and they know he is never coming back.

The young circle-stars don’t cry, though. They now wear black coveralls and hold weapons of their own: axes, machetes, shovels, hammers…one girl even holds a pitchfork. While Bishop and I were gone, Farrar was getting them ready.

Good: when we fight the Springers again, we will need everyone.

After I finish, Gaston explains how the Springer guns work. He says they are
muskets,
primitive versions of the Grownups’ bracelets. The fabric that goes into the barrel is an explosive material. When it ignites, the barrel channels the explosion, drives a metal ball out fast enough to kill. Maybe it is “primitive” in Gaston’s opinion, but it makes our weapons look worthless in comparison.

“Em and the others brought back five muskets,” he says. “Each one is handmade. The parts aren’t really interchangeable, which is strange to me. Maybe they don’t have factories that can mass-produce these. There is enough ammunition to fire each musket seven times. Beckett and I think we can use the shuttle to make more ammunition. Maybe even more muskets, but we’re not sure yet.”

Gaston steps back, his lecture finished. The people look terrified, and I don’t blame them—there are monsters in the jungle that can kill us before we can even see them.

Spingate holds up the bashed purple fruit. She trembles with excitement.

“We tested it on the contaminated food,” she says. “The juice of this fruit kills the red mold.”

A roaring cheer rips the air. People grab at each other, unable to contain their joy. Gaston hugs Spingate, squeezes her and slaps her on the back so hard she winces and laughs.

If we can find enough fruit, we have an entire warehouse of food—
years’
worth, enough to keep us alive while we learn to farm and hunt. Everyone is hungry, but now there is hope.

Aramovsky clasps his hands together and looks skyward.

“It is a miracle,” he says. “We are delivered.”

“Hardly,” Spingate says quickly. “We only have this one fruit. We need many more so we can experiment, find the best way to use it. If this was really a
miracle,
we’d have all the food we wanted, wouldn’t we?”

Aramovsky grins. “It’s not a miracle that on the very day we run out of food, we discover fruit that will let us survive? It’s not a miracle that we suddenly have guns and war machines? The gods provided tools of salvation—that doesn’t mean they’re going to do the work for us.”

He steps onto the stage. I see O’Malley bristle: he doesn’t like this. Well, that’s too bad. Whispering in my ear isn’t going to stop our enemy.

“The demons murdered brave Visca,” Aramovsky says. “May the gods welcome him home.”

In unison, half the crowd repeats his words:
“May the gods welcome him home.”

A chill runs through me. How did they all know to say that? So many, speaking at once…it calls back Matilda’s vague memories of being in church. While I’ve been looking for food, how many people has Aramovsky talked to?

“They’re not
demons,
” Spingate says. “They’re intelligent beings.”

“They attacked us, for no reason,” Aramovsky says. He points to the fruit in her hand. “And they could have given us the secret to survival any time they liked. They did not because they are evil—they want us all to die.”

Grumbles of agreement. Heads nodding.

Even though he’s talking about demons and gods, is the core of what he says so wrong? We did nothing to the Springers.

“Now we have
weapons,
” he says. “We must take the spiders into the jungle and destroy the demons. The only way we can be safe is to wipe them out.”

People murmur their approval. I usually disagree with Aramovsky, but this time he’s right. The Springers attacked us once—they will attack us again. If I want to save lives, we need to kill our enemy, we need to be forever free.

Aramovsky puts his arm around my shoulders, keeps talking to the crowd.

“Em knows what must be done. She killed one of them. She will lead us into battle, we will win this war, and the gods will be—”

Splat
—the purple fruit hits his face, spins down to the floor, where it lands in a wet pile.

He stares, stunned. Smelly juice drips from his skin.

In the following silence, Spingate growls her words at Aramovsky.

“Battle?
Kill them all?
You superstitious idiot.” She casts her glare about the room. “And all of you, blindly agreeing with anything he says. Are you
stupid
? We can’t go to war with the Springers—we need them.”

Aramovsky’s arm slides away from my shoulders. As it does, I can feel his hatred, an almost physical thing.

“I thought you knew math,” he says to her. “There is only so much fruit. It’s us or them.”

Spingate rolls her eyes. “You want to wipe out an intelligent race that could show us how to survive? The red mold isn’t the only threat here. What about poisons the purple fruit won’t purify? What about the snake-wolves, or other predators we haven’t seen? How many people in this room need to die before we understand what’s safe and what isn’t? The Springers know how to survive on Omeyocan—we don’t.”

Her words chisel away at the vengeful feeling in my chest. She’s right. We’ve only been here a few days. There could be more dangers. Without someone to guide us, each lesson we learn might come from someone getting hurt. Or worse.

Coyotl bangs his thighbone against the shuttle wall. He’s standing with Borjigin, both of them looking over the crowd of smaller kids in front of them.

“They killed Visca,” Coyotl says. “We could have killed them first, but we didn’t! First chance they got they attacked us. Aramovsky is right—they’re demons!”

Spingate shakes her head. “They’re not
demons
.”

“You didn’t see them,” Borjigin says. “They’re horrible to look at.”

She screams her answer: “
We probably look horrible to them!
We have to find a way to communicate—we can’t just march into the jungle and slaughter them!”

“We can,” Aramovsky says. “We
must
. On the largest building in this city stands a statue of Em, of our own leader. It is a sign from the gods that she is destined to lead us to victory!”

Aramovsky smiles at me, eyes blazing with intensity. He wants me to embrace this “destiny.” But it’s not a statue of
me:
it’s supposed to be Matilda. The way Aramovsky says it, though…it’s hard not to wonder if he’s right. Matilda isn’t on Omeyocan, I am—can’t old things take on new meanings?

“The Observatory has signs, too,” Spingate says, staring at me. I’m suddenly the object of a battle between two powerful people, each trying to sway me to their way of thinking.

“Remember those
signs,
Em?” she says. “Should we make them all come true?”

The images of death, of torturing gears and halves. Murder of people like Spingate, Gaston, O’Malley, Zubiri, Borjigin.

“Of course not,” I say. “But that’s not the same thing—the Springers aren’t like us.”

Spingate shrugs. “How would we know? You said there were children.
Families
. Sooner than you think, we’ll have families, too. Our children will inherit Omeyocan. What kind of a planet do you want them to have? One of war, or one of peace?”

Our children? That’s crazy. We’re not old enough for…

No, we
are
. Spin and I, Bawden, Smith, Johnson, Cabral, Opkick, D’souza…we all have the bodies of young women, not kids. And those of us that are kids won’t stay that way for long.

A little girl hops on top of a coffin: Walezak, Zubiri’s quiet friend.

“We should destroy the demons, before it’s too late,” she says. Her face contorts with rage. She pounds her fist into her palm as she talks. “Aramovsky is right—this planet was made for
us.
If we want it, we have to show that we’re worthy!
Kill them all! Kill them all!
”

Half the room erupts in roars and cheers.

So much hate on Walezak’s little features. It shocks me, disturbs me. She should be playing with dolls, not calling for slaughter. But she has a double-ring on her forehead. Like Aramovsky, she was made to preach religion.

Spingate waves her hands above her head, demanding the crowd’s attention.