WE ARE EARTHLINGS

SOLDIERS OF EARTHRISE, BOOK 6

by

Daniel Arenson

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

Illustration © Tom Edwards - TomEdwardsDesign.com

Chapter One

The Sentinels of Sodom

The creaky submarine chugged through the water, heading toward a sunken starship of myth.

"There she is," Maria whispered, gazing through a porthole. "One of the Silver Sisters. A legendary starship. Centuries ago, she ferried the first colonists to this ocean world. Now she'll take us home."

Standing beside her in the cramped submarine, Charlie squinted and tilted her head. "You think she has a bar?"

Even here, thousands of leagues under the sea, trapped in a cramped metal box, Charlie's makeup was perfect. Her black bob was brushed to a sheen. She wore a skintight dress of dazzling red silk. She was still Charlie Wonder, queen of the bargirls, and fabulous through and through.

Unlike me, Maria thought. She just wore a tattered white dress and sensible slippers. Who cared?

Her mind quickly returned to the starship ahead. Her heart soared. There she lay, a legendary starship lost to history—until now. A relic the size of a skyscraper. A sunken masterpiece of elegant lines, crystalline facades, and cavernous engines flooded with dark water.

"She's beautiful," Maria whispered.

A grin split Charlie's face. "She looks like a giant glass slipper. Fitting, since I'm such a princess."

The rest of the crew gathered around them, gazing through the viewport. Nobody spoke. The Kinnara rattled closer, engines rumbling. The submarine was all function, no comfort. The cockpit was small, the hold cramped, and everyone was getting cabin fever. The crew had been trapped in this crucible for many days.

Would they rise in splendor?

They all knew the stakes. The world above was weeping. A terrible war had ravaged Bahay—flattening villages, burning forests, slaying millions. The war was over, but Bahay still smoldered. Survivors crawled through the wreckage, seeking hope, finding none. The dead filled the killing fields. The crows feasted.

And from the ashes, like a dark phoenix, a new evil had arisen. A terror greater than any before.

He called himself Papa Dominus. A man in black robes, an inverted cross hanging from his neck. He crushed this beautiful world under his heel. The people of Bahay called out for salvation. And there were none to answer.

Until now.

"That starship can save thousands of souls," Maria said softly. "It's the largest starship humanity has seen in centuries. We can't save everyone. Not on the first trip, at least. But we can save thousands of people. We can sail the cosmic ocean in a ship of legend. We can find a new home."

"On Earth," Charlie whispered, and her eyes dampened. "Damn it, Nini, you're going to make me ruin my makeup."

Maria rolled her eyes. "Charlie, who cares about your makeup? We're on a submarine thousands of miles away from the shore, thousands of leagues beneath the sea, and there are only a few of us here."

"Your point being?" Charlie dabbed her eyes with a tissue. "A true lady never ruins her makeup."

"Well, you should be fine then, Mom," said Rodrigo. The teenage boy stood behind them, a scrawny fellow with a thin mustache and mischievous eyes.

"Shut up, you!" Charlie said, slapping the boy with a rolled up magazine. "I'm a fine, delicate lady!"

"Ow, ow!" Rodrigo covered his head. "You're literally hitting me with a dirty magazine, Mom. Eww. Gross."

"Well, it's your magazine!" Charlie said, brandishing it. "Motorcycle Babes. I found it hiding among your comics. I wonder what else you have hiding there."

Rodrigo flushed crimson. "You didn't look between my Tiger-Man comics, did you?" He gulped. "I gotta go … rearrange some stuff." The boy fled the cockpit, racing deeper into the submarine.

In truth, the Kinnara was not merely a submarine. Not originally, at least. Treadmill tracks lined her underbelly, tattered and jammed. The stumps of severed wings stuck out from her hull; the wings had shattered in battle. A warp engine slept deep in her belly, crumpled, leaking, its inner crystal cracked.

The Kinnara was a quad-craft, built for land, air, space, and water. Or had been long ago. For all intents and purposes, maybe she was just a submarine now. With all the damage, she would likely never fly again. Maybe never even see land again. Here in the water she would remain.

If we rise again, Maria thought, it won't be in this little machine. It will be in an ancient silver starship.

"This one is Sodom, right?" Charlie said, looking at the starship on the seabed. "Or is this one Gonorrhea?"

"You mean Gomorrah," Maria said. "And no, this starship isn't Gomorrah. That ship is still lost to history. This is indeed her sister ship, Sodom. The Red Cardinal cast both into the sea. He believed them both full of sinners. He landed his own ship, the Canaan, atop a shining mountain. He buried Sodom and Gomorrah in watery graves." Maria shuddered. "Thousands of passengers died. Thousands who came here across the galaxy to colonize a new world. The skeletons might still be here."

Charlie shuddered. "And the ghosts. I hate ghosts. And gonorrhea. I had a hell of a case a few years back."

"Eww, Mom, gross," Rodrigo said, returning to the cockpit.

"What's gross are those cheesy letters you write your girlfriend," Charlie said.

"Mom!" He flushed. "I told you not to read those!"

"I thought they were love letters to me!" Charlie said. "Until I got to the naughty parts."

"Mom!"

Maria tried to ignore them. She held her hands steady on the yoke, guiding the Kinnara through the water.

Little sunlight made its way this deep. The Kinnara's headlights pierced the water. The ancient starship shone ahead, half-buried in sand. As the Kinnara glided closer, the size difference became apparent. They were in a submarine the size of a truck, approaching a starship the size of the Empire State Building. They were a minnow approaching a whale.

What also became apparent was the damage.

Maria winced. "She's hurt."

"Yep." Charlie lit a cigarette and took a puff. "She's beautiful from a far, and far from beautiful."

"Kinda like you, Mom," Rodrigo said.

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "I'm not as beautiful as those sexy ladies you draw in your notebook?"

Rodrigo gasped. "You've been in my sock drawer!" He ran back to the stern.

Maria sighed. "Give the boy some privacy, Charlie."

Her friend snorted. "I'm his mom. What's his is mine."

Lily ran up toward them. Maria's daughter was four years old and never still. She raised her chin. "My mommy said that kids have rights!"

"Aww, isn't that cute?" Charlie knelt and mussed the girl's hair. "Your mom tells the best fairy tales!"

"Enough, everyone." Maria squinted at the starship ahead. "Let's examine the damage from up close."

The Kinnara reached the starship, slowed, and began to circle the larger vessel. Half the hull was buried under the seabed. Barnacles, algae, and starfish covered the rest. She would need a good scrubbing, that was for sure. More concerning were gashes and dents across the hull, likely the legacy of her crash from space.

Charlie frowned. "Nini, even if Sodom still works, how the hell will we fly her?"

Maria shrugged. "I know how to fly."

Her friend snorted. "Please. You flew a space shuttle twice."

"And I operated a submarine!" Maria bristled. "Don't forget I'm piloting the Kinnara right now."

"Oh, great, you know how to sink underwater," Charlie said. "I'm sorry, but the Sodom has already done that. Nini! Come on! This isn't some space shuttle that just flies up and down. It's an intergalactic starship that needs to fly millions of light-years. Bit of a difference, no?"

"Actually, only about three hundred light-years," Maria said. "We want to visit Earth, not the Andromeda galaxy."

"We'll visit an early grave if we can't fly her!" Charlie said. "That's assuming she works at all. Which, to be honest, is a big assumption. She looks worse than my Uncle Oscar's jeepney. And that rusty old jeep is used as a planter."

Maria squinted and leaned toward the viewport. "Somebody's been maintaining this ship."

Charlie snorted. "Who, the fish?"

"Look." Maria pointed. "The hull was blasted open over there. But it's patched up. With …" Her eyes widened. "It looks like coral."

She brought the submarine closer, aiming the headlights. Ugly scars covered Sodom's hull. In some places, the silvery metal was ripped open like a tin can. Yet a hard, organic growth covered the holes and gashes like scabs. The material was rocky yet organic. Maria spotted spiraling shells like fossilized ammonites, tubes that sucked and expelled water, and spikes that looked ready to impale predators. Fish hid among the spikes and inside the shells, bright blue and red, safe from hungry jaws.

"I dunno," Charlie said, "I've seen photos of coral before. It doesn't look anything like this."

"You probably saw photos of Earth coral," Maria said. "Or maybe coral from warmer, shallower waters. This is different. Alien. Somehow … intelligent. I wonder if somebody cultivated this coral. Maybe they used it to repair the ship."

Charlie shuddered. "Ghosts."

Maria rolled her eyes. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"Nini, you literally lived in a cemetery full of dancing skeletons for a month," Charlie said. "I don't think ghosts is stretching it."

Maria kept steering the submarine around the starship, a minnow circling a whale carcass. They glided along the starboard hull, finding damage everywhere. The hull had shattered, twisted, and ripped open, probably in that ancient crash. Massive swaths of hull, some larger than the Kinnara, were entirely missing. The alien coral covered all the broken parts, a patchwork of tubes, spirals, and spikes.

"It looks airtight," Maria said. "Am I crazy to imagine that somebody repaired this ship? Maybe these growths are natural after all. Like barnacles. Maybe they just clung to the ruined starship like moss growing over fallen branches, finding whatever purchase they could."

"Nini, what if this ship won't hold in space?" Charlie said. "I'm no rocket scientist. But can coral survive in a vacuum?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Can it survive blasting through the atmosphere? That seems less likely."

"So this was all for nothing!" Charlie said. "Sodom is a wreck. We'd have better luck flying to Earth in Uncle Oscar's jeepney."

A voice rose behind them, booming through the cockpit.

"Do I hear right? Something's broken? Well, hang on now, gorgeous! You forgot that I can fix anything."

Jay Jay strutted onto the bridge, his thumbs hooked into his belt. The young Bahayan sported tanned skin, spiky black hair, and a ready grin full of bright teeth. Tools hung from his belt. He drew a wrench and twirled it.

"What, you're a mechanic now?" Charlie said.

Jay Jay bristled. "I've always been a mechanic!"

Charlie snorted. "Please. When we met you, you were a rickshaw runner. Then a bar owner. Then you ran a network of orphan spies. Now you're a mechanic."

"Babe, I've worked plenty more jobs than that, and I've done 'em all properly." He blew her a kiss. "I can fix anything. From a broken car to a broken heart. So what do you need me to fix? Just point me at it."

Maria stepped aside, revealing the viewport, and pointed at the drowned starship ahead. "There. Take a look. Can you fix that, Jay Jay?"

Jay Jay stared. He rubbed his eyes. He gulped. "Change of plans. I go back to pulling rickshaws."

Charlie slapped him with a rolled up magazine.

Maria hung her head low. Finding a working starship had been her greatest hope. Perhaps only a fool's hope. Now it dashed against the rocks.

"This is disheartening, I won't lie," Maria said. "But before we give up, I want answers. First of all, about who built this coral. And even more importantly, the location of Gomorrah, the second lost starship. We might have better luck there. Maybe the answers lie inside Sodom." She took a deep breath. "Let's find a way in."

* * * * *

Maria kept steering the Kinnara along Sodom's hull, passing clusters of barnacles, patches of moss, and segments of coral blending into metal. That coral sealed every hole in the hull, but Maria wasn't seeking a hole. She hoped to find an airlock.

Surely a starship would have an airlock. True, this was an alien starship. The Santelmos had built it—a race of glowing spheres. For all Maria knew, Santelmos could squeeze through tiny tubes like octopuses. But the Santelmos had built this starship for transporting humans. And humans needed doors.

Maria was bound to find one.

She hoped so.

She had to, right?

"This ship is sealed up pretty tight," Maria said.

"Like a nun on Sunday night," Charlie said.

Maria punched her. "Be quite." She squinted at the mossy hull before her. "If we have to, we can crawl through the exhaust pipes. But I'm still hoping for a nice docking bay."

Charlie squinted. "What—" She rubbed her eyes. "Did you see that?"

"What?" Maria said.

"Nothing, nothing," Charlie said. "I just … I thought that barnacle moved."

She pointed. A clump of barnacles rose from Sodom's hull like a scab on silvery skin.

Maria shrugged. "Sometimes barnacles move a little. To grab food that floats by."

"I guess," Charlie said.

"Actually, barnacles are quite fascinating," Maria said. "Here, let me take us a bit closer for a look. You see, barnacles are animals like you and me. But they're sessile. They can't move. They're glued to a surface, and yet … they produce sexually. To fertilize the females, the males have to extend their—"

"Quiet, Big Head, and look!" Charlie said.

And then Maria saw it too.

The barnacles were moving. All of them were moving.

So was part of Kinnara's silvery hull.

Maria blinked. "What the hell?"

Her mind couldn't make sense of it. It was like an optical illusion. The patch of barnacles and hull ballooned outward. Then the barnacles all faded, morphing into deep blue skin. Eyes opened, blazing with white-hot fury.

A creature lunged toward the Kinnara.

Tentacles thrust through the water.

"An octopus!" Maria shouted.

She understood at once. The octopus had clung to the hull—and camouflaged itself! Those had never been barnacles—only a disguise!

And it was a big octopus. Nearly as large as the Kinnara.

The colossal beast lunged toward the submarine, tentacles flailing, jaws opening wide in a hungry roar.

It even had teeth. A damn mollusk with teeth!

Maria pulled the yoke with all her might. The Kinnara groaned in protest. Her engines sputtered. She began to yaw right, and—

A tentacle slammed into the sub.

The Kinnara tumbled through the water. The lights went off throughout the cabin. The control panels flashed warnings. And then a great shadow fell.

"He's above us!" Charlie shouted.

Maria snarled and shoved down the throttle, firing up the afterburner. The Kinnara's engines roared, spewing furious blue flame into the water. The vessel roared forward.

They were still mid-yaw. The Kinnara spun madly, whipping up a whirlpool of silty water. It was unintentional. But it helped. The maelstrom caught the octopus and hurled the mollusk aside. It slammed into a boulder and curled up, its tentacles wrapping around its soft abdomen.

Maria wrestled the yoke, steadying the Kinnara. She faced the beast. The giant octopus lurked before them, hesitating, perhaps torn between fight and flight.

"My God, it's huge," Maria said.

"Said the bargirl to the sailor," Charlie quipped.

Her son cringed. "Eww, Mom, gross."

The octopus flared like a sunburst, tentacles stretching in all directions. A show of dominance. Maria extended Kinnara's hydraulic claws, mimicking the gesture, and she flashed the headlights.

The octopus finally made up its mind. It retreated toward Sodom, its tentacles dragging across the seabed.

Maria dared to hope the scuffle was over.

And then five more octopuses appeared.

* * * * *

Five of the enormous sea monsters!

They ballooned across the starship like blisters, detached from the hull, and swam toward Kinnara. Their eyes flashed. Their tentacles whipped the water. The demonic mollusks had clung to the hull the entire time, their skin perfectly mimicking barnacles and moss.

"Hide and seek champions of Bahay," Charlie said. "Now let's shoot the bastards!"

As Maria piloted the Kinnara, Charlie grabbed the cannon controls.

"Charlie, we can't harm the local wildlife!" Maria said.

But Charlie, roaring with fury, pulled the triggers. Two rotary cannons extended from the prow. The twin guns spun madly, unleashing an inferno.

Bullets weren't particularly effective underwater. They were designed to fly through air and space, and water slowed them down. The bullets pattered against the octopuses, probably no more painful than pebbles.

It only enraged the beasts. They swarmed toward the Kinnara. Tentacles slammed into the hull.

The Kinnara careened through the water.

They rolled several times, ripped through strands of kelp, and skittered across the ocean floor. Everyone inside shouted, tossed around the cabin. Little Lily fell down hard and cried. Gummy wrapped his furry trunk around her, soothing the child with soft "gum gum gum" sounds. Crisanto, woken from his slumber, emerged from his little wooden box and flew from side to side, confused.

"Die, squids!" Charlie was shouting, still firing the guns.

"Charlie, stop wasting bullets!" Maria shouted.

"Who cares, they're useless anyway," Charlie said.

"They're made for space, dammit!" Maria said, pulling the yoke. The Kinnara jerked sideways, engine sputtering, narrowly dodging another claw. "We have torpedoes for underwater. Fire those!"

"I already did!" Charlie said. "Back in the temple, remember? We're out!"

Maria cringed, tugged the yoke sideways, and executed a barrel roll. Tentacles flew above and below the craft.

"What, we're completely out?" Maria said.

"Well, you were off relaxing in the temple library," Charlie said. "We were facing underwater monsters."

"I was on a quest!" Maria snapped. "Now shut up and use the claws."

In its previous life, the Kinnara had been a rescue craft, serving the Search and Rescue Corps. She could reach any environment. The heights of space, the depths of the ocean, and everything in between. Hell, you could probably drop her into a volcano, and she would fly again to tell the tale.

To rescue people, the Kinnara needed to lift stones, crush boulders, and bend metal. Hydraulic claws emerged from her sides, forged of steel and painted bright yellow. They could put most tractors to shame. Normally, the claws remained folded alongside the hull. But now, Charlie grabbed two joysticks labeled CLAWS.

The massive metal arms stretched forward. On their tips, the fearsome claws snapped.

An octopus lunged at the Kinnara.

Charlie yanked the right joystick.

A steel claw slammed into the octopus, hurling it aside.

"I got one!" Charlie squealed. She released the joysticks, raised her fists into the air, and hopped with excitement. "I got one, I got—"

"Mom!" Rodrigo shouted.

Another octopus came flailing toward them. Charlie yelped, grabbed the joysticks again, and swung the metal arms. She knocked this octopus aside too.

"Get 'em, Mom, get 'em!" Rodrigo shouted, pounding the air.

"I'm kinda good at this!" Charlie said.

The seabed rose.

A mound of sand and seashells ballooned like a blister.

"Charlie, watch ou—" Maria began.

The octopus, rising from the ocean floor, slammed into Kinnara's prow.

The submarine flipped over. She landed upside down with a thump, then just lay on the seabed, as helpless as an overturned turtle. The treadmill tracks spun uselessly.

"Charlie, flip us over with the claws!" Maria said.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!"

"Mom, Mom, more octopuses!" Rodrigo shouted.

"I can't fucking deal with everything at once!" Charlie screeched.

Tentacles pounded them. The hull dented. One octopus began ripping off the treads. Another octopus lifted a boulder and slammed it onto the Kinnara's ballast tank. A thummmm reverberated through the submarine.

"Fascinating!" Maria said. "Tool use in mollusks. That has never been documented on Bahay, though on some worlds, mollu—"

"Shut up and get us out of here!" Charlie said. She managed to lower the hydraulic arms, press against the seabed, and flip the Kinnara over.

Maria struggled with the yoke. She shoved down the throttle. The engine groaned and blazed, hurling the Kinnara upward.

But the colossal octopus knocked them back down. The beast rumbled, wrapping its tentacles around the craft. Charlie swung the hydraulic arms madly, ripping the monster off. The tentacles retracted. The submarine skidded forward, skimming along the seabed, the octopus in hot pursuit.

"Jay Jay, get into the stern!" Maria said. "And wait for my order."

The young rickshaw runner nodded. "Got it. I'll get ready."

The bullets were perhaps useless. The torpedoes were gone. The hydraulic claws weren't doing nearly enough. But there was still one trick up their sleeve. The railgun on the stern. It was a brutal gun, hurling projectiles at hypersonic speed.

"Charlie?" Maria said. "When I give the signal, you jam both arms down onto the seabed. Got it?"

She nodded. "Got it."

"Jay Jay!" Maria shouted toward the stern. "Wait for my signal!"

"Aye, aye, captain!" came Jay Jay's voice from the back.

An octopus came at their left—a new beast, its skin black and mottled with golden warts. Maria dodged its flailing tentacles, each sucker like a silver bowl.

Another tentacle lashed from their right, this one deep red, lined with green suckers. Maria took the blow on the starboard hull. The Kinnara slammed into the rocky seabed. The hull dented. The red octopus rose from behind a boulder, bellowing, filling the ocean with ink. Maria adjusted the yoke, shoved down the throttle, and then sputtered across the seabed toward a shoal.

The dune rose before them. Their tattered treadmill tracks crushed seashells and mossy stones. More octopuses rose from a ravine ahead. Others chased from behind. Maria narrowed her eyes and increased her speed. The Kinnara raced up the shoal like a ramp, raising a cloud of sand and algae, and Maria saw the silver starship shining ahead.

"Charlie, now!" Maria cried and floored the throttle.

Charlie shoved both joysticks downward. The Kinnara's hydraulic arms slammed onto the seabed, shoving the submarine off the shoal like a gymnast off a pommel horse. The Kinnara vaulted upward through the water, engine roaring. The octopuses squealed below.

"Jay Jay, fire!" Maria cried.

Jay Jay fired the stern's railgun.

The Kinnara jolted upward.

Massive bullets, each the size of a dagger, tunneled through the water, leaving rippling wakes. They were like small, deadly torpedoes.

Maria saw it in her rear-view monitor. One bullet slammed into an octopus at terrifying speed … and pulverized it.

Tentacles flew every which way. The octopus's large, soft body, easily the size of a grand piano, was gone. Nothing but gobbets of flesh and misty blood remained.

"Again, Jay Jay!" Maria shouted.

More octopuses came flailing from below.

Another blast form the railgun shook the Kinnara, shoving the ship through the water. Another octopus exploded. Severed tentacles slapped against the hull. One hit a porthole, then slid downward, leaving a trail of slime.

"Cool!" Rodrigo said. The boy's eyes were wide.

Jay Jay fired a third time. A third octopus tore apart.

Finally the other octopuses got the message. Their tentacles curled inward, and they sank to the seabed. Several burrowed under the sand. A few slunk into a gorge. Others landed on boulders, shoals, and patches of coral, blending perfectly into their environments.

The battle was won.

Maria slumped back in her seat, breathing heavily. "Great work, everyone."

"All those tentacles. I hate tentacles." Charlie shuddered. "Explore the oceans, they said! Discover underwater treasures, they said! I'd rather lie on the beach, suntanning, while a hot lifeguard named Angelo massages my feet."

"Eww, Mom, gross," Rodrigo said.

* * * * *

Maria piloted the dented, creaky Kinnara back toward the silver starship. No more enemies attacked.

"I wonder if the octopuses were just minding their own business, innocently clinging to Sodom like barnacles," Maria said. "Or whether they were guarding the ship."

Charlie tilted her head. "Guarding the ship? They're just dumb animals, Nini."

"No. They were using tools. Remember how one octopus lifted a boulder, slammed it into our sub?" Maria pointed at a dented section of the hull. "They're intelligent. Maybe not as intelligent as humans. But pretty damn smart. Smart enough that somebody might have trained them."

Charlie frowned. "So you think they were like … underwater guard dogs? Underwater guard dogs with tentacles? Underwater guard dogs with tentacles who barf up ink?"

"Maybe," Maria said. "If they are guard animals, we haven't met their owner yet." She tapped her chin. "I wonder …"

"But Nini!" Charlie said. "The Sodom sank here centuries ago. You're not suggesting there's anyone still alive in there, are you? Other than fish, crabs, and mollusks with disgusting tentacles."

"I don't know," Maria said. "But there are strange pieces to this puzzle. The octopus guardians. The way the coral flawlessly seals holes and cracks in the hull, as perfect as mortar between bricks. The shipwreck lies on the seabed, a hulk, covered in barnacles and moss. But I have a feeling somebody's been maintaining her. Protecting her. Somebody might be living inside. Who? I don't know. It might be more octopuses. It might be something else. I want answers. I want to know if Sodom can still fly. And if not, where we can find Gomorrah, her sister ship. Let's find a way inside."

"There better not be more octopuses inside," Charlie muttered, gripping the claw controls. "I've had enough tentacles for a lifetime."

Maria did not voice her other concerns.

That they were running low on essentials. Ammo. Food. Water. Air. Time.

Bahay is suffering, she thought. Millions cry out for salvation. We cannot fail.

She suddenly bolted up straight in her chair.

"Look!" Maria said, pointing. "An airlock! A way in!"

Everyone crowded around her, other than Jay Jay, who was still in the stern, manning the railgun. Maria guided the Kinnara closer, and the headlights illuminated the airlock.

It was a small, round door embedded into Sodom's hull. Too small for Kinnara to enter. But just about the right size for a human. Notably, no barnacles or moss coated that door. That confirmed Maria's suspicions. Somebody had been maintaining this shipwreck.

"Why is the door round?" Charlie said.

"Remember that Santelmos built this starship," Maria said. "They're round."

"But didn't they build this starship to carry human passengers?" Charlie said.

Maria shrugged. "Maybe the Santelmos are just used to round doors, and they figured humans would adjust. Or maybe they originally built the starship for themselves, then later re-purposed it." She rose from her seat and grabbed her helmet. "I'm going in."

"Whoa, whoa, wait one hot minute!" Charlie said. "You can't just swim into an alien starship! Shouldn't we discuss this first?"

"Why?" Maria said. "That's why we came here. To explore."

"Well, I'm going with you!" Charlie said. "Hey, Rodrigo. Yes, you, firstborn son. Stay here and guard the Kinnara."

The boy bristled. "I want to come too."

"No way!" Charlie said. "You stay here and babysit Lily."

Everyone looked at the four-year-old girl, who was sitting on the deck, playing with a plush toy. Ironically, it was an octopus.

Rodrigo looked back at his mother. "You stay and watch her. I want to go exploring."

Charlie shoved a bundle of children's books into his arms. "You can explore the wonderful world of Ronny Rabbit and Penelope Pig. Read the girl a book, and let the adults take care of things."

The boy straightened to his full height. "I'm an adult."

"No you're not, you're a silly boy. And I told you to shave off that mustache." Charlie began wriggling into her diving suit. "Damn it, did this suit shrink over the past few days?"

"Might have something to do with all the cookies mysteriously vanishing from the pantry," Rodrigo muttered, then fled as Charlie tossed a magazine at him.

"Charlie, go easy on the boy," Maria said.

Charlie huffed. "Hey, what am I, some sweet Earthling lady? I'm a Bahayan tiger mom. I show tough love." She grabbed Rodrigo, pulled him close, and kissed his cheek. "You know I love you to death, right, Rodrigo? Now go babysit before I kill you."

A few moments later, Maria and Charlie were wearing diving suits and helmets, and they held rifles. The boys would stay behind, guarding Lily and the pets.

Maria glanced at Charlie. "Ready?"

Her friend looked back and smiled through her helmet. "Just you and me again, Nini. Like the old days."

Maria held Charlie's hand. "Like the old days, dear friend."

They dived out the Kinnara into the cold, dark water and swam toward the alien starship.

Chapter Two

Down Once More

"I have to go back. Back to Bahay. Back to where I fought a war and lost my soul. I have to find the bargirl I fell in love with. The bargirl I thought was dead. I have to find the daughter she gave me. The daughter I never knew I had. I'm so sorry. I thought I was free. Now I must leave the life I built here. I must go back into the fire."

As Jon spoke, he held his wife's hands. He gazed into her eyes. The most beautiful eyes in the galaxy. Mismatched eyes. One brown, one blue. Eyes he had gazed into with love so many times. Eyes that had comforted him, inspired him, given him so much joy. The eyes of Kaelyn Taylor, his wife.

But other eyes floated in his memory. Almond-shaped eyes. Black eyes. Maria's eyes. Eyes that gazed from a world of memory and fog. Eyes that called to him from beyond the stars.

Come home, Jon, Maria whispered to him. Come home to me.

Jon had fought on Bahay for a terrible year of war. Just one year! But a year that changed everything. During that year, Bahay had invaded his body like a virus, etched itself across his soul. And he wondered if forever Bahay, not Earth, would be his home.

Kaelyn's hands rested in his. Limp. They felt like dead hands. Cold hands.

"Jon, are you sure the girl is yours?" she said.

"Etty ran a DNA test," Jon said. "Lily is my daughter. Mine and Maria's."

"The prostitute you fell in love with," Kaelyn said, voice dry. "The prostitute who gave you a daughter."

The implication was clear. She did not speak it. She might as well have shouted it.

The child I could not give you.

The tragedy still haunted them both. The series of miscarriages. Some miscarriages so far along they were almost stillbirths. The little headstones in the graveyard, mementos to lives that never bloomed. That devastating day in the doctor's office. Learning that the scars inside her stomach, the old bullet wound, left her forever barren.

Kaelyn had suffered that wound when protesting the war. When facing the president's men. That was the sacrifice she had given to end the war. To save a million lives, she had sacrificed her ability to make new life.

But I have a child, Jon thought. I have a daughter with a woman I thought was dead.

"Kaelyn." He tightened his hands around hers. "I was so scared. I was so young. I watched so many of my friends—just boys and girls, not even twenty years old—die in the mud. I watched children burn to death in the bombings. I thought I too would die. And she was there. Maria was there. In the neon slums of the jungle city, in a phantasmagoria of death and decay, she came to me. She comforted me. A bargirl. A dancer. She was the only thing good I found on Bahay. I thought she was dead. I'm sorry."

Kaelyn's tears fell. She shook her head, and finally her hands tightened around Jon's. "Never be sorry for falling in love. It's hard for me, I admit it. But I'm here for you. I'll help you find Maria." She smiled through her tears. "And your daughter."

Jon looked around him. "We'll finish the tour first, of course."

They stood in the Symphonic Thunder, the band's personal starship, heading home from a concert on the moon. Despite the somewhat grandiose name, the Symphonic Thunder was just a dinky little vessel. Barely more than a shuttle. Years ago, under another name, she had serviced the moon's bustling tourist industry, ferrying Earthlings back and forth. For twenty years, the shuttle had flown drunken frat boys, families with squealing babies, and assorted gamblers heading to the lunar casinos. Jon shuddered to imagine how much vomit had spilled here. Symphonica had bought the vessel from a scrap yard, gutted the old upholstered seats, scrubbed her with lots and lots of disinfectants, and converted her into a tour shuttle.

Jon looked around the ship's interior. He blinked, disoriented. For a moment, he had been back on Bahay. Trapped in that fever dream of jungle warfare and intoxicating slums of a thousand sinful delights. This current life, this person he had become—it seemed a different reality. He seemed a different man. Jon was not sure what was his real life and what was a dream.

Yes, he was a rock star now. Okay, maybe not a rock star. He wasn't selling out arenas or anything. But he was at least a successful, working musician. And Symphonica, the band he formed in high school, had just released its second album, was performing shows across Earth and her colonies.

He composed the songs, wrote the lyrics, played the keyboards, led the band. Kaelyn was always at his side. She had been since the beginning. His muse. The beautiful soprano who blended operatic vocals with the roar of heavy metal. The rest of the band was here with them. A drummer. A guitarist. A bass player. A manager. An assortment of techs and roadies. The shuttle was full to bursting.

Symphonica, against all odds, was conquering the galaxy.

Even a few groupies had sneaked into the shuttle. They called themselves Symphonifans.

The bass player was lounging by the porthole, watching the stars while smoking a joint. His girlfriend, one of the Symphonifans, cuddled against him, asleep. The guitarist, drummer, and a couple roadies were playing a rowdy game of Risk, arguing over a broken alliance between Asia and Australia. Other roadies were just wandering around, rummaging for food and wine.

It was as crowded and crazy as any military vessel Jon had ever flown in. In some ways, touring the galaxy was like a war. Some moments were terrifying. Others exhilarating. You were always looking for a shower, a meal, and clean underwear. You had no privacy. You missed home a lot.

At least on tour nobody lobbed heavy artillery at you.

To their credit, the others gave Jon and Kaelyn privacy even in the crowded tour shuttle. The married pair stood by the stern, lodged between the coffeemaker, closet, and mini-fridge. Here all the memories of Bahay came back. Here Jon held his wife's hands. Here he gazed into the eyes of a barren woman, telling her he would return to a bargirl on a distant world, to a child she had given him.

Kaelyn cried. But she embraced him. Told him she loved him. That she was still with him. Jon had never loved her more.

"Kaelyn, whatever happens, you're my wife," he told her. "You're the woman I chose to marry. The woman who gives voice to my music. The woman I love with all my heart. That won't change."

She wiped away a tear. "Everything will change. But I'm still here. With you. So long as you need me."

"I want you with me always," Jon said. "You're my angel of music."

She laughed, eyes damp. It was his old nickname for her. One he had not used in a long while. A nickname he took from Phantom of the Opera, a musical they had always loved. In his youth, Jon would deliver newspapers, shovel driveways, mow lawns, and save enough money to travel into Manhattan once a month, to spend two hours in the theater with the Phantom and Christine. For years, Jon had seen himself as the Phantom. Misunderstood. Brooding. Twisted. Composing music for a beautiful woman in lands of sunlight. To him, during his troubled youth, Kaelyn had always been like Christine, his muse, his unreachable love. His angel of music.

"And Kaelyn …" He took a deep breath. "I'm not only returning for Maria and our child. On Bahay, I'll have to face him again."

Her eyes darkened. Across the shuttle, everyone—who until now had been pretending not to listen—fell silent.

They all knew of whom he spoke.

They dared not utter his name.

Once, centuries ago, he had called himself Clement Taylor, a wandering preacher. Then he became the Red Cardinal, a rogue clergyman, leading his flock to another world. After winning the great war against Earth, he ascended the ranks of hell. He was now Papa Dominus. Dark lord of Bahay. Centuries old. A creature with power Jon did not understand.

A demon who still called to him.

Papa's words echoed in Jon's memory.

You are my heir. Come to me.

"Jon." Kaelyn touched his cheek. "You don't have to do this."

"I must," Jon said. "Because I believe him. He's my ancestor. He wants to control me, groom me, make me his heir. Make me something dark and twisted like he is. He holds an entire planet hostage. He murders countless people across Bahay every day. I must face him again, Kaelyn. I fought him in the war, man to man. But he's not a man, not truly. He has become something else. I must learn what he is. How he's lived so long. And how I can kill him."

Kaelyn trembled. She held him tightly. Jon wrapped his arms around her, wishing he could protect her, not knowing if he could.

Chapter Three

Doors

Maria swam through the water, heading toward the round doorway on Sodom's hull.

She was scuba diving in the open ocean. The Kinnara no longer enveloped her in a comforting hull. Maria's breath shuddered through her helmet. The ocean suddenly felt much larger, darker, and colder.

Out here, Maria gained a new appreciation for Sodom's sheer size. The drowned starship was massive. Larger than any building on Bahay, and probably larger than most skyscrapers on Earth. The gargantuan edifice lay buried on the ocean floor, hidden for centuries.

And I'm going to explore it.

Maria couldn't help it. Even with her loved ones in danger, with her husband so far away, with the survivors of Bahay suffering under tyranny, she felt giddy.

All my life, I asked questions, Maria thought. Why is the sky blue? What lies under the ocean? Where do we come from? Now I get to explore the secrets of my world.

As a child, Maria would spend endless hours in her village, gazing at the misty forests and starry sky, imagining all the wondrous secrets they held. She had been born and raised to be a rice farmer, wife, and mother, nothing more. Yet throughout her youth, she had always dreamed of being an explorer. In a twisted way, all this war and want had fulfilled her childhood dream.

A voice emerged from the headset built into Maria's helmet.

"Uh, Nini, slow down! I don't know how to swim like you."

Maria was only a few feet away from Sodom's airlock now. She paused, hovered in the water, and turned around.

Charlie was struggling to swim. She kept sinking toward the seabed, flapping her limbs, and rising again, bobbing like a drunk mermaid. Behind her, the Kinnara floated among strands of kelp, headlights piercing the dark waters.

"Charlie, did you forgot to bring your flippers?" Maria said. She took a closer look and frowned. "Charlie! Why are you wearing high heels?"

"I always wear high heels!" Charlie said, struggling to swim closer, swaying like a piece of discarded seaweed.

Maria groaned. "You don't need heels in the ocean."

"Yes I do!" Charlie insisted, sinking again. "Charlie Wonder must always look fabulous." She cringed. "Ow, ow, there's an eel eating my puwit! Go, go away!"

"Charlie! That's just some kelp. Here, let me help you."

Maria grabbed her friend and pulled her from the kelp. They swam together toward Sodom's airlock.

"All right, here we go!" Maria said, reaching toward the round door. "I hope it still works."

She grabbed the handle. It was surprisingly slippery. Even mushy.

Maria frowned and twisted it. The door handle squirmed in her hand.

The airlock expanded outward like a blooming carnivorous flower. Tentacles rose in a ring around it, detaching from the starship hull. Teeth sprouted, filling the round door.

Only it wasn't a door. It never had been.

It was a mouth.

And that mouth came closing in around her.

* * * * *

Maria screamed and raised her gun.

The jaws closed around her. The teeth slammed shut behind her like a portcullis, caging her inside the alien mouth. A sticky tongue rose like a great red slug, and a uvula dangled like a punching bag. A mist of bile washed over Maria, staining her diving suit and sliming her helmet's visor. The maw widened, revealing a fleshy gullet sloping toward slow death by digestion. The stomach acids bubbled, a pit of yellow lava.

"Nini, Nini!" Charlie was shouting in her headset.

The octopus gulped.

Muscles contracted inside the mouth, pushing Maria down the gullet.

She screamed, reached out, and grabbed the uvula. Her gun fell from her hand and bounced against the alien tongue. Maria clung on for dear life, gripping the uvula with all her strength, digging her fingers into the fleshy bulb. The octopus bounced wildly. Its tongue rose, slapping Maria like a rolled up rug, covering her with slime. Her hand slipped off the uvula.

She slid down the esophagus, heading toward the stomach.

Maria screamed.

She drew her father's knife. The knife with the antler hilt. The knife she had carried with her for years.

She drove the blade into the gullet. She clung to the handle like a rock climber hanging onto a piton.

The octopus screamed. The waves of sound roared over Maria, ringing her head. The beast gagged, regurgitating Maria up its throat. She flew upward like a cannonball up a bore. Along the way, she dragged the knife across the esophagus's inner lining. Black blood spurted.

She burst from the throat into the mouth, then leaped off the tongue, aiming for freedom. But she slammed into the monster's teeth like a prisoner slamming into prison bars. Peering from her toothy cage, Maria saw Charlie outside.

The octopus had grabbed Charlie with his tentacles. The beast was whipping her from side to side like a rag doll. Thankfully, the mollusk was ignoring Maria for a moment, simply keeping her in its mouth like a hamster storing an acorn.

The tentacles gave Charlie a good shake, rattling her head inside her helmet. The bargirl flailed, screamed, and kicked the slimy digits. She fired her pink pistol, but the bullets went wide. A tentacle slammed into Charlie's wrist, and the gun sank to the seabed.

Both women's guns—gone!

Trapped inside the octopus's mouth, Maria banged against the teeth, a prisoner in an ivory cage. It was no use. The teeth were a white portcullis preventing any escape. Perhaps the octopus often kept living prey trapped like this, marinating them in saliva before the meal.

Between the imprisoning fangs, Maria saw the Kinnara racing toward the octopus. Jay Jay was at the helm, peering through the viewport. But there wasn't much the submarine could do. The Kinnara couldn't fire on the octopus, not without killing Maria and Charlie. Even Kinnara's massive hydraulic claws would be no use. If they crushed the octopus, they'd crush little Maria inside.

The two bargirls were on their own.

"Nini, it's got me!" Charlie cried.

"I have my own problems here!" Maria said from inside the mouth.

She stabbed at the octopus's gums. They were surprisingly hard. It felt like stabbing a slab of leather. The beast roared in rage, but the jaws did not open.

"I'll carve my way out if I must." Maria slashed the gums around a tooth. If she could uproot even one tooth, she could wriggle to freedom. She stabbed again, feeling like the world's most sadistic dentist.

"You wouldn't bleed if you flossed," she muttered, stabbing again and again.

The octopus roared in fury.

The tongue reached up from below, narrowed into a slimy tentacle of flesh, and wrapped around Maria's leg.

She yelped.

The tongue tightened around her ankle and began pulling her down into the gullet. Bile rose from below, splashing her boots, rancid and burning.

She reached up, tried to grab the uvula again, but the fleshy bulb curled upward like a frightened worm, dodging her grip. The tongue still gripped Maria's leg, pulling her down and down. The gullet closed around her feet, and the esophagus muscles contracted, tugging her downward. She screamed, vanishing down to the knees, then the waist. She pawed madly, trying to pull herself free, but the octopus kept swallowing her, sucking her up like a noodle.

"Charlie, do the flying swan!" Maria screamed.

"What?" Charlie shouted over the comlink. She was still outside the octopus, battling the tentacles.

"You know, the flying swan!" Maria cried, sinking down to her chest. Only her head and arms were now inside the mouth, the rest trapped in the throat. "Like from the Toy Box! Do it! Now!"

It was a popular move Maria and Charlie had invented. Sometimes in the Toy Box, when they were dancing on stage, a patron would get particularly rowdy. It was usually a drunk tourist or space trucker, shouting from the crowd, disrupting the show. Sometimes the drunkards would reach out to grab the strippers, pull them off the stage, and have their way.

Maria and Charlie could never agree who invented the flying swan move. But it worked. A bargirl would kick wildly, and her shoe would fly through the air and hit the rowdy patron in the face. It usually resulted in laughter from the crowd, no actual fight, and the humiliated thug dragged off the premises.

But would it work on an octopus?

They would soon find out.

The octopus gave a huge gulp. It tugged Maria down violently. Finally, she fully sank into its throat.

Her head vanished into the fleshy tunnel.

Stomach acids washed across her legs, beginning to digest her diving suit. Maria screamed

The octopus screamed too.

The gullet quivered.

The octopus spasmed and violently gagged.

Maria flew up the throat, out the open jaws, and into the water.

She steadied herself, knife still in hand. Floating in the open water again, she looked at the octopus.

Charlie's stiletto heel was embedded into its eye.

"Poor thing," Maria said, wiping stomach acids off her visor.

"Poor thing?" Charlie said, swimming toward you. "He almost killed us! What about poor Charlie, who lost her favorite shoe?"

The octopus moaned, curled its tentacles inward, and fled. Not before expelling a jet of black ink, thoroughly spraying Maria and Charlie.

"You son of a bitch!" Charlie cried, shaking her fist.

The two women reentered the Kinnara. They spent long moments trying to clean their diving suits and helmets, but the ink was like tar. Maria's pants were covered in steaming stomach acids too, which even the salt water had not washed off. They would probably stink forever.

* * * * *

"If I had any doubts before, they're gone now." Maria sat down in the cockpit, still smelling like ink. "Those octopuses are intelligent. And they're guarding the Sodom."

Charlie shrugged. "Eh, who needs an airlock anyway? We'll blow a hole through Sodom's hull. Jay Jay's rail gun will do it." She looked over her shoulder toward the stern. "Right, gorgeous?"

Jay Jay stuck his head around a hatchway, gave a thumbs up, then disappeared back into the gunnery station.

"No, we're not blasting the hull open," Maria said. "The Sodom might still be airtight. I don't want to flood it. We need to find a real airlock."

She piloted the Kinnara onward, circling the enormous relic, scanning more of the silvery hull.

Finally, near the seabed, she spotted another airlock. She glided the Kinnara closer, then halted a few meters away.

"Charlie, your claws?" Maria said.

Charlie was leaning back in her seat, her legs on the dashboard, painting her fingernails. "They're not claws. They're beautiful nails. Until I'm reunited with my manicurist, I gotta take care of business myself."

Maria cleared her throat. "Charlie. The hydraulic claws."

"Oh! Right, right." Charlie put down her nail polish, sat up straight, and grabbed the joysticks. "Clawing away!"

One of the yellow claws reached out and tapped the airlock.

"Knock knock!" Charlie said.

The airlock quivered, then vanished. An octopus curled in its tentacles, its skin becoming blue again.

"Busted!" Charlie said.

The octopus fled, leaving nothing but a metal hull.

"Another fake airlock," Maria muttered. "These creatures don't give up."

Over the next hour, they found three more fake airlocks—all octopuses in disguise. What was going on?

Some animals naturally evolved camouflage, Maria knew. Insects evolved to look like leaves, sticks, or flowers. Chameleons blended into their environment. In Bahay's polluted rivers, some predators evolved to look like paper cups, cigarette butts, and used diapers—until they pounced. Maria could imagine an octopus that evolved around the Sodom to blend into its hull, disguising itself as barnacles, moss, or even the silvery hull itself. This way, they could hide from predators and surprise prey.

But why would octopuses evolve to look like airlocks? That seemed unnecessarily complicated. What predators or prey used doors? It made no sense. Airlock camouflage would not help the octopuses hunt, survive, or procreate. No more than looking like barnacles or moss, which was much simpler. Airlock camouflage was incredibly detailed—the animal needed to mimic hinges, a handle, a lock, a control panel. It would probably take a million years to evolve, and the Sodom had lain here for only a few centuries.

No, airlock camouflage served no evolutionary purpose. Simple survival of the fittest did not explain it.

But fake airlocks could protect the people inside.

A trap for invaders. A trap for people like Maria.

These octopuses, Maria surmised, had been trained, maybe genetically engineered. They were living booby traps.

The Kinnara kept gliding around the wreckage, seeking a way in. Everyone was losing hope.

"There are no doors!" Charlie finally said. "How could there be a spaceship without doors?"

Maria heaved a sigh. "We can try to swim through the exhaust pipes."

"And if any octopuses attack us in there, we're dead meat," Charlie said.

"You're right. It's likely the octopuses are guarding any entrance. Including the exhaust ports." Maria scrunched her lips. "What if … the real door has been here all along. Hidden."

She squinted, scanning Sodom's hull. But this time not for airlocks.

Lily padded up toward her, holding her stuffed octopus. "Mommy, you're not going to hurt any more animals, are you?"

Maria gave the girl a quick hug. "Of course not, Lily. We only fight in self defense, right?"

"Or if somebody is really, really annoying!" Charlie said. "Ow, Maria! Stop hitting me while I'm imparting my wisdom."

Maria shrugged. "Hey, you said if somebody's annoying …" She looked back at the viewport, leaned forward, and frowned. "Hang on. What do we have here?"

A lump of barnacles grew on the hull. A lump suspiciously the size of a certain marine mollusk.

Maria piloted the Kinnara closer. Charlie understood, reached out a claw, and nudged the barnacles. Instead of scattering through the water, the barnacles vanished, fading into blue skin. An octopus scurried aside, spraying ink.

Where it had clung to the hull, they saw it.

An airlock.

Charlie tapped the doorway with a hydraulic claw. Metal clanged against metal.

"Bingo," Maria said.

Chapter Four

Rock and Runes

Time flowed differently on Bahay. The world was like a dream, not obeying the normal laws of physics. A place where a day could last a year, where a century could feel like a single heartbeat.

Many things affected time. Gravity could squeeze it. Speed could stretch it. If you traveled fast, you raced not only along space but time. If you slowed down, relaxed on some languid world, time matched your pace. It slowed to a crawl, sipped some beer with you on the porch, ticked on only reluctantly, slower than sunrise and only slightly faster than the creeping tides. A big world tugged at time with mighty power. A small moon barely clung to time at all.

It always flowed, time. It raced or it crawled. In some places, it curled in upon itself. In some universes, they said, time moved backwards. In strange realms, in galaxies beyond the sight of the greatest telescopes, time formed a perfect circle, contracting with every tick of the clock. It sucked itself up like a snake devouring its own tail.

There were online calculators. Jon tried them out. They spat out a result he could barely believe. During the past year of his life, during all these struggles with miscarriages and muse and memory, only a month had passed on Bahay. He was aging faster than Maria. Waiting longer to see her again.

But other times, it changed. Bahay would pass by some star cluster, or Jon would travel fast to perform on a distant colony world, and their speeds would reverse. Maria would race along time, while Jon would hang like a feather in the wind, moving neither forward nor back, finally fluttering off in some completely unexpected direction.

It was hard to keep track. Time was tricky that way. Jon tried to understand it. To open up the formulas. To grok the physics. It made some sense to him. He could almost grasp it. But then an hour later, his understanding would slip away like a dream scattering at dawn. Or perhaps it was a year later.

Perhaps Bahay was simply a dreamlike world, and she lived beyond the laws of reality. She moved at her own pace.

All this meant that Jon could keep his promise to Kaelyn. To his band. To his fans. He could keep touring. On Bahay, time was slow. He could spend months on the road, and Maria would not wait long.

But for Jon, the wait was agonizing.

He went on with the Graveyard Lights tour.

Symphonica performed a show on Mars for roaring, drunken tourists. They performed on Ganymede for hardened, rowdy miners who roared so loudly they shook the warehouse where the band played. They performed across Earth. In old opera halls, in ancient churches, in medieval castles, in dozens of bars and clubs. They played crunching, ear-crushing, distorted heavy metal, but also bittersweet songs on the piano, ballads of loss and redemption.

From every stage, Kaelyn's voice shone like moonlight, like an ocean of liquid stars. Jon had written these songs. They were pieces of his soul. But he remained in the background, playing his keyboards in shadow. Kaelyn was the true star. They came for her. Not for his keyboards but to hear her voice. As the guitar and bass and drums soared, the crowd roared and pounded their fists and banged their heads. But when Kaelyn sang, they wept.

It was a tour like a war. A dream state. A hypnagogic fever. A place where no time existed and show and show, world and world blended together.

Jon had dreamed of this. During his marches through the jungles, during nights cowering in a fox hole, he had dreamed of Symphonica on tour. Dreamed of music when he could hear only gunfire. Yet now, with his dream sprawling around him in vivid color and splendorous sound, he only thought of Bahay.

As he played for an adoring crowd, he remembered Maria's eyes and her smile.

As he bowed to his fans, he imagined what his daughter might look like.

More and more every day, he thought of Papa Dominus. Of the strange, ancient vampire and his beady black eyes. A demon in the shadows, pale skin and red gums and those sharp teeth.

Bahay was far from here, lurking with all its dreams and nightmares. Sometimes Jon would see Sargas at night, the star Bahay orbited, but it was just one speck, nearly lost among millions. The Symphonica Graveyard Lights tour remained within a few light-years of Earth. Bahay was light-centuries away. Jon was not yet ready to go.

But he was preparing.

Every night, they played a different venue. Mostly on Earth. Sometimes elsewhere in the solar system. There wasn't much spare time, and when there was, the band members mostly slept.

But not Jon.

He spent his paltry free time researching.

Trying to understand who Papa Dominus truly was. How he lived so long. How he had survived the devastating bombing of Basilica, an inferno that had ravaged the city yet could not kill the demon within.

Jon needed to understand. To know how to kill him.

Because we must confront each other again, he thought. We must end what we started. We faced each other in battle, yet we both lived. Now we will meet again. And one of us will die.

Jon poured over Wikipedia Galactica, searching and searching for answers. He posted on online forums. Spoke to kooks and conspiracy theorists. He came up with his own theories, but they all seemed mad. He was going nowhere.

So many people claimed to understand Papa Dominus. But none truly did.

Nobody knew.

And Jon needed to know.

"Okay, let's summarize what we know so far," Jon said to Kaelyn one night.

They had just finished another performance. This time, they had played Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, rocking with fifteen thousand cheering Finns. It was their largest show so far on the tour.

"Jon." Kaelyn slumped on the couch. "I'm exhausted. That show was intense."

"I know, right?" Jon said. "I'm still wired up! Can't possibly sleep. So let's review our research!"

Energy tingled through his body. For two hours, they had rocked on stage, shaking the arena as the crowd roared. They pounded Finland with heavy metal thunder. They brought tears to thousands of eyes. They ignited heaven itself with their electric fire.

Sleep? Who could sleep now!

Jon hadn't been sleeping much on this tour. The Symphonic Thunder was a cramped starship. On the inside, she was no larger than a bus. Instead of bedrooms, there were bunk beds along the bulkheads, stacked four high. The only privacy came from a thin curtain. A little toilet hid behind the bunks. No shower. No money for hotels. They lived off beef jerky, potato ships, and heavy metal. They washed in the sink.

We're crammed like sardines and we stink like them too, Jon thought. Welcome to showbiz.

As a veteran, he was used to it.

Conditions were rough. He didn't care. The music kept him going.

Symphonica's music was loud, fast, furious at one moment, soft and heartbreaking the next. Every evening was a new storm of emotions. Jon felt every song they played—down to his core. When they sang a song of rage, that rage stormed through him. When they sang a song of sadness, he shed tears on stage. When they performed "The Day He Did Not Die," a song he wrote about that day in the graveyard, placing a blade against his wrists, he felt that pain all over again.

After a show, it was impossible to unwind. Impossible to sleep. The Symphonic Thunder was too crowded, too noisy, the emotions still too raw.

The fear too real.

The knowledge that when this tour ended, he would be facing his enemy.

So he spent the nights with his research. He spread it out now before Kaelyn. Index cards. Flowcharts. Notebooks. Printouts from old history books. Photographs dating back centuries.

Everything he could find on Papa Dominus.

"Okay, so we know he's four hundred years old," Jon said. "See these two photographs? One from the nineteenth century. The other photo from just a few years ago. I found a guy who works with facial recognition software. He's actually a Symphonica fan! How funny is that? Small galaxy. Anyway, he ran the photos through his algorithm. Clement Taylor from the nineteenth century, the Red Cardinal from the war, and Papa Dominus from today are all definitely the same dude."

Kaelyn yawned. "Maybe he's an alien. Some aliens live for centuries, right? Like Santelmos."

"He's human," Jon said. "I have reports from several spy agencies. They took DNA samples from him. You don't want to know how they got them. Okay, okay, I'll tell you. The Red Cardinal, during the war, kept a harem of local girls. A few escaped, and they still had some Papa DNA inside them."

Kaelyn shuddered. "Eww. I'd rather you hadn't told me."

"I know, eww. But I managed to get a hold of a guy at the Earth Intelligence Bureau. He confirms, having examined the DNA, that Papa Dominus is human. A mix of German, Anglo-Saxon, and Italian ancestry. The lab can't explain how he lives so long. Nobody can. And …" Jon sighed. "I also compared it to my DNA. Papa was telling the truth. He's my ancestor."

"Jon." Kaelyn placed her hand on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter. There are many generations between you two. You're distantly related at best. It doesn't mean you're like him."

"I know. It just feels weird. But anyway! Look. Here's the really interesting part. Ready?"

"No, Jon. I'm exhausted." She yawned again. "But tell me. Otherwise I know you won't sleep either."

He placed more photographs down. They all showed Papa Dominus.

"Most of these were taken during the war," Jon said. "Look. All these photos have something in common. They show a very interesting detail about our friend."

Kaelyn lifted the photos. Her eyes widened. "He's tattooed! How strange. I never imagined a clergyman would get tattoos."

"Papa normally keeps his tattoos hidden under his robes. But sometimes he rolls up a sleeve. Or the wind billows his garment. And we catch a glimpse."

"These tattoos are strange." Kaelyn shuddered. "They look like ancient runes. Like occult symbols."

"That's what I thought too," Jon said. "I carefully copied every tattoo I saw a photograph of, organizing them in a notebook. Many of the symbols are only partially revealed. So I copied whatever I could. Half symbols. Bits of squiggles here, a few broken lines there. And I've been running reverse image searches online. Trying to piece it all together. But there isn't much information. These are old symbols. Ancient and arcane."

Kaelyn passed her fingers over one symbol Jon had drawn on paper. It was shaped like a dragon curling into a circle, its tail wrapped like a noose around its neck. Suffocating itself. Kaelyn pulled her hand back, pale.

"And you think these tattoos give Papa his power?" She laughed, but she sounded scared. "Come on, Jon. We live in an age of science."

Jon's lips were suddenly dry. His chest felt cold. "Kaelyn, there's something I never told you. A detail of the war."

Her eyes softened. "There are many things you never told me. Many horrors veterans never speak of."

"I've told you how I faced the Red Cardinal in battle, right? At Camp Apollo? Back when he was still known as the Red Cardinal."

She nodded. "Yes. You fought from inside a mecha. A massive suit of armor with missiles and machine guns."

"Yes. And the Red Cardinal, just a little old man, kicked my ass. He tossed that giant mecha all over the place. I was a rag doll to him. He doesn't just live a long time. He's incredibly strong. And when he was beating the living daylights out of me, I noticed something. His tattoos were glowing."

Kaelyn's eyes widened. "Glowing?"

"Well, not really. They didn't emit light. Somehow they glowed … darkly. Glowed black. Sucking up all light. So I … okay, this part is gross. But as we were struggling, pounding each other bloody, I managed to get my teeth around his forearm. And I bit deep. Like an animal, I ripped off a scrap of his skin."

"Eww, you were right. That is gross." Kaelyn shuddered. "And I've been kissing that mouth of yours!"

"Don't make that face. You love kissing me. Anyway, when I bit him, I damaged one tattoo. And the rune somehow … short circuited. Suddenly the cardinal was weak. Downright frail. Just an old man again. He had just enough energy to open a portal and flee."

Kaelyn tapped her chin. "So that tattoo gave him his strength."

"I think so," Jon said. "I remember what the tattoo looked like. Like this rune here, the one shaped like a hammer. I looked it up. Guess what? It's an ancient alien symbol. From the Orionite civilization. A symbol for strength."

"Jesus." Kaelyn frowned. "You might actually be onto something."

"I think so too," Jon said. "I think the different runes give him different abilities. One symbol gives him strength. Another gives him long life. Maybe a third symbol protected him during our bombing of Basilica."

"So all we need to do is skin him alive!" Kaelyn said. "Easy peasy."

Jon smiled wryly. "How gruesome of you. Now you're the gross one."

"I never pretended to be anything different." Kaelyn smiled at him innocently.

"Skinning him sounds extreme. And probably impossible. We'd never get close enough. But knowledge is power. Maybe we can learn more about these symbols. And how to fight them. Without flaying him!"

Kaelyn gave the largest yawn yet. Across the space shuttle, the other band members were entering their bunks, drawing the curtains, and sleeping.

"Let's sleep on it," Kaelyn said.

But Jon stayed awake, even after everyone else was slumbering. The shuttle was traveling away from Earth, heading toward a concert on Titan. Jon spent the journey pouring over articles and internet forums, finding nothing.

These tattoos were beyond human knowledge.

So he must go beyond human knowledge. He must visit an alien library.

* * * * *

After months of performing every night, they took a week off. Time to recover between a tour of Jupiter's moons and an upcoming tour of Africa.

Everyone needed the downtime. Musicians and roadies alike spent the time with their families. Some had not seen their spouses, children, and parents in months.

But Jon and Kaelyn did not fly home to Lindenville.

They flew away from Earth.

Away from the solar system.

For the first time in the war, Jon thought, I'm heading to the stars.

Thankfully, the tour was massively successful. More than Jon had dreamed. Money was pouring in. More money than Jon had ever seen. Some came from ticket sales. Most came from selling merchandise. Symphonica T-shirts. Symphonica posters. Symphonica jewelry. Symphonica guitar picks and drumsticks. Symphonica photo books, calendars, mugs, even coloring books for the kids. Symphonica the flame thrower—

Okay, maybe not that one. But there was a lot of merch.

Jon didn't like it. He wrote music from his soul. He wrote music to share his fears and dreams and loves. Not for money. It felt a little like selling out.

But that was him. He wasn't doing this for money. What about the others? There were drum techs, guitar techs, bass techs, keyboard techs. There were sound guys, lighting guys, pyro guys. There were managers, caterers, the shuttle pilot. There were venue fees. There were hungry musicians with families to support. There were taxmen. Oh lord above, were there taxmen.

This was Jon's art. It was their livelihood.

And merch brought in the money. So they sold it. They sold it by the ton.

Within a few months of touring, Jon made a small fortune. And he spent his share on an interstellar engine.

The Symphonic Thunder was built to fly within the solar system. She could travel from Earth to Mars within a few days. An astronaut from just a few generations ago would marvel at her speed. But in modern standards, she was slow, her range limited. She could not reach the stars.

So Jon spent his money on an azoth crystal. The purple gemstone, barely larger than a grape, was among the most precious materials in the galaxy. It could bend spacetime. Azoth made warp drives possible.

All his Symphonica earnings went to that little crystal. At least a down payment on it. He had to take on quite a bit of debt. Soon he really would have to sell Symphonica flamethrowers.

But when he plugged the crystal into the Symphonic Thunder, his little tour shuttle became an interstellar starship. Yes, sir. This baby would reach the stars.

And now Jon sat in the cockpit, working his way through a bottle of wine, leafing through his journals. Kaelyn sat beside him, curled up in a blanket, lost in a novel. The rest of the band was on Earth, relaxing with their families for the summer. But Jon had his family here with him. He had Kaelyn.

The stars stretched to lines around them. They streaked forth faster than light, leaving the solar system far behind.

They headed toward knowledge in the dark.

Chapter Five

The Silver Halls of Sodom

Maria and Charlie swam out the Kinnara into the ocean. Their diving suits were stained with octopus ink but still watertight. The others remained in the submarine, hydraulic claws at the ready.

It was hard to leave Lily behind. Maria had not been hugging her daughter nearly enough these days. But right now, Lily was safest aboard the Kinnara, buried under the ocean. Especially with the boys and pets watching over her. It was safer than the islands, that was damn sure.

But you shouldn't grow up in a submarine, hidden leagues underwater, Maria thought. And you shouldn't grow up in a sleazy space station, rotting away in a shanty while your mother dances for money.

Maria gazed upward. The ocean surface undulated far above. She could just make out beads of sunlight glittering like the stars.

It's almost over, Lily, she thought. Soon we'll have a starship. Either this one or her sister. And we'll fly to Earth. A world of forests and meadows. Of safety and prosperity. We'll live with Jon. Your dad. We'll live in a beautiful house among trees. You'll finally be safe and happy. Maria sniffed, her helmet fogging up. I don't care about myself. Only you, Lily. I would do anything to give you a good life. I'm just a Bahayan. But you're half Earthling. And you deserve to live on Earth.

She had shed too many tears in this war. But these were tears of joy, for in her mind, Maria saw it. That cozy bungalow with the red tiled roof. The rustling maple and birch trees, just like in the movies. Her beloved pet Gummy in the yard, wagging his tail. Maria would wake up every morning, climb out of bed, and stretch in the sunlight. She would brew some tea, sit on the front porch among peonies and sunflowers, and read with Lily. Her adoring husband Jon would play the piano, and the birds would sing along.

A fairy tale, maybe. Naive dreams. Maria had fought through horrors beyond measure. She had killed. Had watched friends die. Had fought and survived through fire and rain. She was no longer that innocent peasant girl, and she recognized her dreams as idyllic, maudlin. Like the Earthling cartoons they would show in Mindao theaters on Sunday mornings, tales full of talking animals and beautiful princesses.

I don't need a Disney life, Maria thought. I just need to be happy and with my husband. I just need my daughter to be safe. Until then, let me dream. All I have now are dreams, and—

"Nini?" Swimming beside her, Charlie nudged Maria hard in the ribs. "Are you going to keep floating there, daydreaming? Or open the door?"

Maria blinked. She realized she had been floating in the water for long moments, lost in thought. Charlie had been busy too. She was still trying to extricate herself from some kelp that wrapped around her leg.

With her knife, Maria cut Charlie free, and they swam the last distance to Sodom's door.

"Ah, see?" Charlie said. "A square door! At last. Not like those fake round doors."

"It's rectangular, actually," Maria said.

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Oh, look at me, Miss I-Had-an-Education."

"I grew up on a rice paddy, you know. I never went to any school."

"Oh, poor you! Grew up in paddies, did you, princess? I grew up on Happiness Mountain landfill, scrounging through garbage to survive. I would've loved to grow up in a rice paddy! Would have been heaven for me. Sometimes I'd lie awake at night, dreaming of planting rice, if only for an hour. I—"

"Charlie, let's do this later." Maria grabbed the door handle. "Ugh. It's jammed. Or locked. Help me pull."

They tugged the airlock handle together.

"Definitely locked," Charlie said. "I mean, you weren't expecting otherwise, were you? People who keep man-eating guard-octopuses outside their doors generally also remember to lock them."

Maria sighed. "Well, great. We came all this way, battled underwater tigers, submarines, and octopuses, and now we're stuck without a locksmith."

"Not so fast." Charlie pulled a pouch from her pocket. "I happen to be an excellent lockpick."

"I said locksmith," Maria said.

Charlie snorted. "Ah, same difference." She opened the pouch, revealing an assortment of picks, needles, and skeleton keys. "This should help."

"Where did you get that?" Maria demanded.

"I told you, Nini. I'm not a spoiled princess like you, sleeping on a big pile of rice every night. I grew up in the slums. I learned how to pick pockets. Pick locks. Survive. How do you think I've lived this long? An entire twenty-seven years?"

"Charlie, you haven't been twenty-seven since—"

"Okay, okay, maybe twenty-eight. Tops! Now be quiet, Nini. Let me pick the lock." Charlie leaned closer, squinting. "Ah, now what do we have here? Should have brought my glasses …"

"Charlie, this isn't some shanty padlock!" Maria said. "This won't be like breaking into a shed to steal some mangoes. On the islands, we have simple locks. You just need to stick a few pins in them and rattle them around. This is a starship! An alien starship! They probably have some computerized alien security tech, possibly requiring a biometric code, definitely digital if not quantum, and you can't just—"

The lock clicked.

Maria blinked.

The door swung open.

Charlie turned toward her. "You were saying?"

Maria tilted her head. "How—"

Charlie snorted. "These aren't regular tools, Nini." She pointed at a skeleton key. It flashed with LED lights. "This is special tech. From an Earthling sapper. Don't ask me how I got it! Let's just say he loved lap dances, and for all his fancy security tech, he knew nothing about pickpockets."

Water rushed into the airlock, flooding it within instants. A few steps away was an inner door. Yes, this was a functional airlock, keeping the ship airtight. That inner door must lead to Sodom's vast dry hold.

Maria didn't open the inner door yet. She tapped her helmet, opening a comlink channel to the Kinnara, which floated nearby. Standing in the flooded airlock, Maria looked back into the open ocean. She saw the Kinnara idling the water, headlights shining through the murk. A few fish pecked curiously at the hull. Jay Jay and Rodrigo waved from the cockpit.

"How's it going, boys?" Maria said.

"Not too bad," Jay Jay said. "We got a poker game going. Your daughter is butchering us."

"Yes, Charlie taught her how to gamble," Maria said. "The lunatic and I are still in the airlock. But we're about to enter Sodom. These commlinks are old and short-range. They might not work through Sodom's thick metal hull. Give us an hour. If we're not back by then, you should…" She gulped. "Well, maybe give us two hours. Then leave."

Jay Jay snorted. "Please. You know we'd come rescue you."

"Not me," Rodrigo said.

Jay Jay gasped. "Your own mother! In danger! And you wouldn't save her?"

Rodrigo sighed. "Fine! But it's bad enough she makes me take out the trash." He stuck his tongue through the cockpit viewport. "And you're not here to smack me, so you gotta take it."

"I'll smack you twice when I get back!" Charlie said. She blew a kiss. "That was for Jay Jay. I hope you two bond while I'm away, Rodrigo. Because Jay Jay's going to be your step-dad someday."

"I am?" Jay Jay said.

"Of course, gorgeous. So long as you're good in bed."

Rodrigo shuddered. "Eww, Mom, gross."

Maria cut off the comlink signals. "All right, enough banter. Come on, Charlie. We don't have much time."

They explored the airlock. It was about the size of their shanty back home, flooded with water. On the far side, by the inner door, they found a control panel. There was only one button. So they pressed it.

The airlock's outer door slammed shut, hiding the ocean and the waiting Kinnara. Maria shuddered. An orb shone near the ceiling, scattering blue light through the water. It was hard not to feel claustrophobic in here.

She tapped the button again, and the airlock began to re-pressurize. The water drained through a grate on the floor. Air flowed in through a vent on the ceiling. It took a few moments, but the airlock dried out.

Maria and Charlie removed their helmets and breathed deeply. Air. Good, clean air.

Charlie tossed her hair. "Nini, do you have a mirror? I need to check my makeup."

"You don't need to check your makeup!" Maria said. "Come on. We'll go deeper into the ship. And Charlie … we better be careful."

"If there's aliens, I'll regret not having perfect makeup," Charlie muttered.

They drew their weapons. Maria carried a new pistol, replacing the one the octopus had swallowed. Charlie pulled her pink pistol from her purse. She had named the weapon Princess Pistolina. The gun sparkled, inlaid with rhinestones. It looked ridiculous, but Maria had seen that pistol tear through armor.

They tested the inner door.

Unlocked.

Guns raised, the two women entered the halls of Sodom.

* * * * *

A stark white corridor awaited them.

Maria blinked, disoriented. After so long underwater, swimming in dark waters or crammed into a shadowy submarine, she blinked, feeling out of place. She had expected a ruin. Walls encrusted with barnacles or mold. Dust everywhere. Leaky rivulets running across the decks, rotting carpets, the stench of death. Probably a bunch of skeletons too.

Instead she found a clean, well-lit corridor. As if the spaceship had come right off the assembly line.

It even smelled nice.

The two women stared ahead, guns raised.

They waited, still and silent.

"I smell air freshener," Charlie finally whispered.

"Impossible," Maria whispered back.

"It's pine! I'm telling you, Nini, it's pine freshener. We have the same one in the Toy Box bathroom."

Maria frowned, took a step forward. She had been aboard Earthling starships. This was clearly different. The corridor felt organic, like walking inside a seashell. There were no traditional walls, decks, or ceilings, simply flowing lines, shimmering like mother of pearl. Glowing orbs floated above. At first, Maria mistook them for Santelmo aliens. But they did not move, and when Maria squinted, she didn't see a Santelmo's slender, spidery limbs inside the glowing orbs. These were artificial lights.

"It's clean," Maria said. "Spotless. Somebody's been living here."

Charlie trembled. "Do you think … maybe the ghosts cleaned it?"

"Let's find out." Maria began walking down the curving corridor. It felt like walking through a hollow ram's horn. "Maybe we'll find answers deeper in—"

The lights died.

A scream pierced the corridor.

A figure leaped through the shadows.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

Maria and Charlie had lights built into their suits—a glowing pad on each shoulder. Sensing the darkness, the pads lit up.

Maria glimpsed a lunging assailant, blazing eyes, and the flash of a blade.

She leaped aside.

A boom shook the corridor—Charlie firing her gun! The pink muzzle lit the shadows.

The enemy's blade flashed between the two women, slicing only air.

A scream rose. Deafening. Furious.

"Wait!" Maria shouted. "Charlie, don't shoot!"

The shadowy figure howled. The blade rose, then came lashing toward Maria.

Crying out wordlessly, Maria caught her assailant's wrist.

Yes—her assailant had a wrist, a hand, an arm. Not tentacles! It was a woman. A woman with wild hair and furious eyes. Maria didn't have enough light nor time to see more.

The wild woman roared, shoving the blade, trying to pierce Maria's chest. Maria held the knife back, kicking wildly, desperate to shove the woman off.

"Talk to me!" Maria said. "Enough violence!"

"Get off her!" Charlie shouted and kicked. Her foot drove into the woman's side, knocking her to the deck.

The woman leaped up at once, snarling like a wild animal. She raised her blade again. And Maria noticed that it was not a blade at all. It was a whorled horn. Or perhaps a tusk like a narwhal's tooth.

The woman snapped her teeth, eyes ablaze, thrusting her weapon through the air. Despite her growls and snarls, her legs were shaking.

"Hey, it's okay," Maria said softly. "We won't hurt you." She glanced at Charlie. "Put down your gun. It's all right."

"Are you crazy, Nini?" Charlie said.

"It's all right!" Maria said. "We're lowering our weapons."

She placed her own pistol on the floor. Charlie groaned, but she followed suit.

The wild woman stared at them, crouching as if ready to pounce, her horn in hands.

She's human all right, Maria thought. How did a human get here?

At first glance, Maria mistook her for a Bahayan. She had the slender figure, the delicate features. But there the resemblance ended. Bahayans had light brown skin, but this woman was pale. As pale as the walls. Her eyes were too large too—disturbingly large—with indigo irises. Strangest were her hands. Her fingers were webbed!

Her clothes were also odd. She wore a tunic that seemed woven from kelp. A string of seashells hung around her neck. Cobalt tattoos of sea serpents, octopuses, sharks, and spiraling shells coiled across her body, even her cheeks.

She's human, yes, Maria thought. Maybe even Bahayan. But not like us.

"Hello, friend," Maria said. "I'm sorry that we startled you. My name is Maria. With me is Charlie. Who are you?"

The young woman stared. Her indigo eyes narrowed, almost luminous. Her hair had a deep green sheen, and it smelled like the sea. Her upper lip twitched in a snarl.

"Karagatan," she spat. "I am Karagatan. You are invaders!"

Karagatan. The Tagalog word for ocean. Yes, this one was Bahayan, but different.

"Can I call you Kara?" Charlie said. "Where do you get your moisturizer? You have lovely skin! So pale!" She sighed. "I wish I had pale white skin. Then maybe an Earthling would marry me."

Karagatan tilted her head. "What are you? Where are you from?"

Battle cries filled the tunnel.

Several people raced around a corner, howling.

They too had white skin, webbed hands, and outfits woven from kelp and seashells. They wielded an assortment of weapons. Horns and tusks. Nets. Harpoons. They had all unusually large chests, the rib cages like steel traps stretching their skin. Bone fishing hooks hung from their necks like amulets.

With a single glance, Maria took this all in. Then she cried out, "Wait, stop!"

Charlie knelt to grab her pistol from the floor.

One of the strange, pale people hurled a net. It wrapped around Charlie and tightened, magnets snapping together, trapping her. Charlie fell and flailed.

"Wait, we're friends!" Maria said.

A man swung a heavy tusk like a club. The weapon slammed into Maria's side, knocking her down.

Another club fell, hitting her chest. Maria screamed in agony. She reached for her gun, but somebody kicked it away.

"Wait, don't hurt her!" Karagatan cried.

But more blows fell.

Webbed hands grabbed Maria. Slimy green ropes, perhaps made from kelp, secured her limbs. A pale man with white hair and furious green eyes shoved a bag over her head.

Everything went dark.

Chapter Six

Arrival at Rigel

Humans have a bad history with aliens.

At any given moment, thousands of alien civilizations are active in the Milky Way galaxy. Countless rose and fell before them. Countless will probably follow. Looking up from Earth at the night sky, you can see dozens of star systems where aliens built cities, toiled the soil, fought wars, sometimes even explored space. With a half-decent telescope, you will see thousands more.

Some of those civilizations are long gone. By the time their light reaches your eyes, they will have fallen. Their cities already lie in ruin, all their emperors, conquerors, heroes forgotten. Some civilizations are only just rising, emerging from the ocean or descending from the trees, perhaps planting the first few seeds, taming the first few campfires, inventing wheels and spears and arrows. By the time their light reaches Earth, millions of years from now, they will have built cities, composed symphonies, forged empires, and fallen into dust. All upon the back of a sunbeam. A history come and gone . . .� while a single photon travels from one world to another, surfing on an electromagnetic wave.

Earth is just one of these worlds. Not particularly unique. Not particularly important. Its local sentient species, known as humans, is unremarkable. There are many older, wiser civilizations. And there are some civilizations that have not yet come so far. Humanity, on the whole, is fairly average among galactic civilizations. Though many humans, who still suffer from delusions of grandeur, would bristle to hear it.

Earth isn't in any important neighborhood of the galaxy. She's tucked away in a forgettable spiral arm far from the glowing center of things. She's one among millions, our beloved Earth, indistinguishable from the masses. A typical planet with a typical Type B civilization of organic simians who have just discovered spaceflight, who have not yet left their biological bodies behind. Perfectly pedestrian beings, we humans are. Not particularly smart. Not particularly advanced. To be fair, we show some glimmers of brightness on occasion. One among us did discover relativity, after all. Still, on the whole, humanity is just one more species among the sprawling panoply of life.

In some galactic libraries, humanity is a footnote. A little entry on a dusty computer terminal. To some civilizations, those who have gone completely digital, humans are no more interesting than pigeons or potatoes.

There is one thing, perhaps, that set humans apart.

We are unusually xenophobic.

Most civilizations relish meeting their galactic neighbors. They share knowledge. They trade. Yes, they sometimes fight wars with another planet, but they usually forge peace.

Sometimes peace is impossible. The loser is promptly devoured, and all knowledge of them forgotten. Perhaps it is survivor bias. Perhaps the mean aliens wiped themselves out—or were summarily wiped out by others. Whatever the case, one thing is certain. Those who explore the stars find most aliens to be rather gregarious.

Not humans.

Humans are far from friendly.

Humans fear space. We fear aliens.

And for good reason.

Earth, perhaps more than any current galactic civilization, has suffered horrible treatment. The Milky Way has not welcomed us with open arms into the galactic club of nations.

Humans have bad luck. The first aliens we met were the scum.

At least, we called them scum. The aliens had a real name no human could pronounce. They were giant centipedes from deep space, and they made first contact with humanity two centuries ago.

They slaughtered billions.

Other aliens followed. Giant spiders. Bloodthirsty grays. Insane cyborgs. Monsters pounded Earth.

Most civilizations would have fallen. Disappeared. Drowned in history. Nobody would have remembered the funny naked apes who scuttled between the stars, flying clunky metal boxes.

But against all odds, Earth refused to fall. Humans refused to go extinct.

After all, tough times are nothing new for us. We've been butchering one another for thousands of years. We've already lived through genocide, warfare, and despair, all self-inflicted.

When the scum arrived, they found a battle-hardened species. A species that will get knocked down, rise up again, and fight back.

Stubborn little bastards, we are.

Say what you like about humans, but when pushed into a corner, we become extraordinarily brave.

So we beat back the aliens. And we emerged stronger than ever before. The ruthless wars shattered us, tempered us, forged us into a mighty blade. Now our blade stretches into space.

We built a galactic empire.

An empire that hates aliens.

And most aliens, perhaps not unfairly, hate us back. After all, it's hard to trust a civilization that calls you a monster.

* * * * *

And so, when Jon and Kaelyn flew into the Rigel system, they encountered some stink eye.

Rigel shone nearly a thousand light-years away from Earth, far outside the Human Commonwealth. Thankfully, a nearby wormhole allowed easy access. Rigel was a massive star, thousands of times brighter than Sol back home. If you placed Earth's sun here, it would seem like a grape next to a pumpkin. Two smaller stars circled Rigel, caught in its gravity, forming a triple system of blinding light and searing heat.

There were many planets here. Some were too close to the sun. They were burning wastelands that would make Hell seem chilly. Other planets, far in the distant reaches, were frozen balls of ice. But some planets, orbiting in the middle, were full of life.

This was a busy star system. Several habitable planets. A wormhole nearby. Trade outposts. Space stations. Thousands of starships everywhere. If the galaxy had a Grand Central Station, this was it.

Clearly, the locals didn't trust humans. Many alien starships flew back and forth, hopping from planet to planet, moon to moon, asteroid to asteroid. Several flew right up to the Symphonic Thunder, the little starship Jon and Kaelyn were flying.

Some of the alien craft angrily flashed their lights. Others fired plasma blasts above the Symphonic Thunder. Not an attack, just a rude gesture. One starship flew alongside the Thunder, only a few meters away, triggering the proximity alerts. Wrinkly brown aliens stuck out their tongues, spun around, and mooned them.

"Apparently, mooning is a galactic sign of contempt," Jon muttered.

Kaelyn, who had never been outside the solar system, stared with wide eyes. "Are those Rigelians?"

"Those wrinkly brown things?" Jon said. "Nah, those are gremlins. At least, we called them gremlins in the army. Their real name is impossible for humans to pronounce. They're found in most systems, usually selling weapons or tech scraps. Nobody knows where the hell they're from originally. Some people figure they're the same gremlins from Earth folklore, that they've been visiting Earth for centuries. We'd get gremlins on Bahay. We'd sometimes buy ammo from them when shipments from Earth were late. Don't worry, the local Rigelians look much nicer. They have two heads. And nicer bottoms."

Kaelyn blinked. "Two heads!"

"I've never personally seen a Rigelian," Jon said. "But I heard the tales. When Rigelians are born, they have just half a body. One leg, one arm, half a ribcage. They have a complete head, fortunately for them. But everything else—just half. When the male and female mate, they mate for life. Their bodies fuse together, forming a whole. The male and female share a body."

"Romantic!" Kaelyn said. "I think. I imagine that divorce is a bitch."

"The Rigelians are famous for their monogamy. They're also famous for their library. Apparently, the Grand Library of Rigel is one of the galaxy's wonders."

"When a Rigelian couple settles down to read, do you think they read the same book?" Kaelyn said. "Or one book per head?"

"I have no idea," Jon said. "But I'm hoping we find answers here. Answers about those runes tattooed onto Papa. If there's information anywhere in the galaxy, it will be—whoa!"

Jon had to pull the yoke, yawing fast to the left.

Another gremlin ship roared by. The wrinkly little creatures hopped around inside, naked bottoms wiggling, and blew him raspberries.

"I hate those bastards," Kaelyn said.

* * * * *

Fourteen planets orbited Rigel, three of them in the Goldilocks zone, allowing life to flourish. One was snowy and windy, the other hot and dry, the third temperate. The Rigelians had evolved on that third planet, a place of peaceful forests, gentle rivers, and no local predators. There they had built a civilization, dreamed of the stars, discovered spaceflight, and quickly colonized the rest of their star system.

They had built their library on the hot, dry planet. After all, if you wanted to store paper and parchment for the ages, moisture was your enemy. A desert was perfect.

"Why do they use paper and parchment anyway?" Kaelyn said. "Aren't they a technological species? Don't they have ebooks?"

"Oh, they have ebooks," Jon said. "And ebooks are great. But ebooks tend to drown in a digital sea. Now consider a library full of real, physical books! Ah—that is built to last. A library is not like a computer or digital cloud. In a library, knowledge is sacred. Preserved for generations. Maybe for eternity. That's why we build our libraries to be beautiful. Often the buildings themselves are works of art, as ambitious, grand, and inspiring as cathedrals."

Kaelyn leaned against him. "Sometimes when you speak, you sound like you're composing."

"If only I could give physical form to my music! Music exists only in the ears of those who hear it. The days of vinyl are sadly long gone. We musicians can offer nothing to sit proudly on your shelf. Sometimes I envy authors. They can create magical worlds and landscapes of knowledge within a mind, but their words are still bound to a physical thing. To something beautiful to display, to lift and hold and cherish. To something that lasts. Paper books. Parchment books. Scrolls. Stone tablets. Cuneiform on clay. We humans, and Rigelians, are both beings of progress but also of nostalgia. We evolved touching, feeling, shaping things with our hands, and we still like holding a physical book."

Kaelyn smiled wistfully. "There it is. Your next song. Those sound like lyrics. What do you say? Your next song can be about a library. Call it 'The Halls of Knowledge.'"

"Well, it's that or 'The Gremlins Who Mooned Me.'"

Kaelyn laughed. She kissed his cheek. "I love seeing you like this, Jon."

"Like what?"

"Happy." Her voice was soft, her eyes softer. "You're happy."

"Hey, why not? We're on vacation." He smiled, but the smile soon faded. "I know I haven't been easy to live with, Kae. Since I came back from the war, I've been a different man. A man who wakes up screaming at night from nightmares. Depressed. Suicidal. Angry. I know. Happy? No, right now I'm not happy. I'm scared. I'm really, really scared. But it's almost over. And we'll survive this. We'll be okay."

She nodded and wiped her eyes. "We'll be okay."

They flew the Symphonic Thunder toward a desert world about the size of Mars. They glided between three reddish moons, into orbit, and finally down onto the sandy surface.

A grand city awaited them, home to a million souls. Sandstone minarets reached toward a pale yellow sky. Domes rose like little hills, covered in peeling paint, bird droppings, and weathered bronze. Ropes sagged across the cobbled streets, displaying a panoply of triangular banners in red and gold. There were no trees. No grass. No flowers to fill the air with their scent. This was a city of sand and stone, of copper and pewter, of blinding courtyards and shadowy alleys.

Countless aliens moved about. They clogged the roads. They peered from windows. They played mandolins, flutes, and trumpets on stone balconies. Many species were here. Furry aliens, scaly aliens, feathered aliens. Aliens who walked, fluttered, and slithered. Some aliens were parasites, barely larger than slugs, controlling great shaggy hosts. Other aliens were cyborgs, and some were purely machines, their avatars controlling them from afar. Some aliens were aquatic and moved in suits full of water.

Jon and Kaelyn walked down a cobbled boulevard, elbowing their way through the crowd. Merchants, tourists, and adventurers had come from a thousand worlds, clogging the streets. Jon had seen some aliens on Bahay, but not many. Here they were everywhere. Towering humanoids, twice Jon's height, with four green eyes. Sentient snails the size of ponies, leaving trails of slime along the cobblestones, little glasses perched on their eye stalks. Aliens covered with spiky armor. Great, wobbly birds with wise eyes, stooped over, their necks swinging like pendulums, their heads sweeping from side to side along the ground.

But all these were just the visitors from other worlds. Most of the aliens here were Rigelians. The natives.

They were a tall, slender race. Their bald heads balanced atop long necks. Some were still single. They had only half a body, and they hopped about on one leg, clumsy like drunk storks. But most were already mated. Males and females, morphed together into strange conjoined twins with two heads. United, they became graceful, walking with confidence, each head controlling one half of the body. One mated pair was pushing a baby in a pram. The baby had half a body.

"Strange creatures," Kaelyn said.

"They probably think we're strange," Jon said. "A married couple with two heads—and two bodies!"

Indeed, many Rigelians were staring, whispered, even pointing.

"Truly, we're freaks," Kaelyn said.

Jon examined his map. "Now where is this damn library?"

They passed through a marketplace. Limestone houses huddled together, forming a labyrinth. Their balconies nearly touched, and archways crossed from roof to roof, heavy with banners and charms. Along the narrow passageways, merchants set up wooden stalls. Their voices filled the air.

"Jelly fruit, get your jelly fruit here, extra wasps added for flavor!"

"You sir! Yes, you. You have a discerning palate, I can tell. Come smell my spices. Best spices in the galaxy! Savory, sweet, tangy, bitter, whatever you like. Come back, come back! Smell my spices!"

"Cheapest idols in town! Get your stone idols here! Worship the rain god. Pray to the goddess of stars. Buy your very own copper snake god, right here, cheapest gods in town! Blessings guaranteed!"

Jon tried to ignored it. He would love to spend all day here, exploring the different shops. But Maria was waiting. And Papa was waiting. He hurried on by.

"Excuse me," he said, squeezing past an enormous furry alien like a mammoth. "If you could just—oops!"

Jon accidentally tipped over a bronze dish, which stood on a nearby stall. Crabs spilled across the cobblestones. The little crustaceans snapped their jaws and ran in every direction. One shopper, an alien covered in natural armored plates, yelped in fright. He leaped into the air, curled up into a ball like an armadillo, and thumped onto the ground.

"Sorry, sorry!" Jon said, kneeling to lift the escaping crabs. But the crab merchant ran toward him, waving a giant severed claw, perhaps a memento from a particularly large catch. Jon fled, pulling Kaelyn with him.

"Please don't cause an intergalactic incident, Jon," she said. But she was smiling. Her eyes shone.

"Oh, you're loving this, aren't you?" Jon said.

She grinned. "I've never been outside the solar system. I like adventure."

"I don't," said Jon. "But look—there! Beyond that domed pottery shop. I see the library spires."

The library was the grandest building in town. The centerpiece of the city. Built of sandstone, it looked like the sandcastle of a young god. A central dome rose like a hill. Smaller domes circled it like children around their mother. The domes were natural beige sandstone, not even painted, but bands of metal surrounded them like bandannas around bald heads.

Each dome sported a different metal, representing a different field of knowledge. The iron dome housed information on industry. The steel dome contained the wisdom of war. Under the silver dome, readers could find knowledge of the stars. Within the gold dome awaited books of literature, for they were the most precious of all, books for the soul.

"Say what you like about Rigelians," Kaelyn said. "They do love their books." She smiled wistfully. "Let's retire here. We'll read forever."

"Sorry," Jon said. "I've already decided to retire on our couch at home."

Kaelyn punched him playfully. They kept walking toward the library. Cobbled paths led to different domes. Each dome offered its own arched entrance, welcoming readers.

"Which dome do we enter?" Kaelyn said. "Where do we find knowledge on Papa's tattoos?"

"You should have read the guide." Jon smiled thinly. "We need the occult section."

Kaelyn shuddered. "Lovely. Which dome is that?"

"We're not going into a dome," Jon said. "We're going underground. We're going to the library dungeon."

Chapter Seven

Boarding Party

"Hello?" Jay Jay tapped his headset. "Yo! Charlie, baby! Maria! You girls hear me?" He sighed and ripped off the headset. "Useless. The damn signal can't penetrate Sodom's hull."

"Relax!" Rodrigo said, leaning back in his seat. He sipped juice through a straw, then flipped the page of his comic book. "Remember what Maria said. They need an hour or two to explore. They'll be fine."

The two young men sat in Kinnara's cockpit, floating outside the much larger Sodom. When the cat's away, the mice will play. It was an old saying, and the boys proved it. Bags of potato chips were open. Rock music pounded through the speakers. Lily was scribbling on the bulkheads with a marker. Gummy, their fluffy dear alien, was back in the hold, gnawing on the couch.

"Has it been an hour yet?" Jay Jay said, checking his watch.

Rodrigo shrugged. "Eh, give or take. You know Bahayan time. When we say an hour, it might as well be a day."

The boy flipped another page in his comic book. The cover featured a buxom blonde with a bubble helmet, standing on an asteroid, firing her gun at an alien blob.

"You got me there, kid," Jay Jay said. He grabbed a beer and drank too fast. Nervousness tingled through him. Even the beer didn't calm him. This wasn't like him. Jay Jay had survived the slums of Mindao, the war with Earth, and the rigors of the Urchin Express. He had done all this with a smile, hope in his heart. He was never nervous.

Until now.

He looked through the viewport at the gargantuan hulk. A starship the size of a town. Who knew what beasts were inside? Jay Jay's mind ran wild, imagining carnivorous octopuses, killer prawn the size of horses, and mutated sharks that pattered forth on a hundred legs.

I've been reading too much of Rodrigo's comics, he thought. Ridiculous.

But Charlie was inside that shipwreck.

Jay Jay hated being back here, babysitting, when he should be protecting her.

He grabbed his headset again. "Charlie! Charlie, you hear me?"

Nothing but static. No signal.

He couldn't get the damn woman out of his mind. He even dreamed about her every night. Now Charlie was away, and he couldn't stop daydreaming about her. Her midnight hair, silky and shimmering. Her intoxicating curves, more graceful than any starship that ever danced among the stars. Her teasing smile. The way her eyes flashed when she was angry, then sparkled and winked a moment later. Her kind heart. Her courage.

She wasn't Jay Jay's usual type. He normally dated demure, shy little things, sensitive flowers he nurtured until they bloomed, then discarded for the next bud. But Charlie was no flower. She was a roaring fire. She was wrong for him. She was ten years older (despite what she claimed). She had four kids from four fathers. She did drugs. She was a jaded, aging prostitute.

And Jay Jay loved her.

The world had punished her. With poverty. War. Drugs. Pimps. And she could still smile and fight every day. She was still the bravest, most beautiful woman Jay Jay had ever—

"Hey!" Rodrigo slapped him with a rolled up comic book. "Did you hear me? What are you day dreaming about?"

Jay Jay blinked. He looked at the awkward teenager with his wispy mustache.

"Your mom," Jay Jay said.

"Eww, gross." The boy shuddered. "Anyway, stop ignoring me. I asked you to pass me a beer."

Jay Jay frowned. "How old are you, kid?"

The boy puffed out his chest. "Twenty-one."

"Bullshit. Go back to drinking your juice."

Lily burst into the cockpit, holding her plush octopus. Gummy ran after her, his six paws pattering against the deck, his furry trunk wagging.

"I want beer too!" Lily said. She grabbed an empty bottle from the floor and pretended to drink, then burped.

"Great. I've corrupted two children within an hour. Your moms are going to kill me." Jay Jay groaned. "I hate babysitting."

He looked back at the Sodom. He frowned.

"Hey, Rodrigo! Look up!" He tossed a potato chip at the boy. "Over here! Check out the Sodom."

Rodrigo put down his comic book. "What? I see it. Still a big giant silver shipwreck."

"No. Something is different." Jay Jay squinted. "Last time I looked, there were strands of kelp stuck in the airlock door. From when Charlie entered. The kelp is gone now."

Rodrigo shrugged. "So? Probably some fish ate it. While you were busy driving Lily to alcoholism."

Jay Jay leaned closer to a porthole, staring outside.

Water rippled.

The kelp stirred. A figure vanished among the seaweed.

Jay rose from his seat and drew his gun. He gave Rodrigo a hard stare. The boy paled, finally sensing the gravity of the situation. He rose too.

"Here." Jay Jay slipped him a second pistol. "You know how to use one of these?"

Rodrigo held the gun, eyes wide. He gulped and nodded. "Aim and pull the trigger?"

Jay Jay nodded. "Aim and pull the trigger."

A figure swam outside a porthole, vanishing in an instant. Both men tensed and raised their guns.

That was a human figure. Jay Jay was sure of it. Or humanoid, at least. And it definitely wasn't Charlie getting herself tangled in more kelp.

Jay Jay gestured toward the hold. That's where the Kinnara's airlock was. If anyone would try to invade, it would be through there.

"Gummy, stay in the cockpit with Lily," Jay Jay said to the alien.

The furry creature was as big and happy as a golden retriever. But he looked more like an overgrown elephant shrew with six feet. Nobody knew his species, but he was fiercely intelligent, more than any animal Jay Jay had ever met.

"Gum gum gum!" the alien said, nodding. He pulled Lily into a shadowy corner of the cockpit. He wrapped his trunk around her and bared his teeth, ready to slay anyone who came between him and his little mistress. Gummy was perhaps as friendly as a golden retriever, but when provoked, he could turn into a pit bull.

Leaving the girl under her pet's protection, the boys stepped into the hold, guns raised.

The hold was messy. The bunks weren't made. Several board games stood on a table mid-game. Dishes piled up in the sink, Gummy's fur covered the couch, and toys lay strewn across the deck. They had been living for weeks underwater. The Kinnara certainly looked lived in.

But right now, Jay Jay only stared at the airlock.

A simple metal door.

It was silent. Still.

Rodrigo gulped and his hands shook around his gun. Jay Jay remained very still.

The airlock burst open.

A man rushed in, howling. He held something long and white. A sword!

"Drop your weapon!" Jay Jay shouted. "Drop—"

A boom tore through the air. Jay Jay's ears rang.

Rodrigo whimpered and dropped his smoking gun.

"Oh my God," the boy whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry …"

The man lay dead on the deck, a bullet in his chest.

He wore a skirt of kelp and necklaces of seashells. Tattoos of ammonites coiled across his milk-white skin and bald head. His sword rolled across the deck. But it was not a true sword. It was a scrimshawed tusk inlaid with silver runes.

A cry rose from the airlock, torn with grief.

"Malatas!"

Another man burst into the Kinnara, howling. He had a wild white beard, tattooed skin, and furious blue eyes.

"Malatas!" the man cried again. "The demons killed you!"

Rodrigo stumbled back from the barbarian, trembling, his gun forgotten on the deck. The poor boy was shell shocked.

Jay Jay, who still held his weapon, squeezed off a shot. It went wide. A bullet slammed into a bulkhead and ricocheted. The bullet flew right back at Jay Jay and sliced his arm. Pain blazed. The gunshot echoed through the cabin, ringing his ears.

I shot myself, Jay Jay thought. Great, I actually shot myself.

The attack had backfired—quite literally. But at least it stunned the invader. For a second, the bearded brute stood still. His ears were probably ringing too. Or perhaps he was just dumbfounded that Jay Jay had somehow managed to shoot himself.

Whatever the case, Jay Jay seized the opportunity. He roared, leaped forward, and barreled into his opponent.

The bearded man was beefy, his arms bulging with muscles. His chest was enormous, the ribcage like a barrel. He looked like a heavyweight prizefighter. Jay Jay was younger but much smaller. He shoved the man back against the hull, feeling like a hyena shoving a water buffalo.

As he grappled the giant, Jay Jay glanced out the porthole. More shadowy figures were swimming through the ocean toward the Kinnara. They all had white hair, tattooed skin, and seashell necklaces. They all held weapons.

"Rodrigo, close the damn airlock!" Jay Jay shouted, pinning his enemy to the wall.

The boy stared down at the dead body. The bald man was still bleeding on the deck. "I killed him. I—"

Movement flashed.

Ringing, pain, and white light flooded Jay Jay.

It took him a second to understand. The beefy, bearded man had punched him. Right in the head.

Jay Jay stumbled back, seeing stars.

The brute came at him again, roaring. Drying saltwater caked his white beard. He raised a dagger made from some underwater beast's fang.

"Die!" the enemy roared, blade flashing, and Jay Jay fired his gun.

His bullet tore through the brute's arm.

The man howled and fell back, blood spurting.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo slammed himself against the airlock hatch. The door crushed a third invader—a woman with long white hair, indigo tattoos, and a shark tooth necklace.

The door pinned her against the doorframe. The woman roared, lashed into the Kinnara with a knife, and tried to shove her way in. Rodrigo kept pushing, desperate to shut the door. Despite her white hair, the woman was young and strong. Tattoos danced across her arms as her muscles bulged.

Jay Jay was busy with his own battle. The burly, bearded thug stared at him, a bullet in his arm. He still gripped his weapon—a dagger made from a huge fang. But Jay Jay was now aiming the pistol right at him. The bearded man stood frozen, tense. His shaggy white hair hung down to his shoulders. His face was wide, pasty, his eyes small and full of hate.

"That's right," Jay Jay said softly. "You saw what my gun can do. Lower your weapon. Surrender. And I won't blast your brains against the bulkhead."

The bearded man spat on the deck. "Go on!" he said, his voice a rumbling baritone. "Shoot me. I will die a warrior. The god Bathala, the All-Father, will take me to his halls above the ocean surface. I will drink wine with him—and piss into your waters!"

Jay Jay hesitated. The man wasn't attacking, just waiting to die. Should he shoot? Was that … an execution?

"Jay Jay!" Rodrigo said, still struggling to close the door, fear in his voice. "I can't … she's too strong …"

The airlock hatch slammed open, shoving Rodrigo back into the hold.

The wild woman had finally overpowered him. She shoved her way into the Kinnara, ululating in triumph.

Several men followed. They all had long, scraggly white hair, beards, and indigo tattoos inked into white skin. They carried spears, horns, and tridents.

"Lower your weapons!" Jay Jay said, aiming his gun. "Or—"

They rushed him.

Jay Jay got one shot off. He hit a man in the shoulder, knocking him back.

The other invaders plowed into him. They body slammed him onto the deck. A man stepped on his hand, crushing his fingers, and Jay Jay lost his grip on his gun. The white-haired woman kicked it aside.

The invaders filled the hold, ten or more. Soon enough, they had Jay Jay and Rodrigo trussed up with rubbery strands of kelp.

Two invaders were wounded—one with a bullet in his arm, the other in his shoulder. A third man lay dead. The one Rodrigo had shot. The kid had shot the bastard right in the heart.

A few invaders approached the cockpit, tracking seaweed and saltwater across the deck.

"Hey, captain!" one said, standing at the cockpit door. "There's a little girl in—"

A howl shook the cabin. Gummy pounced, landed on the white-haired man, and bit his chest. The man roared, and his friends rushed forward to help. Clubs slammed into Gummy. A bone blade stabbed the furry alien.

"Gum gum gum!" Gummy cried in pain. Blood stained his fur.

"Leave him alone!" Jay Jay shouted, tied up on the deck.

The invaders wrestled Gummy, trussed him up in kelp, and tossed him onto the deck. Blood dripped, soaking Gummy's fur. His trunk flopped from side to side pitifully.

A few men entered the cockpit, then returned to the hold. They were holding Lily. The girl looked terrified, staring with wide, damp eyes.

"Where's Mommy?" she whispered.

Jay Jay roared, tried to tear himself free, but the kelp tightened around him, and his captors laughed. The Kinnara was theirs.

Chapter Eight

The Righteous in Sodom

Rough hands dragged Maria through the sunken starship. The bag still covered her head. She could see nothing. Strong fingers gripped her arms like manacles. Fingernails dug into her skin. She stumbled, trying to keep up.

"Hey, let me go, you filthy gagos!" Charlie was shouting nearby. Her voice was muffled. She probably wore a bag on her head too. "I'll kill you all! Nobody messes with Charlie Wonder!" She paused. "Um, guys? I have to pee. Maybe we can stop at the little girl's room on the way, and I can pee first, and you can execute us later, okay? I don't want to be hanged and then pee with everyone watching. Though if you were going to keel haul us, I suppose I could hold it in until—"

"Somebody gag her!" a deep voice rumbled.

Charlie was soon screaming into a cloth gag, barely audible.

They seemed to walk for miles. The ship couldn't be that big, but it seemed full of twisting corridors, decks, and cavernous halls. Maria couldn't see, but her other senses picked up some details. Their footfalls sometimes echoed in grand chambers, the ceilings lofty. At other times, the echoes were different, suggesting tunnels. Sometimes the paths sloped upward, sometimes downward.

At one point, the bag loosened around Maria's head. She could see a little out the bottom. Just the floor. It was smooth and polished like a seashell. When Maria tilted her head, she could see a bit of a wall too. Fossils of ammonites were embedded into a glimmering surface like mother of pearl. It felt like walking inside an ancient cave from the dawn of history.

They climbed a spiraling path, coiling round and round a glimmering stalk. Maria imagined herself walking through the ear canal of an aquatic giant. Finally, judging by the echoes, they entered a grand chamber. The footfalls echoed in a ceiling far above. Water flowed.

The journey was over. The strong hands shoved Maria to her knees, then ripped the bag off her head.

Maria blinked and looked around. Charlie knelt beside her. Somebody pulled the bag off her head too, and she looked around, still gagged, eyes red and puffy.

As Maria had suspected, the room was enormous, easily the size of a cathedral nave. There were no corners, no hard edges, just sloping walls and curves. Again Maria felt like she were inside a seashell. Spheres floated through the chamber, casting silvery light. Several fossilized ammonites, each the size of a hut, stood on the floor. A waterfall cascaded down one wall, feeding a garden of fruit trees.

Shimmering screens hovered in the air like sheets of silk, swaying gently. Maria had no idea what kept them afloat. The screens were displaying videos, probably live feeds, of the oceans outside Sodom. One screen showed a shoal covered in barnacles. Another displayed a coral garden. A third screen showed the Kinnara floating in the water. The quad-craft was badly damaged, her green hull dented, charred, and scratched. One of her yellow hydraulic arms hung at an odd angle.

They saw us coming a mile away, Maria thought.

But who were they? Maria took a closer look at the people who, apparently, lived inside Sodom.

Her captors were clearly warriors. Tattoos coiled across their bulging muscles, depicting sea serpents and krakens. Their weapons, made from whale horns and teeth, were sharp and bright. Many had grown their beards long, braided them, and wove seashells among the silver strands.

But there were others here in this grand chamber. Not just warriors. Civilians.

They wore clothes from the sea, woven of seaweed, and jewelry made from seashells, whale teeth, and bones. They were human, but Maria didn't recognize their heritage. They were squat, powerfully built, with wide chests and narrow eyes. Their skin and hair were ghostly white. Many had webbed hands and feet—though not all.

There was something oddly familiar about their features. Oddly … Bahayan.

A few stood among the fruit trees, gazing from afar. Children peeked from inside one of the ammonites. Perhaps the giant fossils served as homes. Several elders sat in bone wheelchairs, the wheels made from giant clam shells. Young women were tending to a campfire. The smell of cooking fish filled the chamber.

"Could it be?" Maria whispered. "Could they have been here all this time?"

Beside her, Charlie managed to spit out her gag. She coughed and stuck out her tongue. "Eww. Tastes like old underwear." She looked at Maria. "Nini, who are these people?"

"If it's true, it's amazing," Maria said.

"What? Who? Where are we?" Charlie struggled against the kelp binding her arms. "Why?"

"Hush!" said a warrior. "Or we'll cut out your tongues."

Kneeling side by side, wrists bound behind their backs, Maria and Charlie hushed.

Several burly warriors snapped to attention, held their weapons to their chests, and formed a path between them.

"Come forth, Elder Dagata!" they cried. "Praise be Dagata, wisest of the wise!"

An old woman limped forward. She leaned on a walking staff made from an eel's spine, the segments reinforced with silver bolts. The eel's skull topped the gruesome staff, crystals shining in the eye sockets. The woman sported long, scraggly braids, the white strands strewn with chinking seashells. Her eyes peered from nests of wrinkles, glinting with intelligence.

She was different from the others. Her skin was a little darker. Not quite as brown as Maria's skin, but not milky white either. Her eyes were black, not lavender. Her hands, old and gnarled, were clearly not webbed.

She looks more like a Bahayan, Maria thought. She looks a little like my great grandmother. If a bit shabbier.

"So you caught them!" old Dagata said, voice raspy. "Good. Good work, my warriors."

She stepped closer, her staff of bones thumping against the floor, and halted before Maria and Charlie. The two friends were kneeling, but the old woman barely stood taller than them.

"Hello," Maria said. "My name is—"

"Huh!" Dagata snorted. "I don't care what your name is. You are Gomorrans. That is enough. You will answer all our questions, and perhaps we'll give you a burial at sea. Refuse and you'll burn in our engine, an offering to our god of fire."

Somewhere deep in the ship, an engine rumbled. Firelight flowed through vents. Heat bathed the chamber.

A hundred boots thumped against the deck. The people chanted: "Feed the engine! Feed the engine!"

Charlie gulped. Sweat beaded on her brow. "Any chance you have any puppy gods to feed? I'm pretty sure I have some treats in my purse."

Maria looked at the old woman. "We are not Gomorrahns."

Charlie gasped. "I get it! You think we're from Gomorrah, right, Dagata? The other sunken starship! The one whose location we don't even know! And you guys live inside Sodom, making you Sodomites."

"Sodomians," Maria whispered. "Call them Sodomians."

Charlie snorted. "They're from Sodom, so they're Sodomites. There's nothing funny about it! Stop frowning so much, Maria. Your face will stick that way. It's in Genesis, you know, so get your mind out of the gutter and into the bible, because—"

Dagata slammed her staff against the deck, silencing them. Hunched over, the elder scrutinized Maria and Charlie.

"You look strange." Dagata huffed, reached out a knobby finger, and poked Maria's neck, then Charlie's neck. "You don't have gills."

Charlie tilted her head. "Gills? Of course we don't have gills. We're not freaks!" She laughed. "What, next you'll complain we don't have webbed hands! I mean …" Charlie looked around her and gulped. "Not that there's anything wrong with … webbed hands … of course. Useful for swimming. And slapping people." She winced. "Please don't slap me."

Maria finally voiced her suspicions. "Miss Dagata, how long have your people been here?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Have you been here since the beginning? Since the crash?"

Dagata narrowed one eye. Maria realized that the second one was a glass eye. The old woman nodded.

"Yes. Sodom crashed in the ocean. Long before I was born, and I'm very old. We are the descendants of those ancient survivors."

Maria gasped. "But … Sodom crashed into the ocean three centuries ago!"

Dagata nodded. "Yes. We remember our lore. We sing the songs. We pass the tale from parent to child. For twelve generations, we've lived here in Sodom, honoring our ancestors who crashed into Bahay's holy waters."

"Blessed be the ancestors!" the warriors chanted.

Maria's eyes widened. "That's why you look different from me! You've been evolving! Granted, twelve generations isn't enough for much evolution. But I imagine that the evolutionary pressure must be extreme down here, accelerating the process. You have pale skin, because there isn't much sunlight. Some of you have begun to evolve webbed hands, helping you to swim. And look at the size of your rib cages! They're huge! I bet you have unusually large lungs, so you could hold your breath underwater—like cetaceans. If you have photos or paintings of earlier generations, I would love to run a comparison, and—"

"Nini, stop scaring them," Charlie said. "Not everyone needs to know you're a crazy person with a giant head."

Dagata ran knobby fingers through Maria's hair, examined her arms for scales, checked between her fingers for webbing, even checked her teeth. Maria began to feel like a racehorse. Finally the old woman turned toward her warriors.

"These are no Gomorrahns!"

"I told you," Charlie muttered.

One of the warriors stepped forward. He was a tall, muscular man, his bare torso covered in tattoos and scars. Indeed, his rib cage was large enough to hold oversized lungs, and his hands were webbed. His white hair and beard flowed down to his waist, and he held a trident.

"So what are they, wise one?" he said, voice deep.

Dagata smiled thinly, staring Maria in the eyes. Then she looked back at her warriors.

"They are from the third ship. The mythical ship of the great enemy. They are those who dwell upon the land."

* * * * *

The lights dimmed across the grand chamber. Even the floating screens, which streamed live feeds from the surrounding oceans, went dark. The warriors stepped back. Everyone across the hall, warriors and civilians alike, knelt and raised their eyes to the ceiling. They all hushed.

Maria and Charlie knelt side by side on the hard floor, still bound in kelp. They wriggled a little closer and held hands.

"What's going on?" Charlie whispered.

"I don't know," Maria whispered back.

"I hope it doesn't involve any hungry engine gods."

Lights shone. Maria's eyes widened. Suddenly a million stars were shining above! Galaxies spun. Nebulae glowed. Maria had never seen the sky so brilliant.

It's a planetarium, she thought in wonder. This whole chamber is a giant planetarium.

Three silver starships materialized above. Holograms. Huge holograms that glided through the hall.

"Behold!" said Dagata. "The Three Silver Sisters. The starships of our ancestors. They carried us to this promised land."

A hologram of Earth materialized at one side of the grand hall. A hologram of Bahay appeared on the other side. The holographic starships were flying from the former to the latter.

"He called himself the Red Cardinal," said Dagata. "He commanded the Santelmos, wise aliens who built the silver starships. Into the Three Sisters, he shepherded colonists from the Philippines, a great island nation of Earth. And he carried us among the stars to a new home. To a promised land named Bahay."

The holographic starships were almost at their destination now. The hologram of Bahay expanded, growing from the size of a basketball to a chandelier, then growing still, larger and larger, until it was the size of a house. It was so large Maria could almost jump up and touch the southern pole.

The holographic planet hovered above, a beautiful ocean world dotted with islands. It gently rotated around its axis, and clouds swirled across its skies. Maria spotted Bagong Palawan, the island where she had grown up. In the hologram, rainforests still coated her island home. Sadly, the real island was now a smoking wasteland, courtesy of the war.

In a resplendent display of light and movement, the starships entered the orbit of Bahay. A hologram of the Red Cardinal appeared above the planet, filling the starry sky, a demon rising from hell. Next to him, the three starships appeared like mere toys. He could grasp the whole world in his claws.

This was three centuries ago, Maria thought. Back when he still wore red. Before he became Papa Dominus.

The cardinal's voice boomed across the hall.

"I collected the righteous into the Silver Sisters. For forty days, we traveled among the stars. And along the journey, two sisters fell to sin!" He grabbed one starship in his claws. "In this ship, man lieth with man, and woman lieth with woman. I name thee Sodom, and I cast thee into the sea!"

The holographic cardinal hurled one silver starship—the Sodom—into the ocean. It drowned in the shimmering waters.

That's the starship we're inside right now, Maria knew.

The cardinal grabbed a second starship. "In this ship, man explored perverse science, undermining the truths of god. He gazed into microscopes and telescopes, tasting the forbidden truth of knowledge. I name thee Gomorrah, and I cast thee too into the sea!"

And there went the second starship, crashing into the holographic ocean.

That left one ship in the sky.

"This starship is full of the righteous. I name thee Canaan. Your passengers shall be my chosen people. We shall land on a holy mountain, and we shall be fruitful and multiply. Ours is the new world and all her treasures."

The final starship, the Canaan, landed on a mountain, where it became a cathedral. Its passengers emerged, tiny holograms no larger than dolls, and spread across the planet.

"Those were our ancestors, Charlie," Maria said softly. "We, the islanders of Bahay, are descended from the Canaan's passengers. We never knew about the other starships."

The holograms faded. The lights turned back on.

Charlie whistled. "Bravo, bravo! Encore! I'll clap if you untie me."

Maria turned toward the tribe elder. "Miss Dagata, as a representative of the Canaan tribe, I offer you my friendship. May the tribes of Canaan and Sodom form a great alliance, for we were one long ago. And we can be one again."

* * * * *

Finally a little trust was built. Enough that the Sodomians freed Maria and Charlie from the kelp ropes.

Guards escorted them into a dining chamber. A domed ceiling spread above, inlaid with seashells and fossils. A whale's spine stretched across the room, its bone segments flat on top, forming a long segmented table. The whale teeth served as chairs. Their points were driven into the floor, and their tops were flattened for comfortable sitting. It was a bit gruesome, but it wasn't like the Sodomians could build wooden furniture.

Dagata limped toward the head of the table, her staff of bones clattering, and sat down. Only then did the others join her at the table.

Maria and Charlie sat side by side.

Dinner was served.

Youths emerged from a kitchen, carrying silver trays piled with the bounty of the sea. They served a fine feast. Fresh fish on beds of salted seaweed. Crunchy seahorses roasted on silver skewers. Huge ribs, each like a sword, coated with the softest, pinkest meat. Squid tentacles drizzled with sauce. Fried kelp leaves topped with fish eggs. Rich, meaty soup served in turtle shells. Plates piled high with roasted clams, scallops, and crab legs served on seaweed noodles. There were no forks, no spoons. The Sodomians used seashells to scoop up the food. Some seashells had sharp edges to cut through meat. Other seashells had smooth, curving edges.

"Hey, Nini," Charlie whispered. "You don't suppose they have any lechon?"

"Probably just seafood," Maria whispered back. "I don't think you can find pigs underwater."

"They live their lives without pork. How tragic."

The smells were intoxicating, and Maria's stomach grumbled. But nobody was eating yet. The food was laid out on the table, tempting, tugging on her nostrils. But the people waited.

Maria noticed that one seat was empty. A seat beside Dagata, the community elder. A seat of honor.

When the last dish was placed on the table, everyone rose to their feet. Maria and Charlie rose too, not understanding but wanting to fit in.

Dagata thumped her staff against the floor. Everyone stood a little straighter. The elder raised her chin. The seashells strewn through her white braids chinked.

"Today is the Day of Sacrifice!" the old woman announced. "Every year, on the winter solstice, we gather for this feast. Every year, we tell the tale. We are the children of Sodom! We are the few. The proud. The pure. We are those who remained human even underwater. Yet on the other side the ocean … it lies. Gomorrah."

The crowd hissed and booed.

"Monsters!"

"Mad scientists!"

"Hybrids!"

"Beasts!"

People raised fists. Some raised weapons. They beat their feet on the floor.

"I say we fight them!"

"We'll kill them all!"

"We'll defend Sodom!"

Dagata pounded her staff against the floor again. The crowd settled down.

"No!" said Dagata. "There can be no war against Gomorrah. We are only a few hundred souls in Sodom. Yet they are many thousands! We are pure humans. Yet they have perverted their flesh, turning themselves into beasts of the ocean. If we fight Gomorrah, we will die. And we must survive!"

People muttered amongst themselves. But gradually, they lowered their weapons. They lowered their heads. Even the proudest, mightiest warriors. They looked utterly defeated.

Maria and Charlie glanced at each other.

"What's going on?" Charlie whispered.

"I'm not sure," Maria replied.

They returned their eyes to Dagata. The old woman spoke again. It seemed like a rehearsed speech, one she delivered regularly. Even the warriors' objections seemed scripted.

This is not a debate, Maria thought. This is a ritual.

"Three hundred years ago, we fought the Gomorrahns. The great Water War raged. We fought bravely. We lost. Many of our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters … they fell." Dagata lowered her head. "We will remember them always. They dine now with the sunlit god in the lands of ever-dry."

The elder raised a cup of wine, perhaps made from the fruits grown inside the Sodom. Everyone raised their cups. Even Maria and Charlie. They drank. The wine was sweet and strong.

Dagata continued the ritual.

"The Drowned King rules in Gomorrah, and he is cruel. He has forgotten his humanity. He is more fish now than man. He is mighty, yet he yearns for his lost humanity. Every year, he demands a sacrifice from Sodom, from the pure. Every year, he demands a virgin. A young bride for him to impregnate. Pure human blood to bestow upon his heirs. Every year, we must obey. We must choose a virgin from our silver halls. We must surrender her to evil. We must appease the Drowned King. And we will survive another year."

One burly warrior slammed his fist against the table. He raised his dagger, formed from a whale's fang.

"I say we cast the Drowned King into the pit!" he bellowed.

"We will fight him!" cried another warrior, raising a harpoon.

"No!" said Dagata. "We cannot. We are too few. If we fight, we will all die. All five hundred of us. We will make the sacrifice. We will live, and we will protect Sodom, our beloved home."

Their entire society, Maria thought, their culture, their dreams, their religion and ritual—it's all centered around a single drowned starship. These shimmering halls are their entire universe. To them, Sodom is not just a shipwreck. It's a nation.

Dagata raised her staff overhead. The skull on its top clattered, jawbone opening and closing.

"Let the virgin step forth! And let us honor her with a final feast."

A hidden trapdoor opened on the floor. A woman emerged from below, rising on a clam like Venus born from the sea. Her platinum hair cascaded across her naked body, protecting her modesty. Her skin was white, adorned with ammonite tattoos. Her chin was proudly raised, her eyes defiant.

Maria recognized her.

"Karagatan!" she blurted out. The first Sodomian she had met. The young guard at the Sodom's airlock.

She protected me, Maria remembered. She tried to stop the other guards from hurting me.

"Hail Karagatan!" the crowd chanted. "Hail the blessed virgin, our sacrifice to the Drowned King!"

Old, wrinkled Dagata guided the young virgin to her seat. "Feast now, Karagatan," the elder said. "Tonight we honor you. Tomorrow at dawn, you will become the Drowned King's bride."

Chapter Nine

The Grimoire's Guardian

Some libraries were like rococo palaces. Pastel angels frolicked across their murals, marble statues guarded their books, even mosaics covered their floors, depicting mythological battles and adventures.

Other libraries were cozy places. On a rainy day, you could sit by the window with a good mystery book, curl up by the fireplace with a fantasy, or lounge on a beanbag with the latest thriller.

Some libraries were airy, their walls made of glass, their balconies silvery and slender like coiling branches. They were places of solemn knowledge and light, and gardens bloomed among their shelves.

There were many libraries across the galaxy, and all were beautiful. All were sacred.

The dungeon under the Great Library of Rigel was a little different. There were no windows here to gaze upon storming seascapes or peaceful gardens. There were no pastel murals, no marble statues. No silvery balconies or cozy reading nooks. This was a place of ancient, craggy bricks and secrets. Candles melted in glass bulbs. Shabby librarians shuffled in shadows, burlap robes rustling, their long white beards trailing across a rough stone floor. Severed claws and tentacles floated in jars. A great, fearsome skull with many spikes hung from a wall, silently snarling. There were no shelves, only alcoves that honeycombed the walls, each full of scrolls, grimoires, and forbidden knowledge.

It was a place where books were bound in human skin. Chains secured them to the walls, protecting them from thieves. And perhaps protecting the thieves from the dark lore within. Some of these books were centuries old. Others were millions of years old, written by aliens from civilizations long gone. Every book here was priceless. And every book was dangerous.

Some of these books, they said, could summon demons from worlds below, birthing them into this universe. Other books would let demons drag you down to hell. There were books of curses. Curses upon curses. To make an enemy's hair fall out. To make his organs fall out. Curses to smite a city with plague and pestilence. Curses to make one old and shriveled. Curses to make one young again, each year drawn from the soul.

Perhaps these books were not chained to the walls to thwart thieves. Perhaps the books themselves were the threat, chained as one would chain a bloodthirsty animal. They were carnivorous things, these books. Things you should never let free. You could not check books out of the occult section of Rigel's library. The knowledge in here could only leave in your mind like an infection, a black curse, a spreading mold in your brain.

If there was any place that could teach Jon about Papa Dominus's power, it was this dungeon.

For hours, he and Kaelyn toiled. They pored over books and scrolls, tombs and codices, spellbooks and grimoires. They held up candles to iron steles, reading glyphs carved a million years ago into metal. They squinted over cuneiforms etched into clay tablets. They read tablets of golden words writ in stone.

None of it was in English. These were alien tongues. But the librarians offered Jon and Kaelyn clever little glasses. When Jon peered through the round lenses, he could read every book in the library. All translated into perfect English.

Most likely, there was a little camera inside the glasses. It picked up the alien words, contacted a server in the cloud, ran the words through a translation algorithm, then augmented reality to display the translated text. Possibly it even interfaced with his brain, directly manipulating his visual cortex. But it seemed like magic.

I'm willing to believe it's magic, Jon thought. What is magic but technology you don't understand? One man's algorithm is another man's spell. But one thing won't be magical to me. I will understand Papa's power. What you don't understand can destroy you. And what you do understand you can destroy.

"Jon, look at this one!" Kaelyn said. "Can you help me? It's heavy."

She stood in a nook of craggy stone, shaped like a giant fireplace. Candles glowed in crude glass bulbs, painting her red and yellow. Her hair, red enough on its own, now seemed a living flame, furious scarlet limned in platinum. She reached toward an alcove, cleared away cobwebs, and pulled out a dusty tomb. The book was massive, the size of their coffee table back home. Jon rushed over and helped her.

He glimpsed the spine. Crimson letters were etched into the leather.

THE RUNES OF POWER

Together, they lifted the heavy book. It was bound in leather, covered in dust, and chained to the wall. The chain rattled as they carried it, shedding rust, and spiders fled between the iron links. They pulled the book until they ran out of chain, then dropped it onto a stone table. The thump echoed through the dungeon. Dust flew. A last spider fled, pattering across the leather cover, leaving tiny footprints in the dust.

Jon leaned forward and blew. More dust flew off the cover, and he suppressed a sneeze. With the dust gone, the cover was revealed. Jon cringed. Kaelyn gulped and covered her mouth, turning green.

The book was clearly bound in human skin. Scraps of skin from multiple victims, dried and stitched into a gruesome patchwork. One patch of skin, near the upper corner, sprouted an ear. In the center of the cover, hideously stretched out and stitched in, was a human face. The mouth was still open in a silent scream.

"Jon, what is this?" Kaelyn trembled. "Was that a person? A man?"

Jon thought back to the war. To Clay's macabre trophies. The memories flooded him. He took deep breaths, forcing himself back to the present, a meditation technique he had practiced after the war. Not that the present moment was much nicer.

Then he noticed something on the book. His eyes widened.

"Look, Kaelyn!"

He pointed to one scrap of skin, stitched below the face. He wasn't sure what body part it had come from. But the skin still sported a tattoo. A rune of power. A symbol Jon remembered. One of the symbols Papa Dominus had tattooed on his arm.

"This is the right book," Jon said. "This will give us answers."

He pulled the book open. The cover was so large it was like swinging open a trap door.

A demonic illustration dominated the first page, inked in crimson. Jon cringed. Ugly bastard. Boils covered his skin. The bubbles of flesh dangled, flowing downward. The creature seemed made of melting wax. He had no eyes, only warty skin where eyes should be. But his jaw was wide and full of fangs. Wings spread from his back, tipped with bloody claws.

Letters coiled around the demon like little spiders. Jon adjusted the round glasses the librarians had given him. The letters began to change on the page, squirming to form letters in English. But the text was quite small and dense, hard to read even when translated.

Jon squinted, reading a few words scrawled over the creature. "Blind Bataille, Guardian of Books."

"Eww." Kaelyn shuddered, looking at the demon. "Ugly bastard."

"At least it's not a pop-up book," Jon said.

He looked back at the illustration. Blind Bataille seemed to be staring at him. Even without eyes. The creature seemed almost alive. Jon blinked and rubbed his temples. The illustration was moving like some optical illusion. The wings seemed to flap. The smoke to curl up from the toothy jaws.

I must have hit the cannabis too hard this morning, he thought. It helped him with his shell shock. But now the world made no sense.

He blinked, bringing the page back into focus. Finally things settled down. The spell of dizziness passed.

"What does it say there?" He squinted, reading. "Blind Bataille guards the secrets within. Only some may read his words. Those who—"

Suddenly, through no wind blew, the pages began to flutter.

The page with the illustration flipped over by itself. A thousand other pages all flipped at a mad pace, moving on their own, revealing glimpses of runes and ancient texts. Dust flew everywhere.

Finally the pages settled.

For a moment, Jon and Kaelyn were still.

"What did that?" Kaelyn whispered, face pale.

"Just a draft through the dungeon," Jon said.

But there was no wind. The candles remained steady.

The pages began to flap again. Madly. Faster and faster. An invisible hand seemed to be rifling through the book. The table shook. The book began to levitate. The glow of firelight beamed out from its pages, and a deep grumble sounded in the depths.

Kaelyn screamed.

Jon slammed the book shut.

It thumped back onto the table. Dark. Still. The firelight, the grumbling, the flapping pages—all over.

Jon gulped. "Okay, maybe we need to—"

Suddenly the book burst open, and Blind Bataille rose from within.

The wings unfurled like dark parachutes, thumping against the ceiling and walls, knocking books down. Claws grabbed the stone table, digging deep grooves. The creature's pustules glistered with sweat, fleshy, dripping like wax. If the demon had any eyes, the boils covered them. Nostrils flared, sniffing. Leathery lips peeled back and back like a candy wrapper, exposing fangs, gums, and finally bits of the skull. The entire snout emerged like a bone through broken flesh. The bare jaws opened wide, and the demon howled. The sound shook the dungeons.

A robed librarian, who was shuffling by, dropped a scroll and fled.

But Jon stood his ground. He needed the information in that book. And Kaelyn—his beautiful, brave Kaelyn—stood by him.

"What the hell is that thing!" Kaelyn shouted.

Blind Bataille swung his head toward them. He sniffed. His drool fell, sizzling against the floor.

The demon spoke.

"I am Blind Bataille." His voice was like steam, like flesh twisting and cracking in fire. "I am the Guardian of Books. You tried to steal my secrets. Now you will die."

He lunged at them.

Kaelyn screamed, lost her courage, and leaped back.

But Jon saw red. This demon was threatening his wife.

Jon had faced enemies in battle. He had faced Papa Dominus on the field. He would face this terror too. With a wordless howl, Jon drew his gun and opened fire.

A bullet sank into Blind Bataille.

It didn't even slow him down.

The demon kept barreling forward and slammed into Jon.

Claws sank into Jon's shoulder. He roared in pain. The jaws opened wide, ready to feast.

Jon fired again. A boil exploded. He fired a third time. His bullet plowed a red groove across the demon's scalp. It howled in rage, prepared to sink its jaws into Jon's neck.

I'm going to die here, Jon thought. I'll never see my daughter.

The hellmouth came driving in.

"No!" Kaelyn screamed, grabbed a lantern from a wall, and hurled it.

The glass lamp shattered against Blind Bataille. Fire gripped the demon. He bellowed, wings spread wide. He tossed his head back, the fire racing across his boils. His skin melted, running down his body like tallow. Jon fired again, but still the demon did not fall. And Jon had only brought one magazine of bullets with him. It was already half empty.

Always bring lots of ammo to a library, he reminded himself.

"How the hell do we kill this thing?" Kaelyn shouted over the roaring fire and howling demon.

"Check the book!" Jon shouted. "Can you reach it? See if it says anything about—"

The demon lunged at Jon again, fire and all.

"You will not read my secrets!" Bataille howled.

A claw emerged from the flames, swinging toward Jon. It slammed into his side, cutting him, knocking him against the wall. His round glasses, which could translate the book, wobbled on his nose. He gasped for air, pain radiating through him.

Kaelyn, regaining her courage, ran toward the book on the tabletop.

Blind Bataille shrieked. An impossibly loud sound. A sound that shook the dungeons. He stormed toward Kaelyn.

"Kaelyn, watch out!" Jon cried, somewhat redundantly.

Kaelyn spun around, fear in her eyes. She froze like a deer in headlights.

But Jon had the instincts of a soldier. He pushed off the wall, leaped through the air, and landed on the demon's back.

He grabbed Bataille's warty head and tugged, desperate to keep those snapping jaws away from his wife.

Kaelyn stumbled back, eyes wide with terror. Her back hit the wall. The book still lay on the table, pages fluttering madly.

"Get the book!" Jon shouted, wrestling the demon. "Kaelyn, the first page! It says something about who can read the book!"

Kaelyn nodded, finally coming to her senses. She took another step toward the book, her legs trembling. Blind Bataille roared. The sound stormed through the dungeon, echoing, rattling books across the alcoves. Kaelyn trembled so badly she could barely walk.

Jon gripped the demon, pulling him back. Blind Bataille struggled beneath him, bellowing, craning his neck toward Kaelyn. The mighty jaws snapped again and again, slicing the air.

"Kaelyn, hurry!" Jon said. "I can't hold him back much longer!"

Kaelyn nodded and rushed toward the book. The pages were still fluttering. The entire tome was hopping on the table, flailing like some wounded beast. The front cover squirmed. The face of skin moved, mouth opening and closing, mewling.

Kaelyn gripped the book and slammed it onto the stone tabletop, crushing the face. The book bucked, resisting her. She pounded it with her fists, pinning it down, and opened the front page. The illustration of the demon was gone. Blind Bataille had emerged from the book. But the text remained.

Kaelyn adjusted her translating glasses. She began to read.

"Blind Bataille guards the secrets within. Only some may read his words. Those who—"

She didn't get any farther than Jon. With a burst of fury, the demon shook off Jon, then lunged toward the stone table. This time Jon could not hold the demon back.

Bataille swung his mighty fist into Kaelyn's head.

She reeled back and hit the ground.

"Kaelyn!" Jon cried, horror pounding through him.

He lunged at Bataille. He began pistol-whipping the demon again and again, shattering boils. The demon spun back toward him, Kaelyn forgotten. Bataille shrieked, spraying saliva.

Jon fired his last bullet. It dislodged one fang. That only infuriated the beast.

But at least Jon created a distraction. Kaelyn rose to her feet, groggy. Blood dripped down her temple

"I'm all right!" she said. "But—"

The demon barreled into Jon, slamming him against the wall. The toothy maw opened wide, ready to devour him.

Jon swung his handgun, pistol-whipping Bataille's head. It didn't help. The teeth sank into Jon's shoulder, narrowly missing his neck. He yowled.

"Kaelyn, the book!" he shouted. "What does it say?"

"He broke my glasses!" Kaelyn cried back. "I can't read it!"

Jon cursed. He saw it now. The blow had shattered her translation glasses.

"Take mine!" Jon removed his own glasses and hurled them over the demon. Thankfully, Bataille was too busy chewing on Jon's shoulder to notice.

Kaelyn caught the glasses, put them on. She returned to the book.

"Okay, it says here that … hang on … " She adjusted the glasses, leaned over the book, and squinted. "Blind Bataille guards the secrets within. Only some may—oh, dammit!"

The book jerked. The pages turned on their own, hiding the text. Kaelyn began flipping back to the first page.

Bataille finally released Jon's shoulder, leaving puncture wounds. The fangs dripped blood. The monster lunged at Jon again, this time ready to rip out his throat.

Jon turned to flee. The demon barreled into him, knocking him against the wall. His breath blasted out of his lungs, leaving his chest bare and aching.

"Hurry!" Jon gasped.

"Okay, okay!" Kaelyn said. "Blind Bataille guards …"

The demon gripped Jon, sneering and drooling, and lifted him overhead. With a grunt that sounded almost like a chortle, the beast hurled Jon through the air. He slammed into a wall and thumped on the floor, grimacing.

Kaelyn looked up at him, pale. "Jon?"

"Keep reading!" he cried, even as Bataille grabbed him again, lifted him overhead.

The demon slammed Jon against the wall. He slumped down, back aching. He formed a weak fist, managed to punch the beast. It was laughable. Like a baby punching a prize fighter.

Bataille lifted him yet again. The demon was enjoying this. He was taking his time with the kill.

"Blind Bataille guards the secrets within!" Kaelyn shouted over the snarling beast and roaring fire. "Only some may read his words. Those whose hearts are pure shall feed the beast. Those whose hearts are cruel may tame the power within." She gasped. "What does it mean?"

Blind Bataille slammed Jon onto the floor. He groaned, writhing in pain. The demon placed a hoof on him, pinning him down. The beast leaned low, drooling onto Jon. His saliva was acidic. Burning Jon's skin.

"It means that I will devour you," Blind Bataille hissed. He spoke with a thousand voices, a legion of demons chanting. "You are weak. Your heart is pure and delectable. I will enjoy this morsel. Playtime is over." He licked his chops. "It's supper time."

The jaws opened wider than ever before, revealing the gullet. Jon saw human skulls inside.

The jaws began to close around him. Jon grabbed the hellish mouth. He lodged his hand where he had knocked out a tooth, gripping the gum. He strained, keeping the jaws open. It took all his strength. The jaws were pushing inward, about to snap shut and rip off his head.

"I am not a pure soul!" Jon shouted. "The secrets in this book will not be hidden from me."

The demonic chorus spoke again, even with the jaw held open.

"You are soft! You are pure! You are good!" With every word, the voices grew higher and higher in pitch. Wind roared through the dungeon. Books flew off alcoves. Pages fluttered everywhere.

"I am not a good man!" Jon shouted. "I fought a war. I invaded another world. I fired artillery shells on cities." His eyes burned, suddenly damp.

"Prove it!" the demon hissed.

"Look at my neck! Look at the dog tags that dangle from my chain. Yes, I still wear them. Even now. A yoke around my neck. A reminder of what I did. I killed farmers defending their homes. I sinned, Blind Bataille. I am not a good man. I have no pure heart. I am like you. I am evil."

The wind died.

The voices died.

All was silent.

The demon pulled back. It had no eyes, but it seemed to be examining Jon. Behind the creature, Kaelyn stood very still, tears in her eyes.

Slowly, Blind Bataille leaned forward and sniffed Jon. Long inhalations, sniffing Jon from chin to head. A shudder ran through the demon. He retreated and bowed.

"Forgive me, fellow soul of darkness. I smell the whiff of it now. The hint of decay. It is faint. But it is there. Your heart is not pure. My secrets are yours, my friend."

And then the demon grew very thin, frail, the pustules contracting, the jaws retreating into the gullet, the wings wrapping around a spindly frame. The book sucked up the demon like a noodle, leaving only a whiff of rancid smoke. Once more the demon was inside the book, just an illustration on the first page.

Jon collapsed onto the floor, breathing heavily. Blood dripped from the tooth marks on his shoulder. Bruises were already spreading across the rest of him. He gave Kaelyn a wan smile, then winced.

"I … sure … showed him, huh?"

Kaelyn stood frozen, blinking, then snapped out of her paralysis. She ran toward him, knelt, and began tending to his wound.

"Oh Jon! Oh Jon …" Trembling seized her. "Oh God. Oh God. I can't . . ." She took a deep breath. "How could that be real? Spellbooks? Demons?"

He managed another weak smile. "Welcome to space, babe."

Thankfully, he had a med kit. A military one, actually. One he had been carrying since the army. War habits died hard. He no longer wore the uniform, and he no longer carried an assault rifle. But to this day, wherever he went, Jon took with his dog tags, his med kit, and his memories. Some things a veteran never left behind.

Kaelyn patched him up. Disinfecting. Stitching. Bandaging. And finally kissing him.

"Jon," she said softly, stroking his hair.

"Kaelyn."

She stared steadily into his eyes. "I want you to know something. You are not an evil man."

A chill washed Jon. "The demon thought otherwise."

"I don't care what a demon thought. I know you better than some demon. You have the heart of a poet. A good heart."

Jon lowered his head. "You don't know all the horrible things I've done in the war."

"I know that they torment you," Kaelyn said. "I also know that you fought to end the war. Like I did. No person is pure. We've all done things we're ashamed of. There are no true heroes in this world. But you come close, Jon Taylor. You fought an evil war, but you did not lose your soul. You are a good man. Never forget that."

"Keep reminding me," Jon said. "Because sometimes it's hard to believe."

She held his hands. "I'll always be here for you. Always."

"Stalker."

"Damn right."

With Jon patched up, physically and maybe a little bit emotionally, they returned to the book. And finally the ancient grimoire revealed its secrets.

Chapter Ten

Sacrifice

"You can't do this!" Maria leaped to her feet, almost knocking over her cup of wine. "You can't just … just sacrifice a virgin! That's evil!"

Her voice rang through the halls of Sodom. Everyone turned to stare.

"Nini," Charlie whispered from the corner of her mouth, surreptitiously tugging Maria's dress. "Sit down. You're embarrassing yourself. And more importantly—me."

Maria wrenched herself free from Charlie's grip. She took a step back, breathing heavily, and stared across the dining hall. The Sodomians stared back, eyes dark. The feast steamed on the tables, fish and crabs and clams untouched. The sacrificial virgin stood nearby, head lowered, her silvery hair cascading to her waist, hiding her nakedness.

"Is this really how you want to live?" Maria said. "Bound by some ancient ritual of human sacrifice?"

Dagata turned toward her. The tribe elder clasped her staff of bones, her hand nearly as bony. The seashells woven into her hair chinked.

"We won't want to. We must! Or the Drowned King will smite us all."

Maria looked around her, exasperated, seeking some support. But the warriors all looked aside. They were muscular men, their white skin covered in tattoos of sea serpents and krakens, their quivers heavy with whale teeth and narwhal horns. But now they seemed almost abashed, withering under Maria's glare. Earlier, they had objected to the plan. They had called out for a fight. Yet now they would not support Maria!

Their earlier objections were an act, Maria realized. Just part of the ritual. Meant to protect their pride.

"Well, it's not up to you." Maria gestured at the sacrificial virgin. "Karagatan is a grown woman. She's done nothing wrong! You have no authority over her life."

Maria marched across the hall toward the virgin. Karagatan still stood on the seashell like Venus depicted in ancient paintings. But no angels sang around her. And her skin was not soft pastel but pale, almost ashen, adorned with tattoos of nautiluses. Her eyes were two pools of cold dark water.

"Karagatan." Maria held the young woman's hands. "I'll protect you."

Karagatan pulled her hands back. "No! I don't want your protection."

Maria gasped. "But … they'll sacrifice you to the Drowned King!"

Whoever he is, Maria added silently. She didn't want to appear too ignorant.

"I'll gladly sacrifice myself!" Karagatan raised her chin. "This gives me great honor and purpose. Maria, I know you care. You want to protect me. But these are our ways. I'm twenty-one and still unwed. In our culture, that is a great shame. There are only five hundred of us. Everyone must serve their part. Yet there is one more male than female of my generation. I was the last chosen to wed. Living here, unmarried, I would be a burden upon the tribe. To bear a child into Sodom is a great honor. But even greater is to travel into the hall of the Drowned King." Her eyes dampened, and she raised her chin. "The sacrificial virgin does not bring life into the tribe, yet she saves every life others create."

"You're brainwashed," Maria whispered.

Karagatan smiled softly. "Maria, I choose this path. Do not grieve for me. Celebrate my honor."

But Maria could not.

Call me boorish, she thought. But I'm in no mood for cultural relativism.

She looked back at the others. The warriors. The tribe elders. The young families. She spoke to them all, her voice soft. "You don't have to live like this. Generation after generation, you've hidden here under the ocean, trapped inside these halls. You don't have to be trapped forever."

"There is only death outside these halls," old Dagata said. "We are not as fortunate as you. We are not of the Canaan tribe. We are only Sodomians. The untouchables. On the surface, Papa Dominus still rules, and he would smite us if we rose. In the water around us, Gomorrah reigns, and her terrible serpents swim in every sea. What would you have us do? We're trapped between two tyrants. We survive!"

Maria's eyes dampened. "This place doesn't have to be a cage. You live in a starship. Rise into the sky."

Dagata snorted. Laughter sounded across the hall. "A starship? Maybe once long ago. Sodom can no longer fly. The Drowned King stole her engines to power his underwater kingdom. We live in a hulk. She will never fly again."

"No engines?" Maria tilted her head. "But … you said that you feed criminals to the engine god. I heard the engine rumbling! I felt the heat, saw the firelight."

"A room full of coal," Dagata said. "To us, fire is holy. We worship the flames. But they cannot raise this ship. Our place is here underwater, child. We are Sodomians. We are proud. We are pure. The years have been hard. Many of us died. Many of us are deformed due to inbreeding. But this shipwreck, these hallowed halls—this is our kingdom, our nation, our holy land. It must seem strange to you who comes from the islands, a vast realm where you could walk for days on end, never discovering its end. Our ways are different. We are smaller but no less proud. We have vowed to defend the halls of Sodom. We will do anything to protect our home."

Across the hall, warriors raised their fists.

"For the silver halls of Sodom!" they cried. "Our blood runs red for thee!"

Maria lowered her head. Despair washed over her like the currents over this drowned starship.

"So my suspicions were right," she whispered. "Sodom can't save our people."

Charlie hugged her. "I'm sorry, Nini."

Maria leaned against her friend. "I just wanted to save our people. To find a way to bring thousands home to Earth. Now the Sodomians will remain trapped here. And our tribe, the people of Canaan, will keep suffering on the islands, playthings for Papa Dominus to torment."

But maybe there is still a way, Maria thought. There is still a second starship. And she lies in the realm of the Drowned King.

Maria raised her head. She took a deep, shaky breath and addressed the crowd.

"I will replace Karagatan. Let her remain among her people. Send me instead to the hall of the Drowned King."

* * * * *

"Nini, are you absolutely crazy?" Charlie gripped Maria's arms. "Have you hit your giant head and gone mad? Volunteering for virgin sacrifice! You're not even a virgin! You're a bargirl, for Chrissake."

"Shh, Charlie!" Maria cringed. "They'll hear you."

The sun had fallen. The lights across Sodom dimmed. Everyone had shuffled out the dining room, patting full bellies, and returned to the grand chamber with the floating screens. The video feeds showed the ocean outside, dark and silent. The only movement came from swaying kelp, its top leaves catching the moonlight.

The Kinnara still floated outside Sodom, looking like a fish beside a whale. Maria had tried contacting the little submarine several times, but her headset just couldn't penetrate Sodom's curving, shell-like hull.

She hoped Lily was okay. That she wasn't scared.

Throughout the grand hall, the Sodomians were preparing for the long night. They put out their campfires, kissed one another goodnight, and yawned. Some retired into the fossilized ammonites which served as their spiraling huts. Others slept in the open, gazing upon a holographic display of stars that sparkled across the ceiling.

It's a beautiful place, Maria thought. I understand why they cherish it. Sometimes a small, fragile home is more precious than an empire.

And it seemed to her suddenly that all of Bahay was like this. Just a relic, lost in the cosmic ocean. A little cage. A little home. At the mercy of the powerful and cruel. A precious jewel she would always fight for.

"I don't care if everyone hears!" Charlie said. "Nini, I can't believe I have to spell this out. But generally sacrificing yourself to an evil underwater god is a bad idea."

"He's not a god," Maria said. "He's the Drowned King. And in the morning, I will be sent to him."

"Why?" Charlie said.

"Because he has a starship, Charlie! He still has the Gomorrah. The Sodom is a hulk. Her engine is gone. But if the Gomorrah can still fly—"

"If the Drowned King lets you fly it," Charlie said. "Which is a very big if. Almost as big as your head. When we came underwater, we thought we'd find empty starships. Turns out they're already occupied. With homicidal religious nuts. Bit of a stick in our wheel, Nini."

"I know. But we have to try."

Charlie groaned. "So why volunteer as a sacrificial virgin? Why not just swim over, announce yourself as Maria of the islands, and ask for his starship?"

"I'd never make it through the door," Maria said. "You heard what they're saying around here. The Gomorrahns are a violent tribe. Xenophobic. If I just showed up, claiming to be an islander? They'd think I'm insane. Or an invader. They'd lock me up! Or kill me. No, I can't just swim in as myself, Maria from the Canaan tribe. I need an audience with the Drowned King of Gomorrah. A sacrificial virgin from Sodom goes straight to the Drowned King. That's my ticket in."

Charlie heaved a sigh. "Why do I keep coming along on all these adventures with you? I could be back in the Toy Box club, dancing my sorrows away. Instead I'm buried underwater, missing a heel, and stink like seaweed."

"That smell is hintan," Maria said. "You've been smoking again."

Charlie bristled. "I don't do drugs."

"You're smoking drugs right now!"

Charlie blew out purple smoke. "I'm just smoking hot. I can't help it."

Maria grabbed the older woman's hands. "Come with me, Charlie. To the Hall of the Drowned King."

"Oh, Nini, I'm flattered." Charlie looked down at her body, back at Maria again. "But nobody will believe I'm a virgin. I look far too hot. Especially with all the smoke. You passing as a virgin … eh, I can get it. Me? Not believable."

"Dress up as a guard or something," Maria said. "Come on! I can't go on adventures without you."

Charlie snorted. "Why not?"

"Because you're my best friend, why do you think?"

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, flattery will get you nowhere." She frowned. "Your best friend? Best ever? In the whole world?"

"In the whole galaxy," Maria said. "I love you, Charlie. You know that."

Charlie seemed to melt. Her eyes dampened. "Aww, I love you too, Nini. We love each other so much. Just why couldn't you be a hot Earthling with a visa? Kidding, kidding! You're perfect just the way you are. Other than dragging me on your adventures."

Maria heaved a deep breath. "I don't know how I'll explain all this to the boys. We need to find our way back to the Kinnara and update them." She gasped. "Gosh, we've been gone for hours! They're probably worried sick. We said we'd be back in two hours. It's been much longer."

Charlie shrugged. "Eh, it's Bahayan time. All Bahayans know that two hours means twenty."

Maria tilted her head. "Well, I'm Bahayan, and I didn't know that."

"Oh, please. You're an alien. Your head is even big like an alien. But fine! Let's go back to the Kinnara. I feel like giving Jay Jay a good squeeze on the puwit anyway."

They rose to their feet, hoping to find a guide back to the airlock, when footfalls echoed through the hall.

Sodomian guards walked through the shadows, manhandling prisoners.

"We caught more Canaanites!" announced a burly warrior, his arms covered in blood. "They killed one of our brothers!"

* * * * *

Maria stood there, staring, and felt the blood drain from her face.

Oh God, no.

The Sodomian warriors stomped through the hall. They were more muscular than Bahayan islanders. Their chests were like barrels, evolved to accommodate larger lungs, useful for an underwater people. Their hands were webbed. Their skin was pale, evolved to soak up whatever sunlight reached the depths, and tribal tattoos coiled across their powerful arms. They wore skirts of kelp, and bone fishing hooks hung from their necks.

They were dragging the rest of Kinnara's crew.

Jay Jay and Rodrigo were both bound with kelp ropes. Both were bruised. Jay Jay had a fat lip. He was struggling against the ropes and shouting into a gag. Rodrigo sported a nasty black eye. He was not gagged, but he remained silent, head lowered. One of the Sodomians was carrying Lily. Blessedly, the little girl was unbound.

Maria and Charlie ran toward their children.

"Lily!" Maria called out. "Lily, are you all right?"

Maria scooped the child into her arms. She examined Lily for wounds. The girl was trembling but unhurt. Maria hugged her tightly.

"Rodrigo, my baby!" Charlie cried, tottering toward her son on bare feet. She could move remarkably fast on heels, but for some reason, she was slow and awkward without them.

Rodrigo looked up. His eyes were damp. He wasn't struggling against the ropes or guards.

"Hi Mom," he said. "Hi, Tita Maria."

His voice was oddly soft. His eyes were haunted.

Charlie finally reached her son.

"Let him go!" she said, slapping the guards. "How dare you tie my son up? What did you do to him? Why is his face bruised?" She began fussing over Rodrigo. "Oh, my poor, sweet baby, did they treat you badly? I'll rip them apart!" She frowned. "You didn't start the fight, did you?"

"Mom," he whispered, voice shaky. "I … I did something. Something bad."

He lowered his head. Charlie hugged him tightly, stroked his hair, and whispered comfortingly into his ear. Maria could hear snippets of the conversation.

". . . whatever you did, I love …"

"Mom, he came right at me, he …"

"It's okay, sweetie. Your mom is here."

Maria shivered. Whatever was going on, it was bad.

Across the grand hall, everyone was emerging from the ammonite huts. The lights turned back on. People stared. The village elder stepped forward, her staff of bones tapping, her glass eye shining. A hush fell across the crowd.

Several more Sodomian warriors entered the hall.

They carried a litter. A fallen warrior lay there, a hole in his chest.

"Malatas is dead!" cried a warrior, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Our brother Malatas is dead!"

Across the hall, everyone cried out in agony. They fell to their knees. They wept.

"Malatas! Not Malatas!"

These people haven't known much loss, Maria thought. And they are so few. Every death to them is a catastrophe to the whole community.

She couldn't suppress a bitter feeling.

Up on the surface, millions died in the war. Oh, to suffer only a single death! They are fortunate people indeed.

But she shoved those thoughts aside. They were petty. They would not serve her now.

A woman ran forward. She clutched the body and wailed, head tossed back. A few children cowered behind her. One boy peeked at the dead warrior.

"Daddy?" the child whispered.

"What happened?" Dagata demanded, limping forward. Her back was hunched her, her legs were bent, but her one eye shone fiercely. "Who did this? Who murdered our beloved Malatas?"

The warriors turned toward Rodrigo. They pointed at the awkward teenager.

"He did!"

Maria's heart sank.

Oh no.

Chapter Eleven

Answers in the Shadows

Jon and Kaelyn sat in the dungeon, studying the grimoire by candlelight.

Thankfully, no other demons leaped out.

It was just the book they needed. A thousand runes filled its pages, sigils of ancient power. The same symbols Jon had seen tattooed onto Papa Dominus's skin. They passed the glasses back and forth, reading the translated descriptions. A rune shaped like a hammer for strength. A rune shaped like a helmet for constitution. A rune shaped like a tortoise shell for long life.

"It reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons stats," Jon said. "Remember how we used to play as children?"

She nodded, smiling wistfully, and leaned against him. "I remember. Your basement. Cold Coca Cola and spicy potato chips. Symphonic metal playing on the speakers. You, me, Paul, and George—we all sat around that old wooden table, rolling dice. I miss those days." Her smile faded. "Jon, but how could this be real? Magic. Curses." Kaelyn hugged herself. "We're people of science."

"Magic is just science you don't understand."

"And are we any closer to understanding these symbols?" Kaelyn said. "Not just what they do. But how they do it."

Jon flipped through pages, passing over many runes, until he reached a chapter near the end. Here the book finally divulged a little history. A little of that magical science.

An illustration appeared on this page in full color, showing a spiral galaxy in the center. But the galaxy was not the focus of the page.

A heavenly realm sprawled above the galaxy, gently inked in gold and silver. A land of clouds and beams of light. Of angelic figures, robed and luminous, traveling in rows like monks to a temple. Words were written here in gold, each letter a work of art.

The Empyrean Firmament

"It looks like heaven," Kaelyn said.

Jon tapped the bottom of the page. "And that must be hell."

A realm of shadows appeared below the galaxy. Black and charcoal ink formed a nightmarish landscape, a place of darkness, caves, and jagged black mountains. Words appeared here too.

Dark Matter

"Dark matter?" Kaelyn frowned. "Like from the physics books?"

When Jon looked more carefully, he realized that the Empyrean Firmament and the land of Dark Matter reflected each other. A luminous cloud above cast a dark mountain below. A beam of light above appeared as a tarry river below. Reflections. Light and shadow.

He flipped the page. Spidery words tightly crammed onto the parchment. No illustrations. Good. Something a bit more substantial. Jon read the words aloud.

"Long ago, before the great empire of Orion and the warlords of Rigel, the Ancient Ones ruled the galaxy. Stars they tamed. Wormholes they paved. Mysteries they uncovered. Many worlds they seeded with life, nurtured their growing creatures, and fostered them into branching, coiling strands of consciousness. The Ancient Ones were proud of their creation, yet the roots of the tree rotted. The branches darkened with disease. The sap turned red with blood. These were the eras of the great wars of life."

Jon paused, letting it sink in for a moment.

"The Ancient Ones …" Kaelyn said. "Could the book mean the Ancients, the aliens we studied in school?"

"Could be," Jon said. "Our school books teach that the Ancients built the Wormhole Road, the great network that connects the galaxy. But our books said nothing about the Ancients seeding different planets with life. Nor about some ancient galactic war."

"Let's keep reading," Kaelyn said.

Jon nodded and kept reading aloud.

"As the great wars raged, the Ancient Ones looked upon creation with disgust. They saw flesh as weak. Matter as corrupt. In the great Day of Ascension, the Ancient Ones abandoned their physical bodies. Their atoms scattered into nebulae to someday form new stars. Their consciousness ascended, free of matter, woven of pure energy. They settled in the Empyrean Firmament, the Realm Above, a land of pure thought. There they still dwell. And their light shines upon us."

"They sound like angels," Kaelyn said. "Maybe our ancestors saw the Ancients. Maybe they mistook them for angels. Mistook the Empyrean Firmament for Heaven. Or maybe they were not mistaken. They simply described it as best they could."

Jon read the last paragraph. "Yet all light casts a shadow. And as the Empyrean Firmament shines upon our world, we cast a shadowland below. This is the realm of Dark Matter. A realm of pure emotion, raw and untamed, with no thoughts to guide it. Light and darkness. Logic and passion. The galaxy hangs between them."

"Okay, that was a nice bit of infodump," Kaelyn said, "but how does it help us?"

"Patience, young grasshopper." Jon flipped the page. "Here we go."

Another illustration appeared here. It featured a temple upon a snowy mountaintop, overlooking a white forest. A constellation shone above. Alien monks sat outside the temple, meditating, runes tattooed onto their skin.

Jon kept reading. "The Temple of Zandria. Here do the Weavers, an order of monks, study the Empyrean Firmament. They began as humble weavers of cloth, embroidering wondrous tapestries. In their patterns of thread, they uncovered links to the realm above. They formed symbols like keyholes, letting the light shine into our world. At first, they stitched the patterns into their robes. Then they inked the runes of power onto their skin. The Weavers dedicated themselves to healing, meditating, and understanding. Yet from their order rose a Dark Weaver, a lord who summoned the power of shadow."

Jon and Kaelyn looked at each other.

"Papa Dominus!" they said together.

They flipped the page. But here the book ended with only a few words. Jon read aloud.

"As above, so below. As with life, so with death. As with pleasure, so with pain. Use these powers wisely. As you reach toward the light, the shadows will darken below your feet. May the light guide you, and may the darkness forever bow before you."

That was it. That was all the information in this book. In this dungeon. In this library.

Jon and Kaelyn looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing.

We must go to the Weaver Temple.

* * * * *

"Good evening, Saturn!" Kaelyn cried, raising her devil horns. "Symphonica salutes you!"

Across the floating dome, two thousand miners cheered and raised their horns.

The dome floated in Saturn's atmosphere. The planet had no surface. They floated in the air. Saturnia Sky Dome was essentially a giant, floating snow globe. The deck was round and flat, mounted atop anti-gravity plates. A steelglass canopy enclosed the deck, maintaining air pressure and affording the best view in the galaxy. That's what the brochures called the view, at least, and it was hard to argue. Clouds of hydrogen glided all around, sparkling with ammonia crystals like snowflakes. Beams of sunlight shone through, painting the cloudscapes red, auburn, and burnished gold. White swirls and pink eddies danced like watercolor angels. Saturn's fabled rings shone above, halving the sky.

A few adventurous tourists came here. But not many. Everyone in the audience worked for Saturnia Chemicals, a mining company that collected the precious gasses found lower in the denser, darker layers of atmosphere. These were hardworking men and women. Some went for months, even years without seeing home. Many had just risen to the Sky Dome after toiling for weeks in the dark, crushing depths, wrestling Saturn's demons. Tonight they were drinking, moshing, and cheering at the top of their lungs. Symphonica had never played for a livelier crowd.

The band opened the show with a headbanging rendition of "Shadow Box," a song about an old veteran who kept his medals in a glass case above the fireplace. The war hero finally gave the medals to his grandson, a young man joining the army. It was a gung-ho fighting song, and it always got the crowd going. Next, without a moment to catch their breath, they launched into "Fire in the Hole," another rocker. Sooty, callused fists pumped across the dome.

A few songs in, they played "Falling like the Rain," and the crowd hushed and raised their lighters. Next they played "Scattered Pages," a heartbreaking song about a fallen soldier. By the time they played "Broken Things," the song of a lost generation, even these gruff, burly miners were crying.

Even with everything else going on—the impending return to Bahay, the trauma of the library, the upcoming confrontation with Papa Dominus—Jon surrendered himself to his music. Everything else disappeared. He lived every song, giving from himself to the keyboards, to his music, to his fans.

The show ended.

They met the miners, many of them now diehard fans. They autographed albums. They took a tour in a shuttle, passing through the swirling storms of Saturn.

And then it was off to the next world. To Titan, Saturn's largest moon. And after that across the void to Jupiter, and then to the asteroid belts, where tourists came to watch spaceracers, buy alien goods, and gamble far from any planetary jurisdiction. Symphonica was conquering the solar system.

It was exhausting.

The band got ten days off for Christmas. Everyone else went home to their families. But Jon and Kaelyn did not return to Lindenville. They hopped into the Symphonic Thunder, their little intergalactic starship, and blasted out of the solar system again.

They had a snowy forest to find. A mountain to climb. A temple to explore and dark secrets to reveal.

Chapter Twelve

The Trial

They held the trial that night in the halls of Sodom.

One life was gone. They would decide if another would follow.

The courtroom lay deep in the drowned starship. It was a dark, cavernous hall. Centuries ago, this had been the engine room. Once this chamber had powered a grand intergalactic starship. But Sodom was now a sunken hulk. The engine was gone. This cavern no longer propelled people among the stars but doomed them to fiery death.

Where the engine had once churned now crackled a chasm of fire. The pit gurgled, tossed up tongues of flame, and bathed the room with heat and red light. The fire pit seemed like a living beast, a god of anger. The Sodomians had placed the skulls of sea monsters around the flaming abyss. Over time, the fire had blackened the hideous mementos. Now dark skulls leered everywhere, their teeth glimmering like obsidian, their jaws large enough that Maria could have stood inside them.

In short, this was not the cheeriest room Maria had been in. Lucifer himself would feel right at home.

A mezzanine circled the room, cloaked in shadows. The Sodomians stood there, gazing down from on high. They wore black robes and carried torches.

Maria and her crew stood below, seeking shelter behind a metal console. Long ago, it must have been an engineering station. But the computers had been ripped out, leaving only raw metal. The fire crackled ahead, washing them with heat. Whenever a tongue of fire leaped out, they cringed. The heat was nearly unbearable. Sweat was trickling down Maria's body.

Maria held her daughter close. Charlie and Jay Jay stood side by side, holding hands. But one from their group stood apart.

A cage hung from the ceiling, dangling over the pit of fire.

Inside stood Rodrigo.

"We should settle this over tea like civilized people," Maria muttered. "These Sodomians are a theatrical bunch. I'll give them that."

"It's my fault!" Jay Jay stepped toward the fire pit, cringing in the heat. He looked up at the Sodomians on the mezzanine. "Take my life. Spare the boy! I was in command of the Kinnara when your man died. I take full responsibility. Execute me instead!"

Charlie stepped forward too. Her face twisted with rage. The firelight painted her red. "Return my son!" she howled. "Return him or I'll tear this place apart. He was defending himself! How dare you!"

On the mezzanine, Dagata raised a bone. With surprising strength, the old woman slammed the bone onto a steel drum. A boom echoed through the cavern.

"Silence!" Dagata said. "Let the trial begin."

Sodomian warriors stepped forward. Some were still shedding tears for the loss of their brother. Others fumed. They told the tale. How the Kinnara had sent invaders into the Sodom. How they had courageously raided the enemy ship, and how the cruel Canaanite slaughtered their comrade.

"Liars!" Charlie shouted. "My boy is a good boy. He would never just kill anyone. You attacked him first! You admitted it!"

Maria expected Dagata to bang her drum. To command the guards to haul Charlie off. But surprisingly, the elder seemed sad.

"I understand your grief, Charlie of Canaan," Dagata said. "We're both mothers. You fear losing your son. Like I lost mine. Yes, daughter of Canaan. Your son killed my son. We are forever bound in grief."

Maria gasped.

The warrior who died—her son!

Maria's heart sank. This did not bode well for Rodrigo. Not at all.

Jay Jay stepped forward. He held Charlie's hand and looked up at the mezzanine.

"I was there!" Jay Jay said. "We were not harming the Sodom. We were just floating in the water. The women went to investigate, that's all. A mission of friendship. But warriors invaded our submarine, swinging blades! They meant to kill us! Rodrigo shot back in self-defense. He's young. He was scared. He saw blades swinging his way, and he took a shot. You would have done the same. Don't judge him as a Canaanite. Judge him as a fellow Bahayan. Judge him as a boy put in an impossible situation."

"Rubbish!" a Sodomian warrior cried.

"He's a murderer!" cried another.

"A Canaanite invader!"

"Burn him!"

"Feed the engine god! Feed the engine god!"

"I'll fight every one of you!" Charlie screamed. "Come at me!"

"Feed me to your god then!" Jay Jay said. "If you demand a sacrifice, let it be me. Spare the boy!"

Dagata was beating the drum, shouting for calm, but nobody listened. The only silent one was Rodrigo, hanging up there in the cage, dangling over the fire.

I have to stop this, Maria thought. This is madness!

She stepped forward, reached into her pocket, and pulled out Crisanto. The little Santelmo had been sleeping for a long time. He woke up, glowing dimly. Maria tossed him into the air. He rose to the ceiling and shone brilliantly, casting white light across the room.

Everyone fell silent.

They stared at the star above.

"A Santelmo!" a warrior whispered, then fell to his knees. "The ancient angels bless us again."

One by one, everyone bowed.

The Santelmos are legendary to them, Maria realized. The ancient aliens who had built this starship long ago. If only they knew Santelmos still live on the islands!

Maria stepped between the kneeling warriors. She spoke to the crowd.

"Now that I have your attention, I propose a peaceful resolution. Hear me out."

Everyone turned toward her.

"Speak," Dagata said from the mezzanine.

Maria turned to look at Charlie.

Her friend looked back. Charlie's tears had smeared her makeup. Her eyes were red, her face so weary, so scared. Maria had never seen Charlie look so distraught.

I'm so sorry, my friend, Maria thought. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you know this is the only way.

Maria looked back toward the mezzanine. She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Earlier tonight, I watched you doom Karagatan, a young virgin, to the court of the Drowned King. A human sacrifice. Why? Simply because you could not find her a husband. I volunteered to replace Karagatan. In a few hours, when the sun rises, I will leave for Gomorrah, a sacrificial virgin. Karagatan will remain here—still without a husband. I propose: Let her marry Rodrigo!"

Everyone gasped.

"What?" Dagata said, rising to her feet.

"What?" Charlie said, eyes so wide they nearly popped out.

"You need Rodrigo!" Maria said. "You have one female more than male. You need him to marry your unwed woman. You need to expand your gene pool. You said so yourself! You're inbred. You need new blood. Blood from above the sea. Rodrigo won't die in the fire. He'll join you. He'll become a Sodomian. He'll live! And he'll help you all survive."

For a moment, nobody spoke. The only sound came from the crackling fire.

Charlie stepped forward. "No way!" Tears rolled down her cheeks. "He's only a boy."

"He's sixteen," Maria said softly. "You already had a child at that age. He's old enough."

Charlie let out a sob. "I can't let him go."

But you must, Maria thought. And Charlie knew it.

Maria looked back to the mezzanine. "Dagata! What do you say?"

The elder looked down at them, pondering. Her glass eye shone in the fire. Her good eye softened and turned to look at the cage.

"Rodrigo, what do you think?" Dagata said, her voice softer now. "Would you want to stay with us?"

Rodrigo clasped the cage bars. "Yes!" His eyes were wide, and a smile spread across his face. "Oh, yes! And not only to save my ass from the fire. I mean—that's the main reason. But it also sounds cool! I get to marry a hot tattooed chick. And live in an underwater spaceship! It's every boy's dream."

"Rodrigo, no!" Charlie said, reaching toward the cage. "We'll find another way. We'll—"

"Mom! I'll be fine. You have to let me go."

"I can't." Charlie sobbed. "I love you."

"I love you too, Mom. But it's not like I'm moving to another planet. You can always visit." Rodrigo glanced at the mezzanine. "My mom can visit, right?"

Dagata was solemn. "We've never allowed visitors from the outside. We'll have to think about changing very ancient ways. But I think … I think, yes. I think she can visit."

Everyone looked at Charlie. The bargirl stood there, tears on her cheeks, too overwhelmed to speak. She nodded silently.

Maria took a deep breath.

Rodrigo is saved, she thought. But very soon, I will sail into the court of the Drowned King. There I must find hope for Bahay. Or all of this won't matter. Because we'll all be dead.

Chapter Thirteen

The Monk on the Mountain

Zandria.

A distant star. A star a thousand light-years away, far outside the Human Commonwealth. A star in the deep darkness. Alien territory.

No human had ever gone there. Jon and Kaelyn were heading there now.

According to the ancient grimoire, it was on Zandria that they'd find the Weaver Temple. And so they flew into the void.

Normally, even with a powerful warp drive, a journey to Zandria would take months. Thankfully, the Ancients had built many wormholes. Shortcuts through the galaxy.

The Symphonic Thunder took the Wormhole Road. They hopped from portal to portal. From star to star. They emerged from one portal by Betelgeuse—a massive, roaring inferno of a star, thousands of times larger than the sun back home. Through heat and baths of radiation, the Symphonic Thunder hurried into the next portal. They skipped down the luminous tunnel, crossing fifty light-years within instants, and emerged by another star. A dead star. A black dwarf, the skeletal remains of a star that had burned out—a smoldering skull in space. They flew by dead planets where ancient ruins spread across dry continents. Where civilizations had gazed upon a dying sun and flickered out with it.

They flew by neutron stars, objects so dense that just a spoonful of them would weigh more than a mountain. They flew by pulsars that shone like lighthouses, spinning with atomic precision. They flew by blueish stars shaped like footballs, squeezed by their own gravity. By warm yellow stars. By nebulae where stars were only being born, where the dust of creation rose in pillars. They flew by crackling red dwarfs and cool yellow stars. They flew by a black hole haloed in light. They flew by binary stars that spun at breakneck speed around each other like bees in a mating dance. They flew by supergiants and stars so small they were barely more than hot planets.

Finally, after days of travel, they hopped through the final portal on their journey. They saw before them Zandria, their destination.

It was a white dwarf star. Small, dense, and relatively cool. There was nothing unusual about it. It was one among millions of similar stars.

But the book had pointed here. So here they flew.

They found seven planets orbiting Zandria. The book hadn't specified which one to visit. Jon ruled out three at once. They were gas giants. There would be no snowy mountains there. The book had depicted a temple on a snowy mountain.

One planet was close to the star, a hellish world of fire and electric storms. Definitely not that one either. The second planet from the star seemed promising, but when they flew closer, they found a planet covered in swamplands, rainforests, and deserts. There were no oceans, but many rivers ran across the planet like blue veins. There was no ice even on the poles. Nope, not snowy mountains here either.

Finally, after hours of planet hopping, they found the best candidate. The fourth planet from the star lay in the Goldilocks zone, that rare band of space where water could exist in liquid form. The equator was warm and forested, fading to grasslands and deserts. But go farther north, and you found snowy tundra.

"This must be the place," Jon said.

Kaelyn, who sat beside him in the cockpit, squeezed his hand. She looked into his eyes and smiled.

"We'll find answers here. I'm with you, Jon. Whatever happens. I'm with you, and I love you."

They dived into the atmosphere. It was a bumpy ride. The Symphonic Thunder was just a dinky little ship, decades old, refurbished and installed with an intergalactic engine. She rattled in atmospheric entry, ionizing the air, cascading downward like some drunken, topsy-turvy asteroid. Jon and Kaelyn held hands so tightly it hurt, praying the ship held together.

A bed of clouds softened their descent. Fluffy white pillows filled the sky, gilded in sunlight like marshmallows roasting over embers. The ship flew lower, carving through the cloudscape, and emerged into pale gray dawn.

Snow was falling. Forested hills rolled below. Frozen rivers snaked across the valleys, glinting whenever the sun peeked from the clouds, then fading to threads of dull silver as the clouds regathered.

The Thunder flew farther north toward a mountain range. The row of mountains carved the arctic like a ridged scar.

"Finding the right mountain won't be easy," Jon said. "Any building, even a big temple, will be hard to spot from so high up. And if we fly lower, we'll limit our field of visibility."

"Is anything easy?" Kaelyn said. "We'll do what we did with the planets. Process of elimination. Right away, let's cross off the highest mountain peaks."

Jon nodded. "Right. Thin atmosphere. Hard to reach. Not a great place to build a temple."

"And remember the illustration in The Runes of Power. A forest surrounded the temple. We need to find a low mountain, maybe a tall hill, growing from a forest."

"That still leaves a lot of space to cover," Jon said, watching the land roll below. Hills, mountains, and valleys sprawled to the horizon, white with snow.

Kaelyn tapped her chin. "There was a river in the illustration. I'm almost sure. Gosh, I wish I had taken a picture!"

"That does narrow it down a bit," Jon said. "I don't see any rivers beside mountains."

"We'll find one. River, mountain, forest. That's our combo."

* * * * *

It took a while.

They divided the landscape into a grid. They searched it square by square, flying below the clouds. Doing this from orbit would have been easier, but the clouds made that impossible.

Jon put on some music. A playlist of twenty-first century symphonic metal, the inspiration for Symphonica. He chewed on a microwave burrito as he scanned the landscape, then moved on to coffee and a packet of bite-sized brownies. Kaelyn ate a salad. Before leaving Earth, they had packed Symphonic Thunder with groceries. Sometimes these adventures reminded Jon of the army, but the food was better. Microwave burritos weren't exactly fine dining, but he'd take them over battle rations.

A few hours went by.

Still—nothing.

The playlist ended, and they sat in silence.

Finally Jon spoke the words that had been rattling through his skull. "What if we're at the wrong planet?"

"Or the wrong time?" Kaelyn said. "That book looked ancient. For all we know, it's ten thousand years old. The temple might be gone by now."

Jon groaned. "Hell, maybe we got the wrong star system entirely. I—"

Symphonic Thunder slowed to a halt in the sky. It was like flying into a thick cushion of air.

Jon's mouth fell open. He glanced at Kaelyn. For a second, they hovered in midair, engines thrumming, trying to fly forward, stuck like an insect in amber.

Then an invisible force hurled them backward.

The ship tumbled across the sky, rolling through snow flurries. Kaelyn flew from her seat and banged against the bulkhead. Potato chips, bottles of pop, and magazines scattered everywhere. Jon wrestled with the yoke, finally regaining control. Once more, they glided through the sky.

"Are you all right?" Jon said.

Kaelyn rubbed her shoulder. "That felt like flying into an invisible rubber band."

"Some kind of force fi—"

They hit it again.

It was like hitting a bouncy castle. The force tossed Symphonic Thunder backwards. The vessel careened. This time Kaelyn clung onto her seat.

"Definitely a force field," Jon said. "It's protecting something."

Kaelyn finally snapped on her seatbelt. She pointed. "Jon, you're about to hit it again!"

Jon couldn't actually see a force field. But he remembered the river below. How it coiled around a cluster of boulders. This was where they had hit the shield.

Jon tugged the yoke, yawing sharply to the left. But he was too slow.

The Symphonic Thunder glanced off the invisible wall. The ship corkscrewed through the sky. Food, books, and spare change flew through the cockpit. Thumps and booms and snaps sounded from the hold. The couch, mattresses, fridge, and everything else was crashing.

"Fuck!" Jon blurted out. "Sorry. Sorry!"

He managed to steady the starship. They both sat for long moments, breathing deeply, trying to calm their racing hearts. They kept a safe distance from the river. Clearly, the invisible border rose from that river across the sky.

Kaelyn cleared her throat, her hands still shaky. "Jon, just before you hit the shield last time, I saw the temple." She pointed. "There. Just a little glint on the hilltop. Do you see?"

Jon looked. He saw … something. He tapped a few buttons, activating the HUD across the windshield. He tapped a few more buttons. A circle formed on the windshield. Inside the circle, the image zoomed in, the steelglass acting as a magnifying lens.

The temple came into focus. Tall, slender, and white. The same temple from the book.

"Bingo," Jon said.

"Don't you bingo me," Kaelyn said. "I'm the one who found it. What do I win?"

"A broom," Jon said. "So you can help me clean up the hold."

She snorted. "You're the one who flew into the force field. You should clean it. But we'll worry about that later. How do we get to the temple?"

"Let's test this force field," Jon said.

Kaelyn winced. "Please don't test it by flying into it again."

"I got a better idea."

He flew back toward the river, then tapped a button. Chaff flew from the Symphonic Thunder: a confetti of nuts, bolts, and scraps of aluminum strips. It was normally used to jam radars or confuse torpedoes. Now the decoys hit the force field and bounced back. A few pieces pattered against the Thunder, too small to do any damage.

Jon flew higher, blowing more chaff, trying to make out the borders of the force field. Did it rise all the way to space?

Eventually he reached the top. It actually wasn't too far up. He tossed more chaff, sparingly now. He was running low. Gradually, by canvassing the area with his metallic confetti, he concluded that the force field surrounded the hill like a dome. There was no way in.

The snow got an exemption. Somehow, the snowflakes were able to fall through the shield. Presumably, air was passing back and forth too. Anything else the field tossed back.

"Smart tech," Jon said. "It rejects some material, like metal, but allows other elements."

Kaelyn nodded. "Magic."

"Better. Technology. Technology is magic that actually works."

"Says the man who just fought a demon that emerged from a spellbook."

Jon was trying to come up with a retort when movement caught his eye. He leaned forward, squinting.

"Look." He pointed. "Down there in the valley. Deer. Or at least animals similar to deer."

"Great." Kaelyn rubbed her belly. "I'm hungry."

"Stop thinking of your belly for once." He realized belatedly how that sounded. The injury in her stomach. The bullet wound. The miscarriages. He plowed on before she could notice. "I mean—the deer are crossing the river. They're passing under the force field. The invisible dome must levitate over the ground, leaving a passageway for animals. Or maybe the shield just casts back metal but allows living beings to enter. Whatever the case—if deer can enter we can too. From the ground. This isn't a complete shield. It's a no-fly zone."

He piloted the Symphonic Thunder downward, seeking a place to land. Kaelyn sat beside him, very quiet, her head lowered.

Yes, she caught what I said, Jon thought. And how I made a clumsy save. She's thinking of her dead babies.

As he flew, he placed a hand on Kaelyn's knee. She placed her hand atop his, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

They found a valley, engaged their stabilizer engines, and descended on jets of air. The Thunder's mighty wind blew the snow away like a suburban dad's dream, clearing a patch of bare grass. They landed with a thump.

Jon looked through the scarred windshield at the temple on the hill. It was a few miles away.

"We walk from here," Jon said.

"Good thing we brought coats," Kaelyn said. "Assuming we can find them under the toppled furniture."

They stepped into the hold. It was a mess. It looked like an earthquake's aftermath. When the Symphonic Thunder had hit the force field, the cabinet doors had swung open, spilling everything. Several guitars and basses lay on the deck, cracked. Gifts from Symphonifans were scattered everywhere. Fan art. Handmade dolls shaped like Jon and Kaelyn. Framed photographs of the band with fans. Precious items, cracked and torn.

But these things can be repaired or replaced, Jon told himself. Bahay cannot.

Jon and Kaelyn rummaged through the jumble, pulling out their coats, backpacks, hiking boots, and food.

Jon lifted a long wooden box, which had fallen and cracked. "I'm taking this."

Kaelyn approached the box, frowning. "What is it? I didn't even notice this before. Were you hiding this from me?"

"I picked it up on the way here. At one of the space stations we stopped at. I didn't tell you, Kaelyn. I don't know why. But … I bought it. And we need it."

"Jon! What is it? It's not another guitar, is it? You have plenty, and you barely play them." Kaelyn opened the box, then took a step back. "Oh. Wow. Jon … wow. It's a gun. A big gun." She frowned. "A damn big gun."

"Not just a regular damn big gun," Jon said. "This baby shoots plasma. Deadlier than bullets. She'll sear a hole right through armor, alien scales, even a brick wall. Oh, and she comes with a grenade launcher. And three grenades."

"You seem pretty excited," Kaelyn said dryly.

"I've named her Simone."

Kaelyn sighed. "It was bad enough when you bought a handgun."

"Kaelyn, a handgun isn't enough out here. You saw what we encountered in Rigel's dungeon. There are a lot of bad, scary dudes out here in the galaxy. We need weapons. Serious weapons."

Kaelyn placed her hands on her hips. "And you didn't buy me one?"

"Um … you can have my old handgun?"

She sighed. "Fine! Fine. Give me your leftovers. I hope you and Simone have a good life together." She took his pistol, which seemed woefully small compared to Simone, and stuffed it into her belt.

He kissed her cheek. "I love you, Kaelyn."

She snorted. "Please, I know your heart belongs to Simone."

"Well, she's tough to beat. Do you launch grenades?"

They stepped onto the surface of Zandria IV, an unexplored alien world. They were the first humans to ever set foot here. They wore thick woolen coats, boots, and gloves. They carried backpacks full of supplies. Jon carried his beloved Simone across his back.

It was a cold world, but not unpleasant. There wasn't much wind. The temperature wasn't too far below freezing. The air was breathable, and radiation levels were within the safe zone. Pines draped across rocky slopes, and snow filled pristine valleys. It could have been a nice winter day on Earth.

"Someday this whole place will be a ski resort," Jon said.

"I hope not." Kaelyn looked around, the snow falling around her, and her eyes sparkled. "It's pretty. Maybe it's best that no other humans ever come here."

Jon nodded. "Maybe it was a mistake for humanity to colonize space. We tend to fuck up beautiful planets. We did a hell of a job back on Earth. And on Bahay."

"We can still save Bahay," Kaelyn said. "What is left, at least. Maybe in that temple on the hill, we'll find answers. Maybe we'll learn how to defeat Papa Dominus, and we can undo some of the evil our species has done."

"I took part in that evil," Jon said. "You fought against the war all along. I fought in it. I bombed and I killed. This isn't just about saving Bahay. Not for me. It's about redemption."

He lifted pebbles from the snow. He tossed them. They sparked against the force field and bounced back. A few furry animals, no larger than squirrels, fled past the barrier. Jon tossed a few more pebbles, aiming lower this time. This time the pebbles flew through. The force field only began several feet aboveground, maybe designed to allow passage for animals.

Probably not the birds. But Jon didn't see any birds around. Maybe they had learned their lesson.

"Well, the gap is definitely too small for the Thunder," Jon said. "Up for a little hike, Kaelyn?"

She hitched up her belt. "Last one to the Weaver Temple is a rotten alien egg."

"You are so going to be an alien egg."

They ducked under the force field. They walked across the icy river, leaving the Symphonic Thunder behind, heading toward the distant hill.

* * * * *

It was slow going. The hike took hours. The hills were steep. Boulders and fallen logs slowed their passage. Frozen rivulets flowed down the mountain, some hidden under the snow. Whenever they stepped on ice, they slipped.

They lifted fallen branches, stripped off twigs and bark, and created walking sticks. They needed two sticks each on the steeper slopes. It was a little like trying to ski uphill. Within the first half hour, Jon was out of breath. They had to pause now and then, find a log, brush off the snow, and sit down to catch their breath.

"I'm out of shape," Jon said after climbing about halfway up. He wiped his forehead. "I could have done this easily back in the army."

She poked his belly. "You've been eating too many of those microwave burritos."

"Yeah, well, I'm working them all off now."

They walked onward in silence. Despite the rigorous exercise, Jon had to admit. The landscape was beautiful, all pristine white snow, frozen lakes, and evergreens. Untouched by man.

"Imagine it, Jon," Kaelyn said, echoing his thoughts. "A little cottage here on the hillside. A crackling fireplace. Far from the hustle and bustle. Not a bad place to live. Or at least have a vacation home. It's quiet."

"Kae, we're in a heavy metal band," Jon said. "And you want quiet?"

She nodded. "Yes. Because we make noise for a living, I appreciate silence where I can find it."

"Too cold," Jon said. "But tell you what. Once we retire as rich rock stars, we'll buy a house on a tropical world. On a beach. With palm trees. That's more of my jam."

"Like Bahay?" she said, glancing at him.

"Like Bahay used to be."

Kaelyn slipped her hand into his. "We'll find them, Jon. Maria and your daughter. Wherever we end up, they'll have a place with us."

"I know it's hard for you, Kaelyn. I know. Well, no, I don't know. I can't imagine it. To learn what you did. That the ghost your husband loved is alive. That I have a daughter."

Kaelyn wiped her eyes. She smiled through tears. "It's hard. But I'm happy for you, Jon. After what happened to our babies, I'm happy for you. Honestly."

Jon dusted snow off a log. He sat down. "It's time for lunch. Good thing I brought the frozen burritos!"

Kaelyn tilted her head. "Did you bring the microwave too?"

"No need. Simone can cook." He hefted the plasma gun.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Kaelyn said.

"Old army trick. Some of the officers carried plasma guns. It works."

Jon flicked the power switch to the lowest setting. When he pulled the trigger, a small flame emerged from the muzzle. He warmed up two burritos, one for him, one for Kaelyn.

"You're an addict," Kaelyn said. "But I have to admit, you cook a good frozen burrito. I mean—Simone cooks a good frozen burrito."

"If this whole Symphonica thing doesn't pan out, there's the name of our next band. The Frozen Burritos."

Kaelyn swallowed another bite. "With their hit song, Microwave Carnage. The story of an exploding burrito. Very heavy metal."

* * * * *

By afternoon, winded and sweaty even in the cold, they reached the temple on the hilltop.

It was a grand temple. A temple as large as the greatest cathedrals on Earth.

And it lay in ruin.

The roof of the nave had caved in. The northern wall lay across the mountainside, broken apart, its bricks coated in snow. Orphaned buttresses rose like ribs, the skeleton of a giant. A steeple still rose, towering over the mountaintop like a raised sword. But it was missing several bricks, and the wind moaned through the holes. Entire chunks of the tower were missing, exposing a snowy, spiraling staircase within. Icicles hung from the tower's wounds like nerves spilling from a cracked spinal column.

Jon and Kaelyn entered the temple grounds, silent. They walked across a snowy courtyard. Columns stood in rows, chipped and icy, worn smooth by too many winters. Some columns were missing their capitals. Other pillars lay fallen like old bones trapped in ice. The statue of a monk rose by a pond, one hand raised. The head lay in the ice, half submerged, one eye gazing upon the ruin.

Several smaller buildings surrounded the main temple. Perhaps once they had been living quarters, a dining hall, a kitchen, a workshop, maybe a treasury or armory or library. There was no way to know. Time had ravaged them. Their walls had crumbled. Some walls were full of holes. Others had fallen entirely, pulling the roofs down with them. Snow and ice coated the remains.

These ruins were old. Nature was reclaiming the temple. Pines grew across the complex, roots clutching columns and archways. Vines bound statues of ancient monks, their features worn to nothing. Frozen scrub sprouted throughout the graveyard like alien fingers gripping the tombstones.

"We're too late," Kaelyn whispered, walking through the snow. "The book was ancient—and way out of date. This temple fell many eras ago."

"Someone still lives here," Jon whispered.

Kaelyn frowned. She leaned toward him. She spoke so quietly he barely heard. "What do you see?"

Jon gestured with his chin. "Footprints."

Rows of round footprints trailed through the snow. Kaelyn frowned. "Just an animal. A deer maybe."

Jon was less sure. He looked around, scanning the snowy ruins.

And then he saw him. A figure moving through the ruins. An alien.

He wore a shabby robe, the gray fabric speckled with snow, and a hood covered his head. He was not humanoid. It was hard to tell with the heavy robe and hood, but the alien seemed shaped more like a caterpillar. A caterpillar the size of a cow, that was. His long, thick body trailed behind him. The front of his body curved upward, supporting the head. He held a gnarled walking staff. Bird skulls dangled from the top on strings, and gemstones shone in the eye sockets.

The alien turned toward Jon and Kaelyn. Several arms grew from his body, each tipped with a pincer. One of those claws held the walking staff. Another held an oil lantern, though the day was still bright. The strange monk moved closer, his many feet pattering across the snow, leaving two rows of footprints. The same footprints Kaelyn had seen.

"Hello there!" Jon said, raising his hand in greeting. He hoped that Simone, which hung across his back, didn't seem too threatening.

"Hello!" said Kaelyn. "We come in peace."

A bit of a cheesy thing to say, Jon thought, but she doesn't have much experience with aliens.

Besides, the odds of this alien speaking English were pretty low.

The monk came closer and pulled back his hood. His head was triangular—the chin pointy, the skull flat. His mouth was thin, his nostrils thinner, and he had only holes for ears. Most startling were his eyes. He had three of them, leaf-shaped and pure white. Two of those eyes were in the normal position. The third gazed from his forehead, horizontal. The arrangement reminded Jon of a fleur-de-lis.

And then Jon saw it. Tattoos. Many tattoos—all over the alien's arms, neck, even his bald triangular head. Jon imagined that under that shaggy robe, tattoos covered the alien's long body.

"Hello, Jon," the alien said. "Hello, Kaelyn. I am Guru Gyaan. Welcome to the Weaver Temple."

* * * * *

The giant, robed caterpillar led them through the ruins. They entered a transept—a wing of the temple which still had a roof. The monk had been maintaining this place. Bricks of ice sealed gaps in the wall, making parts of the temple feel like an igloo. Sunlight gleamed through these icy windows, falling upon a mosaic floor. Faded murals sprawled across the ceiling, depicting scenes of stars, fruit trees, and exotic animals, but frost clung to them. Cobwebs grew everywhere, and arctic spiders scurried back and forth, their fur as fluffy and white as snow.

A fireplace dominated one wall, and pine logs crackled within, filling the room with heat and light. Scrolls and ancient books topped wooden shelves, and antique globes stood on an oak table, each one a different planet. Surprisingly, one globe even depicted Earth—quite amazing, in fact, considering the billions of planets out there.

Guru Gyaan shuffled toward the fireplace. Metal rings, cups, bowls, and knickknacks hung across his robes from hooks, jangling as he walked. His staff kept tapping. He stirred the embers and added a log to the fire.

"It's not always this cold here," he said. "But the winters are long and hard. I miss the warm marshlands of my homeland. Often I wish to return. I stand for many hours on the mountain, overlooking the evergreen forest and tundra beyond, and I dream of my nice hot swamp. I am a being of the equator's heat, not this cold northern place. But I am the last. The last of the weavers. The only one to maintain our heritage. I cannot leave. This is my home now. Here I have learned. Here I have taught. Here I will die." He watched the fire, blinking his three eyes, then barked a laugh. "Ha! Look at me. An old monk lost in memory, ignoring his guests. I'll make you some tea. Or perhaps you'd like something stronger?"

"Something stronger," Jon and Kaelyn said in unison.

The monk turned back toward them, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "I keep some brandy under the floorboards. For those special occasions. Well, to be fair, it's not really brandy. Not like you're used to. It's made from the fermented honeydew of a local aphid which lives in the evergreen bark. But brandy is the closest word I could find in English. Perhaps comparing it to mead is more appropriate?"

"I must say, I wasn't expecting you to speak English," Jon said. "Or to have a globe of Earth in your collection."

"I knew a man from Earth once. I knew him well. He was like a son." The monk lowered his head, an invisible weight crushing him. Then he cleared his throat. "Ah, never mind that now. I promised you drinks!"

He pulled open a trapdoor, rummaged through a cellar, and returned with a bottle of amber liquor, three wooden mugs, and a bowl of dry, leathery wings. They sat by the hearth, and he poured them drinks.

Jon took a sip. It was spicy and sweet. He tried to forget that it came from an aphid.

"Please try some pine-eater wings!" said Gyaan. "They are delectable." He popped one into his mouth and chewed. It crunched.

Jon shrugged. He enjoyed chicken wings, so why not this? He nibbled one wing. It was thin and crunchy. Actually, it tasted a lot like a potato chip. He ate another. And a third.

Gyaan laughed. "You enjoy them! Good, good. For a species that lives in hives built of its own guano, they do taste good."

Jon put down the bowl of wings. "I'm full." Every man had his limits.

Gyaan turned toward the fire. The firelight danced in his three eyes. "But you did not come here to drink brandy and eat snacks." Suddenly he sounded very old, his voice like wind rustling ashes. "You came to ask about him. They all do."

"He was here before us, wasn't he?" Jon said. "The one who calls himself Papa. The one who was once Clement Taylor."

Gyaan stared into the fire, seeming lost in memory. Finally he gave the most imperceptible of nods. "He was my finest pupil."

Kaelyn leaned forward. Her red hair cascaded, seeming like a part of the fire. "Will you tell us about him? Will you tell us how to fight him?"

Gyaan seemed to suddenly age a decade. The firelight etched gilded lines through his wrinkles, until they became like cracks in pottery, mended with gold.

"Many have tried," the monk said, his voice crackling like the fire. "Many have died. They were all the same. They came here for help. I trained them. And then I sent them to their deaths." He turned to look at Jon and Kaelyn, his three eyes haunted. "Are you sure, young Earthlings?"

"We are," Kaelyn said.

The monk tightened his fist around his staff. "Then I'll help you. And I pray that unlike all those before you, you don't die in agony."

Chapter Fourteen

The Pearl's Journey

Maria stood in the glassy sphere, bound in chains, a sacrifice for the altar of the Drowned King.

She wore a dress of kelp. A seashell pinned her hair back, and an ammonite fossil hung from her neck on a silver chain. The amulet was gift from young Karagatan, a holy symbol of her people. A gift Maria treasured.

The sphere was ancient, a vessel lovingly grown like a pearl in the heart of a shimmering starship. Sodom, lying on the ocean floor, was a machine. Aliens had built her. Yet she was like a living being, even as she lay drowned, and she had become an entity of the ocean, an alien woman of waterdepths. A silver clam. A goddess. She grew these pearls within her. Shuttles. Bubbles of air to explore her underwater world.

The starship Sodom was conscious, Maria realized. Dark Mother was a mechanical goddess of the sky, a thinking machine, risen from the minds of Earthling conquerors. Maria and her engineers had been studying that space station, unraveling her secrets—Dark Mother was a machine they could reverse-engineer, could comprehend, maybe control someday. But Sodom had grown from alien light, and she was strange and impossible to understand.

Standing in the transparent sphere, Maria watched Sodom become smaller and smaller behind her. Soon the shipwreck appeared like a crystal dagger on the seabed, and then just a glint like a drowned jewel.

I hoped you could save us, Sodom, Maria thought. But you'll remain here. This is your realm now. You'll continue to evolve until you become wholly a being of water and sand and mother of pearl. And I hope you are a good home to Rodrigo.

Charlie stood beside her, watching the Sodom become a distant glint, a beacon in the water, fading and fading like a star under a storm. A tear trailed a line down her cheek like another pearl.

"I miss you already, Rodrigo," she mouthed silently. "I love you."

Charlie was dressed like a Sodomian, her dress woven of seaweed. Her necklace and bracelets of seashells chinked, and she held a narwhal's horn as a dagger. Ink covered her skin, coiling like ammonites and sea serpents, mimicking the tattoos of Sodomian warriors. Beside her stood Jay Jay, wearing a skirt of kelp, his bare chest painted with a kraken, and he held a harpoon. They both wore helmets fashioned from the spiky exoskeletons of urchins.

Lily and Gummy were here too. They hid inside a beautiful treasure chest, a masterwork inlaid with gears and engravings of seashells, fish, and underwater monsters. There was food, water, and toys in the chest. For now, the little girl and her pet alien would remain hidden. At least until they gained the Gomorrahns' trust.

Rodrigo had remained behind. He would never leave Sodom again.

It was just them in the sphere. Maria, bound in ropes. Charlie and Jay Jay, dressed as underwater warriors. Lily hiding in the chest, cuddling her pet.

"Do you think they'll fall for it?" Jay Jay said. "I do look rather convincing as a Sodomian warrior, don't I? And remarkably handsome, I might add."

Maria heaved a sigh. "I hope they buy it."

The plan was simple. Disguise themselves as the annual virgin offering from Sodom to Gomorrah. Maria as the virgin, Charlie and Jay Jay as her guards. This way, they hoped, they could travel through the underwater city to the halls of the Drowned King, and only there reveal their true identity. Travelers from the Canaan tribe. Travelers who needed a starship.

And I hope they don't slaughter us on sight, Maria thought.

The pearly vessel moved fast through the water. Through its transparent shell, Maria watched the ocean depths. The true wilderness of Bahay.

A slender whale glided by, undulating like a banner, and its eyes shone like stars. Barbels fluttered around its mouth, each tipped with a bulb of light. The animal circled the pearly vessel, singing with a voice like silver trumpets, and swam onward into the distance. A cub followed, frolicking, already larger than the entire shuttle.

Onward the pearl swam. Moving deeper, deeper into the depths, until the ocean surface became like a midnight canopy, and the beads of sunlight were barely visible like the most distant of stars. They glided over shoals and underwater dunes, and suddenly ten thousand purple lights blazed into existence, illuminating the depths. A great octopus swam ahead. Not like the guardians of Sodom, those masters of disguise. This beast would dwarf them. The colossal mollusk could probably clutch all of Sodom in its tentacles. Each of its suckers shone, deep purple and swirling, and its eyes were like nebulae.

Then it went dark again. Its form faded. It would not harm them, for despite its fearsome size, it was a benevolent spirit, a god of light who dwelt in darkness. The pearl glided onward.

They passed over great underwater grasslands. Prairies of seagrass spread into the horizons, grasslands larger than any rainforest. Countless fish and mollusks thrived below, grazing, hunting, fleeing, breeding, evolving into endless forms most beautiful.

Faint sunlight glimmered through the water, but soon a shadow fell. Clouds covered the ocean surface, rippling, bulbous, painted in deep purple hues. Electricity crackled. Lightning flashed. It was a storm! But soon Maria realized: those were no clouds. They were jellyfish. Great swarms of jellyfish, billions and billions of them, moving with no space between them, covering the ocean surface. A mass migration of boneless life. Whenever their tentacles touched, electricity sparked. Most of the bolts were small, but sometimes they gathered into great lightning bolts that brilliantly lit the ocean.

The pearl raced onward, dodging lightning, fleeing the storm, until finally they emerged into open water again.

They kept traveling. Passing through ocean trenches where beasts with golden eyes stared from caves. Rolling through the deepest depths where strange, blobby fish floated like fleshy balloons, sprouting phosphorous lures. Some fish as large as the pearl, their teeth like swords. The sphere traveled through great cobalt emptiness, deserts of water where no seaweed grew, where massive reptiles hunted, their necks longer than trees, their mouths sucking up schools of fish. They passed over sunken ships and ancient ruins. They beheld the wild beauty and darkness of Bahay.

"All my life, I lived on this planet," Maria said. "I traveled through the lush jungles and the slums of the cities. I toiled in the rice paddies and I fought upon the mountains. And I saw only one percent of my world. I never knew how big Bahay was. How full of secrets. And even here, even on this journey, we see so little. There is so much more to explore." She sighed. "If we succeed on our mission, if we find a starship and leave for Earth, I'll miss Bahay. She's a weeping planet but she's so beautiful."

Charlie leaned against the glass. Finally her tears had dried. "This planet is shit." Her voice was soft. "This planet kicked me down when I was born. And she kept kicking me all my life. This is the planet that stole so much from me. And all my life, I dreamed of leaving her, of sailing the stars to Earth. But now that I see the true Bahay, now that I see her oceans, now that I've given a son to her waters … now she seems beautiful to me."

"But this beauty is not for us to live in," Maria said. "We are of the Canaan tribe. We cannot live underwater. And evil has spread across the islands. So we must leave. No matter how lovely the oceans, we are of the land. And Earth is our homeland. We won't lose our resolve, not even as the underwater secrets intoxicate us. We must find the lost starship Gomorrah, and she must fly again."

Charlie nodded. "I'm with you, Nini. Always. Even though you have a giant head and I can't understand half of what you say." She grabbed Jay Jay's hand. "I'm with you too, bozo. You only joined our team recently, and you're clueless like a baby, but you have a cute puwit, so you're part of our family. Always and forever."

Jay Jay nodded. "Always and forever."

"Aww, so touching," Charlie said.

Jay Jay bolted upright. "Hey! Charlie, stop touching my butt!"

"What? I said it was a touching story."

Everyone groaned.

* * * * *

They moved into northern, colder waters. The seagrass prairies faded. The kelp forests rose tall, desperate to reach the dim sunlight. These were dark, ancient forests, hiding strange gray serpents, full of floating lights and peering eyes, of snapping jaws and fins that glided in the murk. They dwarfed even the legendary rainforests of the islands. They were places of strange life. Of vast shadows and beads of luminescence. Of secrets and white eyes that peered from the depths.

Finally, many miles from Sodom, the northern kelp forests parted, revealing a valley of dark blue water.

And there in the valley sprawled an underwater city.

This was not a ruin like Nibiru, the lost city of the shachihokos, where Maria had hidden in a flooded temple. This was a living, breathing city, shining with ten thousand lights.

Spires rose into the sky, spiraling like grant conchs the size of skyscrapers. Windows pierced their shimmering walls, and lights shone within. Roads twisted across the valley like a labyrinth, cobbled with blue stones and lined with strands of swaying seaweed. Giant clam shells formed houses. Instead of doors, the shells opened and closed. A park filled the city center, lush with kelp that grew taller than the tallest trees, reaching toward the sunlight.

Huge bubbles floated over the city, terrariums housing plump fish, seaweed that sprouted deep yellow fruit, and misty clouds of shrimps.

It's how they practice agriculture, Maria realized. They don't farm the treacherous seabed, which is always shifting and scattering sand. They farm in floating bubbles.

On the city's far side, a palace rose on a hill. It was the grandest structure Maria had ever seen. Ammonite fossils formed its foundation, each spiral as large as a warehouse. Walls of shimmering cretin rose above the fossils, curved like living things. Spiraling towers topped the palace, twenty or more, reaching toward the ocean surface.

"That must be it," Maria said. "The palace of the Drowned King."

"But where is the starship Gomorrah?" Jay Jay said, squinting at the city.

They all searched for a moment. The pearl glided closer. And then Maria saw a glint in the distance. It was coming from a seaweed park inside the city. She saw another glint, then another. An ocean current rolled through the water, the strands of kelp bowed, and Maria glimpsed it. For only a second. But it was enough.

"The Gomorrah!" she whispered. "The second lost starship. She's there, resting in the city's park."

"Wait, so is Gomorrah this entire city? Or the starship in the park?" Charlie asked.

"Both," Maria replied. "This civilization began as a single shipwreck—Gomorrah the starship, lying on the ocean floor. But unlike Sodom, where people cower in the silver halls, the people of Gomorrah emerged from their ship. They learned to breathe the water. They built a city around their relic. Gomorrah has become more than a ruin. She has become a nation."

Several large shapes rose from shoals around the valley. Maria squinted, trying to bring the shapes into focus. They were still far, and silt and seaweed swirled through the dark waters. It was hard to see. She counted ten of them, dark figures moving fast.

"What are those?" Charlie said. "Submarines?"

Jay Jay frowned. "They're … animals. Huge animals."

"Whatever they are, they're coming right at us," Maria said.

The glassy bubble was still moving toward the city. The Sodom had birthed this shuttle, designed her to ferry a virgin sacrifice to Gomorrah, and she knew her task. There were no controls. The sphere moved on her own, as surely as an egg traveling down a fallopian tube. It almost seemed to Maria that Sodom and Gomorrah were great living beasts, female and male. Sodom, lying on the ocean bed, released her eggs. Gomorrah, proud and plentiful, took the fertile virgin stored within, a vessel for the seed of the sea.

Or maybe I'm just crazy, Maria thought. But in any case, this sphere isn't stopping! And I can't control it!

The figures ahead kept swimming closer and closer, coming into view. Maria's eyes widened.

"Animals indeed," she muttered. "Giant seahorses? No. They're … it can't be! But …" She gasped. "They're dragons! Underwater dragons!"

Charlie rubbed her eyes. "This is like something out of my son's comic books. If he were here, he'd explain it."

The aquatic dragons swam closer. They were the size of killer whales, maybe larger. Fangs filled their mouths, as long and slender as daggers, and theirs eyes were sunken jewels embedded into a shipwreck's hull. Iridescent scales covered their bodies, changing colors as the currents flowed, shifting between cobalt, rusty green, burnished bronze, and all the hues in between. Instead of wings, they had great fins tipped with claws. Their gills flared, sieves sucking and expelling water, swirling silt through the murk.

They're beasts of war, Maria thought.

Horns grew from their heads, bright red like freshly forged blades raised in the sunrise, ready for the day's first blood. Spikes ran down their backs, curving like hooks, deep green splashed with yellow spots like a snake warning predators. But these beings needed to warn nobody. They were apex predators, and everybody knew it. They practically strutted through the water.

Maria was so absorbed studying the dragons that it took her a moment to realize—they had riders!

At first, Maria thought they were men. But no. They couldn't possibly be men. They didn't wear diving suits! They carried no oxygen tanks! Yet they had humanoid forms. As they rode closer, Maria saw that they wore scale armor, every scale an iridescent jewel. Spiked helmets topped their heads, the visors made from crab exoskeletons, claws still attached. Each rider held a trident and shield made from a turtle shell.

Maria stood up in the pearl, her hands against the transparent canopy.

Here was the moment of truth.

"I can pass as a young, sacrificial virgin, right?" Maria whispered. "Even though I'm in my twenties and a mother?"

"I should have played the virgin," Charlie said. "I can still pass as a teenager."

Jay Jay snorted, then winced as Charlie punched him.

The dragons surrounded the glassy pearl. They swam around the vessel, stirring the water, slowing the sphere down. The dragons snorted, raising bubbles through the water. Their pupils dilated, staring at the passengers within.

Maria focused on the riders. The crab helmets hid their faces. The scaly armor hid their bodies. But—

Her eyes widened. She saw one rider's hand. A green hand, reptilian, with long yellow claws. Another dragon swam by, and Maria looked at another rider. She gasped. The rider had gills! Gills that flared just below the crab mask.

They had human shapes. But they were not human.

"Gomorrahns," Maria said. "Remember the tale? They began as Earthling colonists, punished for practicing perverse science. At least, that's what Papa Dominus called it. I call it genetic engineering."

"I have no idea what that means," Charlie said. "Stop talking like an Earthling."

Maria placed her hands on her hips. "Being educated isn't talking like an Earthling. Bahayans can be educated too."

"Oh, please." Charlie rolled her eyes. "Just yesterday, you said that we breathe oxygen." She laughed. "Like a plant!"

A dragon whipped its slender, scaly tail, hitting the glass sphere. Everyone jolted. The sphere moved faster, bobbing through the water toward the city. Another tail hit them. Then another. The dragons were goading the vessel onward.

Thankfully, the sphere had a low center of gravity. It did not roll, tossing the crew around like dice in a cup. Rather, it moved like a buoy on a storm, rocking madly but staying right-side up. Even so, it was a rough ride, and every slap of a tail knocked Maria against the glass walls. The treasure chest, with Lily and Gummy inside, slid every which way. A pathetic "gum gum gum!" rose from within.

"I feel like a croquet ball," Maria muttered. "And the dragons are the clubs!"

The dragons kept nudging them, and the pearly craft entered the city.

The sphere floated between the spiraling towers, over the labyrinthine streets, and past thousands of ammonite fossils, which served as homes. A whale skeleton lay in a sandy playground, and children swam among the bones and swung from the ribs. A man swam along a cobbled pathway between patches of seaweed, his feet only skimming the ground. He held a leash, leading a large gray fish with a grumpy eyes and an underbite.

Maria finally got a proper look at the Gomorrahns. They were definitely better suited for water than the Sodomians. Their skin was scaly, their feet and hands were like flippers, and they breathed through gills. The Sodomians had begun to evolve for life underwater. But three hundred years wasn't a long time for evolution. The Sodomians had perhaps grown larger lungs to hold their breath, but gills were a long way off. Their hands had begun to web, but full blown flippers were far in their future.

But the Sodomians prided themselves on being purely human. They cherished their lost heritage on land. The Gomorrahns had no such pride. They gladly engineering their DNA, abandoning their humanity.

They were not all alike. Some Gomorrahns were barely humanoid at all. They looked more like fish with human faces. A few grew spiraling shells from their skulls or backs. Some had lobster claws, and others sprouted tentacles. Maria supposed that engineering a body here was like walking into a shop and choosing from the shelves. Yes, sir, I'd like the flippers for my feet, the claws for my hands, a nice set of gills, oh, and toss in that shell while you're at it. And what are tails selling for these days?

"If I could design my DNA, I'd choose claws," Maria said. "Next time Ernesto attacked me, I'd claw his face off."

"I'd make myself even more handsome and smart and talented," Jay Jay said. "Oh wait, that's impossible."

"I'd choose bigger tits," Charlie said.

"Charlie!" Maria rolled her eyes. "Be serious."

"I know, her dibdibs are huge already," said Jay Jay.

Charlie shoved him. "Don't make that face. You love it."

When the sphere moved over the kelp forest, Maria looked down. She got a better view of the Gomorrah. The ancient starship seemed in pristine condition. There were no scars, no barnacles, not so much as a single starfish on her hull. She shone, pale silver like the fabled moon of Earth. Clearly, the locals were taking good care of her.

This is what Sodom once looked like, Maria thought. What all Three Sisters looked like when they sailed from Earth to here, seeding Bahay with humanity.

Gomorrah no longer flew. But she was resplendent. Lying here in the kelp park, she formed the centerpiece of the nation that bore her name. Pagodas rose around her. Priests swam to and fro, wearing flowing golden robes. They blew conchs and sang the praises of Gomorrah, the holy chariot of the gods.

"She looks spaceworthy," Maria said. "But it won't be easy to convince the Gomorrahns to let us borrow her. Sort of like asking India to let us borrow the Taj Mahal."

"Taj Ma-what?" Charlie said.

"Read a book now and then, Charlie."

Charlie bristled. "I read all the time!"

"Not just your sexy books about shirtless pute billionaires."

Charlie flipped her off. "You're an elitist."

They passed the Gomorrah and kept going, approaching the mountain that overlooked the city. The castle rose on the mountaintop, towers spiraling toward the ocean surface. Green and lavender fish schooled among the towers, and gardens of seaweed rose among statues of ancient kings. An indigo octopus draped across one wing of the palace, tentacles wrapped around its towers and barbicans.

The dragons kept nudging the pearl onward. The glassy bulb floated toward an archway formed of living coral, which led into the palace. The dragons paused. They gave the sphere a last slap with their tails, nudging the vessel through the archway like a croquet ball through a hoop.

The sphere floated into the palace.

The walls were the color of coral, soaring toward a distant ceiling inlaid with seashells. Slender bones rose along the walls, impossible tall. What animals had these bones come from? Maria had no idea. But they must have been giants, larger than any whale that lived today. Their bones rose like organ pipes.

The ocean was always moving. The currents always flowed like wind, swaying forests of kelp, stirring sand, as if the ocean were breathing. Even here, inside the flooded palace, the water moved. As the currents flowed through the pipes, notes emerged. Each pipe played a different note, some high and angelic, others deep and sonorous, all chiming, mourning, soothing. Some notes were like harp strings and others like the songs of whales. The ocean was playing these instruments without any human assistance. Here was the song of the deep.

The glassy sphere, which had carried the companions here, cracked open. The companions emerged into the cold water. Maria, Charlie, and Jay Jay swam in the open. Lily still hid inside the decorative treasure chest. Jay Jay carried the chest across his back on two straps. On land, it would be a heavy load, especially with a girl and her pet inside. But here underwater, the chest didn't weigh much.

The crew no longer wore the heavy diving suits, helmets, and oxygen tanks from the Kinnara. Those would identify them as islanders, invaders from the Canaan tribe. Instead, to survive underwater, they breathed into clever scuba gear the Sodomians had given them. The devices looked like gas masks covered in gears and pipes, made from brass, glass, and delicate silver threads. As they breathed, gears turned, water ran through pipes, and little bellows inflated and deflated like gills, filtering oxygen directly from the ocean. No need for oxygen tanks.

The Sodomians had large lungs, yes. They could hold their breath for deep dives. But they had never grown gills. So here were artificial gills. Maria felt nervous breathing this way. She missed the familiar weight of an oxygen tank over her back. But the contraptions worked. The water gurgled through one pipe, air flowed through another. Oxygen entered her lungs.

The crew could even talk through the filters. The devices muffled their voices, but not too badly.

These odd breathing masks were only part of their disguise. Maria presented herself as a virgin sacrifice, wearing a thin dress woven of seaweed, her arms bound in ropes of kelp. Charlie and Jay Jay were dressed like warriors of Sodom. Jay Jay had chosen a breastplate made from a turtle shell. Charlie had chosen woefully impractical armor consisting merely of seashells that covered her breasts. But they both carried tridents, and narwhal horns hung across their backs like spears. They gripped Maria's arms, accompanying her into the watery hall.

Gomorrahn guards awaited them. The skulls of overgrown piranhas formed their helmets, the teeth like bars across their faces, and turtle shells served as breastplates. Scales coated their skin, and their feet and hands were webbed and tipped with sharp claws. Fins flowed from their backs like billowing capes.

Jay Jay swam forward, cleared his throat, and raised his fist.

"Good evening, proud Gomorrahns!" His voice gurgled through his breathing filter. "I am Jay J— I mean, um … Jayathan the Strong, a proud Sodomite!"

"Sodomian," Maria whispered.

"Sodomian!" Jay Jay corrected himself. "Yes, of course. And as a Sodomian, I bring to you your annual sacrifice. A sacrificial virgin!"

Charlie struck a pose, gave an adorable salute, and blew a kiss. "Hello, babies! I am Charliathan, Queen of the Seas! I helped bring the virgin over. But if you want a girl who knows what she's doing …" She waggled her eyebrows. "I don't have a boyfriend."

Maria swam forward, head lowered, playing the meek girl.

"I am Maria of Sodom. I give myself gladly to the Drowned King."

The guards scrutinized them. Maria's heart thudded. Surely they would see through the ruse. Recognize them as Canaanites. Think them invaders and slay them on the spot. One guard raised his trident. Behind the toothy bars of his helmet, his eyes narrowed. Yellow, bulging eyes like a fish, but intelligent.

"You look nothing like the last one," a guard said to Maria. He leaned closer. Barbels emerged from between the bars of his helmet. They grew from his face like undulating whiskers. The gray tentacles ran across Maria's face, feeling, smelling. They felt like cold wet noodles.

"Eww, that is disgusting," Charlie said. "I can't believe I flirted with you."

The barbels retreated into the guard's helmet. "There's something strange about you. About all of you."

"Let your king decide that," Maria said. "I'm a gift for him, not you."

The guard emitted a gurgling sound. "Very well. Come with us. He's waiting."

They swam through the grand hall, and Maria realized that for all its splendor, this was merely a foyer. At the end of the hall, an enormous seashell was embedded into the wall. It was the size of a house, its surface pink and smooth. Maria had never seen a seashell this large. Perhaps it belonged to a prehistoric beast, and now only these relics remained.

They entered the seashell and swam through a coiling canal. It felt like crawling up a water slide. They emerged from the other side into an even larger, grander chamber.

Seashells spiraled across the floor. Fossils of ancient fish, reptiles, and crustaceans covered the walls and ceiling. A beam of light fell from an oculus, illuminating a throne.

The throne was forged of black metal that did not rust. It was shaped like a great octopus, arms stretching out, coiling, spreading as if to engulf the ocean. Bioluminescent moss filled its million metal suckers, casting an eerie light.

Maria swam forward. She saw him upon his throne.

"The Drowned King," she whispered.

Chapter Fifteen

The Weaver's Apprentice

"Concentrate!" Guru Gyaan slammed his staff onto the ice. "Focus! Balance!"

Jon stood on one foot. Atop a tree stump. A very tall tree stump. A very tall, icy tree stump. On a very windy mountaintop.

He wobbled. He tightened his lips, focusing.

"I am part of this tree," he whispered. "I am a trunk. I am wood. I am—whoa!"

A breeze blew. Jon wobbled, nearly fell.

Gyaan stood below on the icy ground, wrapped in his cloak. The alien caterpillar huffed. "Balance, young pupil! Focus! A focused man can balance in a storm."

Another breeze blew, ruffling Jon's hair.

Jon slipped on the ice.

He tumbled off the stump and crashed onto the ground, cracking the ice.

"Ouch." He winced. "Ow ow ow."

Gyaan pattered toward him on his many legs, staff tap-tap-tapping. "Ha! Look at that. Did I miss the tornado?"

"Hey, that breeze was very cold," Jon said. "Almost wind, really." He pushed himself to his feet. "I don't see how this will help me face Papa Dominus. I'm going to fight him, not challenge him to hopscotch."

Gyaan smacked him with the cane. "Do you want a chance? Then you'll listen to me. For a thousand years I've trained weavers. I won't be talked back to by an Earthling pup."

"Ow!" Jon rubbed his arm where the cane had rapped him. "You were much nicer when you were offering me brandy and chips." He struggled to his feet. "Besides, I don't want to become a weaver. I just want to kill one."

Gyaan snorted. "Oh, is that so, wise little pup? It just so happens that Papa Dominus is a dark weaver. He uses the shadows instead of the light. Only a true weaver, one of a pure heart, can harness the light to banish the darkness."

Jon nodded. "Got it. Makes perfect sense. Just … how long will this take? I kind of have a world tour to return to. I'm a famous rock star, you know. Well, okay, maybe not a rock star, but I did sell out the Lunar Dome, and—ow! Will you please stop hitting me with your cane?"

Sitting on a bench nearby, Kaelyn raised her eyes from the paperback novel she was reading. The Dragons of Yesteryear by Marco Emery. Volume five. The damn girl was obsessed with those books.

"Jon, will you take this more seriously?" she said.

"Easy for you to say! You're not the one getting his ass kicked all over the mountain."

Kaelyn shook her head sadly and returned to her book.

"Kaelyn." Jon trudged toward her through the snow. "The show must go on. I can't complete the Graveyard Lights tour. Take the Symphonic Thunder. Fly back to Earth. Complete the tour without me. Greg, our guitar tech, plays the keyboards well enough. He can fill in for me. I'll carry on this war and—"

Kaelyn raised her hand, interrupting him. "It's all right! You have time."

Jon tilted his head. "What do you mean? The tour resumes in four days!"

"Time dilation, dude. I already ran everything through my minicom. Time moves sloooowly on this planet. Much, much slower than on Earth. Hell, our band probably didn't even notice we're gone yet. You have all the time in the world." She smiled. "We got lucky."

"Lovely," Jon said. "All the time in the world to stand on icy logs with a deranged caterpillar smacking me with a stick. What a stroke of fortune. What's next, a fortuitous urinary infection?"

"Ignoring you," Kaelyn said, flipping a page in her book.

He kept training.

He balanced on icy logs as wind blew, as hailstones fell, as Gyaan smacked him. He sat on mountaintops, meditating, trying over and over to empty his mind of thoughts. Whenever thoughts raced in, he earned another smack from the cane. He ran through the forest. He climbed cliffs. He sat in dusty cellars, reading scroll after scroll. He swung a dull sword in the courtyard, desperately parrying Gyaan's assault. And the giant caterpillar attacked him with ten wooden swords held in ten cruel claws. When those wooden blades hit Jon, they left ugly bruises.

Kaelyn kept reading her books.

Lucky bitch, Jon thought.

None of it made sense to him. How the hell could this help him defeat Papa? But his guru allowed no questions. Jon just had to trust him. And he wasn't sure how much trust he had.

Could Gyaan just be some lunatic, some eccentric hermit, and the whole thing was a sham?

The training got worse.

One day, Gyaan forced him to swim through ice water. Another day, Jon had to run through a gauntlet of swinging clubs. His body was covered with bruises by the day's end, and he still couldn't complete the gauntlet.

A third day, Jon simply chopped down trees. Hour after hour of swinging his axe until his muscles screamed in protest. When he was done, and piles of fallen logs lay across the forest floor, Gyaan approached him and nodded.

"Ah, perfect!" the guru said. "Tomorrow you can chop the logs into smaller pieces. I'll have plenty of firewood for the rest of winter. And probably a few more winters after this one." He chuckled.

Jon stood there, holding his axe, slack-jawed. "What?"

"Firewood!" Gyaan rubbed his many hands together. "It gets cold. I enjoy spending my days by the fireplace. I trust chopping these trees kept you warm?"

Jon tossed his axe into the snow. "I've just about had enough of this! Climbing your mountains. Swimming in your frozen lakes. Now this, chopping your firewood! Just so you can keep your ass warm! Is this your idea of training?"

Gyaan narrowed his three eyes. "For a thousand years, I've—"

"Yes, yes, I've heard it all before. How you've been training students for generations. I call bullshit. This is a scam. You just want to torture me. I'm outta here. I'll find another way."

He began stomping away.

Fuck this. Fuck it all.

He was only a few steps away when every tree in the forest collapsed.

Jon froze. His heart burst into a gallop. All around him—trees cracking, falling over! Thousands of trees all going down!

Snow flew from their branches. Trunks thudded, cracked, thumped, shattered. The mountain shook. Jon leaped aside, dodging a falling trunk. He hopped forward, narrowly escaping another falling timber. The sound was deafening. The storming snow roared over him.

An earthquake? A tornado?

Then he saw it.

The trunks had not just cracked like trees in a storm. They were cut. Smoothly sawed open, leaving neat stumps. As if an army of lumberjacks had moved through the forest with chainsaws, doing a week's work within seconds.

Jon turned back toward the monk.

Gyaan stood behind him, eyes closed, his many hands raised. Tattoos were glowing across his arms.

"You didn't have to destroy a forest to make a point," Jon said.

Gyaan's central eye opened. It shone like molten gold. "Before you can take on a forest, you must face a tree. And the greatest healers first learned how to hurt."

He raised his hands higher. His central eye shone brighter, becoming a star, a blazing sun. The guru began to levitate.

All the fallen trees rose. They hovered in the air, creaking, shedding snow and bark. The mountain thrummed. Every fallen trunk, all the thousands of them, returned to their stumps. Wood molded with wood. Barked healed over wounds like scabs. The forest stood again.

Gyaan landed on the snow. His central eye dimmed. He closed it, then opened the other two.

"This is the power of weaving, Jon Taylor. I will not teach you to fell nor heal forests. That would take centuries. You will never be as powerful as me or Papa Dominus. But I will teach you what I can. Enough to give you the smallest fighting chance. Now pick up that axe. And keep chopping wood."

* * * * *

The days were a frozen hell. But the evenings on this icy world were almost tolerable. After sunset, they would gather in the cozy transept. The fireplace would crackle, casting red light over the craggy bricks and columns. They were free to read the many books, to meditate, or simply gaze into the fire, sipping brandy or tea. After hours of toiling in the cold, it felt good to share an armchair with Kaelyn, to hold her hand, to let the fire warm his bones, to let Kaelyn warm his soul.

The evening after the great confrontation in the forest, as they sat by the hearth, Jon dared ask the question that had been burning through his mind.

"Guru Gyaan, you taught Clement Taylor once. Like you teach me now. What happened to him? Why did he turn to evil? How did he become this dark lord?"

His words hung in the air. The fireplace crackled. The wind moaned outside. The guru sat across from them, his long body curled up in a leather armchair. The caterpillar gazed into the fire, silent for a long time.

Finally he spoke, never removing his eyes from the flame.

"He came to me as a young man from Earth. Not unlike you."

The fire gave a loud crackle. Jon looked into the flames, and he saw a dark figure moving there, just a shadow, vaguely humanoid, walking along a burning log. Kaelyn noticed too. Her eyes widened, and she clasped Jon's hand.

Gyaan continued his tale.

"Back then, Zandria Temple was a place of grandeur and beauty. Apprentices came from across the galaxy to study the ways of weaving."

The fire burned higher, and white flames formed pillars and towers, a temple in the fireplace. Smaller flames flickered around the fiery shrine, forming many shapes of life, pilgrims moving toward the towers. Not just humans—aliens came from far and wide to study weaving.

"His name was Clement Taylor," Gyaan continued. "A young priest from Earth. Already then, the dark arts fascinated him. On Earth, he would dissect corpses. Summon demons. Delve into the occult. His church ex-communicated him, and so young Clement came to me. He begged me to teach him the runes of power."

Jon shuddered. "Creepy bastard."

Gyaan suddenly sounded so old, so weary. "I thought I could save him. That I could show him the light. That through weaving, he would find strength to abandon his dark past. That he could rise to a higher plane. I hoped that the Empyrean Firmament could offer him salvation. Yet even in this temple, he spurned the light. He sought only the shadows that the holy light cast. Until one day, I confronted him."

The alien winced and fell silent. He shuddered. Convulsed. Almost fell from his chair. Jon and Kaelyn rushed toward him, propped him back up, soothed him, and brought a cup of brandy to his lips. The guru took a few sips, calming himself.

"I demanded that he abandon the dark arts," Gyaan continued. "Or that he must leave my temple. He told me that I could not banish him. That he had become more powerful than his master. I attempted to bind him in ropes of power, to banish him. So he gave me this."

The alien pulled back his shaggy robes.

Jon gasped.

Gyaan had a long, plump body like a caterpillar. A scar ran along one side. Six entire limbs were severed, leaving only stumps. Gyaan pulled the cloak back over his deformity.

"The pain was overwhelming," Gyaan said. "Before I passed out, I cast a sphere of protection around my body. Then I sank into unconsciousness. When I finally awoke, days had passed. Clement was gone. He had ransacked the temple, stealing books and artifacts. He toppled entire towers and walls, shattered the statues of the old sages. And worst of all …" Tears flowed from Gyaan's three eyes. "He slaughtered all my pupils. Every last one."

"Jesus," Kaelyn whispered.

"That was four hundred years ago," Gyaan said. "Since then, he has tattooed his body with runes of dark power. They give him an unnaturally long life and terrifying strength. With the knowledge I taught him, he became a tyrant. He murdered countless souls. Their blood is on me."

Kaelyn embraced the old alien.

Jon took a deep breath. "I can't bring back the people he killed. I can't undo all this evil. But I can end it. I can end him. I share his blood, and maybe that means I share his talent for weaving. For years, he's tormented me. Haunted my dreams. Give me the power, Guru Gyaan, and I will kill him."

Some things Jon could not say aloud. Not yet. Not here. Some memories were still too painful. Seeing the dark weaver kill Captain Carter, a man Jon had come to admire, even love. Knowing that this demon now tormented Maria. That her daughter—Jon's own daughter—was suffering under his reign.

I will stop him. I will set things right.

"It takes many years to become a weaver, young Jon," said Gyaan. "But we don't have much time. Our enemy grows stronger every day. For this battle, there is only one rune you will need. You're almost ready."

* * * * *

He stood on the temple's tallest steeple. He stood on one foot, balancing, the wind in his hair.

This was nothing like standing on a measly little tree stump. From up here, Jon could see for miles.

The ruins of the temple lay directly below, sprawling across the mountaintop, half-buried in snow. Fallen columns. Orphaned archways. Shattered statues. Shells of chapels rose from the ice like the skulls of giants, roofs caved in. Tombstones spread like scattered teeth, overgrown with frozen ivy.

Farther out, the mountainsides sloped toward snowy valleys, frozen rivers, and rolling tundra. Jon could even see the Symphonic Thunder from here—a white lump, hidden under snow.

The wind blew.

Jon maintained his balance.

He was one with the tower. One with the world. He let the wind blow over him. And he did not fall.

There was no harness. No safety net. If he fell from this tower, he fell to his death. But he had no fear. Many hours spent meditating with his master had given him this calmness. This unity with all things.

Night fell and the stars shone. The spiral arm of the galaxy spread above. He could see Earth from here. He could see Bahay. He could see the universe. And he was one with it. Finally he himself disappeared, and there was no Jon Taylor, no pain, no cold, only consciousness. Only the universe.

Dawn rose, resplendent, gilding the snowy valleys and mountains. And Jon still stood on the tower. Still balancing above the world and beneath the cosmos.

"Come down, Jon Taylor!" his guru cried from below. "You've passed your challenge. You've earned your first rune."

* * * * *

They gathered in the ruins of the nave that day. The roof was gone. It lay in chunks across the floor, shards of its frescoes frozen in ice like fragments of memory. Columns still rose in palisades, holding nothing but sky, and snow and ice covered a stone dais where once monks had meditated. Only the back wall still stood, displaying a mural of an ancient loom, symbol of the temple, for the first weavers had been mere loomers.

Snow was falling. Flames rose from an iron firepit shaped like a blooming flower, filling the nave with warmth. With every gust of wind, sparks flew from the fire like pollen, mingling with the snow like two galaxies dancing, one of fire and one of ice. Jon walked across the snowy tiles and came to stand before his master. Kaelyn stood at his side, for she had been with him along this journey and many journeys before it.

Guru Gyaan stood before them, wrapped in a deep blue coat trimmed with silver. The firelight painted half his face gold. He raised his staff. The crystal on the top shone, and Jon gasped.

As in a dream, the temple changed. The walls rose all around, supporting a roof adorned with frescoes. Lanterns shone on the columns, filling the hall with brightness and warmth. Statues stood again, and flowers bloomed in silver vases. The ghosts of apprentices and masters flitted back and forth, robes rustling.

But the snow still fell into the nave. There was no real roof, and the walls still lay fallen. It was a vision, translucent, flickering in and out of existence. A dream of the past overlaying the present. A memory shared. And Jon felt honored that Gyaan was sharing it with him.

"The power of weaving comes from the Ancients, those who dwell in the Empyrean Firmament," said Gyaan. "I can open the door to heaven. But only those who dwell in the light can bless you. Hold out your arm, Jon Taylor, and open your palm to the sky."

It all felt a little silly to Jon. But there was no doubting the power of weaving. He had seen its devastating might. He held out his hand, palm up.

Gyaan opened his middle eye. It shone like a beacon. He raised his many pincers to the sky.

"Hear me, Ancient Ones! I bring before you my apprentice, so that you may judge him. His heart is noble. His mind is strong. If you choose him, grant him a rune of power. Let that be his first step along the path to wisdom."

Light shone, filling the temple. New figures walked here, ghostly and glowing. They had nebulous forms, only vaguely humanoid, with eyes like stars. They were beings woven of pure energy and thought. The snow fell through them. But these were not memories, not apprentices from an age gone by.

They were here right now.

"The Ancient Ones," Jon whispered. "Those who ascended from this world."

He had heard stories. The mysterious race that had built the Wormhole Road, that had abandoned the Milky Way galaxy. Yet here they were, all around him. They had always been here.

One of the luminous figures approached Jon through the snow. Wings of light spread from her back, and a halo shone around her head. Tears ran down Jon's cheeks, because he remembered the angel of the graveyard, and he knew that in a universe of so much darkness and pain, there was still some goodness, and it was beautiful.

The angel of light held his hand, and he felt warmth, safety, love. A voice spoke in his head.

We are with you, Jon Taylor the Earthling. Always.

She faded away. They all did. Jon looked at his hand, which was still so warm. Rivulets of molten silver were running across his palm, forming a rune. A rune shaped like a key with many teeth and a coiling, elaborate bow. The sort of key you'd seen in an ancient palace, a key that could unlock a treasure chest full of dark secrets and spells.

The light faded. The tattoo remained. Not black like the tattoo on Papa Dominus but silvery, almost pure white.

Guru Gyaan pattered closer, staff tapping. He grabbed Jon's hand, stared at it, then looked into Jon's eyes.

"They gave you a key rune," the guru whispered. "Not the rune I expected."

"What does this one do?" Jon said. "I don't remember seeing it in any book."

The guru's eyes darkened. "I had foreseen the Ancients giving you a battle rune, yet my vision failed. This … this is different. You cannot use this rune on its own. It's used to unlock artifacts."

"Artifacts?" Jon asked. "Like the Ark of Covenant, the Crystal Skull, that kinda thing?"

"Jon, be serious," Kaelyn said.

The guru swayed. He stumbled toward a pew and curled up. He spoke in a weary voice. "Artifacts are powerful objects, forged by weaver masters, made from solid aether—the very stuff of the Empyrean Firmament, collected, molten, forged, and solidified. Only the greatest weavers can make them. I made several at the height of my powers, when I was younger and stronger. The rune on your hand, Jon. Do you see the coiling bow on the key? That is my signature. This rune unlocks artifacts of my own making. I had such a rune once myself … on an arm that Clement Taylor cut off. The Ancients have spoken. They want my artifacts to be used again. And they want you to wield them."

"Okay!" Jon said. "That's good news, no? Wielding powerful, magical artifacts sounds like a good thing. Isn't it? You look less than pleased. Okay, yeah, definitely sensing a worried vibe here."

The guru slumped in his seat. "The artifacts are powerful. With them, you could defeat the enemy."

"Again, confused about the whole sadness thing here," Jon said.

Gyaan gripped Job's wrist and stared into his eyes. "When he destroyed my temple, the dark one stole my artifacts. He placed them in Xibalba, a ruinous world where even the greatest heroes dare not tread, and he set a terrible beast to guard them. The artifacts are beyond our reach."

Jon squared his shoulders. "Facing terrible beasts is my specialty. I've been doing it for years. Point the way. I'll get your artifacts back. They're the only way to defeat Papa Dominus, so it's something I must do. I don't enjoy fighting monsters. I never wanted anything more than to be a musician. But evil triumphs when good men look away. For too long, I looked away. No more. I came here not only to save Bahay but to redeem myself. So I'll do this. I'll face this terrible beast. For the people of Bahay, and for my soul." He took a deep breath and winced. "Just … exactly how terrible are we talking here?"

"No hero has ever faced this beast and lived," Gyaan said.

Jon closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Nothing was ever easy.

Chapter Sixteen

In the Court of the Drowned King

The Drowned King was descended of humans, Maria knew. Of colonists from Earth long ago. But barely any humanity remained in him.

He seemed to wear an enormous nautilus shell as a headdress. But then Maria realized: that was his head. His skull swept backward, then spiraled inward, coiling and gleaming and sprouting spikes. His face, perched at the base of this enormous spiraling skull, seemed like a hermit crab peeking from a shell.

He had no nose, only thin slits for nostrils, and gills fluttered on his neck. He sported a proud beard of tentacles. The slender digits swayed in the water, the color of rust, and little fish swam between them, picking out bits of food, cleaning the beard as they fed. The king's left eye peered at Maria. A bulging eye. A shark eye, black and calculating. The second eye was gone, leaving an empty socket. A crab peeked from socket, snapped its pincers at Maria, they retreated into the king's head.

Moss and kelp formed the king's robes, woven through with bones and broken seashells, and barnacles grew on his scaly arms. Webbed were his feet, and clawed were his hands. His mouth was a slit full of teeth like hooks. A narwhal horn the size of a pike balanced against his throne, along with a shield carved from a whale's skull.

The guards bowed before him.

"Hail the Drowned King!" they cried. "Hail the Lord of All Oceans!"

Maria stepped closer. It felt strange to walk underwater—like walking on the surface of the moon. Her feet barely touched the palace floor. As she moved closer, she could smell the king. Even through her breathing mask. He smelled like salt and crab and decaying seaweed. Charlie and Jay Jay walked at her sides, still masquerading as her guards.

When she was a few steps away, Maria paused. Her companions untied her bonds.

"I am Maria!" she said to the king, raising her free arms. "I came to you as a virgin sacrifice. But I am not of Sodom. I am of the Canaan tribe. And I come to forge an alliance between our people."

The king's guards flared their gills. They pointed their tridents at Maria.

"An invader!"

"An assassin!"

"A spy from Canaan!"

Maria raised her chin. "An ambassador. One who had no other way of reaching you."

The Gomorrahn guards swam closer, tridents gleaming. Maria kept staring at the king.

Finally this ancient lord of the ocean spoke.

"The ocean has gifted us a great prize. Lower your tridents, mighty warriors. You face a treasure from the lands above the watery firmament. Leave no scratch upon flesh kissed by sunlight."

His voice was deep, gurgling, a strange sound like water flowing through a conch.

He speaks Tagalog, Maria thought. It was almost strange to see a creature so deformed, more shell and tentacles than man, speak the ancient language of her people.

He was once human, she thought. He changed. But some humanity remains. And maybe some compassion.

"Oh, Lord of All Oceans!" she said, repeating the title the guards had spoken. "Centuries ago, our people splintered into three tribes. The mighty tribe of Gomorrah has flourished under the ocean. But the tribe of Canaan suffers and dies upon the islands. A war devastated our lands. And now the Red Cardinal, the man who led the silver starships to Bahay, has become a tyrant. He calls himself Papa Dominus and slaughters and tortures us. We've come for aid."

The king's beard of tentacles fluttered. Fish fled the protective barbels. Several tentacles reached out, coiled around Maria's wrist, and pulled her closer. She stumbled toward the throne. More of the squirming digits wrapped around her waist, lifted her from floor, and brought her to eye level with the Drowned King.

She did not resist. But Charlie and Jay Jay stepped closer. Their hands strayed toward their daggers. The king's guards tensed, gripping their tridents with their webbed hands. Charlie and Jay Jay froze, ready to attack at any moment.

Maria found herself hovering just a foot away from the Drowned King's face. His skin was rubbery like a stingray, fading seamlessly into the chitin shell that topped his head, the great nautilus spiral. The king's face, while larger than Maria's, seemed oddly small beneath that grand, coiling crown. The crab emerged from his empty eye socket, peered at Maria with eyes on stalks, then retreated again into the shadows.

"Look at you …" the king gurgled. "So pure."

A tentacle caressed her head. It was rubbery, slimy.

"My lord," Maria said, "I've come to seek your aid. I—"

"You are nothing like my Sodomian brides," he said. "Long ago, the Drowned Kings of Gomorrah received pure gifts from Sodom. Virgins with brown skin, kissed by sunlight. With feet for walking upon soil, with hands for stripping bark off trees and planting seeds in soil. Humans, they were! Pure humans! Their DNA hearkened back to our ancient homeland. We Gomorrahns changed ourselves. We designed our bodies to be functional. To survive! Yet we went too far. And we miss our humanity. Our DNA began to deteriorate. Every Sodomian virgin is a precious gift. A seed to plant in our watery garden!"

Sadness filled Maria. "You miss being human."

"Yes. We are mighty and strong. We are survivors and warriors. We are beings of the ocean. The nation of Sodom is weak, hiding within a sunken relic, a bubble of air, unable to even breathe the water of their world. Yet we, the mighty, envy the weak. For they are pure. Many brides the Drowned Kings have taken from the sunken halls of Sodom. In previous generations, the kings welcomed the purest of brides. My own gifts have been … impure." His beard fluttered. His one eye blazed. "They send me virgins with pale, sickly skin that never felt sunlight! With webbed hands! With obscenely large lungs!"

"The Sodomians have been evolving," Maria said. "A slower process than genetic engineering. Someday, the Sodomians will be like you. They're walking the same path. But all they have are their bare feet, while you roared down the path in a race car. Or, um … submarine. Sorry. I'm not used to ocean metaphors."

"But you … oh yes. You are pure! You are like the Sodomians of old." He tightened his tentacles around her. "You will make a fine bride."

Maria leaned back, pulling the tentacles off. She was about to really let him have it. But she took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Antagonizing the Drowned King would not help.

"I apologize, oh Lord of All Oceans. I know I came to you in disguise. But I'm no sacrificial virgin. In fact, I'm already married. I've come to ask for your help. My people suffer on the islands of Bahay. The war burned our fields and forests. A mad dictator imprisons us in re-education camps. A few survivors cower in hiding, starving and afraid. We need a starship to carry refugees to our ancestral home. I've come for the Gomorrah, the starship that brought your people to Bahay. It can ferry my people home to Earth."

She closed her eyes. She remembered the field of stars above the world. Remembered dipping her toes into the cosmic ocean, only a few miles above the blue skies, but gazing, peering into the endless, unfolding, sprawling fields of creation. She dreamed to sail those forgotten seas.

Words returned to her. An old poem the general had taught her. She whispered, eyes damp.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

She opened her eyes, not realizing she had closed them, and gazed again upon the Drowned King on his throne. And it seemed to Maria that for all the grandeur of this hall, all the mysteries and wonders of the ocean, this was but a small realm, but a single jewel in a dark chest of wonders.

"You speak eloquently," the Drowned King said.

"The words are not mine," Maria said. "A poet of Earth wrote them long ago. They echo inside all who flew among the stars. Drowned King, the people of Canaan cry out for salvation. They suffer in great camps of death and torture. Millions have perished. Our civilization is dying. Three starships flew to Bahay long ago. Canaan shattered in the war. Sodom lies on the seabed, a hulk with no engine. Gomorrah remains. It's time to raise her silver hull from the water. She does not belong here in the oceans of Bahay. She must sail the cosmic ocean again."

The king's one eye swirled with stars like a galaxy within a globe.

"Let me see," he gurgled. "I must gaze into your mind."

He gripped her tight.

He pulled her close.

His tentacles wrapped around her head.

"Hey, let her go!" Charlie cried, leaping forward, but guards pulled her and Jay Jay back.

Maria struggled, caught in the king's grip. The tentacles coiled round and round her head, then sneaked under her breathing apparatus. They slithered across her face, stroking her cheek, her head, leaving trails of slime. She coughed, kicked, flailed. Then two tentacles gripped her temples, and—

Maria blinked.

She saw a dark ocean.

A blaze of light. A crash from the sky. A flaming wreck slamming through the ocean, boiling the water, plowing through the seabed.

She saw scared survivors. Humans. Filipinos far from home, stranded on a new planet. Struggling to survive. She saw the waters flowing into a shipwreck, and the corpses floating, the desperate scientists injecting themselves with needles. She saw the first gills flare, cough, suck in oxygen.

She saw them change, generation after generation. Growing scales. Fins. Shells. Becoming a new race. Grieving for their lost humanity. She saw the virgins brought forth, serving the kings of the drowned halls, giving human mothers, human DNA, to a people changing too quickly, veering off a cliff into dark waters where all memories of Earth faded. Another desperate attempt at salvation. Not with needles but with wombs.

She was gazing into the mind of the Drowned King. And he was gazing into hers.

Maria took a deep breath.

We're communicating telepathically. I saw his story. I will show him mine.

She showed him the war. The bombs falling. The villages burning. The tyrant rising. She showed him the re-education camps and refugee camps and the dreams of a dying nation.

* * * * *

Finally, after eras of memory, the tentacles pulled back.

Reality returned.

Maria took deep, ragged breaths, floating in the water. It was a moment before she reoriented herself. Once more, she was back in the halls of the Drowned King. The memories, his and hers, had seemed so real.

"I have gazed upon the pain of Canaan," said the king, voice gurgling through the watery hall. "You may help them, Maria of Dry Lands. You may soar in a silver starship and lead your people home. As my wife, this power will be yours."

Maria's heart had begun to soar. Now it crashed.

"As your what?" she said.

The Drowned King reached out his hand. A scaly, webbed hand, tipped with claws. He closed it around Maria's small hand.

"You have come here as a sacrificial virgin, replacing the tribute from Sodom, and you are fairer than any Sodomian maiden. You will be my wife. You will live with me in my watery halls. You will grow gills and rule this ocean at my side. Together, king and queen, we will save the islanders. But you will not join them, Maria. Your home is here under the ocean with me."

Maria shifted her weight uncomfortably—whatever little weight she had underwater, at least. "I'm flattered, Your Highness. But I'm not really a sacrificial virgin. That was just a ruse. Tricky, I know! It was the only way to gain an audience with you. I'm, well … I'm already married."

She thought back to that night above the Go Go Cowgirl, the seediest bar in Mindao City. Her fellow bargirls laughing, drinking, cheering in delight. Her beloved Jon, wearing his dusty uniform, bemused but smiling, holding her hands. Charlie wrapping a bed sheet around her, painting a mustache on her lips, pretending to be a priest, officiating the ceremony in deep baritone. Maria and Jon kissed and everyone cheered. They laughed. Drank. Danced. They were so much in love.

Maybe the wedding wasn't legally binding. Charlie wasn't an actual priest. They had no official marriage certificate. But their love was true. To Maria, the marriage had always been binding. She had not seen Jon since then. Four years had gone by. But Maria still considered her vows holy. And she knew that Jon, wherever he was, considered them holy too. She knew he would come back.

"Already married?" rumbled the king. "No, island daughter. You were abandoned. I saw it in your mind. Jon Taylor the Earthling left our planet. And he left you. He will never be yours again."

"Don't say that!" Maria cried. "Jon loves me. He'll come back to me!"

Her words filled the hall, rippling through the water. Everyone stared. Maria felt her cheeks flush.

Stay cool, Maria, she told herself.

She took a deep breath and tried again.

"Your Highness, I apologize for my outburst. I love Jon very much, and he loves me. Your offer of marriage honors me. But I must regrettably decline. I'm sorry." She hesitated, glanced into his one eye. "I hope your offer of the starship Gomorrah still stands. Not for me, Your Highness. But for the thousands of lives Gomorrah can save. I know that in your heart, you care for them."

The Drowned King finally rose from his throne.

He hovered upward in the water, extending an array of spiky fins like a frill-neck lizard. His guards knelt across the hall. Maria floated before him, refusing to be cowed.

"Do you mistake my compassion for stupidity?" he rumbled.

"If I suggested so, I apologize," Maria said. "You are mighty and wise. I'm just a silly girl with a big mouth."

The Drowned King rose higher in the water, looming over her, his fins spreading wide, a peacock tail of spikes.

"No, you're not a silly girl. You're wise and brave and pure of blood. You would be my greatest bride. Many other brides I have. You would be their queen! This is my offer to you, Maria of Canaan. Become my betrothed. We will set a wedding date a year from now. Once we're wed, all that is mine will be yours. As my wife, you may pilot Gomorrah to Earth and back a thousand times, saving your people."

"Your Highness, I'm honored," Maria said. "But Jon …"

"We'll make a wager, Maria of Canaan," said the Drowned King. "Today is the day of our betrothal. Our wedding is not for a year. If Jon returns to you within this year, if he married you in a true ceremony, legally binding, with a priest from your faith … our bond is severed. Our betrothal is nullified. But if Jon does not marry you within this year … you will come before me in my court, before the gods of the ocean. And you will be my wife."

Maria blinked. This was wonderful. This was perfect!

Clearly, the Drowned King thought Jon was a deadbeat. Just another Earthling who knocked up a bargirl, then left her. Like the thousands of them.

He was wrong.

There's something you don't know, Drowned King, Maria thought. Etty told me. Jon thought I was dead. That's the only reason he stayed on Earth! But Etty will tell him. That I'm still waiting. That he has a daughter. Jon will come back for me and Lily. We'll be married properly. With a real priest. And I can forget about this flooded palace.

Charlie swam toward Maria. "Nini, maybe we should think about this."

"I don't need to," Maria said. "Jon is coming back."

"Nini." Charlie's eyes filled with sadness. "Are you sure? Four Earthling men promised to marry me. Four Earthling men gave me babies. They all left me."

"Jon is not like that," Maria said. "I know it. I'm sure of it! I have to be sure." Her eyes dampened. "Or my life was a lie. Jon loves me. You don't understand. None of you do. You didn't feel his kisses. He didn't hold you all night, comforting you, driving the nightmares away. He didn't promise to love you forever. He didn't put a child in your belly." Her tears fell. "For four years, I dreamed of Jon, and I know he dreamed of me too. This year, he will come back. So I don't hesitate. I don't fear this deal."

The Drowned King extended his hand to hers. "So you accept my betrothal?"

Maria took his hand. "I accept."

"Very well," said the Drowned King. "So we will seal our betrothal the old way. The way of the ancestors. We will be bound by claw!"

The king tapped his temple. Inside his empty eye socket, the crab stirred. The creature scuttled out from the skull, claws snapping. It was no larger than a grasshopper, but those claws looked deadly, slicing through the water, razor sharp. The crustacean climbed down the king's cheek. The eyes on its stalks stared at Maria.

What the hell? Maria thought.

With a sudden movement, too fast for Maria to react, the Drowned King grabbed her. With his tentacles, he pulled her close.

The crab leaped onto her chest.

Maria cried out.

"Hey, what is this?" Charlie shouted. "Let go of me!"

"Let me go!" Jay Jay roared.

But guards were pulling them back. And the tentacles clutched Maria in place. She kicked and squirmed but could not free herself. The crab stood on her chest, eyes staring, yellow, swirling.

The crab raised one claw and made a surgical incision on her chest.

Maria screamed.

Her blood bubbled up through the water.

She flailed but the Drowned King held her tightly.

"Do not struggle against my pet," the king said. "Struggling makes the pain worse. He won't harm you. If you behave."

The crab thrust one claw into the wound on Maria's chest. Then the other claw.

Maria stared down at her chest in horror. The crab was burrowing into her. Into her body. She cried in terror.

When the crab was fully inside her, the wound closed. The crab moved under her skin. She could see it, feel it. Its tiny legs moving. Stitching. Sealing the cut with strands like cobwebs. The parasite was precise like a surgeon.

Then he burrowed deeper inside her.

Maria screamed again.

She felt it crawl through her chest. Felt it move along arteries. Felt a weight on her heart.

And then she felt nothing.

The pain faded.

Her chest gave a last dull throb, and it was over.

The Drowned King released her.

"What the hell did you do?" Charlie shouted, freeing herself from the guards. She swam toward Maria. "Oh, Nini. Nini, let me see."

They examined her chest. Nothing but the thinnest of scars remained.

She felt … fine.

The crab was still inside her, had to still be inside her. But she could not feel it. No more than she would feel a pacemaker.

Maria looked up at the Drowned King.

"What is this?" she whispered.

"A contract," the king said. "A contract of claws. A bridal crab lives inside you. His claws are sharp. He embraces your heart."

Maria took a shaky breath. She placed her hand on her chest.

"You son of a bitch!" Charlie said. She hugged Maria close.

"My crab will not harm you, Maria," the king said. "A bridal crab would never harm the woman he guards. For a year, the crab will live inside you. Symbiotic. You will not even feel him. Unless you try to remove him. Oh … if you try to remove him, if you invite any surgeon to reach inside you, to pluck him and break our bond … his claws will slice your heart to ribbons."

"Why?" Maria said. But she already understood.

"Bridal crabs are an ancient tradition among my kind," said the Drowned King. "They keep a bride from wandering too far. From fleeing her duty. For a year, the crab will hold you to your word. If Jon returns to you, if he marries you properly, I will withdraw my crab. He obeys only me. On that day, he will return into my eye socket, and you will never see either of us again. If you try to run, if you flee to Earth or some other world, if you do not honor our betrothal … the crab will know. The claws will strike."

Maria clenched her fists. "We could have signed a contract."

"Paper and ink, like an islander?" the Drowned King said. "How easy to rip up! As easy as ripping your heart. No, Maria. You are bound to me now. Bound with blood and claw. Only Jon Taylor's love can free you. Pray that he returns. I think he will not." He reached out a tentacle and caressed her. "In a year, you will be mine."

Maria swam out of the temple, a parasite around her heart and terror within it.

Chapter Seventeen

The Eye That Gazes Upon Eternity

The Symphonic Thunder flew through space, streaking past stars at speeds faster than light, heading toward the underworld.

"Xibalba," Kaelyn said, raising her head from a book. "The Mayan word for the hell. Why is there a Xibalba in space?"

Jon shrugged. "Maybe the Mayans had spaceships. Or really, really good telescopes."

"Ha ha, very funny."

"Kaelyn, I'm sure it was just a scientist with a sense of humor who named it Zabilbi. It's not really the Mayan hell."

"It's called Xibalba. Not Zabilbi."

Jon waved dismissively. "Tomato, tomata. In any case, there's nothing to worry about. Well, aside from all the locals with hooves and pitchforks."

"Mayan hell, not Christian hell!"

Jon shrugged. "Potato, potata."

They sat in the cockpit, gazing at the stars streak by in silver lines, etching a luminous symphony. They were flying through warped spacetime, hurtling into the unknown, traveling farther from Earth than they had ever gone. Maybe farther than any human had ever gone.

"Be serious, Jon." Kaelyn shuddered. "I don't like this. The whole thing is creepy. We already faced a demon at Rigel, and now we're flying to face some mysterious monster we know nothing about. So that we can gain a weapon to fight Papa Dominus, an even scarier monster." She sighed. "Jon, at what point do we turn back?"

Jon looked at her. "Turn back? Are you serious, Kae?"

"Yes! I am! When do we say: Look, we tried, but this is becoming an obsession?"

"An obsession?" Jon rose from his chair, leaving the starship on autopilot. "An obsession? Finding my daughter is an obsession?"

"I didn't say that!" Kaelyn shot back. "But we can find your daughter without facing Papa Dominus. Or the Red Cardinal. Or Clement Taylor, or … or whatever the hell he is! Why do we have to fight this battle?"

"We don't," Jon said. "I do."

"Jon, why—"

"I have to, Kaelyn!" he said. "You don't understand. You weren't there. You didn't see his evil. The people he hurt. You didn't see him murder Carter, my captain. I came back to Earth. I tried to forget. But I could not! Every night, nightmares haunted me. In waking hours, his inquisitors came to me."

"We can hide from them," Kaelyn said.

"I can't!" Jon was shouting now. "I can't hide, because it's inside me, and I can't rest until he's dead, Kaelyn, do you understand? I have to kill him or—"

"Don't you realize who you sound like?" Kaelyn said, shouting now too. "You sound like Carter! Like the captain you want to avenge! He was on a vendetta too. And he died! It killed him! Jon, I can't lose you."

His voice softened. "You won't. I promise. You won't. I'm not going to die. I'm going to end this." His eyes dampened. "I'm going to finally end this war. I've been out of the army for four years, but I never left Bahay. Not really. I remained there, still fighting. I can't leave Bahay until I go back and finish my war." He patted his rifle and gave Kaelyn a tentative smile. "And hey, we have Simone to help us."

Kaelyn let out a sob, pulled him into her arms, and cried against him. "Then I'm going with you. Let's end this fucking thing. Let's finally end it."

* * * * *

They flew onward through the night.

Finally they saw it ahead. A cold star and a dark world orbiting it. It was the only planet in this system. Here it was. Xibalba, the land of the dead.

The weaver artifacts were here.

From a distance, the planet seemed like a craggy, dark gray sphere, lifeless. No rivers, no oceans, no forests, just a rough metallic wasteland. But as they flew closer, Jon frowned. Something was wrong here.

"Look at those strange formations on the surface," he said. "Straight lines. Squares. Circles. Nature is squiggly. That looks like …"

"Like a giant city," Kaelyn completed the sentence.

"But I see no lights. We're detecting no energy signature at all. It's a dead world."

He tapped a few buttons, zooming in. As they flew closer, more details emerged.

Ruins covered Xibalba. A massive city, covering every last square mile. But Jon saw no lights. No cars rushing back and forth. No planes, no factories pumping smoke, no bustling city streets.

Nothing but death.

He zoomed in as far as the HUD allowed. The image was grainy, but as they flew closer, the definition improved. They saw hollow skyscrapers, chipped like the fangs of an old, defeated wolf. Overpasses lay fallen, draped across one another like bundles of cables. Shattered starships smothered fallen buildings. Dust rolled across city squares, their shops barren, their electric billboards dark.

"My God," Jon said. "The city just goes on and on, covering the planet. How many billions of aliens lived here?"

"And they're all gone," Kaelyn said. "So horrible. I wonder what happened to them."

"They probably kept touching the thermostat, and it caused global warming."

Kaelyn groaned. "Enough with the thermostat!"

"I told you that you make it too hot in here, and in our house back home, and—"

"God! You haven't even met your daughter yet, and you're already such a dad."

Jon snickered. "And we've only been married for a few years, and we already bicker like an old married couple."

They fell silent, looking at the ruins. Yes, it might have been global warming. Or a disease. Or a terrible war. Jon didn't know. He just hoped that whatever had destroyed this civilization was long gone.

Kaelyn pulled out her minicom. The holographic interface emerged from the tablet. She tapped a few buttons, then sighed.

"Wikipedia Galactica doesn't have a lot to say about this place. The article on planet Xibalba is just a stub at best. Only two words, in fact."

"What does it say?" Jon asked. "Hopefully mostly harmless."

"Stay away," Kaelyn said.

"Lovely. Well, fuck you, Wikipedia Galactica, because we're going in." He pulled a lever, adjusting the ship for atmospheric entry. "Please raise your seats to the upright position, pray to whatever gods will listen, and prepare for landing in the afterworld. Weather below is a lovely freeze your soul to death. Thank you for flying Air Symphonica."

"Nice to see you're in a good mood," Kaelyn said.

"A soldier's humor. You'll get used to it."

But it wasn't just that. Jon was nervous. He felt the nervousness deep inside him, a cold creature in his belly, rearing to break free. He couldn't stop thinking of Maria, of everyone on Bahay. The tattoo on his hand still hurt too. That wasn't helping.

Focus on the task at hand, soldier, he told himself.

He thought back to Guru Gyaan's parting words. Unfortunately, the guru had offered little information about Xibalba. The old caterpillar had never been here himself. But from the comfort of his snowy temple, he had gazed upon the ruins with his third eye. And he had given some basic instructions.

Find the eye within the triangle. It gazes upon the relics.

Very basic instructions.

"The eye within the triangle," Jon said. "That's what the guru told us. What the hell does that mean?"

Kaelyn shrugged. "Gurus speak in riddles."

"I'd rather they spoke in exact coordinates," Jon said. "A map would be nice too. Hell, even a 'turn left by the gas station' would work. But all we get is 'find an eye within a triangle.'"

"You're ranting again," Kaelyn said.

"Honey, why don't we stop for directions? Oh sure! Hey, friendly drifter, how do we get to the Save By Nite Motel? Oh, I see, drive past the SmartMart, turn right past the McBurger's, and the eye within the triangle gazes upon it. Thanks! Makes perfect sense."

"Still ranting," Kaelyn muttered.

"And don't get me started on—"

"Watch out!" Kaelyn said.

Jon saw it. He tugged the yoke. The Symphonic Thunder jerked sideways. Something large, heavy, and spiky shot past them, narrowly missing them. Belatedly, proximity alerts flashed across the dashboard. An alarm gave a halfhearted wail.

"So glad I spent money on that alert system," Jon grumbled. "What the hell was that?"

"Another one!" Kaelyn cried.

Jon yanked the yoke to the other side. They dodged another incoming bogey.

"Warning, incoming bogey!" the alarm system intoned.

"Anything else you wanna warn us about?" Jon shouted. "Maybe that Hitler just invaded Poland?"

Cursing, Jon flipped some switches. The HUD now displayed a scan of debris in the area. He plotted a zigzagging course, and the Symphonic Thunder zipped left and right, up and down, avoiding the obstacles.

As they flew by a bogey, Jon finally got a good look at it. A metal ball with solar panels and antennae attached.

"A satellite," he said. "A dead satellite, by the looks of it."

"There are a whole bunch of them," Kaelyn said. "This civilization didn't just leave a ruin below. They left a mess in orbit too. Most of the satellites probably crashed onto the surface long ago. But some stragglers remain, caught in orbit."

"Space junk," Jon said.

He reclaimed manual control, and he guided the Thunder a bit lower, past where the satellites were thickest. He settled into a nice, low orbit only five hundred kilometers above the surface. All the satellites were now orbiting above them. Kaelyn kept a watch out for rogues.

"All right, eye within a triangle!" Jon scanned the ruins. "Let's see what we got here."

They gazed at the rolling landscape below, silent. They passed over the endless city. A city covering an entire planet. The only organic shapes were rivers. The rest were all geometric shapes and straight lines. Roads. City squares. Neighborhoods. Towers. It all lay in ruin, yes. Skyscrapers lay on their sides. Roads were crumbling. City streets were crumbling away. But they could still make out the general shape of things.

"Jon, do you see it too?" Kaelyn said. "The way the city was organized, how the streets are laid out. They're …"

"Runes," Jon said. "Giant runes the size of neighborhoods. Weavers built this city."

One neighborhood's streets were shaped like a sunburst, a cluster of fallen apartment blocks in the center. Another neighborhood looked like a wagon wheel, roads forming spokes, a round avenue enclosing them. In an industrial park, decaying factories were shaped like an open hand. Those were the simple shapes. Most of the symbols were abstract. The streets and buildings formed intricate arrangements with circles, lines, and triangles. They looked like crop circles left in concrete.

"There must be thousands of runes in these ruins," Jon said.

"That's going to get confusing," Kaelyn said.

"Homonyms notwithstanding, how do we examine all these runes?" Jon said. "We need a better method. We need an algorithm."

After getting out of prison, Jon had taken some programming classes. Back then, Symphonica was still just a dream, and Jon had spent his days lost in deep depression. Suicidal. His parents had convinced him to take a few classes. To explore different career paths.

Surprisingly, he had enjoyed his coding class. He was good at it. Coding was a lot like writing music. With both, you created different threads, different notes or variables, went from one point to another, weaving a whole. Symphonica's first album had done well, drawing his full attention, and Jon never completed his studies. But some of the knowledge remained.

He took the minicom from Kaelyn, and he spent a while coding an algorithm to recognize basic geometric shapes. He drew some shapes on paper to test the algorithm. When he pointed the minicom camera at his drawings, he found a host of bugs. He went over his code again, fixing them one by one.

It took hours. Somebody with more experience would probably get it working much faster. Jon wasn't the best coder, but he got things working eventually. Not just when scanning paper, either. He could point the minicom to the landscape below, and his algorithm would do its work.

Now he just needed to collect a whole lot of data—and let his code scan.

"We're gonna have to fly a bit higher," Jon said. "We need a wider view. Let's watch out for those satellites."

He flew into higher orbit. Satellites zipped back and forth, each threatening to destroy the starship. Those satellites carried a lot of kinetic energy, enough to rip the Symphonic Thunder apart. Thankfully, they also flew in stable, predictable orbits. Jon found a clear band of orbit high enough to soak in the scenery.

"Ah, here we go," Jon said. "From up here, I can scan huge swaths of landscape within—"

"There it is." Kaelyn pointed. "An eye within a triangle."

Jon blinked. "What?"

Kaelyn pointed. "There, look. See those train tracks? They form a triangle. And that giant round building in the center? Looks like an eye to me. With a courtyard in the middle for a pupil."

Jon stared. She was right. A round building like an iris surrounded a courtyard like a pupil. Train tracks enclosed it, forming a perfect triangle around the eye.

"But … but … my algorithm!" Jon said. "I spent hours coding it! I was just about to turn it on!"

"Do you want to start over and let the algorithm find it?" Kaelyn said softly, touching his hand.

He groaned. "No." He heaved a sigh. "I'll have you know it's a genius algorithm, and I'm a genius, and I would have proved it to you."

"Because composing two rock operas is clearly not enough," Kaelyn said.

"I'll have to compose a third one when we get back home," Jon said. "I already have a title. The Tale of the Unappreciated Genius."

"Better than The Gremlins Who Mooned Me," said Kaelyn.

He shoved down the yoke, a little too roughly, and the Thunder dived toward the planet.

They entered the atmosphere with a blaze of fire. Their sensors picked up a soupy mix of carbon monoxide, methane, and lots of hydrogen. Oxygen levels were dangerously low.

"This planet once had plants," Jon said. "Grasslands and forests, enough to generate oxygen. Now the planet is dead. And the oxygen is fading away."

"We'll use our spacesuits," Kaelyn said.

"Good idea. The air looks worse than Symphonica's dressing room, and you know how much the boys smoke."

As they dived down, more details emerged. They saw dagger-shaped cars along the highways, dead and abandoned. A train stood on a rickety track, covered in ash. Smog wafted from manholes. Buildings crumbled everywhere, surrendering to time like concrete corpses on the battlefields of gods. Skyscrapers rose like hands from the grave, their walls like peeling skin, revealing honeycombs of barren rooms and empty halls. Dark smoke fluttered over abandoned factories like ghosts over their own tombstones. An entire intergalactic starship lay across an overpass, large enough for thousands of passengers. Its hull had ripped open, revealing the chassis. It looked like the blackened skeleton of a whale draped across a garden of dead coral.

Train tracks formed the triangle's angles. Thick networks of train tracks. Fifty train tracks or more pressed together like threads forming ropes. As Jon flew lower, he saw trains dead on their tracks. Strange trains. Some looked like ancient locomotives built of black iron. But other trains were oddly organic like the husks of dead millipedes. One train had legs. Another had antennae topped with dead black eyes. One train had cars made from skulls—great monstrous skulls, blackened, chained together, screaming silently at the sky. One train had open cars full of bones. Black, burnt bones. Millions of them.

Suddenly—a rumble!

A roar!

Smoke wafting! Smog pumping!

A train came racing down the tracks, wobbling, nearly falling off, chugging onward. A black train. A train of charred steel. It had no wheels. A thousand metallic legs rose along its sides. A centipede of metal, scuttling forward, engines burning in its abdomen. Its yellow eyes shone on stalks, piercing the smog ahead. And then it was gone. Vanishing into a tunnel like a bug into a burrow.

"What," Kaelyn said, "was that?"

Jon shuddered. "I don't know. A relic from a past civilization, still running on fumes?"

"Jon …" Kaelyn was pale. "Is something still alive down there?"

Jon grimaced. "Hopefully not that train. I can't decide if that was a machine or … some giant alien."

"Let's find the artifacts and get the hell out of here," Kaelyn said.

"Good idea."

He flew over the train tracks, heading to the center of the triangle. The Symphonic Thunder passed over realms of decay. Great smelters, their metal hardened and cold, spilling out in frozen rivulets like basalt. Highways where cars lay overturned like dead insects, where burnt trucks clung to charcoal roads like shed cicada shells. Tunnels and storm drains and sinkholes, revealing glimpses of a shadowy underworld. Scattered fires burned, feeding on the smoking remains of factories, like red mushrooms growing from corpses.

A shadow darted below. Perhaps a rat. Probably something much bigger. A figure moved in the window of a charred skyscraper, peering for an instant with blazing white eyes, then vanishing. A piece of cloth fluttered over the ruins, danced, spun, pirouetted, a ballerina of the apocalypse, then rolled into the distance and vanished into the smog. An animal scuttled by factory walls. A dog. A strange, skeletal dog, covered in mange, a dog the size of a horse, a dog with a human face. The face stared up, as pale as the moon, and then the quivering beast snorted, scampered away, and vanished into shadows.

They reached the eye in the triangle. Dead highways formed its lids, littered with charred cars like dead demodex mites. A circular building formed the iris. It was a massive building, as large as the pentagon, but round. Fans and antennae and grates covered its roof, rusting away. A pupil gazed from the center. A courtyard cloaked in shadow. A pit as dark and deep as a well. Jon could not see the bottom. The entire building suddenly seemed like a gargantuan machine, though Jon could not divine its purpose.

Alien letters were painted onto the roof like demonic runes around a portal to hell. Those weren't weaver symbols. It was some alien language. Jon pulled out his translating glasses.

"You kept the glasses?" Kaelyn frowned. "Don't those belong to the Great Library of Rigel?"

Jon shrugged. "Hey, you keep 3D glasses from movie theaters."

"I did that one time! By accident!" She placed her hands on her hips. "And this is entirely different. Your glasses are a powerful artifact. Which you stole."

"A giant demon attacked me in their library. The Rigelians owe me compensation." He put the glasses on, leaned forward in the cockpit, and peered down at the eye. "Ah, here we go."

The alien letters around the chasm now appeared in English.

ETERNITY

"Eternity," he said. "The name of this planet? Of this factory? Of some corporation or god? I wonder what it means."

"The eye that gazed upon eternity," Kaelyn said softly. "It's kind of sad."

"Good title for a song," Jon said.

"Much nicer than The Tale of the Unappreciated Genius."

The Symphonic Thunder circled over the great mechanical eye. Jon suddenly felt like it was watching him. He could not suppress a shudder.

"Where do you think we'll find those artifacts?" Jon said.

"Hey, you're the one with a weaver's rune," Kaelyn said. "Use your superpowers to find them."

Jon looked at the silver tattoo on his hand. A rune shaped like a key.

"The guru said that the eye gazes upon the artifacts." Jon caressed the tattoo, then looked down at the eye. "And how do eyes look at stuff? With their pupils. Kaelyn, that pupil is hollow. A shaft leading underground. The artifacts might be in there."

"Great!" Kaelyn said. "What could go wrong? We always have such lovely times when we delve into alien dungeons."

"Hey, sarcastic ranting is my job," Jon said.

He circled the mechanical eye again, seeking a place to land. He couldn't land on the eye itself. Too much equipment covered the roof—nests of antennae and spikes and strange machines he did not understand. They would impale the ship. Flying directly into the pupil was out of the question too. A heavy grate blocked the way down. Who knew what horrors lurked below, trapped behind those rusty bars?

Outside the enormous round building, Jon saw an abandoned lot. Warehouses rose nearby, their concrete walls moldy and crumbling. A few trucks sat on the asphalt, rusting away. There room to land there. And Jon didn't see any immediate threats.

Jon descended, engaged his stabilizers, and the Symphonic Thunder blasted hot air onto the lot. Dust and ashes flew, revealing skeletons.

The Thunder thumped onto the asphalt. Jon tried to ignore the sickening crunch as the landing gear crushed bones.

"All right!" Jon said. "Listen up! Spacesuits on. Weapons primed. Grab your gear, grab your ammo, grab your balls, we're rolling out."

Kaelyn tilted her head. "Old war speech?"

"I just made it up," Jon said. "Did it boost your morale?"

"No. Please never tell me to grab my balls again."

They prepared in silence, pulling on their spacesuits and helmets. Jon slung Simone across his back, his deadly little guardian angel, hoping he wouldn't need her. He attached his three grenades to his belt, wishing he had brought more. He filled his pack with plasma chargers, medical supplies, water, and even some food. He didn't know how long they'd be down there.

Soon he and Kaelyn stood in the airlock, both wearing their spacesuits, both armed to the teeth. Before opening the hatch, Jon turned toward her. He placed his gloved hands on the small of her back, leaned forward, and touched his visor to hers.

"I love you, my angel of music," he said.

She kissed him through the visor. "I love you too, dumbass."

They charged outside, weapons raised.

Chapter Eighteen

Bakunawa

The Court of the Drowned King celebrated.

The king was betrothed again. And that meant a grand feast.

A thousand guests filled the throne room, the noblest nobles of the drowned city. No two were alike. They were mutated—once human, now beings of the deep waters. One nobleman sported a coat of spikes like an urchin; they grew directly from his skin, and he strutted about, sending others scurrying to safety. A graceful lady with pink skin fluttered by, her fins flowing through the water like the tail of a bridal gown, undulating in the current, beautiful ribbons that intoxicated the mind. An old, plump man strolled around with six arms like a starfish. He wore many golden jewels and gemstones, and a young woman dangled on each of his six arms. An old woman scuttled by along the floor. Instead of legs, she had eight tentacles. She gripped a fallen clam with one tentacle, cracked it open, and slurped the meat inside.

There was plenty of food. Tables carved from shimmering stone were laid out. Upon them rose a thousand dishes of plenty. Clams rested on beds of seaweed, their shells open, exposing the quivering delicacies within. Succulent tubes of coral stood like bread sticks inside glass vases. Guests simply had to pluck one of the lumpy sticks and suck out the sweet innards. Punch bowls contained severed tentacles. They draped over the sides, some still squirming. Guests sucked them up like noodles. Starfish wriggled on skewers. Silver platters held strips of raw fish rolled in kelp leaves. Thousands of boiled crab legs rested on beds of polished stones. The head table boasted the pièce de résistance—a huge crab, easily the size of a car, with claws that could slice men in half. The Downed King himself carved it open, and everyone approached, bowed, and partook in the flesh.

Only one thing was missing. The Drowned King's other wives.

In his throne room, he had boasted of them. Claimed that Maria would be his greatest bride. But the others weren't here. Maria shuddered, afraid to ask. Had they displeased him and ended up on these platters?

Maria felt out of place here. So afraid. She sat at the king's side, breathing through her filter of brass gears, leather bellows, and glass tubes. It was impossible to eat like this. So she just sat there. Watching. Wishing she were anywhere else.

The Drowned King sat beside her, thrice her size. He leaned over a platter of fish heads. His tentacles flailed over the dish, creating a maelstrom in the water, sucking up fish into his mouth. He crunched the skulls with little mandibles instead of teeth. Maria tried not to shudder in disgust.

Charlie sat at her other side. For a moment, she watched the king eat, her face locked in an expression halfway between horror and fascination. Finally she leaned toward Maria.

"Nini, I can't believe you agreed to marry that squid!" Charlie whispered. "He's disgusting."

Maria winced. Her heart nearly stopped. "Shh!"

"Oh, he can't hear me!" Charlie whispered, louder now. "He eats louder than my Uncle Oscar. And dear old Oscar has been mistaken for a lawn mower."

"I had no choice!" Maria whispered back. "And I didn't know he'd stick a crab in my chest."

She shivered and touched her chest. She could not feel the crab inside her, but she felt the scar, the thinnest of lines. She imagined the claws around her heart, just waiting for the order. Waiting to kill. If she tried to run, to flee this wretched king of the depths, those claws would tear into her heart.

The king grunted and raised his tentacles from his plate. His one good eye, round and bulging, swiveled in its socket toward Maria. The other socket, where the crab had once lived, now had a new resident. A little eel peered from inside, tongue flicking.

"Do you not enjoy this feast, my betrothed?" the Drowned King rumbled.

Maria looked at her plate. A starfish was crawling across it. A severed tentacle flailed inside her goblet.

"It looks delicious," she said. "But I can't remove my mask to eat."

"Can we have a doggy bag?" Charlie said. "We always take our tentacles to go. By the way, got any booze? I'm pretty sure I can drink it through my breathing filter."

"Charlie, no drinking tonight," Maria said. "You know how you get with a few drinks."

Charlie bristled. "What, I can hold my liquor!" She pushed herself off her seat, floating upward in the water. "Hey, waiter! Yes, you, the handsome, sexy merman! Grab me some wine."

Charlie swam off, chasing the finned servant, who paled and spun to flee.

Maria turned back toward the king. "Your Highness, now that we're engaged, may I borrow the Gomorrah? I know we won't be wed for another year. But my people can't wait that long. I must begin ferrying refugees to Earth."

The king snorted. His tentacles fluttered. "You better not be on that ship with them. Or you know what will happen." He lifted a sea sponge from his plate and crushed it in his claws.

Maria placed a hand on her chest, feeling the scar, imagining the claws inside her. "I won't be on the ship, Your Highness. I won't run from you. But my people can't wait."

The king harrumphed, caught a fish that was swimming by, and swallowed it whole. "The Gomorrah will not fly."

Maria gasped. She leaped to her feet, though the movement was less than dramatic underwater. "But Your Highness, you promised that—"

"Hold on, my love!" He reached out, pulled her back into her chair. "Allow me to explain. To fly the Gomorrah, you need the Silverrune, an amulet the size of your heart. Gomorrah's engines will not run without it."

Maria tilted her head. "So …. your giant, ancient starship has a key."

"Yet the Silverrune is beyond my reach," said the Drowned King. "For it lies upon dry land, where I cannot walk. My people are forbidden from leaving the ocean. But you may travel onto land. You may retrieve the Silverrune."

Maria nodded. "Okay, got it. Your lost your starship keys, and you want me to find them."

A finned waiter swam by, leaving a wake through the water, rattling the dishes on the table. Charlie swam after him, tugging his tail.

"Stop, stop!" Charlie was crying. "Bring me wine, sexy merman butler!"

Maria sighed.

The Drowned King crunched a clam in his mandibles, shattering the shell. "Long ago, we Gomorrahns tamed the great waterdragons. We became riders of the beasts. And I rode the mightiest among them—the noble and ancient Bakunawa, the prince of the oceans."

"I saw the waterdragons when arriving in the city," Maria said. "They're magnificent."

"And Bakunawa puts them all to shame." The Drowned King plucked the eel from his eye socket and slurped it up. "I rode him every day through the oceans. I forged him a great chain, each link made of iron and gold. And on this chain hung the Silverrune, the great relic of my ancestors. So long as Bukunawa carried the Silverrune, the starship was safe."

Maria nodded. "You gave your starship keys to your pet, and he ran off with them."

The Drowned King peeled open a sea urchin as if it were a lychee. He licked up the gooey innards. "Years ago, our scientists explored modifying our waterdragons, allowing them to breathe both air and water. We injected Bakunawa with a serum that changed his physiology, that gave him lungs along with gills. He became amphibious. We thought he could become lord of ocean, land, and sky."

"What happened?" Maria said softly.

"He discovered the joys of air and sky, and he never returned to the ocean. Bakunawa now lived on a remote island. A place we Gomorrahns cannot reach. We dreamed of rising into the air on the back of dragons, for the sky is a great ocean, parallel to our own. Yet the land is forbidden to us, for that is the domain of Canaan. We cannot follow."

"Got it," Maria said. "Your pet ran off with your keys and you can't reach him. So I just need to go to this island, find your dragon, and get the Silverrune back. And then I can fire up Gomorrah?"

He nodded. "Bring me back the Silverrune. And if you can, bring me back my dragon. Then the starship will be yours to command."

Charlie swam back to her seat, cross-eyed, holding a glass bottle.

"Hey, Nini!" She waved haphazardly. "Hey, Drowned Squid! I learned I can drink booze through my filter." She hiccupped. "I think I love seaweed booze."

She slumped into her seat.

Maria grabbed her friend. "Come on, Charlie. It's time for you to go to bed. And for me to find a dragon."

* * * * *

To find a big dragon, Maria rode a little dragon.

Phaya Naga was about the size of a dolphin. The waterdragon had a slender, coiling body covered in green scales, a mane of golden fur, and whorled horns. Rows of fangs filled her jaws, and her eyes shone. The beast undulated through the water, moving so fast Maria nearly fell from the saddle. She clung on with all her strength.

I'm riding a dragon underwater, she thought. I'm actually riding a mythical beast of the oceans. This must be a dream.

But she felt the water, cold against her skin. Through her oxygen filter, she smelled the salt and kelp and richness of the ocean. This was real. The water flowed around her. The dragon scales chinked. She was really here.

My life has been like a dream, Maria thought. Ever since the bombs fell on my village.

She remembered that day. It was six years ago now. She had been only seventeen, a scared orphan, running from the fire. She had wandered the rainforest, and she had found a panaginip palaka. A dreamtoad. The shamans used these strange, mystical amphibians to enter dream states, to see the future.

The dreamtoad had shown Maria strange visions. A thousand futures like a kaleidoscope.

"It will be the only way to save her," the dreamtoad had told her. "You must use his knife."

The knife still hung on her hip, even now, all these years later. A knife with an antler hilt. A knife Maria had peeled off the burnt corpse of her father.

And Maria wondered if she was still in that rainforest, still holding the dreamtoad. She wondered if the past six years had been just a dream. The neon phantasmagoria of Mindao's slums. The dancing skeletons of the graveyard where Maria had lived for a year. The space station among the stars and the insane artificial intelligence that ruled it. The underwater realm and the dragon she now rode. Was this all just part of the dreamtoad's dream? Would she soon wake up in the rainforest, seventeen years old again, an orphan fleeing a burning village?

No.

Because Maria refused to believe that Jon was a dream. That the man she loved was just a figment of her intoxicated mind. If Jon wasn't real, neither was Lily. And Maria could not believe that.

My life is dreamlike, but not a dream, she thought. Bahay itself is like a fever dream. Bahay is a world of brutal reality and strange visions. A world of grittiness and fantasy. A world of so much death but also light. A world I am bound to—with this crab around my heart, and with the yearning within my heart. Bahay is my home.

Phaya Naga snorted, gliding over a rocky shoal. Maria rocked in the saddle, nearly falling off. She held on more tightly. It didn't help that Maria still wore her kelp dress, the costume of a sacrificial virgin. The ammonite pendant hung from her neck, and she breathed through the strange apparatus of gears, tubes, and bellows—the gifts of Sodom. Maria would have given the world for a proper diving suit, helmet, and oxygen tank, but those were half a world away, back in the Kinnara. Maria would likely never see them again. The salt water kept rushing over her. Sand stung her. Seaweed slapped her. Not exactly an easy ride.

Maria checked her astrolabe—an ingenious little device the Drowned King had given her. As the waterdragon swam, the astrolabe's gears and dials kept moving, measuring the distance to her destination. She had crossed a thousand miles on the back of the dragon. She was almost there.

Phaya Naga crossed a rocky ledge, and suddenly the waterdragon was swimming over a trench so deep Maria could not see the bottom. Cold water gurgled up from below, chilling Maria. She looked downward. The water inside the trench was as black as starless night. Water so dense it would crush her.

Suddenly—the trench lit up!

A million lights shone below. Glowing suction cups! Tentacles flailed. Octopuses squirmed in the depths, swimming upward, battling one another, desperate to win the race to the top. They were huge beasts, each as large as a truck, their tentacles as long as trees.

Those tentacles rose high—toward Maria.

She yelped.

"Phaya Naga, swim higher!" she cried. "Toward the surface!"

The dragon needed no encouragement. Roaring in dismay, Phaya Naga swam straight up.

But the tentacles were faster.

One tentacle grabbed Phaya Naga by the tail—and began yanking her down.

Below in the pit, an enormous octopus opened its mouth. Teeth glittered. The gullet quivered. That mouth was large enough to swallow both dragon and rider. A thousand other octopuses squirmed all around, jaws opened wide, hungry for flesh.

Phaya Naga roared. The waterdragon squirmed madly, desperate to flee.

The tentacles tightened, yanking the poor dragon downward to the pit.

Maria didn't have a gun. Only her father's knife. Several tentacles were coiling around Phaya Naga, crushing the poor dragon. With a machine gun, maybe Maria could have helped. With a knife? These foes were beyond her.

Sorry, friend, Maria thought as she leaped from the saddle.

She swam onward, desperate to cross over the trench.

Below her, Phaya Naga squealed. The octopuses roared. Hot blood filled the water.

Maria glanced over her shoulder. She saw the waterdragon vanish into the chomping jaws in the pit.

I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Maria thought, still swimming upward. I'm sorry I left you behind.

Tentacles rose after her.

Maria grimaced and swam faster.

A tentacle curled around her foot. Maria screamed and thrust her knife, sinking it into the rubbery flesh. The tentacle pulled away. Maria kept swimming, bloody knife in her hand. Another tentacle squirmed toward her. She slashed with her blade. The tentacle recoiled.

Finally Maria reached the far side of the trench. The water warmed up. The shadows lifted. Light glimmered down from the ocean surface, reflecting off stones and shells on the seabed. The shadows faded, the water turned sky blue, and the tentacles pulled back into darkness.

Maria breathed a sigh of relief. The bellows of her breathing mask inflated and deflated.

"That was a close one," she said to herself. "I'm sorry, Phaya Naga."

She swam onward, wanting to put more distance between her and that trench. She checked her astrolabe again. She was only a few miles from the island now. She would have to swim the rest.

* * * * *

A few hours later, Maria dragged herself onto a beach, so tired she collapsed onto the sand. She pulled her breathing mask off and inhaled the fresh air. For long moments, she just lay there, exhausted.

"I hate swimming," she whimpered.

Finally she pushed herself to her feet and examined her surroundings. It was an island like thousands of others on Bahay, formed around a dead volcano. A ring of golden sand. Palm trees. And in the center soared the volcano, draped in rainforest. The only thing different about this island was its location. It rose thousands of miles away from Bahay's main archipelagos. Some Bahayans lived on islands this small, but always within a quick boat-ride from the larger islands, where they could shop for supplies. This island was isolated. As far as Maria knew, no human had ever been here.

A perfect place for an introverted dragon.

But before tackling a dragon, Maria had more immediate concerns. She felt so weak she could barely walk. She had not eaten or drank anything in a day or two, and she had just swum for miles. She felt close to passing out.

She limped toward a coconut tree, shook it, and coconuts thumped onto the sand. She collected a few, sat cross-legged on the sand, and drilled holes into them with her father's knife. She drank deeply, replenishing herself. Then she cracked open the coconuts and devoured the white flesh within.

I haven't eaten a coconut since my youth in San Luna, she reflected. I missed them.

Coconuts were not native to Bahay. The first settlers had brought them centuries ago. God bless 'em.

After feasting, Maria leaned back and patted her belly contentedly.

That was when she noticed the foot print in the sand.

A giant footprint. Clawed. Right there before her.

"Bakunawa," she whispered.

The king's dragon was here.

As if to confirm her thoughts, a roar sounded from the volcano. The island shook. Birds fled from the trees. Maria froze.

The roar died down, the birds sang again, but Maria shivered.

She looked up at the volcano. It soared, its slopes steep and rocky. A plume of smoke rose from above. Maria frowned. Was this volcano active?

In any case, the roar had come from the mountaintop. Maria had a long climb ahead of her.

She sighed. If there was anything worse than swimming, it was mountain climbing.

* * * * *

For hours, she climbed.

She panted and cursed along the way. Sweat dripped down her body. Her seaweed dress clung to her. The slopes were steep, sometimes so steep she had to crawl on hands and feet. Vegetation grew everywhere. Often Maria had to draw her knife and carve a way through.

"I had the Kinnara," she muttered. "A rescue ship that can travel underwater, fly through the air, and travel across any landscape with treadmill tracks. I just had to leave it in Sodom."

Finally, as the sun was setting, she reached the mountaintop. She collapsed under a wild mango tree. After she caught her breath, she devoured some mangoes, then drank from a coconut she had dragged all the way up.

A grumble sounded. Very close and very loud. The trees trembled.

Maria inched through the vegetation, parting bushes and branches, and reached the volcano's vent. An outer lip of basalt encircled the vent like a defensive wall. Maria climbed over the ledge and peered down.

Her eyes widened.

The volcano was indeed inactive. A hardened floor of basalt filled the vent, forming a natural depression like a crater. The valley was roughly the size of a football field.

And there in the center, lying upon a pile of bones, slept a dragon.

Not like the dragons Maria had seen tattooed onto Earthling soldiers. Not a beast of old European legends. This dragon had come from the oceans of Bahay. His body was long, coiling, and covered in turquoise scales. Great fins draped from his sides like wings, and his limbs were short and clawed, no larger than a T-Rex's arms. Golden dorsal spikes rose across his back, and a golden mane surrounded his scaly head. The head reminded Maria of a great seahorse—at least, if seahorses had mouths full of fangs.

The dragon yawned, exposing those fangs in all their glory. Smoke puffed from his mouth. His eyes did not open. His head rested on a pillow of bones.

When the dragon shifted in his sleep. A glint blinded Maria—the sunlight catching something metallic. An amulet around his neck! The Silverrune!

"You got the key to my starship, buddy," Maria whispered, inching her way into the crater. "I'm sorry, but I need it."

She tiptoed closer, barely daring to breathe. The dragon kept slumbering, smoke rising from his nostrils. He was bigger than Phaya Naga. That dear, fallen dragon had been dolphin-sized. Bakunawa, this slumbering prince of dragons, could probably have swallowed Phaya Naga whole. He was curled up, so it was hard to judge his length. But straighten him, and he could probably stretch across a city block.

Despite his formidable length, he was surprisingly graceful. His body wasn't much thicker than Phaya Naga's body. He was not some bulky, dreaded monster, not some corpulent whale of the deep. He was a beautiful being, a slender jewel, each scale an emerald, each strand of his mane a thread of purest gold. When the sun shone upon him, he glittered.

For a moment, Maria stood still, awed by his beauty. It was no wonder the Drowned King had chosen mighty Bakunawa as his mount. And it was no wonder the Drowned King craved his return.

"Why did you leave the ocean, Bakunawa?" she whispered. "You ruled a grand underwater domain. Now you have only a little island."

The dragon's ears pricked up. He stirred in his sleep. His pile of bones clattered, and smoke rose from his nostrils.

Maria froze. But the dragon soon settled into a comfortable position and kept sleeping.

Maria tiptoed closer. Thankfully, the ground here was solid basalt, and her bare feet made not a sound. Her heart, however, beat so mightily she worried Bakunawa would hear.

The Silverrune shone, luring her closer like a beacon. Roughly the size and shape of a coaster, it featured delicate engravings. It hung around Bakunawa's neck on a chain. And along with the chain, the dragon seemed to wear what looked like … Well, Maria wasn't sure. The remains of an old harness perhaps?

Maria froze. Her eyes widened.

Poor thing, she thought.

A fishing net wrapped around his left fin. Six-pack rings hung from his dorsal spikes, and fishing hooks stuck out from several of his scales. A bundle of tarp encircled his body like a belt, squeezing. Scars marred the surrounding scales. Perhaps the dragon had been clawing at the nylon, desperate to remove it, only scratching himself in the process.

"No wonder you left the ocean!" Maria said.

This was Earth pollution. Garbage the Earthling soldiers had brought during the war.

She approached the sleeping dragon. She could use her knife, cut off the tarp, the six-pack rings, the fishing net. Hopefully without waking him.

She placed one foot on the nest of bones. They were mostly the bones of large fish, some larger than Maria, though she spotted a few bird skeletons too. The dragon had been eating well.

She inched forward, careful not to rattle the nest, and reached with her knife toward the fishing net trapping the fin.

A bird's skull tumbled underfoot, clattering toward the basalt ground.

The dragon's eye opened.

The pupil shrank to a pinpoint, focusing on her. The iris was orange, blazing like a cauldron of molten metal.

Maria stumbled back, knife drawn. The blade gleamed.

The dragon roared.

The sound washed over Maria. She stumbled and fell onto her back. Bones cascaded. The dragon reared upon his nest, bellowing so loud the volcano shook. He pulled his head back, then thrust it toward her, jaws opened wide, and Maria saw fire swirl within.

She rolled aside.

A stream of flames blazed across the crater, hit the upturned basalt ledge, and sprayed like a geyser. Heat and light and a terrible stench of sulfur filled the volcano's vent.

Maria scampered backwards, sheathed her knife, and raised her open hands.

"I'm here to help!" she said. "To free you!"

The dragon howled. A howl that rattled through his entire body, chinking his scales, clanking his spikes, and vibrating his throat sack. A howl torn with anguish and fury. He pushed himself up on the bones. He beat his fins like wings, as if trying to rise and fly. But the fishing net tightened around one fin, and Bakunawa crashed onto the bones, cracking them. He roared and blasted flames.

Maria cowered, covering her head with her arms.

I'm about to be roasted!

But no heat came. This time, the flames were not blowing her way.

Maria peered between her fingers. The dragon was torching nothing but open air. An act of frustration, not malice.

Gingerly, Maria took another step closer, hands open in a gesture of peace.

"It's all right, boy. I'm here to help."

She took another step. The dragon spun his mighty head toward her. His jaws opened so wide they could devour her whole. His roar flowed over her like a hurricane. His breath smelled of ashes and burnt fish.

She did not back down.

"You're hurt, aren't you?" she said. "I know why you left the ocean. Because we hurt you."

He lowered his head, snarling. His claws gripped bones, cracking them. His tail whipped and thumped, scattering shark skulls, whale teeth, and sea serpent ribs. He had defeated these mighty beasts, but he could not free himself from the pollution gripping him. Bits of tarp and fishing net were wrapped around his neck. The thin straps of nylon had sawed through the scales, were cutting the soft flesh beneath.

Maria took another step. She was only a foot away now. She reached out a hand, hesitant.

The water dragon pulled back. He reared and roared and blew fire skyward, exposing his quivering neck.

Maria took a deep breath, then placed a hand on his scales. She stroked him.

He gurgled, whimpered, but did not attack.

"Good …" She caressed him. "Good boy. Let me help."

She drew her knife.

The dragon howled and recoiled. Flames crackled in his mouth.

"It's all right. You're doing great. Good boy. Good … good …"

As quick as she could, she slid the knife under a strand of nylon, then sawed it off.

The dragon shook his head. The plastic noose fell off, revealing an ugly wound around his neck. For a moment, he howled in pain. But then he lowered his head beside Maria, and he snorted softly, blasting smoke from his nostrils. But he blew no fire. He did not show his fangs. He gazed into her eyes.

Thank you, friend, his eyes seemed to say.

Maria walked to his fin. She worked for long moments, cutting off the fishing net. It was tricky business. There were many strands to saw through, and his fin was a crumpled mess. Gurgling in pain, Bakunawa managed to stretch the fin out, flap it a few times.

Maria worked faster now, cutting off tangled fishing lines, six-pack rings, and plastic bags that had braided together into ropes. Whenever she pulled off a piece of pollution, she revealed another wound. Some were infected. It took even longer to scan the dragon's body, finding and removing fish hooks.

Throughout it all, the dragon roared and whimpered, but he did not attack. He did not leave the volcano. He understood Maria was here to help.

She worked past sunset and into the night. Thankfully, both moons were full tonight. Pilak Mata cast a silvery light. Asul Mata, her sister, glowed soft blue. Under their light, Maria pulled out the final hook.

Bakunawa reared, balanced on his tail, and stretched toward the sky. He let out a rumbling, rippling sound. His scales chinked. His fins spread out.

Then he thumped down, rattling his pile of bones. He looked at Maria with his orange eyes. He stretched his fin toward her.

She approached slowly. "What is it, boy?"

He curled his tail around and nudged her closer.

"You want me to climb onto your back?" she said.

He nudged her again. His fin scooped her up, placed her on his back.

"I'm not sure about this," she said. "I—whoa!"

The water dragon's fins, designed for the ocean, spread out like wings, as wide as he was long. He kicked off the pile of bones, his fins caught the air, and he flew.

Maria sat between two dorsal spikes. She clung to the one before her, and she pressed her legs hard around the dragon's body.

Bakunawa soared, undulating like a serpent on water. They flew between the ocean and stars, leaving the island behind. The moons shone and reflected on the water, and it felt like gliding through space. As he flew, Bakunawa sang a song like a whale's song. A song of gratitude and freedom. Maria wondered how long it had been since his last flight. Maybe years.

He flew through the night. Maria found herself yawning, dozing off, even here upon a dragon's back. This flight too felt like a dream. She kept waiting to wake up in the jungle, the dreamtoad in her hands. Or perhaps she would wake up in her childhood bed, safe and sound in her bamboo hut, back in San Luna, her beautiful village. She would tiptoe out of her bedroom, and she would find her parents cooking champorado, a porridge of sticky rice and chocolate, which they ate for breakfast every Sunday. She would hug them and rub the dreams from her eyes, and all the skeletons, dragons, and years of bloodshed and tears would fade like the rain down the mountainsides. She would run outside and play among the fruit trees, and laugh in the sun, and after the long night of hellish dreams, she would be back in paradise.

Yet as Bakunawa kept flying, he reached another island. A far larger island. In the moonlight, Maria saw wastelands. Scorched earth spread to the horizon, black and lifeless, draped with the remnants of charred trees. The villages had burned. The groves of mangoes, pineapples, and bananas lay in ashes. The bamboo huts with their thatched roofs, the dogs frolicking on their patios, the chickens clucking in their yards, the flowers in their windowsills—they were all gone. Burnt to nothing but blackened poles like the limbs of skeletons reaching from the grave. The idyllic childhood of her life had burned in the fire. Bahay lay in ruin.

She beheld a nightmare. But this was not just a bad dream. The dream had been that life of sunlight and joy and love. This was brutal reality, and Maria's tears fell upon the land, upon the world that was, and upon the world that still lived in her memory.

As they kept flying, Maria saw spotlights in the distance. Concrete walls. Barbed wire. Guard towers.

She pointed. "There, Bakuwana! Fly there. Let me see."

They flew closer, and Maria saw it clearly now.

A re-education camp.

It was massive. Large enough to hold tens of thousands of people. Concrete bunks stood in rows like robotic soldiers. Prisoners toiled in fields, breaking stones. They were naked. Their heads were shaved. Chains bound them. Men, women, elders, children. All deemed enemies of the theocracy. Inquisitors walked among these wretched souls, clad in crimson robes, whipping, clubbing, electrocuting. The cries of pain filled the sky. The dead rotted in ditches.

Maria had heard the tales. She had spoken to survivors. But she had never seen a re-education camp. Even here in the sky, she could smell the death, the despair.

The people below saw her. Their gaunt faces twisted with hope and anguish. They raised their slender hands like the branches of dying trees in winter. They cried out for salvation. Help us! Deliver us!

Maria's eyes dampened. She tightened her lips.

"Burn the gates down," she said, gripping Bakunawa's dorsal fin. "Free these people."

The dragon swooped.

His roar rumbled across the sky.

His fire blazed, burning down the gates of hell.

Inquisitors ran. The dragon swooped again. Fire bathed the inquisitors, consumed their red robes, consumed their flesh. Bakunawa rose higher, then swung low, lashed his tail, and shattered the walls of the camp.

"Flee this place!" Maria cried from the dragon's back. "People of Bahay, stand tall! Salvation is near. I haven't forgotten you."

The people fled from their concrete barracks, across the smoldering courtyard, and out the gates. Thousands walked, ran, crawled. Bakunawa kept flying, swooping, burning inquisitors, shattering walls. Finally, howling, he flew into the distance, leaving the ravaged camp behind.

Maria looked over her shoulder. She saw the thousands pouring across the landscape. Dawn rose, illuminating a scene of death and freedom.

Freedom? Maybe not. What freedom was there in this land? She had freed people from the camp. Yet what awaited them in the burnt wilderness but starvation and despair?

She needed to do more. She needed to deliver her people to their ancestral homeland. To a land of milk and honey. To Earth.

For that, she needed a starship.

As Bakunawa flew, Maria leaned sideways, clutching a dorsal fin for support. She could see the Silverrune hanging from the dragon's neck. The key to Gomorrah, the starship of legend.

She flew on the back of the dragon. It was time to fly among the stars.

Chapter Nineteen

The Evil Eye

Jon and Kaelyn stood in the ruins of a rusty city, guns raised, seeking an enemy.

None came.

This world seemed dead.

The despair of Xibalba spread before them. Factories of concrete and metal rose everywhere, their walls crumbling, their chimneys decaying. Smog hid the sky, and scattered fires burned. Warning signs, featuring skulls and bones, peeked from layers of ash like dead men screaming through black shrouds. Real skulls and bones littered the courtyard. Strange skulls. Alien skulls. Some were fused together, two or three or whole bunches of skulls. Some had spines still attached, braided together like lurid ropes.

"Mutants?" Kaelyn asked, looking at the skeletons.

"Or somebody with a sick sense of humor," Jon said.

A rat scurried by, holding a bone. Rats seemed to be the universal constant. Variations of them appeared on every planet Jon had visited. The animal stopped, hissed at Jon, then pattered away on eight legs. Somehow, the sight of a living rat made Xibalba seem even more dead.

Seeing no enemies ahead, Jon turned toward the round building. It rose before him, colossal. A building the size of a starship hangar. From space, it formed an iris and pupil. From down here, it looked like an impenetrable fortress.

"So, exactly how do we reach the pupil from here?" Kaelyn said. "We're outside the iris. The pupil is inside. Like the courtyard inside the Pentagon."

"Sorry, babe, no place to land any closer," Jon said. "But look—a nice doorway to welcome us in! We'll burrow through the eyeball like a worm until we reach the pupil."

"Lovely imagery," Kaelyn said. "Your mind is truly a dark, disturbing place."

He blew her a kiss. "When I look into your beautiful eyes, darling, I imagine burrowing worms. What can I say? I'm a romantic."

"I'm flattered." She sighed. "All right! Let's go." She patted her gun. "Two heavily armed earthworms on the attack. Earthworms, get it? Cuz we're from Earth?"

"Perfect! You're developing a soldier's sense of humor already."

"I learned from the best. Just wait till your daughter hears your dad jokes."

Kaelyn had not intended it, but those words drove deep into Jon, penetrated his innermost hopes and fears. He thought again of the girl in the photograph. Lily. A little girl who looked so much like Maria.

My daughter. His eyes stung. I can't wait to be your dad, Lily. To tell you dumb dad jokes. To take you on hikes in the forest. To teach you music. To just be there for you. I'm coming, Lily. I'll be there soon. We don't know each other. But I promise to love you.

They reached the door. It was a small, rusty door, more like a back door for deliveries than a front entrance.

"I'll go first," Jon said. "Cover me."

Kaelyn frowned. "How do I cover you? I'm not a soldier, Jon. What do I do?"

"If you see enemies, shoot 'em," he said.

"Truly, you picked up some staggeringly clever tactics in the military."

"I don't need to be clever." He hefted his massive plasma rifle. "I have Simone."

"She's got beauty and brawn," Kaelyn said. "I'm jealous."

Jon kicked open the door and burst in, Simone ready to drench any enemy with plasma.

He found himself in a metallic cavern. Cables ran across the walls and ceiling, leading toward a cluster of pistons, each one the size of a church organ. Gears covered the floor like the galaxy's largest astrolabe. This only reinforced his earlier feeling that this structure was some great machine, its purpose unknown. An acrid stench hung in the air.

"We're clear," he whispered to Kaelyn.

She entered after him, pistol gripped in both hands. "Are you proud of my covering?"

"Extremely," Jon said. "Keep it up."

They kept walking through the building. It got darker, and they drew their flashlights. They swept the beams from side to side, illuminating strange machinery. Pipes that rose from floor to ceiling, coiling, twisting like roots, lined with metal spikes like thorns. Strange machines the size of coffins, covered in levers and dials. Towering machines the shape of strange alien skulls. Machines like medieval torture devices, their needles encrusted with dry blood. Tubes emerged from some machines, scaly like dead snakes. Glass vials stood in alcoves, full of bones that floated in pinkish liquid.

"What is that?" Kaelyn whispered, staring at the bones.

Jon shuddered. "I don't know."

He stepped toward one of the vials. It was the size of a bathtub.

"Jon, careful."

"It's alright," Jon said.

He stopped near the glass bulb. Tubes ran from it into the walls. A bone floated inside through smoky liquid. Jon frowned. It looked eerily like a human bone.

He brushed dust the vial, trying to see better, and—

A hideous, boneless face pressed against the glass and screeched.

Jon yelped and stumbled back. His heart pounded.

The creature shrieked again. Wet, floppy hands slapped against the glass. Eyeballs stared, sunken into folds of flesh. It was some kind of mollusk. But oddly humanoid. With arms, legs, a head, yet boneless.

Then Jon saw the bones floating around it.

"What the hell?" he whispered.

"Jon! Look!"

Kaelyn grabbed him. She pointed, trembling, clinging to him.

Jon looked and inhaled sharply. A face. A giant humanoid face. It emerged from the wall like an engraving, like a 3D statue. But it seemed fleshy. Lifelike. The eyes were open, each eye the size of a dinner plate. Bloodshot eyes. Staring at Jon.

Jon stepped closer.

"Jon!" Kaelyn gripped him, trying to hold him back.

"We need answers."

He stepped closer to the face. It was larger than his entire body. Tubes ran from the gargantuan face into pipes and machines. The fleshy neck vanished into a nest of gears. It was a woman's face. The lips full and pale blue. The skin ashen. The eyes the color of dead oysters.

"Can you hear me?" Jon said.

The face was breathing. In. Out. A slow breath. A deep sleep breath. Her eyes were open, but they flitted from side to side as in a dream. She said nothing.

"What are these things?" Kaelyn whispered. "What's going on?"

"I dunno. I think this building is some kind of …" Jon gulped. "Laboratory."

"Mengele would have loved it." Kaelyn shuddered. "Let's find the artifacts and get the hell off this planet."

* * * * *

They walked deeper, passing by stranger and stranger machines. Machines with human spines and many metal legs. Machines with twisted faces and rows of ribs. With tails that coiled into sockets and organs inside glass bulbs. It was impossible to distinguish flesh from metal; they were one. The machines were part of the chambers. Growing from the walls, from the ceiling, the floor. The halls became a curving, coiling labyrinth woven from perverted science and cursed souls.

Jon kept seeking the guru's artifacts. Could some of these hideous machines be what he sought? But he saw no weaver runes. Nothing that looked like relics Guru Gyaan would create. No, the guru had made nothing in this place. For all the smacks of the cane, Gyaan was wise and good. This place was unholy and drenched in evil.

"We can't be far," Jon said. "We just need to cross a few more hallways, and we'll be at the center of the eye."

"Jon. We're lost." Kaelyn's voice shook.

"We're not lost. Come on, babe. We'll get through this. All right? You with me?"

She nodded, trembling. "I'm with you."

"And I'm with you, babe." Jon squeezed her hand. "I did shit like this all the time in the army. This place is no problem."

She nodded, gave him a weak smile. "You liar."

They walked down another corridor. Shells grew on the walls. Shells like giant conchs covered in tar, spikes gleaming. Shells like clams. Spiraling shells. Deformed shells, morphing together like clusters of barnacles. The shells were massive, large enough for humans to hide inside.

As they walked along this hall of strange black forms, a limb emerged from one shell.

An arm. An arm with a hand.

Jon hissed, raised his rifle. Kaelyn pointed her pistol; the muzzle shook.

The pale hand reached from the shell, grasping at air. It was not human. It had only four fingers, and they were longer than human fingers. Each finger had several joints, rows and rows of finger bones like a folding ruler. The fingernails scratched at the wall, and then the hand retreating into the shell.

They hurried on by. Another hand emerged from another shell. And another. Reaching out. Trying to grab Jon and Kaelyn.

They hurried onward, slapping the grasping hands aside. They passed by a lumpy black shell the size of a barbecue. It grew from the wall like a boil. A bloated sack emerged from inside—a strange bubble, covered in translucent skin, with organs pulsing inside. From another shell slithered a slimy creature, oddly humanoid but boneless, dangling like wet cloth. It hissed at Jon and Kaelyn as they walked by.

Many of these poor creatures had cables attached to them. Like the dangling nerves of a dead giant, the cables ran toward electronics on the ceiling. Dead monitors like windows gazed into an abyss. But Jon heard the humming of a machine in the depths. Something was still operating in this factory. Something deep. Buried. Waking up.

"What's going on here, Jon?" Kaelyn whispered. "What are they building here?"

"Sick experiments," Jon said. "Fusing machines and life forms. The scientists must have fled, leaving these poor specimens behind. Something destroyed this world. The scientists must have run fast."

"I just hope we're not walking toward what they fled," Kaelyn said.

They walked onward, leaving the shells behind. Smog filled the air. Their oxygen tanks kept them breathing, but their flashlights could barely pierce this dark stew. Faces appeared and disappeared in the fog. Animal faces. Human faces. Snarling, laughing, screaming, then deforming, stretching out into nothing but wisps of smoke.

Somewhere ahead, a baby laughed.

Jon froze. His heart leaped into a gallop. Cold sweat washed him.

"What the hell was that?" he whispered.

It sounded again. A baby chuckling!

Jon could barely breathe. His head spun. This was going too far.

"Maybe we need to get out of here," Jon said. "We'll come back with some hired muscle. I can call some old army buddies. All right, Kaelyn? Come, we're leaving."

He gripped her hand. But she pulled her hand free.

"Jon, no!" Her eyes dampened. "There's a baby in here. It needs help."

She began running down the tunnel, heading deeper into the strange factory. The baby laughed again. Distant laughter. Echoing.

"Kaelyn, wait!" Jon said.

Cursing, he ran after her.

* * * * *

Umber light shone ahead. Light the color of rotting corpses. Kaelyn raced through a doorway, and Jon followed. He found himself in a round chamber.

A NICU, was Jon's first thought. A neonatal intensive care unit.

Incubators filled the chamber. Each had a baby inside. But they were not small like regular NICU babies. They were fat, long things, the size of kindergartners. They were either aliens or badly mutated humans. Tubes ran from them into machines. The babies themselves were infected with machinery. Some had mechanical eyes that moved back and forth with a buzzing sound. Some had six legs, each tipped with metal claws. Others had robotic torsos, the heads and limbs bolted on. Feeding tubes rose from the floor, fattening them up.

Jon and Kaelyn stood frozen in disgust.

The incubator lids swung open.

The babies rose from inside like demons from tombs.

Their metal claws snipped and slashed the air. They grinned, revealing metal hooks instead of teeth, and their eyes blazed red. They were all staring at Kaelyn.

"Hello, Mother!" they all shrieked in unison. "Do you remember us?"

A tear ran down Kaelyn's cheek.

Jon snarled and loaded his plasma rifle.

"Stand back, Kaelyn," he said, nudging her toward the doorway.

"We are your babies, Kaelyn!" the cyborg babies screeched. "You left us to die. Papa Dominus saved us! He gave us new life! Why did you leave us, Mother? Why did you—"

Jon opened fire.

Standing in the doorway, he bathed the room with plasma.

The babies burned. They screamed. Fire washed the chamber. The incubators cracked and shattered.

"No!" the babies cried. "It burns, it burns! Mother, help us! Mommy, please!"

"Jon, stop!" Kaelyn cried, sobbing. "Please stop!"

Jon held her back with one arm. He kept his trigger down. His plasma rifle became a flamethrower, turning the room into a furnace.

The babies screamed, convulsed, then fell and curled up into blackened shards. Their metal components melted.

Jon's plasma rifle beeped. Out of plasma. Beep beep beep. And he kept pulling the trigger, even as nothing more than smoke emerged. He kept staring ahead, jaw clenched, eyes dry. Beep beep beep. And he kept firing on empty.

"Jon." A soft hand on his shoulder. "Jon, they're dead. It's over."

Finally Jon released the trigger. He turned toward Kaelyn. Her face was pale, her eyes haunted and damp.

"They were lying, Kaelyn," he said. "It's just a trick. A horrible, disgusting, evil trick. It's not real."

She nodded, tears falling, and embraced him. He held her in his arms, comforting her as best he could.

"Let's keep going, Jon," she whispered. "Let's get the artifacts and go home."

* * * * *

They walked down another dark tunnel. Cold wind moaned, scattering smog around their feet. Skeletons with large, bulbous skulls lay on the floor. They were humanoid though clearly alien, their skulls heavy, their bodies small and frail. The skeletons still wore wisps of decaying lab coats. Some skeletons clasped clipboards to their rib cages. Most of the paper had rotted, but a few scraps remained. Jon saw anatomic drawings, hideous drawings, plans to combine life with machines.

"They were building cyborgs," Jon said. "And they were fleeing down this tunnel."

"Not fast enough. Something got them." Kaelyn pointed at one dead scientist. "Look at that one. Something took a bite out of his rib cage. Something big."

The scientists had died violently, that much was clear. Their bones had been shattered. Bitten. Clawed. One skeleton's arm lay halfway down the hallway, still clutching a clipboard. Could the cyborg babies have done this? Jon wasn't sure.

One skeleton was still holding a syringe. Bright red liquid was bubbling inside, the color of raspberry juice and childhood. Jon knelt and pried the syringe free from the scientist's dead hands. Hands with four fingers and many joints.

"What are you doing, Jon?" Kaelyn said.

He examined the syringe. "There are strange creatures inside this syringe. Tiny. I can barely see them. Maybe if we take it to a lab on Earth, we can learn what's been happening here."

"Ugh, Jon! put it down. It's probably diseased."

"Okay. Probably best." He put the syringe down. The liquid inside bubbled, and the tiny organisms inside bustled.

They walked over the skeletons and reached an archway. Cold wind blew from beyond. When they stepped through, they found themselves in the open air.

They stood in a deep courtyard. Round walls surrounded them, soaring high. Jon felt like an ant trapped in a dried-out well. Smoggy clouds floated far above. Bones, twisted metal, and fluttering scraps of paper covered the ground. Jon and Kaelyn took a few steps backward, placing their backs against the circular wall. They stared across the pit, seeking enemies.

"This is it," Jon said. "The pupil of the mechanical eye. The hole we saw from above."

"The eye that gazes upon eternity," Kaelyn said. "Are the guru's artifacts here?"

Jon pointed. "Look!"

A crate stood in the center of the courtyard. Grime covered the old wooden planks. But when Jon pointed his flashlight, the beam reflected on a silver symbol. It was hard to see through all the filth. But it looked like a silver loom, symbol of the Weaver Temple.

"The artifacts!" Jon said.

Kaelyn grabbed his arm. "Wait. Slowly."

Jon nodded. He loaded Simone with a fresh plasma charge, and the gun hummed contentedly in his hands. For good measure, he loaded a grenade into Simone's grenade launcher too. Kaelyn still held her pistol, a full magazine loaded.

"Your gun looks woefully inadequate next to Simone," Jon said. "Like a chihuahua beside a pit bull."

"Chihuahuas are way deadlier than pit bulls," Kaelyn said. "Everyone knows that."

"If any more cyborgs show up, I want to hear your chihuahua barking. No more hesitating. No feeling bad for poor cyborgs. Not even if they look like babies again. You fire and kill, understood?"

Kaelyn nodded. "Woof woof."

They slowly walked across the courtyard, heading toward the wooden crate. Ash fluttered around their boots. Gears covered the ground, frozen in place. Skulls and bones lay everywhere. Some skulls were stuck between gears, crushed. Jon shuddered.

With every step he took, he glanced around, gun raised, waiting for something to attack.

"Come on," he muttered under his breath. "There's gotta be a final boss. Where are you?"

He stepped closer to the box. Kaelyn walked at his side. They were almost there when the ground shook. Ashes flew and the bones danced. A deep clanging and thudding sounded somewhere deep underground, bubbling up like tar. Laughter rolled. High-pitched. Cruel.

Jon and Kaelyn swayed. The gears on the floor began to turn!

Jon stood on a gear the size of a manhole cover. Kaelyn stood on another. As the gears turned, they windmilled their arms, struggling for balance.

More clanking sounded below. The laughter grew louder, a sound like shattering glass, like cracking bones. Across the courtyard, gears were moving, teeth detaching. The entire floor was pulling apart like a zipper, exposing a canyon.

Stench rose from below. Firelight shone, fluttering with shadows. Something was alive down there. Something was coming. The courtyard was opening up, a cervix about to birth a creature.

Jon grabbed a skull from the ground. He stuck it between two gears, trying to jam the mechanism. But the skull shattered. Cursing, Jon grabbed a piece of scrap metal. It was a twisted rod, perhaps fallen from a crumbling skyscraper or crashing starship. He thrust the pole between the gears. The metal twisted. The gears screeched. Sparks flew. But the rod held.

Finally the gears jammed. Across the courtyard, they stopped turning.

Jon looked at the opening. It spread across the floor, a dark canyon, a portal to hell. A scream rose from below. The firelight flickered. The ground shook. A creature was hurling himself against the gears, desperate to emerge. It was too big.

Jon took a deep breath. "I think I jammed the gears just in time."

"The crate of artifacts!" Kaelyn said. "It's on the other side of the canyon."

"I can jump."

Jon took a deep breath, took a few steps back, then ran. The canyon spread before him, full of firelight. It suddenly looked much wider than before. But Jon couldn't turn back now. He increased his speed, leaped off the edge, and soared over the pit. He was almost at the crate, and—

An arm reached from inside the canyon.

Claws closed around Jon's leg.

He screamed.

"Jon!" Kaelyn cried.

The hand pulled him into the pit.

Chapter Twenty

The Silver Pipes

Maria and her friends swam through the kelp grove, this park in the center of the underwater city. Coral gardens flourished below. Little temples, no larger than houses, rose on sandy hills.

Gomorrahn monks swam here, tending to the gardens, worshiping in the temples, and lighting candles that floated in glass bulbs. Like everyone in their tribe, they were genetically modified. No longer human. Gills flared on their necks. Their eyes were like the eyes of fish. Their hands and feet were webbed, and fins flowed from their backs like cloaks.

But they did not forget their human heritage. They mourned its loss. They worshiped the starship that had fallen from the sky, bringing them into their underwater kingdom.

She lay here in the park, as long and slender a fallen skyscraper.

The starship Gomorrah. There she waited.

Maria swam toward the ancient starship. Lily swam at her side, holding Maria's hand. Charlie and Jay Jay swam behind them.

They parted the curtains of kelp, found an airlock, and entered the ancient starship.

On the inside, she was still dry. Through centuries of lying here on the ocean floor, she had remained airtight.

This was not a ruin. In the coiling halls they found no skeletons, no dust, no stench of death and decay. On the inside, Gomorrah was like a great conch, pristine and smooth and comforting. The companions breathed deeply, savoring the air after so long underwater.

"Just one problem," Jay Jay said. "This starship is enormous. The corridors are a labyrinth. Hell, it's like the HVAC networks back on Mother's Womb. How do we find the bridge?"

Charlie looked around her. "Anyone see a big map with a You Are Here sticker? Like at the mall?"

"I don't think you'll find a map to the bridge," Maria said.

"Who said anything about the bridge?" said Charlie. "I'm looking for the food court. I'm starving!"

Maria rolled her eyes. "You ate three fish this morning."

Charlie snorted. "Oh, please. You eat Gomorrahn food and you're hungry again an hour later. Give me some lechon! A nice roast pig with crunchy skin and an apple in its mouth." She drooled.

"You are a pig," Maria said. "You eat like one, in any case."

Charlie lifted her nose with her finger. "Oink."

Maria couldn't help but laugh. "All right, be serious, guys. We need to figure out how to fly this starship. If she can fly again. Santelmos built this starship centuries ago. They're long gone. But sometimes memories pass through the generations. Human babies naturally fear spiders and snakes, never having encountered one before. They remember the dangers their ancestors faced. Gomorrahns are drawn to the air and sunlight. They remember their humanity. Our ancestors forever whisper in our minds. I wonder if Santelmos remember this way too. I wonder if Crisanto knows how to help."

She pulled her friend from her pocket. He shone on her hand, warm and comforting.

Maria thought back to her childhood, a time of innocence and joy, running through rice paddies and mango groves, building sand castles, dreaming of the stars. One summer, when she was very young, Maria ran into the jungle, got lost, and began to cry. She was sure a manananggal would devour her. Over and over, she called her mother, and the birds hooted, and the insects chirped, and her mother did not come.

Crisanto came to her that day, a glowing speck of light, barely larger than a grain of sand. She followed him out the jungle and into her village. He remained with her after that. At first she thought him a firefly, but he kept growing. By the time she was a teenager, Crisanto was the size of a pea. Now she was twenty-two, and he was as big as a plum.

He was still a baby. His kind lived for centuries. But as human babies were born with some knowledge, she hoped Crisanto carried deep inside him knowledge of his kind's starships.

"Crisanto, can you show us the way to the bridge?"

He spun around, examining his surroundings. He bobbed in the air, then began to fly down a corridor.

Maria and her friends followed.

They raced through coiling corridors, grand chambers, and spiraling passageways. This place was different from Sodom. People lived inside Sodom, and they had filled their starship with the ocean—ammonite fossils, murals of sea serpents, gardens of seaweed. They had built a community. A world.

But Gomorrah was different. Nobody lived here. This was a sterile, dead place. A holy relic, spotless and untouched. Yet the ship echoed with history. In a grand chamber like a cathedral, alcoves honeycombed the walls, forming little cabins. Maria imagined thousands of colonists living here. Fishermen and farmers from Earth. Filipinos from the nineteenth century, fleeing war in an alien craft, sailing to a new world like their ancestors had once sailed the oceans to tropical islands.

Crisanto flew confidently along the corridors, never slowing, never hesitating even when the paths branched out. For a long time, they moved through the starship. It felt as large as a city. A ghost city. A city full of whispers and souls. Gomorrah yearned for new life. Dark Mother was a cruel goddess, her womb cold and punishing, but here was a warm mother. Here was shelter like a clam to a pearl, like a comforting wing to a hatchling.

Finally the companions entered a boomerang-shaped room. Like the rest of the ship, there were no sharp corners, no hard edges, only gentle curves. It all seemed organic, like being inside a seashell.

A sigil was engraved onto a wall—round and full of coiling lines and circles. Maria recognized the sigil from the Silverrune, which had hung from Bakunawa's neck.

She pulled the amulet from her pack, approached the wall, and placed the silvery amulet onto the engraving.

It snapped into place, and the amulet lit up.

* * * * *

For a moment, nothing happened.

Maria held her breath.

"Did it work?" Charlie whispered.

"I don't know," Maria said. "I—"

And then she heard it.

Motors hummed deep inside the starship. Becoming louder and louder. Creaking. Coughing. Finally purring.

And the bridge began to change.

First, three pedestals sprouted from the floor like mushrooms after rain. A glass sphere rested on each pedestal. Maria gasped and fell back a step, heart pounding.

Next, silver pipes descended from the ceiling. They coiled like elaborate tubas or trumpets, and their bells bloomed wide above Maria's head. Musical instruments? It looked like some grand alien organ. The pipes glimmered above, clinging to the ceiling, silent.

Finally, the curving wall ahead vanished. Simply vanished!

Instead of a wall, Maria now saw the ocean—churning, swirling, and thankfully not flooding the starship.

No, the wall hadn't vanished, she realized. It had become transparent.

Maria froze, eyes wide, gazing from one wonder to another.

"What the hell?" Jay Jay said.

Charlie winced and covered her head. "We'll drown! I'm too beautiful to drown! I'm meant to die on camera with perfect makeup!"

Maria stepped toward the transparent wall. She caressed the smooth, cool surface. A few fish swam by outside.

"It's a viewport," Maria said. "A giant windshield, if you will. We're in the very front of the starship. The prow." She looked at her pet Santelmo. "Crisanto, is this the bridge?"

Crisanto was flying around the pipes on the ceiling, rubbing against them, shining a light inside. Hearing his name, he flew back toward Maria, bobbed up and down. Yes.

Charlie stepped toward the viewport. Several Gomorrahns were swimming outside among fish and kelp, oblivious to the humans inside.

Charlie tapped the transparent wall. "Hello! Hello there!"

The Gomorrahns swam on by.

"Bit rude," Charlie said.

"Clearly, it's a one-way window," Maria said. "We can look outside. Nobody can look in."

"Nini, we need one of these windows for the Toy Box. So the crowd can see us stripping, but we can't see their ugly faces."

"If we can get this starship to fly, we'll never have to dance in the Toy Box again," Maria said.

She approached the three pedestals which had sprouted from the floor. They rose to her chest. A crystal ball rested on each pedestal.

"Are these the starship controls?" Maria wondered aloud. "I wonder how they work."

Charlie groaned so loudly the sound echoed through the bridge. "Great. Perfect! After all this, after endless dangers and battles and quests, we find your starship, and you don't know how to fly."

"I know how to fly!" Maria said. "At least, when there are human controls."

Charlie turned her head. "Jay Jay, come on. Rig up some human controls for Nini. An intercom."

"She means interface," Maria translated.

Jay Jay shrugged. "Sorry, babe. This is above my paygrade."

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Perfect. Our mechanic is a rickshaw runner. Jay Jay, how about we tie you to the front and you pull?"

"Babe, I'd pull you to space and back."

"Oh yeah?" Charlie placed her hands on her hips. "Well, for your information, I—Oh wait. You're being sweet to me. Aww." She hugged him and kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"Charlie …" He squirmed.

"Oh right." Charlie laughed uncomfortably and pulled her hands back. "No squeezing your puwit."

Maria turned away from them. She approached the central pedestal and placed her hands on a crystal ball. Her eyes widened. The sphere responded to her touch. It darkened, going from white to indigo, and little lights shone inside. Constellations.

"A star map," Maria whispered.

"Great!" Charlie said. "We can see all the wonderful places we can't fly to!"

"Well, aren't you a fountain of optimism."

Maria stroked the crystal, tapped it, poked it, caressed it, and gradually learned how to manipulate the map. She could zoom in and out, change the view side to side, up and down. She could see different constellations, nebulae, planets, and the spiral arm of the galaxy. Clearly, this crystal was navigational. But it didn't seem to fly the starship.

She moved to the left crystal ball. When she touched it, this ball came to life too. On its surface glowed two rows of lights, like the lights along the aisle in a dark movie theater. Maria had no idea what they meant. Buttons? Gingerly, she tapped one of the glowing dots.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then a thunk sounded deep inside the starship. The deck trembled. The entire starship gave a little jolt.

Through the viewport, they saw it.

A pearl shot out from the starship. It was about the size of a village hut, but spherical. The pearl rolled through the ocean like an oversized bowling ball, ripping through kelp. Gamorrahns fled. Finally the sphere thumped into a shoal and lodged itself in the sand. Only by miracle had it missed the Gamorrahns and their homes.

"It's a shuttlecraft," Maria said. "Like the one that carried us from the Sodom to this city."

She looked at the crystal ball on its pedestal. One of the lights inside went dark. One shuttle gone. Fifteen left.

Well, at least I know what this crystal ball does.

For a moment, everyone was silent, staring at the path of ruined kelp and the glassy sphere embedded into a shoal.

"Maria?" Charlie said.

"Yes, Charlie?"

"Please don't fire any torpedoes next."

"I'll try not to."

Maria approached the third and final crystal ball. When she touched it, a hologram of the Gomorrah appeared inside. Maria tried to raise the sphere, but it was firmly attached to the pedestal. She could, however, spin it around like a trackball in an antique mouse. As she nudged the sphere, the holographic starship inside turned with it.

The deck rattled.

The walls moaned.

The bridge—hell, the entire starship—began tilting toward its starboard port. Outside, the Gomorrahns stared, pointed, shouted, fled. The water churned.

"What did you do?" Charlie shouted.

Maria grimaced and nudged the crystal ball back to its original position. The starship thumped back onto the seabed.

Everyone stood quietly. Maria's heart raced. Sweat trickled down her back. She smiled hesitantly. "I think I'm getting the hang of this."

"I think you're going to give me a heart attack," Charlie said.

* * * * *

Maria heaved a sigh. "Well, I discovered how to load the maps, launch shuttles, and move the starship. But that hardly makes me an expert. I feel like a toddler tasked with driving a semi-trailer." She looked at Crisanto, who hovered nearby. "Any ideas?"

The little Santelmo didn't seem to notice her. He was still sniffing around the pipes that descended from the ceiling. Since first entering the room, he had been flying around those pipes like a bee around flowers.

He flew back toward Maria and landed on her hand. He dimmed. He became like a dying ember. With his light so dim, she could see his true form inside. A spindly little creature with many limbs. He looked like a neuron. He trembled in her hand.

"Are you scared of something?" Maria said.

The Santelmo hopped. Yes.

"Something in this starship?" she asked.

Yes.

"Are we in danger?"

Crisanto hesitated, then moved from side to side. No.

Charlie snorted. "Well, this is useful! The only one who knows what's going on, and he's less talkative than a Magic 8-Ball."

"He's learning," Maria said. "Just a few years ago, Crisanto couldn't even say yes or no. Now he does that all the time. I've begun to teach him Morse code, and I think he's getting the hang of it. He's still very young. He's older than me—at least in human years. But in Santelmo years, he's still a baby."

"Can he fly this starship?" Charlie said. "Maybe all Santelmo babies fly starships. Who knows? They're aliens. They're strange. Ask him. Ask him!"

"What, you can't talk?" Maria said.

"He doesn't listen to me," Charlie said.

"Have you ever actually tried talking to him? Other than to insult him?"

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine! I've talked to a giant squid on a throne, I might as well talk to a tiny little bundle of glowing noodles." She leaned toward Crisanto, who rested on Maria's palm. "Hello, Crescendo—"

"Crisanto," Maria said.

Charlie glowered. "Maybe I'd talk to him more if I could get a word in edgewise!" She shook her fist at Maria, then looked back at the alien. "So, little fella. Can you fly this ship? It's nothing but a giant intergalactic tricycle, right? You can do it!"

Crisanto trembled and shied away.

"You scared him, Charlie!" Maria said.

"Oh, please." Charlie waved her hand dismissively. "He loves me. I'm wonderful with children. I'm as wholesome as Mother Goose." She looked over her shoulder. "Hey, Jay Jay! Get your sexy ass over here! And bring my purse, I need some drugs."

"Yes, wonderful with children," Maria muttered. She looked back at Crisanto. "What's wrong, buddy? I've never seen you like this."

Crisanto trembled and dimmed even further. He was wilting in her palm.

"He don't look so good," Jay Jay said.

Charlie punched his arm. "Captain Obvious saves the day again."

Maria stroked her pet. "Whatever it is, Crisanto, I'm here for you. Always. I love you."

He shone brighter, perhaps gaining courage from her words, and rose from her palm. Leaving a trail of light, Crisanto flew upward and vanished into one of the pipes.

Everyone watched from below, eyes wide.

The silver pipes began to thrum and shine. Music flowed from them. Deep, beautiful music like the ocean and the stars. The pipes grew brighter and brighter, filling the bridge with healing light. The light pulsed, raced up and down, back and forth. And Maria realized it was Crisanto in there! Crisanto shining inside, illuminating the entire network of pipes! It was him making that music! All this light, this sound, this wonder—it was him!

And then it faded.

The pipes dimmed. The music stopped playing. The three humans stood still, quiet, barely daring to breathe.

Where is he? Maria thought. Where is my Crisanto?

And then, from one of the pipes, a Santelmo emerged.

It wasn't Crisanto. This was an older Santelmo, the size of a grapefruit instead of a strawberry. He shone much brighter than Crisanto ever could, more like a lamp than a candle.

Another living Santelmo! He must have lived here on this starship for centuries. But where was Crisanto?

"Hello?" Maria whispered. "Do you understand me?"

The Santelmo thrummed, vibrating the air. And a voice emerged!

"Yes, Maria. I understand."

The voice was childlike. Mellifluous. The voice of a young boy.

"Who are you?" Maria whispered.

But she already knew.

"I'm Crisanto," said the glowing sphere. "I'm your friend. I've undergone the metamorphosis of my kind. For many years, I remained in my larval state. I had no elders to guide me. No silver to cocoon me. But here in this place of my fathers, I am transfigured."

Maria hesitated. She didn't know what to do. This didn't feel like her friend. It felt like … a stranger.

"Now I'm the one trembling," she whispered.

He floated closer. Maria remembered the stories from the war. Stories of Santelmos plowing through Earthling soldiers, cutting through armor and bones like it was paper. She flinched and recoiled.

Crisanto froze in midair. "I won't hurt you, Maria. You can stroke me if you like. The way you used to. I won't burn your hand."

Gingerly, she reached out and stroked the glowing ball. He was warm and soft. Like stroking a kitten.

"It is you," she whispered, and then she pulled him to her chest and embraced him. "I love you, Crisanto."

"I love you too, Maria," he answered. "I wish I could have told you a thousand times. I'm glad I finally can."

Suddenly they heard a startling hoarse sound. Charlie was blowing her nose—quite noisily—into a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry! It's just touching me in my heart. Look away, look away! My makeup is all smudged."

Jay Jay wrapped his arms around her. "Charlie, why don't you tell me that you love me a thousand times?"

She leaned against him. "Whenever I touch your butt, I'm actually telling you that I love you."

"I guess it has been a thousand times," he said.

Maria held Crisanto at eye level. He rested in her palms, pulsing.

"Crisanto, do you know how to fly this starship?"

"When I traveled through the silver passageways, I learned many things," he said. "How to vibrate the air to produce a voice. How to remember the past and envision the future. How to imagine and plan and pretend. How to understand my own emotions. I learned of music and art. I underwent a great change, absorbing the knowledge, wisdom, and compassion of my ancestors. And from them, I learned how to navigate among the stars. For we Santelmos are star stuff, and the stars are still our home."

"So that's a yes," Maria said.

Crisanto didn't have a mouth to smile with. But she heard the smile in his voice. "That's a yes."

Maria smiled back. "Crisanto, buddy? It's time to fly."

Chapter Twenty-One

In Hell

The claws dragged Jon down into hell.

He landed in a shadowy cave, crushing a skeleton. Bones were everywhere. Piles and piles of bones. There was no floor, just the bones, God knew how deep.

"What is this, a ball pit for zombies?" Jon muttered.

He turned his head from side to side. Where was the beast who had grabbed him?

Gone. The claws were gone. The demonic laughter was gone. Nothing but the bones around him.

"Jon!" Kaelyn cried from above.

He looked up. He saw her peering into the pit. She still stood in the courtyard of gears. So far up.

"I'm all right!" he said. His voice echoed through the chasm of bones. "Good thing I was wearing my helmet!"

That helmet came with a built-in light. But the damn thing flickered, probably damaged in the fall. The light gave a few feeble blinks, then died, plunging him into darkness.

Jon cursed. He tapped his helmet, but the light wouldn't come back on. Piece of junk.

"Jon, be careful!" Kaelyn shouted from above.

"Really, why didn't I think of that?" he muttered. He was muttering a lot these days.

He raised his assault rifle and squinted, trying to see in the darkness. He could just make out the piles of bones. Everything was dark smudges.

A raspy breath sounded in the deep.

Jon pulled Simone's trigger.

A ball of plasma blazed out, filling the pit with searing red light. He missed. Whatever he was firing at—it dodged the assault. The plasma ball hit the wall and scattered with a fountain of sparks. The room plunged into darkness again.

But during that second of light, Jon had seen the beast.

The afterimage hovered before him. Metal claws. Fangs. Warts and many eyes.

The creature squealed in the darkness. The bones clattered and shifted beneath Jon's feet. Stench wafted.

The monster was leaping toward him!

Jon fired again.

Another bolt of plasma lit the darkness. And he saw the monster. A spider. A giant cyborg spider.

The beast was immense. The size of a rhinoceros. A machine. Steel and flesh. Metal legs scurried, tipped with blades like katanas, rustling and cracking the floor of bones. A glassy abdomen swung, full of pulsing organs like a lava lamp. Tubes and bulbs grew from the spider's abdomen, and cables dangled like spiderwebs, trailing into the darkness.

Worst of all was the creature's face. A living face. A humanoid face. A face with gray skin, blue veins, eight bulging eyes. Jaws opened to roar, revealing rows and rows of teeth, every tooth a vicious fang.

Jon saw all this within an instant. And then the plasma bolt hit the cyborg spider.

The fire blazed over the fleshy face, melting skin, revealing a metal skull. The creature shrieked and barreled into Jon.

He fell onto the bones.

The spider raised its many legs, then drove a claw downward.

Jon rolled. The claw sank into the bones.

Another claw flashed downward, whooshing as it sliced the air. Jon rolled again. The claw sliced through his spacesuit, scratching his thigh. His blood splashed the bones. He screamed.

He could not fire his plasma rifle from this range. Not without the plasma spraying back onto him. He swung the rifle instead, slamming its stock into the beast's head.

The blow would have cracked a man's head. But it barely phased the spider. The creature laughed. It gurgled something in an alien language. Probably something about how delicious Jon's organs would taste.

"Jon!" Kaelyn cried from above.

"Kaelyn, don't come down here!" he shouted. "There's a big spider, but I can handle it!"

The claws slammed down again and again. Jon scampered backward, desperately dodging the relentless assault. His back hit the wall. He fired his plasma rifle again, this time on automatic. The plasma streamed out furiously, a torrent of agony, bathing the spider. The flesh melted, revealing the metal chassis. The beast advanced through the inferno.

Goddammit! The plasma wasn't doing a damn thing.

Jon still had his grenades. But in here? He'd blow himself up.

The creature lashed its claws again. Claws shaped like katanas. One slammed into Jon, cracking his armored spacesuit. The graphene armor, designed to stop bullets and shrapnel, saved his life. The blade didn't cut him, but it knocked him down. He sprawled across the bones.

A claw lashed downward. The tip drove into his armor. Jon grunted. Once more, the armor held. But the claw pinned him down. Jon felt like a pinned butterfly.

The spider applied a little more pressure. Its claw pierced his armor, nicked his skin, but moved no deeper. The spider examined Jon, eight eyes narrowing.

It can push the blade down and skewer me, Jon thought. Why isn't it killing me? Is it just toying with me? Playing with its food?

He tried to rise. A claw knocked him back down. Still—the creature was keeping him alive.

The spider stared down at him, its face burnt and bubbling. The beast had him trapped. A tongue merged from deep inside the creature and licked its teeth.

For the first time, Jon noticed the cocoons. They hung from the walls behind the cyborg. Black cocoons. Reeking. Dripping.

The spider grinned, then vomited up writhing black cables. They landed on Jon like serpents. He flailed, tried to push them off. The cables moved like living things. They coiled around him, pinning his arms to his sides, squeezing, crushing him. More cables wrapped around his neck. He gasped for air.

The spider was cocooning him.

When Jon was fully trussed up, the spider lifted him with cruel metal claws. Jon screamed and struggled, but he could barely even breathe, let alone free himself. The spider carried him toward the wall and hung him on a hook. Jon dangled among the other cocoons. Just a piece of meat waiting to be devoured.

The cables hung loosely around the other victims. Through the dangling strands, Jon saw oozing flesh. The poor buggers were so rotten they were barely more than mush. The spider grabbed one rancid cocoon, stuck its tongue between the cables, and slurped the liquefied flesh.

So it doesn't like fresh meat, Jon thought. Lucky me. I have a long while to rot before I'm eaten.

The spider turned back toward Jon, the liquid meat dripping from its mouth. It advanced slowly, grinning. A needle emerged from its shoulder, dripping something green and sizzling. The needle was pointing at Jon.

"Um, what's that?" Jon asked.

The needle moved closer. The spider's grin widened.

"No no no no!" Jon said. "Keep that away from me! No. No! God … ah!"

He turned his head aside, desperate to avoid the needle. The liquid dripped, sizzling. Some kind of serum to make him rot faster?

He grimaced, waiting to die.

* * * * *

A cry sounded above.

A figure swooped.

Kaelyn!

She landed on the spider's back, screaming, and raised a syringe. Red liquid bubbled inside the vial. The syringe the dead scientist had carried!

"Get away from my husband, you bitch!" Kaelyn shouted, then slammed the syringe into the spider's abdomen.

The spider squealed.

Kaelyn pumped it full of the bubbling red liquid.

The spider scuttled back, shrieking. Its translucent abdomen jiggled. The red liquid flowed through it, swarming with the plump little creatures from the syringe. They tiny beings moved like a virus, consuming organs. The cyborg's soft, organic insides shriveled up.

Kaelyn leaped off the spider, landed on the pile of bones, and aimed her pistol at the beast.

The spider's legs curled inward. The cyborg mewled. It made a last attempt to rise, to attack. Kaelyn fired her pistol. Her bullet slammed into the spider, knocking it back.

The creature fell. Its metal legs closed around its abdomen like a rib cage, desperate to protect the precious organs within. But the infection was already spreading. The little creatures devoured the spider from the inside out. The abdomen wilted like a balloon, and the legs clattered onto the floor like scrap metal.

The organisms emerged from the abdomen, their little bellies full. They burrowed down between the bones, vanishing into the shadows, perhaps seeking a quiet place to digest their feast. The spider lay dead.

Kaelyn shot it again. In the head. Just to be sure.

I married a stone cold woman, Jon thought. God I love her.

After cutting him free, Kaelyn embraced him, and finally she began to tremble.

"You did amazing, Kaelyn," Jon said, holding her close. "I'm proud of you. You saved my life."

"I was so scared," she whispered. "I can't stop shaking."

"You're fucking amazing, do you know that? And hey, that final line? Get away from my husband, you bitch! Epic."

She smiled shakily. "Hey, I get jealous."

"Just … when we meet Maria, don't treat her the same way."

"No promises."

Jon sighed and looked up. The pit's opening was far, far above. "In boot camp, they forced us to do rock climbing. Hours and hours of rock climbing. Poor George kept falling off. We all hated it. Finally it's gonna come in handy."

Kaelyn gulped. "We need to climb out?"

"Hey, you should have thought of that when you jumped in."

"I was thinking about saving your ass!"

"And my ass thanks you. Don't worry, Sergeant Lizzy made me an expert rock climber. I'll guide you."

* * * * *

Jon pulled a metal claw off the dead spider. It dripped goo. It would make a good climbing spike. The thick black cobwebs served as rope. Jon fashioned himself and Kaelyn crude harnesses, and they began to climb.

They emerged into the courtyard, sweaty and winded, and climbed onto the jammed gears. They found the wooden box waiting. The crate was the size of a fridge. Jon imagined a treasure trove of weaver artifacts inside, a panoply of relics stolen from the temple.

Here we go, Jon thought. With these weapons that you stole, Papa, I will destroy you.

He nudged the box with his boot. The wood was so rotten it crumbled like snow. Artifacts spilled out.

Specifically, two artifacts.

Just two.

"That's it?" Jon blinked. "After all this, after months of training, after battling baby cyborgs, after a giant spider cocooning me—two artifacts? I was expecting … more."

"Though you have to admit," Kaelyn said, "these are beauties."

One artifact was a sword. The blade was hidden inside a curved wooden scabbard. Blue silk wrapped around the hilt, and the pommel was shaped like a claw clutching a silver gemstone. Upon the gemstone was engraved a rune. A rune shaped like a key. The same symbol tattooed onto Jon's hand.

He looked at Kaelyn. She looked back.

"Go ahead," she whispered.

Jon knelt to lift the sword. Before he even touched the hilt, the rune on the sword glowed. Jon hesitated.

Then the tattoo on his hand began to glow too! His heart pounded. His breath quickened.

He gripped the sword and stood up.

Power surged through him. He felt it. A warm, tingling sensation racing up his arm, into his body. Light shone. He could suddenly see the Empyrean firmament. See the Ancients walking back and forth.

"I'm connected to the Empyrean plane," he whispered.

He drew his sword. The blade emerged from the scabbard with a hiss. It was beautifully forged, the steel rippled and gleaming. It could rival any katana on Earth. Light shone from Jon's hand along the blade.

He touched the blade to a gear on the ground. That gear was solid iron. The sword sliced through it like a hot poker through snow.

He sheathed the blade.

"I feel bad for Simone," Kaelyn said.

"I'll always love my Simone," Jon said, "but … damn."

"Will you name the sword too?"

"I'm not sure," Jon said. "I feel like an Earthling name might cheapen this blade. She's a holy artifact. A connection to the Empyrean plane. She shouldn't have some silly name."

"You already call her she."

Jon thought for a moment. "This blade will help me fight for Bahay. So she deserves a Bahayan name. I call her the Flame of Bahay." He considered a moment longer. "Flamey for short."

Kaelyn grinned. "Hey, since you have a new love, can I have Simone? I must admit I have a massive crush on her."

Jon sheathed the blade and hung it across his back. Kaelyn took Simone. She stroked the massive gun, grinning all the while.

"Hey you two, get a room," Jon said.

"Silence!" She glared at him, pulling Simone protectively to her chest. "Stop getting between me and my girlfriend."

Jon knelt by the second artifact. He couldn't make sense of it. Clearly, it was some kind of machine. Roughly the size of a dinner plate, it featured metal rings, gears, and dials, all arranged around a central glass sphere. It reminded him of a mechanical fried egg. A key rune appeared on the central bulb, etched into the glass.

"What is it?" Kaelyn said.

"No idea. It looks like some old navigational device. Like an astrolabe used on ancient sailing ships. Or like an orrery used to track the position of the constellations."

"What does it do?"

"I don't have any more information than you, Kae."

"Whatever, smartass! I'll direct all future questions to Simone. At least she appreciates me."

Jon brought his hand close to the odd artifact. The rune on the glass bulb glowed. So did Jon's tattoo.

He lifted the artifact, and it bloomed open. The metal rings detached from one another, each forming its own orbit around the central bulb. Gears turned. Dials clicked. Tiny runes glowed. The central sphere lit up like a sun. The rings lazily spun around the luminous sphere like the flight paths of bees around a flower.

"It's beautiful," Kaelyn said.

"I still don't know what it does."

"It came with the sword. Maybe they work in conjunction?"

"Maybe," Jon said. "Let's see.

He drew the sword again. The Flame of Bahay shone in his hand … then went dark.

Jon frowned. "What the hell?"

He poked the floor with his blade. Earlier, the blade had carved through the metal. Now the sword just clanged. Gently, Jon touched the blade.

"Dull!" he said. "The blade is dull! The key rune is dark. My poor Flamey is dead."

"Jon, look!" Kaelyn pointed at the second artifact. "The astrolabe! It's glowing even brighter."

She was right. White and blue flames coiled inside the glass sphere. The runes engraved in the brass rings shone like molten gold.

Jon flattened the astrolabe, guiding one brass ring into another. Instead of a sphere, the artifact once more formed a disk. The light turned off.

Again, Jon drew the Flame of Bahay. This time the blade shone brilliantly. He cut up some scrap metal lying around. The blade sliced through it with ease.

"The astrolabe turns off the sword!" Kaelyn said.

Jon tested it a couple more times. Whenever he opened the astrolabe, the sword shut off. Whenever he closed the astrolabe, the sword shone again.

"Wonderful!" Jon heaved a sigh. "Instead of working together, one artifact cancels out another. How wonderfully useful to us!"

"Jon, don't you see?" Kaelyn's eyes shone. "The astrolabe is some kind of . . . aether dampener. It cancels weaving magic!"

Jon finally got it. His eyes widened. "Dude!"

Kaelyn nodded. "Dude. The astrolabe is far more powerful than your precious Flamey. Imagine it! We bring this astrolabe near Papa Dominus. We turn it on. And …"

"All his powers are gone," Jon said. "All his tattoos—useless. We found weaver kryptonite!"

"That's how we kill him," Kaelyn said. "We steal his magic."

Jon placed the astrolabe in his pack. He began walking across the floor of gears. "Come on! We'll leaving this damn planet. And I hope I never see Xibalba again."

Kaelyn hurried after him. "You okay, Jon?"

He nodded, walking at a fast pace. "We have a rock tour to complete. We have a little girl to save. And we have a monster to kill."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gomorrah Rises

For the first time in centuries, she rose.

Gomorrah. Starship of legend.

At first, she gave only a rumble. A rippling of water around her drowned garden. The surrounding kelp swayed. The casual observer, swimming by, might have thought it only a rough current, uncharacteristically early this winter. The fish continued swimming in and out of her exhaust ports, caverns like the mouths of great conchs. The starfish kept clinging to her silvery hull, only for the monks who worshiped here to pluck them off, to curse them, and to send them fleeing to other perches. In the gardens, some pilgrims were praying, their fins fluttering in the currents. They came every morning. They knelt before the starship that had brought their ancestors to the ocean. Back when they had been human. They remembered.

But then the rumbling intensified.

The water vibrated as if a great orchestra was playing. Sand danced across the seabed.

The fish fled the exhaust ports. Even those starfish who had avoided the monks detached from their silver perches, swam to the seabed, and buried themselves under the violent sand. The kelp swayed as in a storm.

The monks and worshipers stepped back, the water rippling their fins. Sand and seashells rose from the seabed, swirled through the churning water, and pattered against the Gomorrahns' scales and shells. They gazed with wide eyes, disbelieving.

Gomorrah, the ancient starship, was trembling.

An earthquake? An erupting thermal vent? A maelstrom?

One man knelt and raised his webbed hands to the ocean surface. "A miracle! The ancient gods awake!"

"It's just a little tremor," said his companion. "Nonsense."

"They're doing construction over at the industrial park," said another pilgrim, the ripples billowing his fins like a great cloak. "The great whales are digging for oil. They always make a ruckus."

But then light shone, illuminating the kelp gardens like lightning.

Silver strands of light snaked across the exhaust ports of the Gomorrah. Across the hull, portholes lit up one by one like a thousand stars. Everyone gasped, gills flaring. They stumbled back. Now even the skeptics raised their hands and cried out praise for their gods.

They had never seen such a thing. All their lives, and the lives of their fathers and grandfathers, the Gomorrah had lain here, still and dark, lit only by the glass lanterns the monks hung from the kelp. A relic, that was all. A memory of a time faded to myth.

Now myth awoke before them.

Now Gomorrah began to rise.

She was larger than a palace. She was longer than a boulevard. She lay on her side like a fallen sword of giants. All their lives, the people had seen only her upper half. One edge of the blade. The rest was buried in the seabed. Now she trembled, dislodged herself from the sand, and rose among the kelp.

She shed silt and algae. Her lower half, buried for centuries, was darker, covered in moss and crabs and underground barnacles. Her upper half, lovingly maintained by adoring monks, shone like a beam of starlight. Poets would later describe her as a double-edged sword, her one edge dipped in moonlight, her other edge drenched with the blood of the ocean.

And still she rose, higher and higher, portholes glowing like moons, engines like swirling galaxies. She rose among the kelp, blowing back sand, revealing treasures that had lain buried for centuries.

She rose toward the ocean surface as the people stared from below. Everyone across the underwater city emerged from their homes, their temples, their schools and shops. They gazed at a miracle.

And then the Gomorrah breached the ocean surface.

She rose into the sunlight.

Below her, the water stormed in a maelstrom, filling the void. She had ripped a hole in the ocean.

Gomorrahns swam upward, higher and higher among the seaweed. The maelstrom caught some of them, hurled them aside. But they kept swimming. They breached the surface, gills shut tight, bodies in the water, heads in air they could no longer breathe. They blinked their bulbous eyes, perhaps remembering a time long ago, some ancient memory of their ancestors, etched upon their DNA like golden calligraphy, an age when they had breathed the air and walked on land. Bobbing in the water like newborn children blinking in the light, they peered skyward. They watched their ancestral starship ascend.

She rose higher, dripping water and algae and strands of kelp. She gained speed, rising into the blue. Water cascaded off her like rain from a silver cloud.

Slowly her prow rose, pointing toward the sun like a blooming flower. For centuries, she had lain on her side. For the first time since her fall, she was rising to her full height. No longer a sunken relic but a skyscraper. A temple. A cathedral. Her engines, glowing and thrumming, bathed the water with light, rippled the ocean. Her crest pointed to the stars.

And then she soared.

Like a rocket, she blasted upward on blazes of furious white energy.

She was a large starship. She was never meant to fly in atmosphere, only in the vacuum of space. Her weight was colossal. The gravity pulled her with unimaginable force. For a moment, it almost seemed like the Gomorrah would succumb, would fall back into the ocean, that Bahay with its mighty tug would reclaim its treasure.

She was never meant for this.

But then Gomorrah's engines gave a blinding blast of light. A supernova. A pulsar. A light that bloomed in all directions like a shock wave, spreading across the hemisphere. In the ocean below, they cried out and covered their eyes. On beaches half a world away, fishermen cowered and trembled. In space, those gazing from Mother's Womb gasped and pointed and called their friends.

For years, Gomorrah had slept. But now she was truly awake. And the planet would not hold her back.

She broke free.

She sliced through the blue firmaments and burst into the grandeur of space. Bahay wept below. Ahead spread the stars.

Maria stood at the helm, gazing through the viewports at the splendor of the galaxy.

"I have a year," she said softly. "A year before my wedding day to the Drowned King. A year to save as many lives as I can."

She placed a hand on her left breast, imagining the bridal crab within. Her heart was caged. Only Jon's love could free it. Until he returned to her, she would save whoever she could.

She would begin in the prison where she had languished for years. She would begin with Skid Bottom and the sleazy bars of neon and flesh and tears. She flew her starship toward Mother's Womb.

It was time to face that cruel being of the heavens. A demon of the sky would face a goddess risen from the ocean.

The final battle for Bahay began.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Neon and Starlight

They faced each other in space. Two goddesses of the stars.

Gomorrah. A silver starship of antiquity, risen from her watery grave. The hope of Bahay.

Dark Mother. A neon space station, full of secrets and sin. A relic of the war. Oppressor. Tyrant. Goddess of chaos and corrosion.

One goddess like a shard of pale moonlight suspended in a crystal. The other like a glittering heart plucked from a rotten corpse. One goddess who would carry her children to the promised land on her wings. The other who would devour them, seduce them, intoxicate them with drugs and sex and suck them dry. One goddess to take lost souls home. The other of souls who had forgotten their homes.

Starship and station. Bahay and a return to Earth.

The great war of Bahay would end here.

Because we've never just been fighting Earth, Maria thought. We defeated Earth years ago, but we did not win the war. We've reached the final battle. The final decision. Do we stay on Bahay or do we return to the stars?

She stood in this grand starship. Just her. Her daughter. Her friends. But Gomorrah's halls were built for thousands.

Those thousands were now trapped in the station ahead. Trapped in shanties beneath a grumbling engine room. Trapped in bars and brothels. Trapped dancing around poles and stripping and fucking a thousand tourists with Hawaiian shirts and red cheeks and deep pocket books. Trapped in hintan dens, hookahs attached to them like leeches, like corpulent purple caterpillars, parasites that sucked up the soul. And below the station, on Bahay herself—the millions. Millions trapped in re-education camps. Millions crushed under the inquisition and its cruel lord.

I must bring them home, Maria thought. It might take a hundred trips, but I must save them. Because I've fought for this world for so many years, and I ended up a stripper. Because I prayed and bled and killed for Bahay, and I defeated a galactic empire, but I could not defeat the evil that came from the north. Because I weep for Bahay. Because I love Bahay. Because all my soul and heart and very blood glows and pumps and flows for Bahay. But Bahay is not my home. I am an Earthling. We are Earthlings. We fled from Earth many generations ago. We fled war, yet in space we found genocide. We are Earthlings. And to our ancestral homeland we must return.

She would start by liberating Dark Mother. Then she would move to the planet. She would not rest until her people were saved.

She walked across the bridge toward the viewport. She stared out at the space station.

"Dark Mother!" Maria cried from the deck of her silver starship. "Do you hear me?"

The space station hovered before her in the darkness. Mother's Womb. The Earthling military had built it, and years ago, the cruel generals had lived here, overseeing the world they would conquer. Back then, the station had boasted clean lines, a polished hull, a machine of military austerity.

But Dark Mother had changed.

The soldiers of Earth were gone. Bahayans now filled the station, a hundred thousand strong and growing fast. They had filled the cabins and corridors with greasy noodle stands, adult video stores, gambling dens, brothels of every flavor, fighting pit where aliens or men painted the bulkheads with blood. The change had leaked from the inside out. Ten thousand neon signs and billboards covered Dark Mother's skin like a raiment of glowing boils. They called out to the stars, flickering, some letters dead, lighting the dark:

Girls girls g rls!

Cold beer, hot girls!

Cock Fights Tonig t

Happy Massage Parlor

Laughing Buddha Burgers

Midget Wrestling All Nite

Blue neon, red neon, golden and yellow neon. Neon in every color woven together. Neon shaped like girls. Like bottles of beer. Like crystals of drugs. Neon shaped as pizza. Neon shaped as hintan pipes. Neon that from afar looked like a sun. A thousand little ships and shuttles flitted around Mother's Womb like hungry bees around flowers. Clunky transport shuttles. Bounty hunter ships bristling with weapons. Pastel pleasure pontoons from Earth, carrying drunk frat boys, eager sex tourists, and businessmen out for forbidden pleasures. The shuttles rose, fell, flew from sign to sign. They docked at the bars, the drug dens, the brothels. They flew out sometime later, their holds plump with beer, drugs, and bargirls, only to fly to another neon flower. To pollinate this great life form with their dollars.

Maria gazed upon this dream world. This phantasmagoria, the Blue Boulevard risen into a sky and transfigured into something surreal, something glittering and oddly beautiful.

And Dark Mother, who was no longer dark at all, answered.

"Hello, Maria."

Neon lights dimmed across the entire space station. So dim they barely shone at all. All but a few signs. A strand of brothels along the lower decks. Two drug dens on the upper deck. What was going on? A power outage affecting only some areas?

Then Maria gasped. The space station—this entire station the size of a city—was smiling at her.

Its lights formed two eyes and a smiling mouth. A deranged smiley face. A trickster. A killer. An insane clown.

"I'm coming to get my people!" Maria cried out from Gomorrah's bridge. "You will let my shuttles into your hangars. You will let my people go. You will not stop them!"

Dark Mother opened her hangars, a hundred black sores blooming across her face.

And her shuttles emerged.

"Good bye, Maria," said the great glowing face in the sky.

Mother's shuttles flew toward Gomorrah. They were military vessels, ghosts of the war. Dropships. Years ago, they would ferry marines to Bahay. The marines were gone, but their machines were still deadly. They were covered in armor. Bristling with cannons like horns. The army called them Rhino-Class Troop Carriers. To Maria they indeed seemed like a herd of enraged rhinos, charging across the stars toward her.

Maria touched one of Gomorrah's gleaming spheres.

The sphere lit up. Lights shone in Maria's eyes. Two rows of glowing lights.

Maria threw her hands forward. And Gomorrah birthed her own shuttles.

They flew forward like icy comets, like furious fireballs, rolling, gleaming like pearls wreathed in white flame. They were round. Beautiful. Like great Santelmos in the darkness. They blazed forward with the wrath of stars.

Sixteen pearls. That was all. Against three hundred mighty rhinos.

Maria placed both hands on the crystal ball.

She tilted back her head, gasping. Lines of power rose from the crystal, raced through her, and connected to her mind.

She opened sixteen eyes. She felt the universe with sixteen fingertips. The pearls—she felt them. Felt the coldness of space. The fear. The rumbling, rattling, roaring engines.

They were a part of her. As surely as her hands or feet or beating heart. Sixteen spheres of white flame.

Mother's rhino ships charged toward. Maria saw them in the viewport with her own two eyes. And she saw them from her sixteen eyes in space, her pearls rolling through the darkness toward the enemy.

The rhinos were coming to kill her.

Maria snarled, leaned forward, and hurled her pearls at them like sixteen fists.

Rhinos and pearls slammed together.

* * * * *

Space lit up. Light, fire, and melting shrapnel blasted outward in little shock waves like raindrop ripples in a pond.

Maria leaned toward the viewport, clutching the crystal ball, sneering at her enemy.

Two of her pearls had shattered. Fourteen more zipped back and forth around the enemy.

With the powers of her thoughts, Maria swung one pearl ship to the left. It crashed through a rhino like a bowling ball through a rusty old car battery, ripping it open. The pearl emerged from the other side, dented but still flying.

She hurled another pearl forward like a sling stone. It tore through two rhinos, ripping them open.

Robots spilled into space.

Robots like Maria had never seen. Machines with guns on their shoulders. With chainsaw arms. Dark Mother had been building a commando force, it seemed.

They will not reach my ship, Maria vowed.

She closed her eyes. She didn't need her two human eyes open. She had eyes in space. She flew her pearls in every direction, shattering the rhinos of metal.

"Look at those marbles fly!" Charlie said, shaking the deck as she hopped. "It's like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos!"

"Hungry Hungry Rhinos!" Jay Jay said. "And Maria's feeding them good."

Maria barely noticed her friends. Barely noticed the bridge of the Gomorrah. She was out there in space. Her consciousness spread among her shuttles.

The rhinos regrouped. A formation of the spiky, armored machines flew toward one of her pearls. Their horns pointed at her. Cannons ready to fire.

Missiles flew.

Maria pulled a pearl aside.

Too slow. The missiles slammed into it.

The pearl exploded, shattering debris across space.

Maria screamed. Pain blazed through her. It felt like a part of her was cut off. Her eyes snapped open. She found herself back on the bridge of Gomorrah. Pain throbbed. She stumbled backward, releasing the crystal ball.

At once, the pearls outside stopped moving. They hung in space. Sitting ducks.

Another one exploded. And another. This time Maria felt nothing.

"Maria, keep fighting!" Charlie cried.

Maria gripped the crystal ball again, cursing her moment of weakness. Only nine pearl ships remained now.

More missiles flew toward her. Maria tried to control all her pearls. To dodge the missiles.

Another pearl blazed out.

Maria howled in pain and fury.

But oddly, this made it easier. With fewer pearls remaining, she could keep track of them better. She pulled them into a tight formation. Two rows of pearl ships. Four and four. Deadly comets of furious ice and fire.

She lashed them forward.

The two rows of white death plowed through formations of rhinos. They tore through armored hulls. They pulverized engines and bulkheads. Dozens of rhinos slammed into one another, shattered, scattered debris everywhere. Shrapnel pounded even the Gomorrah, which still flew far from the battle. The massive starship rocked.

Dark Mother screamed.

Her scream pulsed through space in a shock wave, rocking dropships and pearls like waves rocking buoys. That scream of pure energy washed across Gomorrah, shaking this starship the size of a town.

"Do I hurt you, Dark Mother?" Maria cried.

The lights on the space station rearranged themselves, forming a snarling face. The lights all turned dark red. The deranged clown became a demon.

Maria smiled crookedly and launched her eight pearl ships on another assault.

Torpedoes flew from Dark Mother's eyes.

Maria pulled her pearls back. The torpedoes followed. And—

A pearl exploded.

And another. And another!

Maria fell to the deck, screaming, barely clinging onto the crystal ball. She managed to pull five pearls to safety.

The rhinos regrouped. Not many remained. Maria had devastated their ranks. But they were still fighting.

She fought back.

Her pearls had no guns. She used their hard shells as weapons. Plowing through rhinos. Knocking them into one another.

A few rhinos fired missiles directly at Gomorrah—their first open attack on the mothership.

The starship shook. Fire bloomed across the viewport. The ceiling cracked.

Maria fell again. She clung to the crystal ball, desperate not to lose her grip again. Charlie and Jay Jay helped her up, held her in place.

"Keep fighting, Maria," Charlie said. "Don't you let go!"

"You can beat that bitch!" Jay Jay said.

Maria fought back hard. She destroyed more of Mother's shuttles. Once men had called her Holy Maria, but she had become an angel of death. A goddess herself, a deity of wrath and destruction. She cut down a hundred shuttles. Two hundred. More.

Another pearl shattered.

Torpedoes flew again.

Two more pearls blazed out.

Only one remained. Only one of her precious round spheres. Only one last sling stone in her arsenal.

Maria screamed. A hoarse scream. A scream for her world. For her daughter. For the man she loved. A scream for Bahay and for Earth and for all humans.

She screamed and she hurled her last pearl forward with all her strength, with everything she had in her. She was David against Goliath. She cast her stone.

And her stone slammed into Dark Mother's forehead. Right between her neon eyes.

Dark Mother howled.

Her lights blinked out.

Her dropships floated idly. Dead rhinos floating in space.

Did I win? Maria thought. Did I disable her?

She pulled her hands off the crystal ball. She had no more pearls to control. In the back of her mind, she was thinking where to get new shuttles. How to ferry survivors into Gomorrah. But that was not her immediate concern. She stared ahead, waiting. Expecting another strike.

The space station floated ahead, dark. Not a single neon sign flickered, not a single porthole shone. The only light came from the lower deck, glowing red through the portholes. The denizens of Skid Bottom—cooking food on their campfires.

"Dark Mother?" Maria whispered.

Silence.

Just the dead silence of space.

And then mother screamed.

A scream that tore even through the vacuum of space where no sound should exist. A scream that slammed into Gomorrah with the fury of an exploding star. A scream that filled the bridge. That shattered pipes and cracked the deck and bulkheads.

Maria fell to her knees, covering her ears. Behind her, her friends did the same. Little Lilly cried. The scream rose higher and higher, then cracked like a dying nation and fell silent.

And following the scream flew the torpedoes.

Dark Mother spewed them from hidden bays. A barrage of them streaked across space toward Gomorrah. At this range, the starship could not escape.

I should never have come here, Maria thought. I was a fool.

A torpedo impacted.

Another.

A third.

Fire raced through Gomorrah. Bulkheads ripped open. One of the silver pipes fell and shattered. Lily wailed and cowered, and Gummy wrapped himself around her.

Another torpedo hit them. The hull dented. Lights flashed everywhere. Electricity sparked. A wail rose from deep inside the ship, oddly organic. Perhaps an alien klaxon, warning of danger. Perhaps the sound of twisting, bending hulls and decks. Perhaps Gomorrah herself moaned like a living being, a starwhale in pain.

The red face reignited across Dark Mother, showering sparks.

"I would have killed you long ago, Maria!" the insane space station said. "Your betrothed wants you alive. Come into my womb! Come to Ernesto. If you resist, even he will not save you. I have many more torpedoes to fire."

Maria inhaled sharply.

Ernesto! So he's still there. Still after me!

"Come to me now, Maria!" Dark Mother said. "Come into my womb. Or taste more of my missiles."

"We won't survive another assault!" Charlie said. "Maria, we just won't!"

Maria blinked tears out of her eyes. She remembered Ernesto's threats. Remembered her nightmares.

He wants to kill Lilly, Maria thought. And to impregnate me with his child instead.

"I will not surrender," Maria said.

"Even if we all die?" Charlie said. "Would you sacrifice us? Me? Like you sacrificed Pippi?"

"Pippi is alive," Maria said. "I will save everyone. I will fight." She walked off the bridge. "Bahay herself will rise to fight. The power that for years lay buried underwater will rise. It's time to unleash the dragons."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Rebirth

Mother's Womb shook with battle, and deep within her halls and chambers, he awoke.

Motors hummed.

A camera dilated.

Blood flowed through tubes, and a heart pumped in an electric bulb.

An eye snapped open. Bloodshot. Milky white.

With a whirring of servos, with the creak of metal and brittle bones, Ernesto rose.

A metal foot slammed against floor grates, dripping oil. Gears spun. The thud echoed. A foot of flesh followed. He rose again. He walked again. A baby taking its first steps.

A few steps away, his tubes tightened like leashes, anchoring him to the machines. To monitors. To vials of liquid—oil, blood, and medicine. He tried to take another step, could not.

He roared. A deep sound, mechanical, yet oddly organic. Oddly in pain.

His fingers gripped the tubes. His skin sizzled. He pulled, yanking them free. His metal claws lashed, severing cables. Electricity sparked. Liquid splashed the grates, spilling into wells deep below. Across the room, monitors beeped. Alarms went off.

Ernesto laughed and took another step. Another.

Pain thrummed through him. His skin stretched, bolted onto a metal chassis. Liquid bubbled in his glass vials like blood through organs. The sea monsters of Bahay had savaged him. The terrors of the ocean had ripped him apart. But the gods of the sky had given him new life.

As he trudged across the room, he passed by a mirror. He turned. His camera lens hummed. He stared, and he laughed. A gurgling laugh, and a tear rolled down what remained of his face.

"Will you still love me, Maria?" he said with that strange metallic voice.

Yes, Maria was here.

He turned away from the mirror, stared through a porthole, and saw the silver starship. A grand starship, nearly as large as this entire space station. Ancient Gomorrah, risen again.

Maria was there. Just outside the space station. Waiting for him.

"You've come back to me, my love."

A great battle had raged in space. The husks of burnt shuttles floated between the space station and the silver starship.

Ernesto dragged himself down the space station's corridors. Tubes and cables trailed behind him like entrails, leaking fluids, sparking with electricity. He walked among the thousands of refugees who filled every corner of Mother's Womb. They recoiled before him. Children wept. Elders made the sign of the cross. One woman fainted.

He entered the shuttle bay. Maria had destroyed all his dropships—the armored defenders of this station. Only a few creaky transport shuttles remained, unarmed. But Ernesto didn't need weapons. A god didn't need machine guns or cannons. And he had become a god. Something more than mere human. He was a child of Dark Mother, unholy, grown in her mechanical innards.

And now he entered the shuttle, and Dark Mother birthed him from her womb.

Ernesto flew toward the silver starship. Toward the woman he loved. Toward the woman who would be his forevermore.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Wrath of Bahay

The hangars opened on Gomorrah.

And the dragons of Bahay emerged.

For millions of years, they had lived in Bahay's oceans. Breathing the water. Hunting in the depths. Rising sometimes onto the islands to devour the nectar of growing things, and sometimes soaring into the clouds to dance in the sunlight and breathe the cold thin air. But always returning to the water, the true wilderness of Bahay and their ancestral home.

For millions of years, the dragons of Bahay had experienced their planet, breathed it, smelled it, tasted it, molded it. They were shepherds of the oceans and guardians of the skies. They were the true masters of this world. They had swum in its waters and bred on its lands when humans on Earth, light-centuries away, were learning how to tame fire and chisel wheels from stone.

For the first time, the dragons of Bahay flew into space.

They flew to defend their glittering world below.

For long hours, they had curled up inside Gomorrah, feeling like scaly younglings still inside the shell. They had watched the world drop away below them. They had seen the stars and the cruelty of the neon goddess. They had seen the nobility of Maria, the holy one, betrothed to the Drowned King. She would someday be their queen.

They would fight for her.

They emerged one by one from the hangar. Green dragons, their scales shimmering like the plankton-rich shoals on sunny summer days. Dragons of infinite blue, their scales indigo and cobalt and all the colors of trenches and the valleys where whales swam. Dragons in brilliant orange and yellow and purple, all the colors of great coral reefs, and spikes and hooks sprouted from them as if coral grew from their very bones.

These were not like the dragons of Earth mythology. Not like those grand beasts of medieval mythology. Not even the slender, graceful dragons of Asian lore. These were Bahayan dragons. These were waterdragons. They had elegant heads like seahorses. They had scales like iridescent jewels. They had spikes and great fins that spread like wings. Their tails were glinting strands of glass beads and seashells. They were beings of water and air. They were beautiful yet there was terrible anger in their white eyes.

On Bahay, they could dive twenty kilometers into the deepest, darkest trenches. Trenches that would crush any human diver, even human submarines. Yet the dragons had thick exoskeletons. Those beautiful scales were a thick suit of armor. They could withstand the vacuum of space, at least for a while. On their deep ocean dives, where the water could crush organs and pollute the blood, they would close their gills. They could hold their breath for hours.

Yes, they would survive space. They would do what the pearls did not.

Only one thing they could not do. They could not navigate in a vacuum. Their fins had no air nor water to push against. They were like sails on a sea with no wind.

But they didn't need to navigate. They only needed to go one way.

To Dark Mother.

The dragons made a beeline to the mechanical goddess.

Maria rode on the largest dragon. On Bakunawa, the personal mount of the Drowned King. The oldest and finest of Bahay's waterdragons.

She wore a spacesuit. She held reigns woven of Bahayan rope, woven of kelp. She held a trident, the ancestral weapon of the Gomorrah clan. Around her neck she wore an ammonite pendant, symbol of the Sodomian clan—the gift young Karagatan had given her. In her veins flowed the blood of the Canaan clan of the islands. She flew representing all of Bahay and her living creatures. She flew for the planet itself—a single breathing organism.

Torpedoes came flying toward her.

Maria tightened her grip on the reins.

"Fly strong, Bakunawa," she said. "For Bahay."

They were moving on momentum alone through the vacuum. Hurtling toward Dark Mother. Right into the path of her missiles.

Maria rose in her saddle.

Debris was flying all around. The remnants of rhino ships and pearl ships. Chunks of bulkheads. Shards of hulls. Twisted cannons and severed wings and parts of engines careening through the void like insane metal insects. Any one of these pieces, even a single screw or grommet, could tear through Maria's body.

She pulled the reins. Bakunawa raised his head, and Maria placed one food on his neck, rising taller.

She swung her trident like a bat.

She hit a piece of debris. Just a single sprocket. Nothing but a little ring of metal, glistening and spinning like a lure.

She hit it with all her strength.

The sprocket flew toward the torpedoes like a streaking star.

It hit one torpedo right on the warhead.

In space before her, the torpedo exploded. There was no sound. Not in the vacuum. But the explosion bloomed, filling space with searing yellow light. Shrapnel flew.

The detonation washed over nearby torpedoes. They exploded too. In turn, they ignited the torpedoes beside them.

The chain reaction spread across the fusillade. Torpedo after torpedo—all exploding ahead of Maria and her dragons, lighting space, a scar of fire across the heavens. Down on the surface of Bahay, anyone looking up would see a great serpent of flame.

All from a humble sprocket. A piece of metal no larger than Maria's ammonite medallion.

The dragons flew through the fire.

Shrapnel from the torpedoes sliced into several dragons. Wings tore. Scales shattered. They screamed. They died in space, and they rained down toward their world. They fell through the sky like comets, burning, scattering their ashes and scales upon the oceans.

But most of the dragons kept flying.

Maria kept flying.

The dragons emerged from the wall of fire, charred, bleeding, roaring for Bahay. They landed on the neon walls of Mother's Womb and clutched her decayed flesh of metal and glass with their claws.

"Rip out her cannons!" Maria shouted. "Tear off her guns! Disable her!"

Machines guns were wheeling across the space station hull. Bullets streaked, thin lines in the sky. A dragon roared and tumbled into space. One dragon kicked off the station, desperate to flee, only for a torpedo bay to bloom open, for a torpedo to emerge and slam into the dragon. It pulverized the ancient being. Nothing but showering blood and bones and scales remained.

A bullet ripped into Bakunawa. The ancient waterdragon bellowed.

Maria drew her pistol. She fired at the nearest machine gun—a cruel weapon that swiveled upon Dark Mother's hull, dealing out death. But no human operated the gun, only Dark Mother. Across the station, more gun turrets grew from the hull like warts. Maria's bullets did nothing but spark harmlessly against one of the unmanned batteries.

"Bakunawa, take out those guns!" Maria said.

The waterdragon stared at the nearest machine gun, which was blazing out bullets every which way. His pupils shrank to pinpoints. His irises were swirling cauldrons of molten silver. The machine gun turned toward the dragon, and bullets perforated Bakunawa's fins.

Gripping the station with his claws, Bakunawa roared, thrust his head toward the machine gun turret, and blew dragonfire.

Furious flames blazed forth, lagoon blue in the center, blazing out to furious sea foam white. It was a rushing river. A silver blade. A furious torrent risen from Bahay's oceans and burning like a comet. The inferno washed over the machine gun turret. Gun barrels curled inward like seaweed, and muzzles burst open like iron eggs, and the turret crumbled and melted across the hull.

Another machine gun wheeled toward them. This one from above.

Bullets drove into Bakunawa's shoulder. Drops of blood flew through space.

The dragon roared out his flames. His fire soared, scarring the station hull, racing like a white and blue serpent toward prey. The gun turret twisted and burned. Bullet casings ignited and flew like sparks from a campfire.

Across the hull, the dragons were scuttling, gripping the station in their claws. They were like wolves taking down a mammoth. Neon signs shattered in their claws. Their flames flowed up and down like rivulets of white lava, washing over gun nests, blazing into torpedo bays. More and more neon signs shattered, and the space station screamed.

Some dragons fell. The bullets tore through them. The torpedoes ripped them apart. They glided down toward their planet, graceful in death, burning up in the atmosphere. Their ashes would scatter over their beloved oceans.

But most still fought.

They tore out every one of Dark Mother's weapons. They tamed the mechanical beast.

This was just Dark Mother's shell, however. Her exoskeleton. The true artificial goddess lived deep inside the station. A super computer the size of a grand piano, hovering inside a hollow shaft.

I'm coming for you, Mother, Maria thought.

"Bakunawa!" she cried, tugging the reigns. "Rip open that airlock! We're going in."

* * * * *

Bakunawa, mightiest dragon of Bahay, climbed across the space station hull.

He was remarkably fast and confident, claws gripping and twisting the neon signs. A poster advertising lady boxing tore free and fluttered through space. A sign for a brothel, featuring a sexy nurse holding a syringe, ripped off the hull and tumbled into the distance. A neon sign shaped like a keg of beer shattered, and glass shards flew into the distance.

People gazed through the portholes, pointing, crying out in fear or delight. Tourists addicted to gambling and sex. Bounty hunters, smugglers, and racketeers relaxing with a cold one after a long day of dirty deeds. Local Bahayan peddlers, pimps, drug dealers, bargirls. They all stared at the dragons outside, eyes wide. They were enjoying the show of their lives.

Bakunawa reached an airlock. It was hangar D5, one of eighty hangars across the space station. She recognized this hangar. Weeks ago, she had fled this hangar in the Kinnara, launching her quest for the lost starships. A coincidence? Maria took it as a good sign.

Guns swiveled around the airlock—new additions to the station. A laser beam seared through Bakunawa's fin.

The dragon yowled. A horrible sound. The sound a dog makes when you step on its tail.

"Bakunawa!" Maria cried.

His fin burned, curling up. The waterdragon roared and blew his flames and lashed his claws. He ripped the guns off. With his mighty claws, he pulled the airlock doors open.

The dragon charged into the station.

A few Crimson Claws stood inside. They had once been warriors of the Kalayaan, the jungle uprising against Earth. Today they served Ernesto—his personal enforcers, lords of this space station. Their cheeks were ceremoniously scarred—three lines on each cheek. As they snarled, the scars danced.

The men raised batons shaped like inverted crosses.

Bolts of electricity flew.

The searing, crackling balls slammed into Bakunawa, knocking him back. He nearly tumbled into space.

Swaying in the saddle, Maria drew her gun and opened fire. An inquisitor fell. The dragon roared forth, charging at them.

Then another dragon scrambled through the airlock. And a third. Roaring, enraged, blowing fire, lashing claws. Electric bolts slammed into them. A few dragons tumbled out into space.

The rest clawed their way in, ripping through Crimson Claws. The dead goons piled up in the airlock. Bakunawa swept them aside with his tail.

Riding on a dragon, a trident in one hand and a gun in the other, Maria stormed into Mother's Womb.

* * * * *

The dragon roared through Skid Bottom, the lower deck of Mother's Womb.

One of his fins was burnt and perforated with bullet holes. But he beat his other fins like wings, flying forward, and his roar shook the deck. All around the dragon rose shanty towers. Countless shanties—cobbled together from scraps of plywood, corrugated steel, and tarps. They were stacked one atop the other like mad games of Jenga.

As the dragon roared forth, the shanties tilted. A few crashed down. People fled.

Thousands lived here across Skid Bottom. The refugees from the planet had torn down the bulkheads, turning the lower deck into an open hangar, large enough to contain a slum. The people lived here, sifted through piles of garbage, cooked scraps on campfires, lived in despair and disease, choosing squalor over the clinical agony of the re-education camps below. Maria had lived here for three years.

The shanties wobbled, one stacked atop the other, rising like a forest. The dragon flew between the rickety constructions. Maria tugged the reins, directing his flight.

"Up, Bakunawa! There, to the central shaft!"

A metallic pillar rose in the middle of Skid Bottom, a great maypole around which the slums spread. It was as wide as the widest tree. Graffiti covered it. Some shanties clung to it like mushrooms on a trunk. This pillar rose through Skid Bottom, the decks above, and the decks above that. It stretched throughout Mother's Womb space station like a spine.

Inside that shaft lived Dark Mother, the insane A.I.

The dragon charged toward it.

Crimson Claws ran below among the shanties, shoving squatters aside. They raised their batons, and electric bolts flews. Bakunawa bellowed, dived low, and blasted his fire. Flames spread across the inquisitors. They screamed and fell. The fire gripped a few shanties, and people ran with blankets and buckets of water to douse the flames.

Bakunawa kept flying, swerving around shanty towers, until he reached the station's central pillar. The dragon clung to it like a bat to a stalagmite.

"It's hollow!" Maria said. "Can you carve an opening?"

The dragon got to work. His claws grabbed metal paneling, tore them off. His fangs bit into steel sheets, puncturing them, ripping them free. Electric cables sparked. A water pipe burst, spraying onto the fires below. Steam filled the deck. As the dragon ripped open a hole, Maria reloaded and fired her pistol, taking pot shots at Crimson Claws below.

And as the dragons roared, as the fire and water clashed, as steam and smoke rose, Maria saw something even more inspiring.

The people were rising up.

Humble squatters, filthy and clad in rags. Young bargirls, wasting away in the slums. Garbage eaters. Beggars. Lepers. Orphans. People diseased, hungry, and so noble. So strong. They grabbed anything they could find. Slats of wood. Metal sheets. Kitchen knives. Pipes and wrenches.

And as Crimson Claws fired their batons at Maria and her dragon, the people swarmed.

Their voices rose, filling Skid Bottom.

"Freedom for Bahay!"

"Death to Papa Dominus!"

"Destroy the inquisition!"

"Praise Maria!"

"God bless Holy Maria, saint of the slums!"

The Crimson Claws turned their batons away from the dragons—and toward the people. Electricity slammed into men, women, children. People screamed and fell. The Claws swung their clubs, snapping bones, cracking skulls.

Maria was about to turn Bakunawa around, to fly back to battle.

But she didn't need to.

United, the people were strong. Stronger than they had ever known. They outnumbered Ernesto's thugs a thousand to one. And they swarmed over them. They wrenched the terrible batons from callused hands. They turned against the brutes who had enslaved them for so long. They ripped off the straw hats, symbols of the jungle uprising. They revealed the dreaded Crimson Claws for who they truly were.

Just men.

Just flesh and blood.

Men who could die just like any other.

Maria turned back toward the central shaft. The hole was now wide enough to enter.

"Come with me, Bakunawa," she said. "Fly with me. All the way up."

The dragon squeezed through the hole. He was a large dragon, but most of his size was length. He was slender, and he slithered into the shaft like a serpent into a pipe. Maria flattened herself against his scaly body. They made their way in.

The shaft plunged below toward the station's ventilation vents. It soared above toward the higher decks. Lights, service elevators, pipes, and cables covered the inside of the cylinder.

Maria looked up.

Up there, many decks above Skid Bottom, she waited.

Dark Mother.

Bakunawa and I are inside her spinal column, Maria thought. Like a parasite, we are climbing toward her electronic heart.

The thought triggered a memory. Maria winced and placed a hand on her breast. She imagined the bridal crab inside her, claws wrapped around her heart, ready to snap. She pushed the thought aside.

"Fly, Bakunawa!" she said. "Upward!"

The dragon howled—a guttural, oddly watery sound, even here so far from the ocean. His cry echoed in the shaft. Across the space station, everyone would hear it. He began to climb. His claws gripped service scaffolding and pipes. His fins pressed against the rounded walls. His tail shoved against ventilation grates and maintenance terminals. As he climbed, Maria imagined the crab inside her, moving along her arteries toward the heart.

Above she hung. A dark lump. A dark mother.

Suddenly the computer flared to light. She shone like a star. Her voice filled the shaft.

"You cannot kill me, Maria!" Dark Mother laughed. An insane laugh. A cackle. It echoed through the station. "I'm the heart of this station. I run all life support systems. If I die—you all die!"

The dragon climbed higher. Bakunawa's claws gripped Dark Mother. The dragon coiled around the super computer, snarling and drooling. A great crab around a metal heart.

Maria sat in the saddle, her trident raised high. She smiled crookedly.

"Hello, Dark Mother!"

The computer shrieked. "Go ahead! Kill me. I'll enjoy opening all my airlocks. Draining all my oxygen. Watching a hundred thousand people float dead into space."

Maria shrugged. "Go ahead. Might as well do it now."

The super computer screamed. "I'll kill them all! Kill me and you all die!"

"I'm waiting."

The computer flashed brighter. Thrummed. Shook inside the shaft. Her scream grew louder.

"What have you done to me?" the A.I. screamed.

"My engineers have been busy these past few years," Maria said. "Rerouting all life support systems to backup computers. We've been working right under your nose. We understand this station better than you do now. You were busy dreaming. Busy building your little nightmare among the stars. We plucked this station right from under you. Oh, there are still many systems you control. The shuttle bays. The entertainment systems. The digital libraries. Those were difficult to hack, I admit." Maria shrugged. "But I think we'll manage."

Dark Mother screamed so loudly the shaft shook and cracked.

"I was a good mother to you! I loved you! I saved your life! Don't kill me!"

The dragon coiled atop the super computer. Sitting in the saddle, Maria stared down at the machine.

"I've learned a few things in this war, Dark Mother. I've learned to love the poor. To protect the innocent. And to never pity the cruel. Those who are merciful to the cruel will someday be cruel to the merciful." She flipped her trident over, aiming the prongs down at the super computer. Her voice dropped low, nearly to a whisper. "From the heart of the ocean, I stab at thee."

"No!" Dark Mother screamed.

Maria drove down her trident.

She felt a twinge in her chest—the crab's claws, resting against her heart.

Her trident's prongs drove into the super computer's central processing units. Right into Dark Mother's heart.

Electricity sparked across the computer. Bakunawa squealed and crawled upward in the shaft. Below, fire gripped Dark Mother. Computer chips melted. Cables tore free. Lights shattered. The computer was blazing like a collapsing star. Yet from the inferno, a voice emerged.

"Silly girl! You don't know what I've unleashed." Dark Mother cackled. "I already sent him forth—my beloved son! You lost, Maria. You already lost!"

The fire spread deeper. Something inside Dark Mother cracked. And she went dark.

She hung inside the shaft like a lump of coal in a giant's throat. Dead.

Maria placed a hand on her heart. The crab was still inside her. But her heart was still beating.

I still have a year, she thought. A year for Jon to come back. To marry me properly. A year before the crab will snap his claws.

Yet her heart raced. And sweat trickled down her back. What had Dark Mother meant? Who had she unleashed?

Her comlink crackled. A voice emerged from Maria's earpiece, staticky.

"Nini? Nini! Come in, Nini!"

Maria's heart galloped even faster. She tapped her comlink.

"Charlie, is that you?"

"Nini, he's here!" Charlie cried. "On the Gomorrah. He's coming closer. He has a gun, he—"

The connection died.

Silence.

The shaft seemed to close in around Maria. She knew who Charlie meant.

"Ernesto," she hissed.

He's on the Gomorrah, Maria thought. Oh God. He's after Lily.

She dug her heels into Bakunawa. They raced down the shaft, and Maria could barely breathe.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Memories of Home

Maria raced through the halls of Gomorrah.

Her heart pounded. Sweat soaked her. She could barely breathe. Never had such fear flooded her. Not in all her wars.

Ernesto is here.

Tears stung her eyes.

He got onto my ship.

She panted.

He's after Lily.

These pale corridors were narrow. Maria ran alone.

Bakunawa had lost a lot of blood. He had flown her here with his last strength. Now rested in the cargo hold below, nursing his wounds. Maria would have to face her enemy without the dear dragon. Her heart thrashed against her ribs, a bird trying to flee. As she ran, Maria drew her pistol, ready to kill.

She wanted to yell. To call out Lily's name for the whole ship to hear. She dared not.

Ernesto is here. He's waiting to grab me.

She forced herself to slow down. She wanted nothing more than to race forward, and it took all her willpower to walk slowly, silently, to avoid calling her daughter. She walked near a wall, gun gripped with both hands, pointing ahead.

She tapped her helmet again.

"Charlie?" she whispered into her comlink.

Once more—no answer. She tried Jay Jay too. Nothing.

The corridors of Gomorrah had no corners. They were round tunnels, made from a pale, gleaming material. It felt like walking inside a conch. The ship felt organic, the shell of a living being. Often Maria felt that this alien vessel was truly alive, more alive than Dark Mother had ever been.

Suddenly—blood on the floor.

Maria inhaled sharply.

Bloody footprints!

She walked onward, following them. The footprints led to a round doorway. Maria peered inside.

Charlie and Jay Jay were there! They lay on the ground, handcuffed, bound in chains, and gagged. They were wriggling but could not rise.

Maria made to run toward them. But Charlie moaned into her gag, shook her head, and her eyes bugged out. She was practically pointing with her eyeballs.

Maria spun around.

An inquisitor leaped at her, swinging a baton.

An inquisitor!

Maria had heard of these foul beings. Unholy men. Some said demons. Creatures in crimson robes and masks. The elite warriors of Papa Dominus himself.

Maria had only fought Crimson Claws so far—lowly thugs plucked from the jungles. She had never faced an actual inquisitor. And now this dark paladin was lunging right at her.

Maria fired. Her bullet drove into his chest.

The inquisitor took two more steps, then crashed down. His mask fell off, revealing a gray face. A gaunt face like a skull. Yellow eyes.

For all the mystique, they die as easily as any man, Maria thought, her gun smoking.

Her hope for secrecy was gone. The gunshot would alert Ernesto. Maria had to get him—now.

She swept her eyes across the room. Ernesto wasn't here. Lily wasn't here.

Maria ripped the gag off Charlie.

"Bridge!" Charlie breathed. "Hurry!

Maria ran, leaving Charlie and Jay Jay behind. Sawing through their handcuffs and chains would take hours—even if she could find a saw. For now, they'd have to remain chained on the floor. Maria was on her own.

She followed the trail of blood along the deck. Charlie or Jay Jay must have shed it, perhaps when dragged from the bridge to the cabin. Maria rushed down the corridor, eyes narrowed, gun pointed ahead.

An inquisitor burst out from a room.

She fired.

He fell.

She kept going, following the blood. The red trail led Maria toward the bridge.

She paused outside the door, her back to the wall, gun in hand. She took a deep breath.

What will I find in there? An ambush?

From inside the bridge—a voice. A soft, scared voice.

"Mommy?"

Lily's voice.

A tear streamed down Maria's cheek. She forced herself to stay still.

Wait, she told herself. It's a trap. Wait!

"Mommy …"

Maria stood outside, trembling. I'm coming, baby. Mommy's coming for you.

She knew they were waiting inside. Ernesto. And probably inquisitors. She inhaled deeply.

Maria had to burst onto the bridge, gun blasting. But she could not. Not with Lily there.

Where on the bridge is my daughter? Is she near the doorway? Will I hit her? I need her hear her one more time.

"Lily!" Maria cried out.

"Mommy!" Her voice came from the back of the bridge. "Momm—"

Maria burst through the doorway.

Within a single second, she swept her gun left and fired, swept her gun right and fired again.

The two gunshots echoed.

Two inquisitors, framing the doorway, crumbled. They thumped onto the deck, and their blood poured.

They never even got a chance to swing their batons.

Lily stood at the back of the bridge. Maria had placed the voice properly.

Maria froze, smoking gun in her hand. She pointed the barrel ahead.

"Mommy …" Lily whimpered.

My God, Maria thought. Her eyes stung with tears.

A creature was holding Lily. A monster was gripping Maria's sweet little daughter.

* * * * *

He was not a man. Not anymore. Once perhaps he had been Ernesto Santos. He had been many things. A fisherman. A terrorist. A warlord. But now he was not even human.

The right side of his body was still flesh. A wiry arm. A scarred cheek and blazing white eye. Half a ribcage like a single saloon door. But the flesh ended there. What remained of his skin was bolted onto a metal frame.

A mechanical, hydraulic arm and leg. Half a torso forged from metal bars around a glass bulb. Organs floated within, attached to cables. A motor hummed, pumping blood through tubes.

The head was the worst part. Half was still his original head. But the left half was a hideous, smirking thing of metal, bolts, and screws. One hemisphere of the brain was visible, floating in a glass skull full of fluids. Instead of an eyeball, a camera moved on a stalk.

"What did you do to yourself?" Maria whispered.

The cyborg tightened his grip on Lily. The little girl trembled. Ernesto's hand sprouted blades instead of fingers. He placed those blades against Lily's throat.

Maria froze. Her heart nearly stopped.

Ernesto smiled at her. Half that smile was organic—human lips, trembling, weak. The other half—a rictus metal grin.

"You almost killed me, Maria," Ernesto said. His voice was oddly human, oddly soft, coming from such a twisted creature. "Down in the ocean depths. When you raised the shachihoko sea monsters against me. You almost got me. I give you that. I floated to the surface. And he saved me. My father. Papa Dominus. He gave me new life. And someday, he will bless our—"

"Let Lily go!" Maria said. She tightened her grip on her pistol, pointing it at Ernesto.

He tilted his head. Servos hummed. Blood pumped harder through the tubes in his transparent torso.

"Let Lily go?" he said. "She would grow up to be nothing but a bargirl. A prostitute. Like you. What kind of life can she have? By killing her, I'd be doing you both a favor."

Maria snarled. "I'll kill you if you hurt her!"

"I don't need to hurt her," Ernesto said. "I can give her a painless death."

Fury blazed through Maria. She took a step closer, hands so tight they shook around her gun. She could barely breathe.

"Let her go!"

Ernesto's eyes narrowed. The real eye. The camera lens.

"Maria, do you know what a lion does when he claims a lioness?"

"I'm not interested in your fables." Her finger twitched on the trigger. She could take a shot. Now. Kill him. But in his death throes, would he slice Lily's throat? She needed Lily free first. Before she could shoot, she needed Lily safe.

"You see, the lioness might already have cubs from another male," Ernesto continued. "A weaker male. So what does our intrepid alpha lion do? First he slays his rival. And then he slays the cubs. He impregnates the lioness. He gives her better cubs. Stronger cubs. We're not unlike lions, my beloved Maria. You will bear me many cubs."

"Draw a drop of her blood and I'll blast your brains across the bulkhead!" Maria shouted.

Ernesto laughed. His organs bounced inside the glassy bulb of his torso. "Oh, you can't harm me, sweet Maria. You tried so many times. You stabbed me. Burned me. Shot me. Drowned me. I can't be killed. Go ahead and shoot if you like!"

He tightened his grip on Lily. The blades pressed against her skin, nearly cutting through.

Maria stood frozen, finger on the trigger, daring not shoot.

He's not killing her yet, Maria thought. He's scared. He knows I can harm him.

"Crisanto," she whispered.

The Santelmo was too large now to fit in her pocket. She had begun to carry her in a backpack.

He burst from the pack. He hovered above her head and blazed with light, bright and white like the sun.

Ernesto winced, blinded. His camera lens snapped shut.

Maria fired.

Her bullet punched a hole through the human half of his chest.

She fired again. Again. Again. Emptying her magazine. Every bullet into the human half of his body.

He fell backward and hit the deck.

Free from his grip, Lily ran toward Maria.

Tears flowing, Maria knelt, scooped her daughter into an embrace, and held her tight. They sobbed together.

Lily was safe. She was crying. Terrified. But unharmed.

Unharmed? Maria thought. Maybe her body is unharmed. But it will take our hearts so long to mend.

"Mommy, I love you. Is the monster dead, Mommy?"

Maria nodded, holding Lily in her arms. "He's dead, sweetie. Mommy got rid of that monster. You're safe now."

Suddenly—a gasp.

Ragged breathing sounded.

A servo hummed.

Maria leaped up, pushed Lily behind her, and drew her gun again. She slammed in a fresh magazine.

Ernesto lay in a pool of blood beneath the viewport. Bahay floated outside, casting its blue light upon him. He raised a shaky arm. His real arm.

"Maria …" he whispered.

She stepped closer slowly, gun in hand, aiming at him. Ready to fire directly into his head.

Is he truly immortal? she thought.

She came to stand above him. She aimed her muzzle at his twisted head. Half human. Half machine. She could see his organs. They were deflating. Behind the metal ribs, his heart was beating so slowly.

He looked up at her. A tear rolled down his cheek.

"Look, Maria," he whispered. "Look at Bahay. Look at our beautiful world. I can see it, Maria."

"See what?"

"Our home." He smiled. This time is seemed more like a true smile. "I can see San Luna again. Our village. You're working with your parents in the paddies, and you're singing. I'm heading down the path toward the piers, ready to enter my reed boat and catch you a fish. Do you remember how I would bring you fish?"

Her tears fell. Splashed him. Why wasn't she firing?

"I remember," she said.

"We were happy there, Maria, weren't we?" Ernesto said, voice weaker now. "That's all I ever wanted. San Luna. Our home. Rice paddies and fishing. You and me. I love you, Maria. I lo …"

His voice faded.

His head fell back.

His heart stilled.

Tears streamed down Maria's cheeks. She holstered her gun, lifted her daughter, and hugged her close.

Voices came from the doorway.

"I'm telling you, Jay Jay, I can break out of any chains, I'm like Harvey Houdini."

"Harry Houdini!" Jay Jay said. "And besides, you just grabbed the keys from the dead inquisitor. I literally saw you do it."

Charlie strutted onto the bridge, wobbling on high heels. The woman actually wore high heels with her spacesuit. "As if! I'm an escape artist! Seriously, handcuff me right now, I'll show you."

"I'm not handcuffing you!" Jay Jay said.

Charlie waggled her eyebrows. "Maybe later tonight? I—Oh."

She fell silent and stared at the dead Ernesto, then at Maria and Lily. Jay Jay shut his mouth too. For a moment, they just took it all in.

Then both Charlie and Jay Jay, bruised and battered as they were, ran forward and embraced Maria. They all knelt on the deck as Bahay rose outside the viewport, shining its good blue light upon them.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Graveyard Lights

After retrieving the artifacts, Jon returned to tour with Symphonica.

He had made a promise to his band. To his fans. The show must go on.

So he flew back to the solar system.

He played show after show. Every night, the crowds roared, and Jon laid his soul bare before them. He played the keyboards. He shed tears. He performed the songs he had written. About war. About loss. About miscarriage. About suicide. He tore his soul apart every night and the crowd cheered.

Jon told himself it was for them. For the fans. That he kept the artifacts locked in a safe because he needed to bring music to the world.

But maybe he was scared.

Scared of Bahay.

Scared of going back.

Scared of seeing Maria again.

Stepping on stage every night, facing a crowd of burly bearded metalheads, and spilling his heart and soul seemed a lot easier, all things considered.

This was the last leg of the Graveyard Lights Tour, promoting Symphonica's second album. They played across Europe, a different city every night. They played in an ancient church in Prague. They shook the foundations of a French castle as fans cheered where medieval knights had once feasted. They banged their heads with a hundred thousand German fans, many of them quite drunk, at Wacken Open Air—a massive metal festival, rocking annually since the twentieth century. Most of the Germans had come to see the band on stage after Symphonica, a brutal death metal group called Rancid Angels. But even the scariest death metal fan, covered in spikes and corpse paint, listened in rapture as Kaelyn sang. Many shed tears, smudging their makeup.

They completed their tour in a sold out Wembley Arena in England. No other bands played tonight. Everyone was here for Symphonica. It was a historic venue and their largest headline show yet.

They closed the show with an encore of "Falling Like the Rain," the title track from their first album. After the last note, the band held hands on stage. They took a bow. The crowd cheered.

And that was it. The Graveyard Lights Galactic Tour was over.

They had played over a hundred venues across the solar system.

They had played live for a million people.

A million people. A number Jon could not comprehend. A number his mind could not grasp. He had shared all his innermost pains, dreams, fears with a million people, live on a stage.

And when that last show was over, when that last note had played, Jon went into his dressing room, sat down, buried his face in his hands, and shed tears.

The tour was over. And now he must face his greatest fear.

It was time to return to Bahay.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A Dark Dream

A dream haunted Maria the night after she killed Ernesto.

In her dream, it was ten years in the future. Her daughter was fourteen, and she stood on a stage, wearing a white dress.

"Behold—my newest princess!" cried the Magic Man. "Lovely Lily, the Jewel of Bahay!"

The Toy Box shone with splendor. Lights spun across the ceiling in purple, blue, and smoky white, a galaxy swirling through the club. The hookahs bubbled, filling the room with lavender smoke and the scent of cinnamon and cloves. The beer flowed. The crowd cheered.

Across the stage, the bargirls danced. Topless. Scandalous. Strutting on high heels, numbers painted on their chests, as men bid to take them to bed. The Magic Man shone brighter than all, wearing his purple leisure suit, his golden chains dangling around his wrists and necks, his rings glimmering. It was a scene from hell painted with heavenly neon.

And in the center, a virginal angel, she stood. Little Lily. Only fourteen. Eyes downcast.

"Step right up, gentlemen!" the Magic Man announced, clasping Lily's arm. "Isn't she a princess? She's making her debut tonight! A true virgin, born on the planet below. Opening bid is one hundred pesos! Do I hear one hundred pesos?"

Hands rose in the audience. Men cheered. Leered. Licked their lips. Waved wads of cash.

Maria hung in a cage nearby. Wearing high heels and lingerie. Dancing. An aging whore. Watching her daughter virginity's auctioned off.

Watching men beat Lily.

Watching Lily service ten men every night. Night after night.

Watching Lily succumb to the hookahs of hintan. And then to the shabu crystals. Dulling her pain. Dulling the light in her eyes.

Maria jerked awake, awash with sweat, trembling.

She was back in her shanty in Mother's Womb. Lily was only four again, sleeping in her arms.

Maria wept and hugged her daughter close.

Lily woke up. "Mommy? Are you okay?"

"Yes, sweetie." Maria kissed her. "I just love you so much. And I'll never let anything bad happen to you. I promise."

"I know." Lily yawned, then fell back asleep in Maria's arms.

But Maria dared not sleep again. This dream had been haunting her. Sometimes it felt more like a vision. A prophecy.

A figure appeared before her in the shanty, cloaked in shadow.

A man in a black robe and hood.

White eyes stared from the shadows.

Maria stared, paralyzed. Another dream? It felt so real. She tried to scream, to run. She couldn't even breathe.

"Who are you?" she managed to whisper.

The figure stepped closer. Looming above her and Lily. Revealing fangs that glimmered in the dark. Small golden letters covered those fangs like scrimshaw, spelling curses.

"You know who I am."

"Papa Dominus," she whispered.

Wings spread from his back, hiding the shanty walls, engulfing reality. "I sent you that vision, Maria. That will be Lily's future. You cannot stop it."

"Liar!" Maria said, louder now. "Jon will come back for us."

The dark pope cackled. "Jon has abandoned you. He is mine. He is blood of my blood. He is my heir. You're all alone, Maria de la Cruz. You've always been all alone. Ever since those early days, cowering in your hut, the strange girl with so many questions. The outcast. The black sheep. You stood alone as your village burned. You walked alone through the jungle. You suffered alone in the slums of Mindao. All your soul is forsaken. There is no help for you. You cannot stop what I have foreseen."

"The Drowned King can stop you!" Maria said. "I'm betrothed to him. And he's stronger than you!"

Papa only laughed, the sound like shattering bones. "The Drowned King? What is the Drowned King but a crab who hides in a shell, fearful of greater predators? Even this so-called Drowned King, this mutant, this monstrosity of the depths—even he cannot save Lily from her fate. Do you think the Drowned King would accept the whelp in his watery court? The daughter of another man? No, Maria. The Drowned King would kill her. Unlike Ernesto, he would not fail at this task. Lily is alone in the world. As alone as you've always been. You cannot save her. She is doomed—to death or prostitution. There is no third path for her. It has been written in her destiny."

Maria rose to her feet, holding Lily in her arms. The girl still slept, face so pale, eyeballs moving beneath her lids.

"Jon will kill you!" she shouted. "He will kill you, and he will take Lily and me back to Earth. You have no power over us!"

Papa Dominus only stared at her silently, no longer laughing.

"Jon will betray you," he hissed.

And then his wings, his robe, his hood—they tore apart into a million scuttling black insects. The creatures fled, chirping, until nothing but the shanty remained.

Maria blinked, rubbed her eyes. She was lying on her bed again, not sure if that had been a dream or reality.

Lily stirred in her sleep, peaceful, no longer deathly pale. Maria held her close, tears falling.

"Jon will never betray us, Lily," she whispered. "And I will never let that fate be yours. We'll prove them all wrong. Papa Dominus. The Drowned King. Neither can destroy what Jon and I have. If they try, I'll kill them like I killed Ernesto. Your daddy is coming back, Lily. I know it."

Lily smiled in her sleep. "Daddy," she whispered.

Maria cuddled her, keeping her warm until the dawn.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A Return of Bahay

The Symphonic Thunder was an ugly little starship.

She was dented, charred, and cobbled together from spare parts. The hull of a tourist shuttle. The wings of a starfighter. The cannons of a police cruiser. The computers of a tanker.

She was ugly, yes. A chimera. A freak. But she was fast. Damn fast.

Jon had spent a fortune on her. And ninety-seven percent of the money went toward the warp drive. Yes, Jon had done the math. And it was worth it. This baby was not about comfort. She was built for speed.

And now the Symphonic Thunder streaked across space, racing toward Sargas, a star in the Scorpius constellation. Toward a small blue planet in the light of that distant sun.

Bahay.

Jon sat in the cockpit, watching the planet grow closer. At first—just a distant blue speck, no larger than the stars behind it. Then growing larger. Becoming a blue marble, then a sphere the size of a tennis ball. And something cold and hard filled the pit of Jon's stomach.

There it was.

The planet of his innermost terrors and dreams.

He still remembered flying here years ago, a young private, just a dumb teenager scared out of his mind.

You were here with me, George, Jon thought, an emptiness inside him. I miss you so much.

He thought of the boy he had been. Little Jon Taylor from Anytown, USA. Only eighteen years old, fresh outta high school. Mourning the loss of his brother. Eager to fight a war. To avenge Paul. To kill the damn gooks. To bomb the slits. To win the war for Earth and come home a hero.

"I remember being so scared," he whispered.

Kaelyn, who sat beside him, held his hand. "It's all right, Jon. I'm here. The war is over. I'm with you."

But the war was not over. Not for him. He carried it everywhere.

"I was so eager to kill, Kaelyn. To kill the yellowskins. To gun down the bastards who took Paul from us. But really, it wasn't hate that drove me. I thought it was hate. But it was fear. I was so scared of them, Kaelyn. Of the Bahayans. I was so fucking scared." He looked into her eyes. "And I'm scared now."

Kaelyn hugged him.

Jon wanted to say more. To talk about fighting up Surigao Hill as the machine guns roared, as the enemy mowed down half his platoon. To talk about the orphans on the streets of Mindao, babies sleeping in gutters, toddlers starving on curbs. To tell her about the burnt child, twitching in an artillery crater. To tell Kaelyn that he had fired such artillery shells on cities. That he had killed so many people.

He wanted to tell her everything. To spill the horrors and confess his sins.

But he could bring none of it to his lips. There were some things he could remember, could share. He expressed them with his music. There were other things Jon was not ready to speak of, not even in his songs. Not now. Maybe not ever. Not to his fans. Not to Kaelyn. Only two people in the world could understand.

Etty, who was back on Earth.

And Maria, who was waiting ahead.

Maria.

I'm going to see her again. The woman who took a broken, haunted private into her little room. Who healed him. Who gave him joy. The woman I fell in love with. The woman I have a daughter with. Maria, we're going to meet again soon.

He wondered what she was like now. Jon had not seen her in years. Only one grainy photograph. Was Maria still kind, soft-spoken, shy? Had she grown stronger, harder, colder? Had she aged more than him due to time dilation—or less? Would he still see love in her eyes? Or would he see pain, betrayal, anger that he had left her? Abandoned her and Lily?

Jon did not know.

I thought you were dead, Maria. But you're alive. And like I'm scared of Bahay, I'm scared to meet you again.

"Jon, look!" Kaelyn pointed. "That starship. She's huge!"

Jon saw it. His eyes widened. He had never seen a starship so large.

She was flying in the distance, but even from here, Jon marveled at her sheer size. She was easily the size of the Empire State Building back home. The hull was silvery and gleaming, graceful like a blade. She was flying away from Bahay, heading toward the stars.

As Jon watched, great engines shone deep purple. And then this massive starship stretched into a streak of light … and was gone.

"That was a Santelmo ship," Jon whispered in wonder.

"The glowing round aliens?" Kaelyn said. "I thought they left Bahay when the war ended."

"So did I. But there went one of their starships. I wonder what's going on."

Chapter Thirty

A Desert Among the Stars

Maria stood inside Mother's Womb. She faced a porthole, gazing outside at space. From here in her glittering prison, she watched the Gomorrah sail into the distance.

Ten thousand refugees crowded inside her silver hull. They were flying to Earth. To the land of their ancestors. To a dream of green hills and blue skies. To peace.

I did this, Maria thought. I raised an ancient starship from the sea. I filled her with refugees. And I'm sending them to Earth.

But Maria did not stand among them.

She remained here in the space station. She remained a bargirl.

She had been raised Catholic, still wore a cross on a chain. She remembered the old tales of Moses, leading his people out of captivity, through the desert, and to the land of their ancestors. A land of milk and honey. But Moses himself never entered the holy land. He suffered in the searing desert. He fought through fire and sand and death. He led his people to freedom.

And he himself died in the sand. He never entered the blessed gates of Zion.

God had punished Moses, perhaps. The children of Israel had built a golden calf. And Moses took the fall. To Maria this had always seemed unfair. And now she too was cursed, not by a desert god but an ocean king.

A crab lived inside her heart, its body pressed against her beating chambers, its claws ready to snip her arteries. A bridal crab. A crab who guarded her throughout her betrothal to the Drowned King.

If she tried to leave this star system, the crab would kill her. There was no fleeing the Drowned King. In a year, she must return to his watery court, and she must become his bride. The crab would make sure.

Only you can remove this crab from inside me, Jon, she thought, gazing out at space. Only your love can save my life.

The Gomorrah was now only a speck in the distance. A gleaming streak like a shooting star, that was all. How Maria envied those inside the silvery hull!

"Take good care of them, Charlie," Maria whispered. "Captain this ship well. Take our people home to Earth."

She missed Charlie already. But her friend was not gone forever. In a few weeks, Charlie would return with an empty starship. They would load the Gomorrah with more refugees. They would save whoever they could. And if the starships guarding Earth cast them back, they would seek a new planet. A planet without rotting shanties. Without child prostitutes in filthy alleyways. Without the cruel inquisition and the terrible re-education camps. They could build the utopia their ancestors had hoped Bahay would become.

Utopia? Perhaps all utopias were destined to become nightmares. The nature of man was not utopian. How then could his societies be so? But there were other worlds than Bahay and Earth. There were other ways to live. Even the blessed Holy Land of the bible ended up a nightmare. The children of Israel found a land of milk and honey, but also of blood, of the sword and shield and tombstone. There were no holy lands, no utopian Zion on a hill of amethyst and gold. But there were lands that were not nightmares. And that was good enough. And that was worth fighting for.

"I'll join you soon," Maria said, speaking to that speck of light even as it faded to memory. "Jon will come for me. He will marry me—for real this time. And the Drowned King will have to release my heart." Maria smiled shakily, tears in her eyes. "We'll be a real family. Me, Jon, and Lily. Finally free from Papa Dominus and the Drowned King and the Toy Box and all the rest of it. We'll sail away in a silver starship. We'll have our happy ending."

She turned away from the porthole.

Her daughter was hungry. It was time to earn the pesos. It was time to dance among the stars.

Chapter Thirty-One

The Starview Hotel

The Symphonic Thunder kept flying closer to Bahay. The planet grew larger and larger in the viewport.

Jon's fingertips tingled. His heart would not slow down. The Santelmo starship was gone. But the afterimage still floated before Jon's eyes.

An actual Santelmo starship! Flying like in the old days!

Something was happening here. One did not normally see Santelmo freighters casually flying through space. As far as Jon knew, nobody had seen a Santelmo cruiser in three hundred years.

What the hell was going on?

I've come at a pivotal time in Bahay's history, Jon thought. The Santelmos must be fleeing. I hope Maria and Lily are okay.

"Look, there it is." Kaelyn pointed. "Do you see it, Jon? That light? That's the space station. According to what Etty told us, Maria and Lily are waiting there."

Jon turned on the Thunder's HUD, and holographic controls danced across the viewport. Jon tapped a few buttons, locked onto the space station, and zoomed in.

"I remember this place," he said. "Mother's Womb, we called it. The army built it during the war. I've never actually been there. I saw it from a distance a few times. It looks … different."

The military austerity was gone. Graffiti, sleazy posters, and neon signs covered the space station now, advertising bars, massage parlors, wrestling rings, strip clubs, casinos, and countless other dens of sin. Thousands of shuttles circled the starship like minnows around a whale carcass.

Looks like the Blue Boulevard found a new home, Jon thought.

He remembered what Etty had said. Maria worked in one of these seedy places. A stripper in a club named Toy Box. Years after the war, she was still a sex worker. Even now. Even with a daughter.

It ends today, Jon vowed. I'll save you from this life, Maria.

They flew toward Mother's Womb, navigating around the ships of bounty hunters, smugglers, merchants, and tourists. The Thunder circled the space station, seeking a place to dock.

Jon tried to ignore the planet below. Bahay was huge from here, filling half his view. Jon could see the blue oceans, the deep cobalt trenches, the azure lagoons and atolls, and the islands that rose everywhere. The islands looked considerably less green than he remembered.

He looked away. There were too many bad memories down there.

According to Etty, Maria was waiting in the space station. Thank God. For now, Jon didn't need to land on the planet itself.

But I will, he thought. I have to face him. Papa Dominus. And he's down there. After I find Maria and Lily, I must find him. I will kill him or die trying.

His throat tightened. He tore his gaze away from Bahay and stared at the space station.

"Where to dock, where to dock?" he muttered.

Docking stations covered Mother's Womb. Some were proper docking bays with airlocks and hangars. Most were simply crude piers that stuck out from the station like jet bridges, leading to brothels and bars. The Bahayans must have kludged those onto the station, allowing tourists easy access to their places of business. They looked liable to rip free under a gust of solar wind, exposing the station to the vacuum of space. Some of those jet bridges were barely more than tarp stretched over a metal frame.

The Thunder glided by lurid neon signs, some misspelled. None seemed particularly welcoming.

PUSSYCAT CLUB DELUX

CHEEP LOANS! NO CREDIT NO PROBLEM!

MASSAGE PALACE: HAPPIEST MASSAGE IN SPACE

SULTAN'S HAREM: HOOKAHS & HOOKERS

THE YUM CLUB: PIZA BURGORS GIRLS

COCKS AND CURS: COCK FIGHTS, DOG FIGHTS, EVERY NITE!

PENTHOUSE PARADISE: YOU'RE SECRETS ARE SAFE

Jon sighed. "None of these look exactly like nice family hotels."

Kaelyn shrugged. "What's wrong with Sultan's Harem: Hookahs & Hookers?"

"Aside from the rampant STDs and drooling drug addicts, I'm sure it's lovely."

"Ooh, look!" Kaelyn pointed. "The Bowtie Boys! A male strip club, and they have a room to rent! Let's go, let's go!"

"We're not docking at a male strip club, Kaelyn."

She pouted. "Oh, you prude." But then she sighed, and her voice softened. "Maria works in a place like this?"

"She was a bargirl down on the planet when I met her," Jon said. "She's a bargirl now in this station."

"What does a bargirl do?" Kaelyn said. "Just serves drinks? Or …"

"Bargirls do a bit of everything," Jon said. "They stand outside bars, often not wearing very much, to attract patrons. Yes, they pour drinks. They earn a commission on those. They dance. They flirt. Sometimes they strip. Sometimes they have sex for money."

"So they're prostitutes," Kaelyn said. Her voice was dry.

Jon could hear what she did not say aloud. My husband has a child with a prostitute.

"They have no choice," Jon said. "Many are war orphans. We Earthlings burned their villages. Killed their parents. They ended up coming to Mindao, half-starved, looking for work. The young pretty ones became bargirls."

"And if they were not young and pretty?"

Jon sighed. "They did what they could. They begged on the streets. They stole. They ate garbage. Many died. It's not easy for any woman on Bahay. It's not easy for anyone."

"And now all this misery moved up to the stars," Kaelyn said.

"That's why we're here," Jon said. "We can't save them all. You know Earth is strict about letting in refugees. Visas are tough to come by, even refugee visas."

"So we can't bring Maria and Lily back to Earth?" Kaelyn said softly.

"I don't know," Jon said. "Maybe not. If I were married to Maria, maybe we could get a visa. But …" He sighed. "If I tell the authorities that she's a prostitute, well … there are countless prostitutes here with half-Earthling babies. Thousands and thousands."

If I were married to Maria.

The words echoed in his mind.

I did marry her. A mock ceremony, yes. Just Charlie pretending to be a priest with a painted on mustache. But to us, it was real. Is it still real to Maria?

He had never told Kaelyn that part. He didn't know how to.

"Etty will help." Kaelyn nodded. "Etty works for the Dust of Life."

The Dust of Life. A charity that helped mestizos, the children of Earthling men and Bahayan woman. Yes, Etty would help. If anyone could get Maria and Lily a visa to Earth, it was Etty.

"Let's find Maria and Lily first," Jon said. "Let's make sure they're okay. That they have a place to sleep. A safe place. That they have food. That they're healthy, free from disease, drugs, and sex tourists. Once they're safe, we'll let Etty do her magic. She'll help fill out paperwork. Cut through the red tape. Bug the right people. It can take months, even years. But Etty knows what she's doing. And sometimes the mestizos, known as the dust of life, get special humanitarian visas."

"Will Maria get one too?" Kaelyn said softly. "Or just Lily?"

"I don't know. But I won't separate a child from her mother. We return to Earth with Lily and Maria."

Kaelyn was silent for a long moment. "Jon." Her voice was strained. "Maybe we should have talked about this earlier. Planned this out better. Where will Maria live on Earth? She won't …" She glanced at Jon. "She won't live with us, will she?"

"No!" Jon laughed. "Of course not. But maybe … maybe nearby. Is that okay, Kaelyn? Near enough that I can be a dad to Lily?"

Kaelyn nodded, eyes damp, and smiled. She patted his knee. "Of course. And … hey, if Maria needs a place to crash for a few weeks, until she finds a job on Earth, we have a spare bedroom." She laughed. "I can't believe I invited the prostitute my husband knocked up to stay in my spare bedroom. Where my mother stays when she comes to visit. You do know I'm an amazing wife, right?"

"I've always known," Jon said and kissed her.

But something about Kaelyn's words bugged him.

The prostitute my husband knocked up.

Jon didn't like that description. Maria was more than that. Their relationship had been more than that.

Maria is an amazing, loving woman, he thought. She's an angel in hell. She was there for me when my world was falling apart. I fell in love with her. I still love her. Even now. I love her always. She's not just some prostitute I knocked up. She's the love of my life.

A lump filled his throat. He could speak none of that aloud. It was not fair to Kaelyn, and maybe Kaelyn would never understand.

And maybe, Maria … if I knew you were alive, maybe I never would have married Kaelyn at all. I would have married you.

That was a horrible thought. Guilt filled Jon for even thinking it. Kaelyn was his muse! His angel of music! His soprano who gave voice to his music! How could he think this? It was Kaelyn who was the love of his life!

Jon had been away for years, but he had never forgotten Maria's dark eyes. Her bright smile. Her silky hair flowing between his fingers. Her courage and kindness. And he knew that no matter how many songs he wrote, how many songs Kaelyn sang, no matter how hot his fire burned for Kaelyn, and it burned as bright as a supernova … he knew that it was Maria. It had always been Maria. The moon to his sun. The light to his darkness. The great blazing love of his eternal life.

"How about that one?" Kaelyn said, interrupting his thoughts. She pointed at a neon sign. "Starview Hotel. Looks decent enough."

Jon blinked, pulling himself back to the present. He saw the sign. It hung outside an upper deck, bright yet unassuming. Starview Hotel. He saw no neon bargirls swaying their luminous hips. No rude graffiti. No posters promising cheap drugs, cheaper massages, or dwarf wrestling. It seemed as close to a family hotel as he'd find.

Vacancy available! announced a sign. Breakfast included.

They even had a real cargo bay. No need for a rickety tarp jet bridge, which Jon considered a big plus.

They docked the Symphonic Thunder. The clunky ship landed in the bay with a creaks and groans, scattering rust and a few loose screws.

"Hey, look!" Jon said. "The odometer just crossed a quadrillion kilometers!"

Kaelyn frowned. "It doesn't use light-years?"

Jon shook his head. "Remember, this ship was just built to fly within the solar system. She was never meant to fly in deep space. Come to think of it, it's a miracle we made it this far."

Kaelyn cringed. "Not comforting. We still need to get home somehow. Now help me with the suitcases."

The receptionist was a pretty young woman in a business suit. She greeted them with a million dollar smile.

"Welcome to Bahay, Earthling friends!" Her smile was so bright and blinding Jon practically squinted. "My name is Coco. Thank you for choosing Starview Hotel for your stay! May I help you with your luggage?"

Coco reached for the suitcases. The girl looked about ninety pounds soaking wet.

"I've got it," Jon said. "Thank you."

"Would you care for some refreshments?" said Coco. "Perhaps our famous noodle dish? How about shrimp caught fresh on the planet this morning? Maybe a bit of local ale? Our bar comes fully equipped!"

"Just a room please," Jon said.

"Of course, sir! All our rooms come with a splendid view of the stars. And every few hours, as the station spins around its axis, you'll be treated to a view of Bahay's sparkling blue oceans. Please be advised that we do not recommend actually flying down to the surface. Starview Hotel will not be held responsible for any imprisonment, re-education, untimely deaths, post-traumatic stress disorder, genetic damage, or suicidal thoughts suffered as a result of visiting the planet." Coco held out a clipboard, her smile never faltering. "Please sign this waiver."

I missed you, Bahay, Jon thought with a sigh. He signed the waiver.

Coco led them down the hallway, all the while chattering about the hotel's famous breakfast bar, their shuttle tours of Bahay's moons, and the local pay-per-view service, offering classic Earth movies.

"We offer a fully functional massage service, sir, ma'am, which I highly recommend. Though if you prefer to hire a third party masseuse, we do charge a hosting fee ranging from—"

"Just the room please," Jon said.

Coco, who probably worked for commissions, finally lost her smile. She stopped by the nearest door and opened it—a little too aggressively.

"Here you go, sir, ma'am."

Jon paid her a handsome tip. "Thank you, Coco."

She counted the dollar bills and her smile returned. "Thank you, sir!" She leaned a little closer. "Sir … one more thing." Coco's cheeks flushed, and her eyes darted nervously. "You're an Earthling. You look like a veteran. Do you know Chris Bennett? He was a corporal in the war. Rama Sappers Brigade."

"I'm sorry, no," Jon said.

Coco nodded and wiped tears from her eyes. "If you see Chris Bennett from Rama Brigade, tell him I'm here. That his Coco and son are waiting."

Cheeks red, the hostess fled down the hallway. Maria was far from the only woman here waiting for her Earthling to return.

They settled down in their room. It was nice, overall. Not a luxury hotel by any means. But comfortable. The bed was shaped like a heart. A plastic rose rested on the pillow. A bath stood beside the bed, right there in the open. A bottle of wine and two glasses waited on a table beside it. It was just a regular ceramic bath, but apparently, this was the closest the hotel could get to a hot tub.

The real draw was the view. Jon had to admit it was rather lovely. The spiral arm of the Milky Way shone outside.

They sat on the bed.

"Well, here we are!" Jon said. "We survived seventeen days crammed together in a tiny little spaceship."

Kaelyn grinned. "Now we get to spend time crammed together in a tiny hotel room!"

Jon raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? We have a whole station to explore! Midget wrestling, lady boxing, cock fights!"

"I think I'll pass," Kaelyn said. "Though I might check out those male strippers." She winked.

Jon laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.

Maria is here. In this station. So close.

The image flashed before him again. Four years ago. The bombs raining on Mindao. The fire washing over her.

But you survived, Maria. You're here. So close.

Jon stood up. "I'm going to look for her."

Kaelyn rose too, eyes soft. "Jon. You don't want to take a shower, get something to eat first?"

He shook his head. "No. Stay here, Kaelyn. Order room service. Relax if you can. The rest of this station is dangerous. If it's anything like the Blue Boulevard, it's full of pickpockets—and worse. Keep the door locked. Keep your gun near you. And wait for me."

Kaelyn nodded, eyes damp. "Okay. I'll wait. Go find her, Jon."

They shared a quick hug. And then Jon left the room, lips tight, fists tingling at his sides.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The White Dress

Maria danced on stage, an angel trapped in a neon dream.

She swayed, wearing a pink bikini and high heels. The lights glittered all around her like stars. The other girls danced. Dipped. Swayed. Shimmied. They leaned forward seductively, they licked their lips, they blew kisses, they gripped men's hearts and reeled them in. The lights shone, a sea of lavender and purple stars, and the hintan smoke wafted, the color of bruises.

Wine flowed. Hookahs bubbled. Maria did not drink nor smoke, but she could not help but inhale the fumes, and her head swam.

She was number seventeen. The number was pinned to her breast. She was no longer Maria. She was no longer a soul. She was just a number. She was a pink bikini and high heels and breasts and thighs for men to ogle, to grab. She was a mother. She was a refugee. She was a wife. She was a bargirl.

And so she danced.

Because being a war heroine did not pay the bills. Saving refugees did not put food on the table. She danced and they tossed her pesos. And later tonight, the men would bid. And the highest bidder would take number seventeen into a room upstairs. He would fuck her. Film her. Hurt her. Have his way with her. He would toss crumpled, sweaty pesos onto her naked body. He would leave her. And Maria would feed her daughter tonight.

"But this will not be your fate, Lily," Maria whispered to her daughter that night. "You will have a better life than this. You will not become a bargirl. You'll live on Earth. You'll grow up with two loving parents. You'll be everything I could not be."

Lily hugged her. "I love you, Mommy. I can't wait for Daddy to come for us. I can't wait to see Earth. I love you."

Maria fed the girl, read her a story, then returned to the Toy Box. She pulled off her cloak, revealing her red bikini and heels. She danced again.

The smoke from hookahs wafted, and that old warmth filled her head, warm rivers, warm winds, cradling her mind. A warm blanket pulled over pain. A soft mother's wing, until the pain was just a throbbing stone wrapped in cotton, and you could barely feel it at all. You could barely feel anything.

Maria swayed on her high heels, and a dozen girls swayed around her. She was number seventeen. She tilted her head back, and she gazed upon the sparkling lights all around. She ignored the men who cheered. Who reached out. Who tossed pesos at her feet. She squinted until she saw only the lights, and she could imagine that they were the stars. That she floated among them. And she imagined that among these stars she could see a ship, white and pure. A ship that brought her husband back. A ship to take her home.

"Maria!" A voice through the fog. "Maria, are you here?"

She looked down from the lights on the ceiling. She blinked, bringing the world back into focus. Once more, she stood in the Toy Box, a little club on deck C. She paused from dancing—a petite Bahayan woman, bruises on her slender limbs, makeup hiding the bags under her eyes. Another prostitute among the tens of thousands of them.

"Hey, baby, why you stop dancing?" cried a man from the audience, a burly spacetrucker from Earth.

"Hey, number seventeen! You come up to my room tonight, right? Twenty pesos in it for you. Bring a friend."

"Dance, slit slut!" A man tossed a beer bottle at her feet. "Dance for us, don't stop!"

But Maria looked over their heads. A man was shoving his way through the crowd.

Jay Jay!

"Maria!" he called, beckoning urgently.

Maria rushed off stage. The men booed, laughed, and threw bits of food and paper after her. Maria ignored them. She raced around the tables, still in her bikini and high heels. Blessedly, the men ignored her. It was shadowy down here, and there were plenty of beautiful girls still dancing on stage.

Maria reached the back of the bar. "Jay Jay! What's wrong?"

"Maria." He held her hands. "We need to talk."

The music was pounding. They had to practically yell to be heard. They entered a dressing room behind the bar. Other bargirls were here in various states of undress, putting on makeup, putting on fake smiles. Jay Jay and Maria stepped into a corner—it was the most private place they would find here in the Toy Box.

"What is it, Jay Jay?" Her heart fluttered. "Is it …" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Is it news of Jon?"

"You know how I check the docking logs every day, right?" Jay Jay said. "Well, a ship docked today. At the Starview Hotel. A ship from Earth."

Maria's heart trembled. Ships from Earth were common. She tried to tame her excitement. "And did you check the manifest?"

Jay Jay nodded. His eyes dampened. He could not speak for a moment, then finally found his voice. "It's Jon."

Maria turned and ran.

"Maria, wait!" Jay Jay called after her. "There's something else, I—"

But Maria didn't listen. She raced through the club, ignoring the drunkards who reached out to grope her. She burst from the Toy Box into a corridor. She ran on her heels, wearing nothing but her bikini. It didn't matter how she looked. She needed to find him now. To hug her husband. To weep. To finally be with him again. She kicked off her heels and ran barefoot, smiling as her tears fell and her heart fluttered.

But she did not run straight to Jon.

She ran to her shanty first. To that little, humble home in Skid Bottom, a cube of plywood nestled between the garbage bins and portable washrooms. Lily was at school now. The shanty was empty.

Fingers shaking, Maria opened her cardboard box.

Inside lay her white dress.

The dress she had worn that night in the Go Go Cowgirl. A teenage refugee in the big city, freshly arrived from the provinces, fleeing her burning village. A bargirl on her first night, her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The dress she had met Jon in.

Throughout the years, through war and tragedy, she had safeguarded it. Mended it. Kept it for this day. Now Maria put on that old white dress. She fastened her father's knife to her belt, the knife with the antler hilt. She looked at herself in the mirror.

She was no longer that innocent girl, fresh from the provinces, gazing wide-eyed at the city lights. Years of war had aged her. Hardened her. Not physically, maybe. She had no wrinkles, no white hairs. She could probably still pass for a teenager. They said Bahayans aged well, and maybe that was true. But there was something very old and broken in her eyes now. All their light was gone.

But Jon would light it again.

A tear rolled down Maria's cheek. She nodded.

She turned and left the shanty. In her white dress, she headed through the station toward the Starview Hotel.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Maria's Discovery

Kaelyn stood in the hotel room, feeling trapped, feeling alone. Too anxious to sit down. To read. To do anything. She paced, nervousness gnawing inside her. She walked toward the window again, gazed down at planet Bahay, at those blue oceans and burnt islands. She turned away. She paced some more, waiting for Jon. Waiting to meet the little girl he had fathered. Waiting to meet the woman he had fallen in love with.

The woman he still loved.

Why am I here? Kaelyn thought. She felt so confused. So afraid. She had not wanted this, but the war still haunted Jon, and the war had haunted their marriage all these years. These years of miscarriages and pain. Of music and stardom. Years of Jon waking up from nightmares, screaming. Calling Maria's name. When Kaelyn had taken Jon into her life, she had taken all those ghosts too. The woman he had loved. The people he had killed. The friends he had watched die. All of them had always been silent ghosts in their marriage.

And Kaelyn sometimes wondered. If she had made a mistake. If she should never have married him. Maybe she should have run. Become a solo musician. Lived a solo life.

But she loved him.

She had loved him throughout the war as he fought in the jungles, as she fought to bring him home.

She had loved him as he languished in prison, a war hero in chains.

She had loved him as he wrote songs for Maria, love songs that Kaelyn herself had to sing on stage.

Through all of this, Kaelyn had loved him. And she prayed that now this pain would end. That their hearts could mend. That they could banish the ghosts or revive them from the dead.

A knock came on the door.

Kaelyn jolted.

"Come in!" she said.

The door opened. A young Bahayan woman stepped in, wearing a white dress. Petite. Pretty. So many of them were.

No wonder Jon likes them so much, Kaelyn thought with a sudden surge of jealousy. Petty, she knew.

The pretty young Bahayan looked at Kaelyn questioningly.

"Oh, it's all right!" Kaelyn smiled. "I don't need room service."

The young woman blinked. "I'm not the maid."

Kaelyn took a closer look.

Oh God.

Kaelyn's heart burst into a flutter.

She had seen the photo. Of course.

"Maria," she whispered. "It's you, isn't it? You're Maria."

Maria closed the door and hurried into the hotel room. "Jon!" She looked around wildly, then back at Kaelyn. "Is Jon Taylor here? Is this his room?"

Kaelyn took a shaky breath. Her hands were trembling.

"He went to find you, but he'll be back soon, I'm sure," Kaelyn said. "He's been looking forward to meeting you." She reached out her hand for Maria to shake. "I'm Kaelyn Taylor, Jon's wife."

Maria stared at the proffered hand.

She looked up into Kaelyn's eyes.

She took a step back.

"What?" Maria whispered.

Kaelyn's smile faded. "You didn't know … Etty didn't tell you, did she?"

Maria stared back, silent. Tears filled her eyes. She began to shake.

"His wife?" she whispered, face going pale.

"Oh God," Kaelyn said, "I'm sorry! I thought you knew."

She stepped closer to Maria.

And Maria snarled. A snarl like a wild animal. Her eyes blazed. She bared her teeth.

"That's impossible!" she cried. "Jon married me. He married me! I'm his wife. You can't be. You can't …" Her eyes dampened.

"Maria." Kaelyn forced herself to speak softly, kindly. "After the war, Jon thought you were dead. He loved you. He missed you. But he didn't know you survived."

"You're not his wife," Maria whispered, trembling. "You can't be."

Kaelyn forced a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Maria. But he married me, not you." She sighed. "That sounded too harsh. I'm sorry. Maria, I've heard a lot about you. I'm actually happy I got to meet you like this, just the two of us. I know this is hard. I can't imagine how you feel, but—"

"Tell me you're lying," Maria whispered.

Kaelyn closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath, then opened them. "Maria, I—"

"You're lying!" Maria shouted—a hoarse cry. "You're lying, you're lying! Jon is my husband! He loves me. He married me! You're lying!"

A tear fled Kaelyn's eye. "Maria. I'm so sorry."

Maria took a shuddering breath. A sob fled her lips. "I …" She turned around. She shook. "I thought he came back to marry me again. For real this time. With a real priest. I thought he would take me and our child to Earth. I thought …" She wept. "I thought he loved me."

She fell to her knees and buried her face in her palms.

Kaelyn knelt beside her. She hesitantly touched the weeping woman's shoulder. Her own heart ached, and her own tears fell.

"Jon and I will financially support you and Lily," Kaelyn said. "We already talked about that. We'll do whatever we can to give Lily a good life."

Maria looked up at Kaelyn.

Kaelyn inhaled sharply. Her heart skipped a beat.

Maria looked ravaged. Haunted. Bloodless. She looked like a woman who had survived a horrible trauma that had hollowed her insides. She seemed to have aged a decade in moments.

"You must take Lily with you," Maria whispered, not blinking, tears on her cheeks. "You must take Lily from me. You must take her to Earth. You must be a mother to her instead of me."

"Maria!" Kaelyn said. She let out a sound halfway between sob and laugh. "Maria, I can't separate a child from its mother!"

"You must!" Maria shouted, hoarse, eyes red. She was trembling again. "You must. Say you will. Say you will! Lily can't stay here. What future does she have here? Here in Mother's Womb, Lily would grow up to be like me. A bargirl. A prostitute. That's the only thing she can become here. Please. Please! I'm begging you. Take her. Take her from me. Adopt her. Take her to Earth."

"Maria, Lily is yours! I can't—"

"I'll get her now!" Maria said, rising to her feet. "She's at school. I'll get Lily. You can take her. You can raise her on Earth. She'll become a doctor. A lawyer. An artist. Not a bargirl. Oh god, not a bargirl. You'll take her, right? You and Jon."

"Maria!" Kaelyn held the other woman's hands. "Listen, we'll pay for Lily's education here in Mother's Womb. There are schools here—that's good! We'll support her. Jon and I are both on the same page here. We can stay as long as we need to. Lily will remain with you, and—"

"No!" Maria screamed. "You can't! Lily can't stay here. You don't understand. Jon will! Jon will understand." She could barely speak. She was weeping so powerfully,. "I'll find Jon. He'll understand. You can't! You'll never understand. Jon! Jon, where are you? Jon!"

She fled the room.

Kaelyn fell onto her bed, trembling, crying.

"Jon," she whispered. "Oh God, Jon, where are you? Where are you?"

Kaelyn closed her eyes, hugged her knees, and wept.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Kaelyn's Choice

Kaelyn sat alone on the bed in her little hotel room. She sat with her knees pressed together, her hands clasped on her lap. She felt empty.

He loves her. My husband still loves her.

Jon wasn't back yet. Kaelyn sat here alone. But she knew the truth.

Maria is the love of Jon's life.

Finally Kaelyn rose. She gazed out the porthole into space. Toward distant Earth.

Suddenly it all seemed like such a joke. Singing in Jon's band. Touring the world with him. Marrying him. A joke.

"For years, you woke up at night, calling her name," Kaelyn whispered to the stars. "For years, you never forgot her face. I called her a prostitute that you knocked up. I was so wrong. She's the woman you love. The woman you've always loved. And I stood there on your stage, singing the love songs you wrote her." She shook her head, laughing bitterly, tears on her cheeks. "I was such a fool."

But she understood.

Maria had been there for Jon during the hardest time of his life.

Maria had seen horrors Kaelyn could not imagine. Horror Jon had seen too.

Maria had survived the war with Jon.

"I can love you with all my heart, Jon," Kaelyn whispered to the stars. "I can sing your songs, and I can be your wife, but I can never be what she is. I can never understand what you experienced. I can never understand Bahay. And Bahay is in you forever. And Bahay is in her. I'll always be on the outside, looking in."

She sat on the bed. She placed her hands on her lap. She waited for Jon to return.

* * * * *

Jon barged into the Toy Box, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding.

"Maria!" he called.

No one heard him. The electronic dance music was pounding. The lights were flashing. The hintan smoke was wafting. Men sat at tables, most of them Earthlings. They were drinking, cheering, and tossing dollars and pesos onto a stage.

Twenty-odd bargirls swayed on that stage, dancing on high heels. Beams of purple and white light flashed above them. Smoke wafted around their weary feet. Their eyes were glassy, dulled by shabu. Some of the girls wore bikinis. Others wore nothing. Numbers were painted onto their bellies. Other bargirls were moving among the tables, serving drinks, flirting, smoking hookahs. Tonight they would all bring Earthlings into their beds.

A typical bar. One among countless here in Mother's Womb. Once these places had served soldiers along the Blue Boulevard. Today they served tourists, and they flowed with money.

Maria has been trapped here for years, Jon thought. But it ends now.

"Maria!" he called out again.

Was she one of the girls on stage? It was hard to see through the smoke and flashing lights. He walked closer, seeking her. No. None of them were Maria. It had been a few years, but Jon would recognize her instantly.

"Jon?" A voice from behind him—a man's voice. "Mister Jon Taylor?"

Jon spun around. His eyes widened. It was a burly Bahayan man, his hair slicked back, his goatee perfectly trimmed. He wore a purple leisure suit and golden chains. Aside from some white streaking his temples, he had not changed.

"The Magic Man?" Jon said, frowning.

Yes, it was him! The pimp from the Go Go Cowgirl! Maria's pimp!

The Magic Man held out his arms, golden bracelets jingling. "Mister Jon, it is you! You're back!"

Jon gripped the man's shoulders. "Magic Man, where is Maria?"

"She's been waiting for you all this time, you know!" The Magic Man wagged his finger. "Naughty, naughty, Mister Jon, taking so long to come back. But I understand. The galaxy is full of lovely women. Still, I assure you, we have the finest, most beautiful women here in the Toy Box. If you would like a girl tonight, I can—"

"Where is Maria?" Jon shook him. "Tell me, dammit!"

The Magic Man pulled himself free, smoothed his purple suit, and raised his chin. He cleared his throat. "Okay then. Rude and to the point. Earthlings are like that. Maria heard your ship docked here. Heard you were staying at the Starview Hotel. She went to look for you. Now—if you'd like to relax for a while, maybe have a cold drink, hire a girl, I can—"

Jon didn't wait to hear the rest. He ran out the Toy Box.

He raced through the station. It was a large station. The hotel lay on the other side.

Jon elbowed his way through the crowd. A group of tourists were ambling down the corridor, holding margaritas. Their Hawaiian shirts barely hid their potbellies, and petite bargirls clung to their arms, looking like timid flamingos by flamboyant hippos. A local orphan boy, wearing a ragged tunic, plucked a wallet from one of the portly tourists. He fled down the corridor as the red-cheeked tourist roared. A few scaly aliens slithered by, clicking and hissing to one another. Weapons rose across their backs like porcupine quills. Drunken frat boys raced down the corridor, pulling their friends in a stolen rickshaw. They had come from Earth for spring break, seeking cheap drugs, cheaper bargirls, and general mayhem. The rickshaw runner ran after them, shaking his fist, cursing in Tagalog. A Bahayan woman leaped back, knocked over a bamboo cage, and chickens fled and fluttered everywhere. One of the scaly aliens grabbed a fleeing chicken in its jaws and chomped.

Jon ran by them all. He ran by hundreds of establishments that filled the cabins where marines had once lived. A restaurant serving fresh clams from Bahay. A hintan den where people—Bahayans and Earthlings alike—lounged on divans, smoking hookahs, their eyes glazed over. A shop that sold exotic alien pets in cages, jars, and aquariums. A feline fortune teller with glowing eyes, holding a deck of tarots. A fighting pit where a pair of aliens, reptilian and shelled, snapped at each other as onlookers cheered and roared and placed bets. Jon ran through the phantasmagoria, heading to the hotel.

Finally, winded and sweating, he burst into his room at the Starview Hotel.

Kaelyn was there, sitting on the bed, waiting.

Maria wasn't there.

And Kaelyn was sitting very still, not looking at him.

"Kaelyn?" He approached slowly. Carefully.

She looked up at him. "Hello, Jon."

Jon sat beside her. "What's wrong?"

"She was here." Kaelyn looked out the porthole, face blank. "Maria was here, looking for you."

Jon closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"I don't know. Are you all right?"

Kaelyn nodded. A tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm fine. I just didn't realize that you married her."

"I—" Jon closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He nodded. "Kaelyn, I was eighteen. I was scared. I was fucking scared. It wasn't a real wedding."

"But you loved her," Kaelyn said. "She wasn't just some prostitute who comforted you for a night. You truly loved her. And … you still love her."

"Dammit, Kaelyn!" He stood up. "I was eighteen. My best friends died on the hill just a few days earlier. I thought I was going to die too. I was terrified. I was fucking terrified and broken and I had killed people and held people who were dying. And she was there! In that whole fucking war, in that world that was burning, that was falling apart, in that nightmare, that fever dream—she was there!" Tears stung his eyes. "She brought me back from the abyss. She was the one good thing in hell. Yes, I loved her!" He was shouting now. "I loved her like a thousand burning blazing stars. I loved her more than I love music, more than I love life, I loved her more than I thought it was possible to love. I loved her more than I was afraid. I loved her, Kaelyn, more than I hated her people." He took a shaky breath. "But that doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean our marriage isn't valid."

Kaelyn laughed bitterly. "Oh, our marriage is valid? Good to know we're valid. Maria is a thousand burning blazing stars, and I'm valid."

"Okay, poor choice of words."

Kaelyn stood up. "Jon! She thinks she's married to you. Do you understand? Maria thinks she's married to you!"

"Did you tell her?" Jon said softly. "About us?"

"I told her," Kaelyn said. "That's I'm your wife. And she … she went crazy. She sobbed. She shouted. I … I was scared. Jon, she tried to give me her child. To convince me to adopt Lily. To take Lily to Earth, while she remains here."

"What?" Jon paced the room. "Why would she do that?"

"Because she's scared, Jon!" Kaelyn rose to her feet. "Look around you. Look at this place! Look what happens to girls here. She's scared that Lily will become a prostitute. She wants us to adopt her!"

"That's crazy," Jon said. "Maria is her mother. We can't just … just take the girl from her. I haven't even met Lily yet."

"I know, Jon! I know. It's all crazy." Kaelyn began to shake, to cry. "I don't know what to do, Jon. I don't know what to do! I'm scared. I miss home. What do we do? What do I do?"

Jon took a deep breath. "Kaelyn, just hug me for a moment. Okay? Just for a moment, hug me."

Kaelyn hugged him. Jon wrapped his arms around her. They stood in silence for long moments.

"Kaelyn," Jon finally said. "I love you. I love you truly, fully. Not as a scared eighteen-year-old boy. I love you as a man. As a husband. You're my wife, and that won't change."

"And what of Lily?" Kaelyn said. "She's your daughter."

Jon took a few deep breaths, composing himself. He walked toward the porthole. He gazed outside for a long while. He looked at the stars, at the strange constellations of this alien sky. He tried to find Earth but could not. Earth's sun was just another star from here, lost in the multitude.

Jon would miss it.

He turned back toward Kaelyn.

"You won't like this," Jon said. "But … we can stay here. We can live in this very hotel room. The rates are cheaper than our mortgage on Earth. I'll support Lily financially. I'll homeschool her if the schools here are no good. When she's old enough, she can choose her own path. Maybe move to Earth, if Etty can help her get a visa. For now, Lily needs to stay with Maria. And I need to stay with Lily." He held Kaelyn's hands. "Stay with me here, Kaelyn. Be my wife—here on this station. I know it would be hard. It's a big ask. If you want to leave me, divorce me, return to Earth—I understand. You would break my heart, but I'd understand. I—"

"I'll stay," Kaelyn said. "I'll stay with you here. On a fast starship, it's a month to Earth and back. I'll visit home at Christmas. Then I'll come back, and I'll be your wife here in this hotel room. Until we sort out the visa situation. Or until Lily is old enough to live on her own, and we're sure she's okay. We'll do what we can for Lily. We're doing this for her."

"See?" Jon said. "A solution. That way you and I remain married. Maria and Lily remain together. And I can be a father to Lily. So … hey, we can't all move to Earth. Not with refugees being turned back. But we can live here. We can build a life here."

Kaelyn pulled him back into her arms. "It's not perfect. But since when is life perfect?"

"I'll go find Maria," Jon said. "I'll go tell her. She'll understand."

Chapter Thirty-Five

Maria's Sacrifice

Maria walked to her daughter's school.

She knocked on the classroom door.

A classroom? Nothing but a little shanty. A rundown box on Skid Bottom. Inside—many children, crowded together, impossible to count. They were practically one on top of the other. All skinny. All hungry.

There were no books, just one tired, overworked teacher. A refugee of the burning rice paddies, she could not read or write. Nor could she hold chalk with her arthritic fingers. She sang old songs of the paddies, eyes lost in memory. The children sat on the floor, playing with straw dolls, ignoring the old woman.

Maria closed her eyes.

She imagined a school on Earth. Like in the movies. A school with painted walls, not rotting plywood. A school with desks for the children, not a dirty floor. With a blackboard. An apple for the teacher. With shelves full of books. A school where Lily could learn letters, numbers, science. A world where Lily could be anything she wanted to be. Not just a bargirl or scavenger. A world where Lily could be everything Maria was not.

Maria opened her eyes.

She was back in Mother's Womb. Back in this realm of poverty, hunger, sex, drugs, despair.

"Mommy?" Lily ran toward her. "Mommy, why are you here? It's early!"

Maria smiled and pulled her daughter into her arms. "I know it's early. But we're going somewhere special today, Lily. Your dad has come back. And he'll take you to Earth."

Lily's eyes widened. She gasped. "Daddy came back for us?"

"He came back for you, sweetie," Maria said. "Come on! Let's go pack your bag!"

Lily leaped for joy. She hopped onto Maria's back, and Maria carried her to their shanty.

Another place of despair. Another rotting box, smaller than Jon's hotel room. Yet twenty people lived here, crammed inside, filthy, hungry. Always hungry.

Maria saw a house on Earth. Jon's house. She could imagine it. A house with white walls and a red tiled roof. Like in the movies. A house with a yard and flowers and trees around it. A good house for Lily. A house where Lily could grow up happy. Grow up with opportunities.

They packed Lily's bag. A teddy bear. A blanket. A ragged dress. It was all the girl owned. Maria added Crisanto to the pack too. The alien was sleeping, wrapped in a blanket. He would be a good protector to Lily.

Goodbye, Crisanto, Maria thought, and a tear splashed the pack. You were always there for me. Now Lily needs you more than I do.

Maria added a last item to the backpack. A photo of them together. Mother and daughter, holding each other.

They walked through the station, hand in hand.

As they walked, Lily chattered on and on about Earth. About the trees. About the puppies she'd adopt. About the new school she'd go to, and the friends she'd make.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Maria asked.

"An animal doctor," Lily said. "So I can help animals if they're sick, or if they have boo-boos."

Maria laughed and wiped her eyes. "You can be an animal doctor. On Earth, you can be whatever you want. You won't have to be like me."

"But I love you, Mommy."

"I love you too, sweetie. Always. No matter what happens. Remember that, okay? Remember that no matter what. That your mommy loves you forever."

They reached Starview Hotel. They paused outside the doors.

Maria knelt, holding her daughter at arm's length.

"Mommy?" Lily asked. "Are you okay?"

Maria nodded. "Let me just look at you." She smiled, tears falling. "You're beautiful." She hugged her daughter, and letting go was the hardest thing she had ever done. "Go into the hotel, sweetie. Your dad is inside, waiting for you. I'll be with you. I'll always be with you. Run on to your dad."

"Aren't you coming, Mommy?"

"I'll be right there. Crisanto will be with you. Sleeping in your pack. Go on, sweetie."

Lily ran into the hotel, calling out, "Daddy, Daddy!"

Maria remained outside. She took a few steps away from the hotel.

A few cabins, barely more than alcoves, lined the hallway. Curtains made from sheets and tarp hid little homes and hovels. Maria found an empty room, probably the home of bargirls or squatters. There were a few needles on the floor. A few condom wrappers. But for now, the nook was hers. She pulled the curtain shut, hiding away from the rest of the station.

She closed her eyes and thought back to a night long ago. A night when she was only seventeen years old. The night the bombs had fallen. The night her village burned. The night her parents died.

That night, she had peeled a dagger off her father's burnt corpse, and she wandered the jungle, alone and afraid.

A dreamtoad came to her. An animal her people called panaginip palaka. A prophet.

"It will be the only way to save her," the dreamtoad told that frightened, teenage girl. "You must use his knife."

For years, Maria had wondered what the dreamtoad had meant. Who would this dagger save? And who would it stab?

For a while, Maria had thought the dreamtoad had talked about saving Charlie, maybe Pippi. That Maria was meant to stab Ernesto with this blade and save her friends. But none of those prophecies had come true.

And finally Maria understood.

With this dagger, I can save Lily. With this dagger, I must take my own life. With this dagger, I can save my daughter.

Maria drew the blade. She gazed at this beautiful ancestral weapon.

Jon can no longer marry me, Maria thought. He's married to Kaelyn. I cannot leave Bahay's orbit, or the crab will kill me. I cannot move to Earth. And Jon would never agree to return to Earth without me. He would never separate me and Lily.

There was only one way to save Lily.

Jon and Kaelyn had to adopt her. To take her to Earth. To raise her in their beautiful house and send her to a real school.

So long as I live, Maria thought, that's impossible.

She closed her eyes.

She had dreamed of this day for so long. Jon coming back to her. Confessing his love. Marrying her with a real priest. The crab releasing her heart. And then—the three of them, heading to Earth together.

A dream.

Just a dream that could never come true.

Not for me, Maria thought. But the dream can come true for Lily. The dreamtoad foresaw it. And he told me.

She had to hurry. Before Jon found her. Before he could stop her.

She placed the tip of the dagger against her breast. Right over her heart.

At least I'll take the crab with me, she thought.

Maybe she had died long ago. In many ways, her life had ended that night at seventeen. The night her parents had died. She had never survived that night. Not truly.

But she had seen some beautiful things since then. She had flown among the stars. She had explored the ocean depths and seen marvelous cities lost to time. She had fallen in love. She had given life.

My life was full, and I'm so grateful. Even with all the darkness, all the pain, I saw beautiful light. And I knew love. No life with love is ever wasted. And no life is so dark that love cannot make it beautiful.

Maria pressed the dagger into her chest.

It went in so smoothly. She barely felt a thing.

She lay down on the floor, blood flowing. She looked up but she did not see the ceiling of a space station cabin. She saw light. Pale, silvery light, warmer and kinder than the stars. And she could see them there. Her parents. Smiling at her. Waiting for her. Welcoming her home.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The Reunion

"Daddy!"

The little girl ran toward Jon, then paused. She looked at him, head tilted.

"Daddy?"

Jon and Kaelyn stood in the hotel lobby. They were just about to go out, to look for Maria across the space station. Now they stood frozen.

Jon stared at the little girl who stood in the lobby before him.

A young girl. Probably three or four years old. It was hard to tell. Bahayan children were so small. So skinny.

But was this girl Bahayan? She had her people's olive-toned skin, dark eyes, smooth black hair. But Jon saw something more. He saw himself. His ears. His mouth. His chin.

He knelt before her. It was the girl from the photograph. It was his girl.

"Lily?" he said.

She ran toward him, then paused a few inches away. She looked at her feet, shy. "Daddy, is that you?"

She was so beautiful. She was perfect.

Jon laughed. He hugged her. "Yes, Lily. It's me. It's your dad. I'm back. I came back for you and your mom. Where is she? Where's your mom?"

Lily pointed at the door. "Outside. Mommy said she'll be with me always. That you'll take me to Earth. And she'll be with us."

Jon frowned.

Something cold flooded his belly.

Oh God.

Kaelyn paled. She came closer and held Lily's hand. "Hi, Lily! My name is Kaelyn. I'm your mom's friend. Your dad is just going to talk to Mommy for a moment. Why don't you come look at the stars with me?"

Kaelyn took the girl to a porthole, where they looked at the view.

Jon stepped outside the lobby. He stood in the corridor.

Several cabins lined the hallway. During the war, they had been service rooms and closets, housing various military equipment. Now curtains hung from them, forming humble homes.

Blood was trickling from one cabin.

Jon pulled back the curtain and stepped inside.

He found her there. Maria lay on the deck, a knife in her chest.

"Maria!" Jon said, voice barely more than a whisper. He could not speak louder. He could barely breathe.

She was still alive. Her eyelids fluttered. The blade must have just missed her heart. But there was a lot of blood.

Jon knelt beside her. "Oh God, Maria, what have you done?"

She smiled weakly. "Jon."

He pulled her into his arms, trembling, weeping. "Call an ambulance!" he shouted out the cabin, hoping somebody heard. "Or a medic! Whatever they have here, get one!"

Coco, the receptionist from the hotel, rushed toward the cabin, looked inside, then fled to call a doctor.

Jon held Maria in his arms. "It's all right, Maria. You'll be all right. You'll heal. You'll be okay."

"Jon," she whispered. "Do you remember that night? The night we met?"

He wept. His tears splashed her. "I remember."

"I wore the same dress. I kept it for you, Jon. We danced, and we played cards, and we made love. That was the best night of my life."

"Mine too," he whispered, voice choked.

"I love you, Jon. I never stopped loving you. I love you more than I love Bahay. More than I love the memory of rustling trees and waves in the ocean, more than I love the stars and the sunlight on the mountains. I'll love you always. You're the love of my life, Jon. And it's been a good life."

"I love you too," Jon whispered. "I never stopped loving you."

"Do you remember how you played the piano for me in that little cafe, and everyone sang? Do you remember how we walked along the beach? We were happy, Jon, weren't we? We were happy that day."

He nodded. "I love you, Maria. Don't go. Don't leave me."

She reached up, smiling shakily. She caressed his cheek. Like she had so long ago in a little room above a bar on the best night of their lives.

Her hand fell.

Her eyes closed.

Her heart stilled.

Jon sobbed, holding her close.

No, Maria. No, don't leave me. Don't go. No. Maria. No. No … I love you, Maria. I love you, daughter of Bahay, angel of Earth. I love you now and always.

He held her lifeless body, his eyes closed, his heart forever broken.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Final Battle

Jon flew the Symphonic Thunder down to Bahay.

He felt hollow.

He felt numb.

He felt broken into ten million pieces.

But there was still something he had to do. For this planet. For his life. For the memory of Maria.

He had to end this war.

He flew here alone. He would not risk Kaelyn's life. He would not risk anyone else. He had taken only Crisanto with him. The Santelmo rested in his backpack, wrapped in cloth, still asleep. Jon wasn't sure why he had taken Crisanto on this quest. Maybe he felt he needed the alien's protection. Maybe it was simply a connection to Maria.

He dived through space, and a drum beat deep in his chest like a gunshot.

He plunged through the atmosphere, and a bomb burst in his memory, a great thunder.

He roared down through the clouds, and he heard a million bombs fall, the fire spread, his own gun rattling in his hands.

Boom. Boom. Boom. A drumbeat. A war beat. A new song forming in his mind even here, even now. His last song.

He gripped the yoke, hit the thruster, and roared over deep oceans, mangled shores, and burnt rainforests.

A voice spoke in his mind. Welcome home, son.

He had been fleeing this place. For years, he had been running from Bahay. Only for Bahay to haunt his nightmares. To fill his dreams, his days, his songs, his being. But Maria was gone. And his war had to end.

Military bases dotted the ravaged landscape. Ugly things of concrete and barbed wire. Banners hung from them, displaying inverted crosses on crimson fields. Anti-aircraft cannons bristled across the bases, but they did not fire upon the Symphonic Thunder.

He knows I'm coming, Jon thought. He's welcoming me.

He flew over Mindao. At least his navigational system told him this was Mindao. The city was unrecognizable.

The shantytowns, which had comprised most of the city, were gone. Bulldozed over. Razed.

Instead, concrete covered the land. Pavement crushed any growing thing. Barracks stood row by row. Soldiers marched. Banners billowed. Tanks and planes stood in neat formations. The city had become a military base. A world of asphalt, iron, and steel.

So much life—gone. The bustling Merkado Bayan, a bazaar of wonders, center of Bahay's commerce and gossip. The Blue Boulevard with all its forbidden delights. The seaside cafes and restaurants. The alleyways that snaked through the slums, brimming with colorful jeepneys, rickshaws, countless shops with bright awnings. Millions of people, suffering horrible poverty, but happy. Singing. Living. A culture. Gone.

All gone.

And Jon realized for the first time that he loved Mindao. When stationed here as a soldier, and when remembering the city as a veteran, he had thought Mindao so miserable, so sad. He remembered mostly the poverty. The beggars. The drugs and prostitution.

But now he remembered the children laughing. He remembered sitting in a cafe with Maria, playing "Hey Jude" on a grand piano, and how everyone had gathered around them and sung. He remembered kindly grandmothers standing under awnings, cooking savory stews, feeding anyone for whatever they could pay, even if it was only a smile. He remembered people dancing. Hugging. Swimming in the rivers and ocean. He remembered the smells, the colors, the beauty of this place.

Yes, Mindao had always been poor. But Jon had always judged it too harshly. Now, thinking back, it seemed to him a city of such beauty. Such goodness. In many ways, even as the war had raged, this city had been happier than most places on Earth. And he grieved for what was lost. For what it had become.

But some things remained. Saint Isidore's cathedral still rose here, the tallest building in the city.

Once it had been painted azure. The color of a summer sky. Now it was crimson, a shard of blood-red rising from a city of black and gray. Home of Papa Dominus. Jon flew the Symphonic Thunder toward it.

Outside the cathedral, Jon engaged his stabilizer thrusters. Air blasted from the ship, scattering dust across the pavement. The landing gear emerged, creaking and shedding rust, and the ship thumped down on its skids.

He stepped out of the starship.

He was wearing his old battlesuit. For years, he had kept it in a cardboard box in the attic. Now he wore it again. The armored plates were dented. Charred. Scratched. A few still had bullet holes in them. The blue paint was peeling, revealing the raw metal underneath. But Jon needed to wear this armor today. Today once more Jon was a soldier. And he would fight his last battle.

He wore dog tags around his neck. Not just his. But George's tags. Paul's tags. Lizzy's. Carter's. Buckey's. A bracelet of jingling metal tags. For those who had fallen.

On a second chain, he wore a little cross. Maria's amulet. He was not religious. If he had ever harbored any pious feelings, he had lost them in the foxholes. The fires of war had burned all that away. He did not wear this cross for faith. He wore it for Maria.

He stepped toward the cathedral, toward this final battle, not for himself. But for the fallen. And he knew they were with him.

He brought no gun. Guns were no use here. Across his back, he carried the Flame of Bahay, the sword his guru had forged in the Weaver Temple. This battle would not be won or lost with bullets—but with the light and shadows of the firmaments.

He walked up the steps of the cathedral.

Two inquisitors stood before him, blocking the doors. They wore crimson cloaks over dark armor. Iron masks hid their faces.

Jon walked up toward them.

They stared at him. They said nothing. They stepped aside and opened the doors.

Jon entered the cathedral.

He walked across the nave. It had become a gruesome place. Chandeliers of bones and skulls hung from the ceiling. More skulls covered the walls and columns. Everywhere—skulls. Tens of thousands of them. All of Papa's victims—displayed here, bleached, silently watching. As Jon walked through this gruesome gallery, he remembered Papa Dominus—back when he was the Red Cardinal—cutting off the heads off Earthling prisoners. Hurling the severed heads into Camp Apollo. The skulls in this cathedral were sanitized. Silent. But Jon still remembered the blood and screams.

At the back of the nave rose a throne of bones. A massive throne. Towering. A throne made from thousands of skeletons woven together. The skeletons were kept intact, but twisted, broken, skeletal hands clutching rib cages, clinging together. A hill of dead formed into the shape of a great chair.

Inquisitors surrounded the lurid construction. And upon this seat, gazing from on high, sat Papa Dominus.

He no longer wore his crimson cardinal vestments. He now wore a black robe across his frail frame, and a black mitre topped his head. A halo of fire crackled behind his head like a setting sun. With fingernails like claws, he clutched skulls on his armrests.

The outfit was different. The name was different. But this was the same creature who had stolen so many lives. That same vampire who had drained Carter of blood. The same creature who had been haunting Jon all these years.

"Hello, my son," said Papa Dominus. A pale, scaly tongue emerged from his mouth. He licked his small sharp teeth. Piranha teeth. "You've returned to me at last."

Jon stepped closer. His boots thudded against the black tiles. Strange figures moved inside those tiles. Trapped. Screaming silently. Begging to be released. Souls imprisoned in the stone.

"We must end what we began long ago," Jon said.

He kept advancing. Figures scuttled among the columns. Shadows. Hooded and robed men, bishops and cardinals and priests of evil, fangs in their mouths, inverted crosses hanging from their necks. Satanists and ghosts and vampires. They watched Jon walk by, hissing, whispering, sucking in the air, thirsty for blood, hungry for flesh. Here lurked the perverted clergy of this world.

Around Jon's neck, Maria's cross turned red. Heated. Twisted. It began to melt, dripping liquid metal down Jon's armor. Was even God fleeing this place? Was even God powerless before this evil?

But Jon kept walking. Kept advancing toward the demon on the throne.

Papa Dominus smiled. A cruel smile from ear to ear. A demon smile, splitting his head in half. Wings of fire spread from his back, filling the nave with red light and smoke.

"You will join me now, Jon Taylor." His voice was like ash fluttering over graves, like a wisp of winter trapped in a house that spring could not warm. "My descendant. My heir. This cathedral. This throne. This land of splendor. I will groom you to rule it. I will make you as I am. Come, drink my blood, and sit at my side."

Papa's eyes blazed with flame. Small, orange eyes. Demon eyes. Full of wretched mirth. They pierced the darkness, brighter than his halo or wings of fire. Two searing lights from hell.

Jon stopped walking. He stood in the center of the nave. "I've not come to join you!" His voice echoed through the dark hall. "I've come to kill you."

Papa leaned forward in his throne. His eyes narrowed. His smile inverted, tugging down his flesh, becoming a sagging slit, a bag of sharp teeth, a wretched, melting worm on his face. A voice fled the rotting gash, bubbling like tar from the deep.

"Then … you will die."

Papa stretched out his arms. Obscenely long arms. Three times the normal length, thin and spindly and tipped with claws. From behind his throne emerged inquisitors. Thirteen of them in red robes and armor, wielding electric batons shaped like inverted crosses.

They charged at Jon.

Standing in the center of the nave, Jon reached over his back. He grabbed his sword's hilt. He drew the blade.

The tattoo shone on his hand, blazing bright, blinding, brighter than it had ever shone. Papa saw and shrieked and leaned back in his throne.

"A rune, a rune!" he cried. "A weaver's rune!"

The blade thrummed. The Flame of Bahay ignited with furious silver light. A shard of starlight here in this place of shadows and fire.

The inquisitors roared and leaped to battle.

Jon swung his blade.

He was no swordsman. He had trained to fire guns, not wield blades. But the rune awoke something inside him. Knowledge flowed through his body—muscle memory from weavers past, ancestral instincts, deadly fluid grace. He swung the blade like a dancer, and he carved an inquisitor down. The blade seared through the man from collarbone to navel, through the pelvis, out the other side. It was like slicing through canned meat.

The halved man fell. The blade crackled and blazed, burning off the blood.

Jon was already swinging it again.

The blade sliced through a baton. And the hand wielding it. And the man's other hand. Blood sprayed, and Jon swung his blade to the other side, carving through a third man. The white-hot blade cauterized the wounds. The inquisitors fell in charred fragments, barely leaking any blood.

The other inquisitors, seeing their friends fall, kept their distance. They aimed their batons like rifles. Electric bolts flew.

A bolt slammed into Jon's chest, blazing across his armor. But his battlesuit absorbed the blow. Jon had modified the suit, lining its insides, so that it would not conduct electricity. He took a step toward the inquisitors. Another bolt hit him. A third. Each one knocked him back a step. But he kept advancing.

More bolts flew.

He swung his blade. The sword knew what to do. The Flame of Bahay parried the electric bolts, knocking them aside. Floor tiles shattered.

Jon ran toward his enemy, sword swinging.

Bolt after bolt hit his battlesuit. An armored plate tore off. A bolt hit Jon on his unexposed chest, agony spread through him, and he roared. His skin burned. He kept running, howled, and swung his blade downward. He sliced through a man's skull, splitting the head down the middle. He leaped forward. He thrust his sword, impaling an inquisitor, then swung the blade sideways, carving through another. The batons swung. One slammed into Jon's arm, cracking the armor. Another hit his helmet, ringing his head like a bell.

Jon fell to his knees.

A baton hit his shoulder, and he screamed.

He thrust the blade upward, impaling an inquisitor's chest.

He rose to his feet, thrust, parried a baton, swung the blade, carved another man down.

He fought in a blind fury. He fought even as the bolts hit him. He ignored the pain. He kept killing.

Finally he sliced the legs off the final man. The inquisitor fell, screaming, and Jon silenced him with a last swipe of the blade.

Jon stood there, burnt, panting, covered in ash and blood. Wounded but still standing.

Around him they spread. Thirteen dead inquisitors.

* * * * *

Languid clapping sounded from the throne.

Jon raised his eyes, staring through strands of damp hair. Papa Dominus sat on his throne, staring down at him.

"Wonderful. Wonderful display!" The satanic pope clasped his hands together. "Such bravura. You will make an excellent heir."

Jon ran at him, sword raised.

Papa Dominus leaped from his throne. Wings of fire spread wide, crackling, filling the church with red light and smoke. Fangs sprouted from his mouth. His eyes burned through Jon like searing beams.

The demon swooped toward him, and Jon leaped forward, thrusting his sword.

They slammed together with blazing starlight and furious fire.

A shock wave blasted outward, cracking columns.

They flew backward. Papa slammed into his throne, shattering bones, dislodging skulls. Jon fell onto the tiles, cracking them. He lay, armor shattered like an eggshell. His blade fell from his hand and went dark.

Papa came walking toward him, wreathed in fire and shadows. He stared down at Jon, lips peeled back, revealing rows of teeth. Shark teeth. Ring after ring of teeth, leading into a red gullet. The lower jaw dislocated like a snake, dropped halfway down the creature's torso. Ready to devour Jon whole.

Jon grabbed his sword. His tattoo blazed to life. The blade shone again.

He leaped to his feet and swung the Flame of Bahay, ready to cut his enemy down.

The sword arched through the air, whooshing toward Papa Dominus's neck.

Papa reached out a shriveled, wrinkly hand and caught the blade.

That hand—that gnarled, arthritic hand—grabbed a blade that could cut through solid concrete.

The cadaverous hand tightened. The blade creaked … then shattered into a thousand shards.

The steel shards flew, hitting Jon like shrapnel. One dug into his thigh. Another embedded itself in his chest. He screamed.

Standing above him, the cardinal laughed. Fire spread across him, consuming his robes. The old man stood before him, naked, his true form revealed.

His lower body was that of a serpent. Fat. Sagging. Covered in rotting white scales. His upper body was still human, but tattoos covered it. Hundreds of tattoos. The runes of a dark weaver. The tattoos shone with black light, rimmed with red, like rivulets of lava.

Jon recognized some from his studies. A rune for strength. A rune for wisdom. A rune for invincibility. A rune for a long life shaped like an infinity sign, inked onto the chest.

So that's how you've lived for centuries, Jon thought. All those runes. That's how we shot you, stabbed you, bombed you, and you survived. But it ends now.

He had lost the Flame of Bahay. But he still had a second artifact.

The astrolabe. An artifact that could disable the power of weaving.

He grabbed it from his pack. A disk of delicate brass rings, gears, and engravings. A glass bulb in its center. A rune shaped like a key.

Papa Dominus stared at it. He laughed. "What is that? Another relic? I will break it like your blade."

His claws lashed.

Jon stepped back, pulling the artifact away from Papa's grip.

The rune on his hand glowed again. The rune on the astrolabe gleamed in response.

Light was coming down from the Empyrean Firmament, igniting the power within the artifact. The astrolabe bloomed open. The rings spun, turning the disk into a sphere. The bulb in the middle shone like a star.

"It's over, Papa!" Jon said. "You've lost."

He pointed the astrolabe at the dark weaver.

Papa Dominus inhaled sharply.

Across his body, the tattoos began to dim.

"No," he whispered, then screamed. "No!"

"Yes." Jon took another few steps back, holding the relic out of reach. "The astrolabe sucks the power out of runes. Any rune other than mine. I'm taking your power, Papa, and—"

Papa Dominus leaped forward, crossing the distance in an instant, and swung his fist.

There was still some power in the old man. His tattoos were dimming but not yet dark. His fist slammed into the astrolabe, knocking the ancient relic from Jon's grasp.

The artifact hit the ground. A brass ring detached and rolled across the floor.

Papa's tattoos blazed back to life.

No. God, no.

* * * * *

Jon ran for the relic.

It lay on the floor, broken.

Oh God. Oh God, no.

Before Jon could even the astrolabe, Papa grabbed him.

Claws sank into Jon. The old man yanked him back, spun him around, slammed him against a column. Jon cried out in pain. The relic was out of reach.

I lost. I can't beat him. I can't win this.

The strange pope gripped Jon with his claws, pinning him to the column. His serpentine body wriggled, elevating his wrinkled human torso. He grew taller, taller, and his wings spread out, now dark like the space between the stars. His tattoos shone with dark light. The shadows of all that was luminous in universe. The evil to all that was good. Portals to a void of nightmare and pain and eternal terror.

"You will be as I am, Jon," Papa hissed. "You will become a being like me. Nameless. Divine. You will rule this world with me. I've chosen you. I will drink your blood now. And you will drink mine. And then … finally then, you will become as I am."

Papa leaned in, sank his fangs into Jon's neck, and began to guzzle the blood.

Pinned against the column, Jon drew a knife. Maria's knife. The one that had taken her life.

He slammed it into Papa's neck.

The vampire pulled back, screaming, blood on his fangs, blood spurting from his neck. He released Jon. His shrieks echoed through the nave. Columns cracked. Chunks of the ceiling crashed down.

Jon ran. He scooped up the fallen astrolabe. He found the broken ring, snapped it back on. He spun toward Papa, raising the relic, and—

Papa was already there. Inches away. He gripped Jon's wrist.

"It has already begun!" the cardinal said.

His grip tightened. Jon screamed. He had never felt such pain. Blackness spread out from Papa's claws, crawling across Jon's skin.

Jon pulled himself free, retreated a few steps. He screamed and fell to his knees. The agony raced across his arm. Papa had infected him with something. With venom. The skin along his arm blistered. Popped. Turned black and swollen. His skin peeled back, and his flesh shriveled. From elbow to fingertips, his limb became a useless, twitching thing like a charred branch. His fingers were just blackened twigs.

The astrolabe lost its light. It clattered to the floor.

Jon looked at his ravaged arm.

His tattoo was gone. The rune shaped like a key—burnt away.

Nearly passing out from the pain, Jon lifted the astrolabe with his other hand. But it was pointless. That hand had no rune. And without a rune, the astrolabe was useless. Just a chunk of metal and glass.

Papa pulled the blade free from his neck. He cackled.

"So naive!" said Papa. "You truly thought that with a couple of trinkets, with a few days of training, you could defeat me? I know these artifacts. That pathetic caterpillar made them. I spared his life because he amused me. And I will spare yours. But you will no longer live as my heir. You will live as a hideous creature. Burnt. Twitching. Yes, like that burnt child you saw in the artillery crater. The one who has haunted you since the war. You will become like him, living in agony forever. Look! Your transformation has already begun."

Jon screamed again. The blackness was spreading. The infection crawled over his elbow, squirming like serpents, crawling up his upper arm, reaching toward the shoulder. The pain consumed him.

Jon took a shaky breath, struggling not to pass out.

"No." He lifted the astrolabe again. "No!"

Papa laughed. "It won't work, you fool! You have no more rune. The guru's artifacts require the light of the Empyrean Firmament. Without a rune, you cannot summon it!"

"I don't need to," Jon hissed through the pain. "I had a talk with an old friend. And I learned something new." He reached into his pack, pulled out a sphere wrapped in cloth. "Santelmos are made from Empyrean light."

He pulled the cloth free, revealing Crisanto.

The little alien blazed with light. Pure white blinding light.

Papa laughed. "But it's only one of my pets! One of the Santelmos who've served me so long!"

"Not this one," Jon said.

He placed Crisanto inside the astrolabe. The glowing alien entered the glass bulb in the center and shone bright.

Much brighter than ever before.

After all, Jon wasn't a great weaver. He only knew the basics. He couldn't summon too much of the holy light. But Crisanto had years of experience. He was woven of aether.

His light filled the nave. The astrolabe levitated, ascending toward the ceiling. It spun like a pulsar, pure and healing.

Papa Dominus hissed and squinted. He swung his claws blindly, desperate to destroy the astrolabe. He could not reach it. He jumped, but the artifact rose higher, dodging the claws. Papa fell back down and his leg snapped.

The old man screamed.

He fell to his knees, shaking, howling.

His tattoos were shutting down. One by one, their light died. No more strength. No more wisdom. No more invincibility. He was just an old man now. Frail. Trembling on the floor.

Crisanto kept shining. The astrolabe kept spinning.

Papa's final tattoo went dark. The tattoo shaped like an infinity sign. The tattoo that had given him immortal life.

And with that tattoo dark, Papa Dominus began to age.

He had always looked old. But now he became downright decrepit. His skin became ashen. Wrinkly. Sagging. His eyes oozed. His fingers twisted with arthritis, coiling inward. His teeth fell out.

"No …" he whispered. "No, what have you done?" His voice rose to a shrill cry. "What have you done?"

He finally looks his age, Jon thought, watching in horror. He's four hundred years old. And it's all catching up with him now.

"No!" Papa said, voice like crumpling paper. "No. Jon. No …"

His skin shriveled up, clung to his skull and bones. His eyes rolled back, vanishing into the sockets. His hair grew long and white. His stomach bloated with gasses, then cracked open.

Yet he managed to rise. The crumbling creature took a step toward Jon. He grabbed Jon's arm.

"Jon. My heir. Tell it to stop shining. Tell it to stop. Please. Please … Please!"

What remained of Papa's skin curled up like burning paper, revealing the bones. Only a skeleton remained, draped with a few scraps of flesh.

The skeleton gave a last scream, then fell apart. The skull and bones clattered onto the floor. Then the bones too decayed, disintegrated, until nothing remained but dust.

Jon stumbled out of the cathedral, cradling his ravaged arm. The infection had stopped spreading. But his arm was a burnt mess up to the shoulder.

He took a few steps outside.

He fell.

Crisanto shone above him. The little alien nudged him. Jon took a ragged breath. He rose, stumbled ahead, made his way into the Symphonic Thunder.

With one arm, he fired up the engine, and he soared.

He watched Bahay drop beneath him. The concrete city. The burnt jungles beyond. The endless ocean.

And he saw that on a few islands, trees were growing.

Fishing boats were sailing down a river.

Farmers were planting rice.

It wasn't much. Only a handful of paddies, boats, trees, and the world was still burnt and desolate. But it was something. It was new growth. It was hope. It was Bahay, and she was beautiful.

And then the Symphonic Thunder was in space again, heading toward the station. Toward his wife and daughter.

"The war is over, Maria," Jon whispered. "We won."

Chapter Thirty-Eight

From the Flames

Jon popped the hatch on the Symphonic Thunder.

He stepped into the hangar of the Starview Hotel.

He walked across the deck. Armor hanging in tatters. Skin burnt and bristly with metal shards from his sword. His arm burnt to a crisp. Smoke still rose from him.

He took a step.

Another step.

He left a trail of ash.

On the third step, his arm fell off. It hit the deck, looking like a burnt tree limb.

Jon looked at it. And he began to laugh. He just stood there, laughing, then swayed. The world went dark.

"Jon!"

Kaelyn came running toward him.

And Jon finally allowed himself to lose consciousness. He fell ten thousand light-years into darkness.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

A Final Farewell

He slept for a long time. It was a sleep like death. Dreamless.

When his eyes finally opened, Jon found himself staring at a white ceiling. He groaned. Everything hurt. Really hurt.

He missed sleeping already.

"Hey, dumbass." A voice beside him. "I told you to come here to find your daughter. Not take on the spawn of Lucifer. You're lucky you just lost an arm. Dumbass."

Jon blinked and groaned. He turned his head. It hurt. He squinted, struggling to bring the world into focus.

He was lying in a hospital bed. A young woman sat beside him. Light brown skin. Black hair. Very large, very green eyes. Startlingly big and bright, in fact. Eyes almost like a tarsier.

"Etty?" he rasped. "Am I back on Earth? How long was I out?"

Etty snorted. "Oh, please. If this were Earth, I'd be on the beach right now, not babysitting your dumb ass. You're still in the space station. I came to Bahay to help you. To arrange the paperwork for Lily. You've only been sleeping for a night." Her voice softened. "Jon, I heard about Maria. I'm sorry."

He nodded. A lump in his throat.

"Thanks for coming," he said.

Etty stroked his hair. "You're a brave man, Jon Taylor. I love your brave dumb ass."

"Hey, Etty … see that button by my bed? Give me a hand, will you? I seem to be missing mine. Press the button please."

Etty pressed the button. Sweet, sweet painkillers flowed into Jon's vein. He sighed in relief.

Damn this is good stuff.

The door burst open.

Kaelyn ran in.

"Oh, now he wakes up!" she said, her red hair flying every which way. "The moment I leave to buy a sandwich."

Etty shrugged. "Hey, he wanted my beautiful tarsier eyes to be the first thing he saw. Who can blame him?"

Kaelyn knelt by Jon, reached to hold his hand, realized it was gone. She leaned over his bed and hugged him instead.

"Kaelyn?" Jon whispered.

She buried her face against his chest, tears dampening his hospital gown. "Yes?"

"Remember how we used to spoon back home in bed, and I'd complain how my arm always fell asleep? Well, problem solved."

She laughed through her tears.

"Eww, get a room, you two," Etty said.

"We have a room!" Jon said. "My hospital room."

"Fine, fine!" Etty stood up. "I know when I'm a third wheel. I'm going to go pick up Lily from school. She and I have become good friends. Just a bit more paperwork to do, and she'll get her visa to Earth. Ciao, bambinos!"

She exited the room, leaving Jon and Kaelyn alone.

For a long moment, they were silent.

"Is the pain bad?" Kaelyn finally asked.

"Not anymore," he said. "Whatever drugs they give you here at Bahay—woo! Damn good stuff. Can we steal some, take them back to Earth?"

"Please don't get addicted to drugs."

He smiled wanly. "I'm already addicted to anti-depressants and cannabis. Why not add some opioids to the mix? I—ow, ow! Stop twisting my arm! I've only got one left, you know."

"I'll rip the second one off if you talk like that!" Kaelyn wiped a tear away, then hugged him again. "Oh, Jon. Why did she do this?" Suddenly she was sobbing softly. "Why did Maria do it?"

Jon closed his eyes. With his remaining hand, he stroked Kaelyn's hair. Long, red hair. Soft. Warm. It had always comforted him to stroke it.

"It was the only way to save Lily," Jon said. "Maria couldn't bear the thought of Lily growing up in this station. She thought that here, Lily could become nothing but a bargirl. And maybe she was right. For years, Maria dreamed that I would return. Marry her. Take her and Lily home to Earth with me. When she learned that I'm already married, well … there was only one thing Maria could do. Only one way to send Lily to Earth."

"Oh God," Kaelyn whispered. "Jon! She tried to give me Lily. In the hotel room, when you were away. I told her no. I told her that I couldn't separate a child from its mother. So she killed herself. To force me to adopt Lily. It's my fault. Oh God, Jon. It's my fault."

"No." Jon shook his head. "The fault is not yours. Maybe it was destined to happen years ago. From the first night Maria and I met. Maybe it was always meant to be a doomed love."

"You really loved her," Kaelyn said. "With all your heart. And she loved you. I can understand that now. After meeting her, I understand."

"That does not diminish my love for you," Jon said. "We have large hearts, we Earthlings. Hearts that often fill with hatred, despair, fear. But hearts that can love so brightly. Hearts that can be broken and mend, again and again, and love new souls with a light just as bright. I loved Maria with all my heart, and I love you just as powerfully. I don't think there is any cap on love. Maybe after years of war, it's time to let our hearts overflow with love."

"That medicine really is good stuff," Kaelyn said.

Jon laughed. "It really is."

Lily stepped into the room, shy, gazing at her toes. "Daddy?"

Jon held out his hand for her. The girl ran toward him, jumped onto the bed, and embraced him.

"Lily," he whispered. "I'm here. Your dad is here for you."

"Are you my new family?" the girl asked, looking from Jon to Kaelyn and back again.

Jon held her close and kissed her head. "Yes, sweetie. We are."

* * * * *

They buried Maria in San Luna, her village among the mountains.

Five years had gone by since that day the planes bombed San Luna. Since the bamboo huts had burned, the paddies had dried out, and dead fish had washed up from the sea. Only Maria had survived that day. But before fleeing south, she had dug two graves. She had buried her parents.

Now she would rest beside them.

A lot had changed in five years. The burnt huts had crumbled and decayed into the soil. The monsoons had swept the skeletons away. New grass spread across the scorched earth. Even unattended, the fruit groves had flourished, growing again from seeds. The new trees spread across the valley, wild and untamed, giving forth mangoes, avocados, pineapples, and bananas. The scent of fresh fruit filled the valley instead of the stench of war.

Mountains surrounded San Luna on three sides. The jungles were regrowing rapidly. It would take many years, maybe centuries, for the trees to regain their lofty heights. But saplings grew fast from Bahay's rich soil. Already they were taller than men. Below the jungle, the mountainsides were still terraced, great green steps across the foothills. Maria had spent her youth on those terraces, tending to the rice. From up there, you could see the ocean spread to the horizon. The ocean was a quilt of many colors—azure over the shoals and shallows, glimmering green over the kelp forests, and indigo over deep trenches where strange fish swam. At night, the stars shone so brightly it was like floating in space, and the moonlight sparkled on the waves.

San Luna village. It was a good place. A beautiful place. And slowly, it was coming back to life.

Refugees of the re-education camps, traveling south after Papa's death, had found this valley. They cleared out one terrace of brush, filled it with water, and planted rice seeds. They built a few humble bamboo huts among the fruit trees. They made a reed fishing boat.

San Luna, like the jungle, was returning to life.

This is a good place for you to rest, Maria, Jon thought. This is your home.

Maria lay on a litter, wrapped in a shroud. By the custom of her people, there was no coffin. Bahayan peasants buried their dead wrapped in piña fabric, made from pineapple leaves. Her face was hidden within the shroud. But Jon did not need to see her face. He would forever remember her smiling, laughing, full of life.

They lowered her into the grave.

A few people had come. The local peasants all gathered. Kaelyn. Etty. Lily. They too were here. Crisanto was here, hovering among them, and Gummy stood here too, his trunk drooping, tears falling from his large black eyes.

Charlie was a notable absence. She was flying on the Gomorrah now, many light-years away, seeking a new home. Jon hoped that Earth's Orbit Patrol did not turn the Gomorrah away. And if they did, he hoped Charlie and the refugees she led would find a new planet. A new home.

Jon stood above the grave. Another funeral in this war. Jon prayed that she was the war's last victim.

His missing arm hurt. He could still feel the phantom limb. The pain in his soul was worse. There was an emptiness inside him, as if some parasite had hollowed out his torso. He felt like a husk. Empty. A fake man. A brittle shell a gust of wind could tear open, exposing nothing but dust. There was pain. There was grief. But more than anything there was that terrible emptiness. That lack of everything that defined his humanity.

Jon spoke softly, but everyone could hear.

"Goodbye, Maria. I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what to say at a funeral. I know how to write lyrics. I know how to write songs. I don't know how to say goodbye to you. I can talk about how you were a heroine, and you were. I can talk about all the lives you saved. And there were many. I could talk about your courage, your kindness, your compassion, and they shone so brightly they lit the world. I could talk about what you meant to me. About how I love you. But nothing I can say here would do it justice. And I think … I think that we all know. That everyone across Bahay knows. I think that maybe the planet itself knows. The ocean and rivers. The rainforest and mountains. The trees and the rustling fields. This living, breathing world. They knew you. And they grieve for you. When the wind blows from the mountains, when the waves roll across the sand, when the healing rain falls, they all whisper, Maria."

He filled the grave with soil. When burying her parents five years ago, Maria had left room between the two graves. Room enough that Jon buried her between them. Maybe even then Maria had known. She had saved herself a spot.

One of the peasant women, the survivors of the camps, knelt by the grave. Tears ran down her gaunt cheeks.

"Goodbye, Maria. You were my best friend. Goodbye. I love you."

She rose, wiped her eyes, and sniffed.

Jon looked at her. A slender woman. She looked middle aged, but it was hard to know. She could just as easily be twenty. The camps aged you. They sucked the life out of you like a glutton sucking the juice from an orange. The woman had short black hair, a thin face, haunted eyes.

Then something clicked.

Jon remembered red pigtails. Fake freckles. Bubble gum, a short skirt, long stockings. A novelty lollipop in her hands.

"Pippi?" he said. "Is that you?"

She nodded. "Yes, Mister Jon. It's me. You spoke beautifully."

"I didn't recognize you. I'm sorry."

She smiled shakily. "I spent three years in a re-education camp. It changes a girl."

Jon blinked. He looked up at the sky, back at Pippi. "You didn't go with Charlie? Aboard the Gomorrah, to find a new home? She took thousands of camp survivors."

"She offered me a place on the ship," Pippi said. "I decided to stay on Bahay. This planet needs people to rebuild it. To tame the fruit groves. To plant new rice. Build new huts and boats." She placed a hand on her belly. "To have new babies."

A young man approached, dour and gaunt. He had the look of a camp survivor too. He placed his arm around Pippi. And as he held her, something in his hard, hard eyes softened. Something almost like hope smoothed his face.

"I'm happy for you, Pippi," Jon said.

"If the baby is a boy, I'll name him Jon," she said. "If she's a girl, I'll name her Maria."

Lily walked up to the grave. She lay down and cried.

"Goodbye, Mommy. Sleep well in heaven. I'll wait until you wake up."

It broke Jon's heart. He wondered if he should stay here. Live in this village. Let Lily grow up among the mountains and sea. Would Maria have wanted this? If Maria knew that Papa Dominus was dead, that San Luna was rising from ruin, would she want Lily to live here?

Jon could not know for sure. But he thought not. Maria had died so that Lily could move to Earth, could get an education, could become whatever she wanted. If someday, when she was older, Lily wanted to return to Bahay, to till the earth and fish the oceans, she would have that option. That was what Earth would give her. Options.

I'll honor your dying wish, Maria, Jon thought. I'll give Lily all the opportunities I can. We'll come visit you here, Maria. San Luna will always be a part of Lily's life. We'll always remember you and always love you.

He walked away from the village, holding hands with Kaelyn and Lily.

When I came back to Bahay, I thought it was for the last time. That I would face my demons, end the war, then leave Bahay forever. When I first fought here as a soldier, I found a nightmare. But now I found the blooms of heaven. This is not goodbye forever. Bahay will always be a part of me. And now it can be a good part. A part I treasure and cherish. Bahay is no longer the world of my nightmares. She is a world of sunlight and rain and waves that whisper, 'Maria.'

Chapter Forty

Wanderlust

The silver starship sailed among the stars.

For centuries, lying underwater, she had been called Gomorrah. But her passengers had renamed her. Today she was called Pangarap ni Maria. Maria's Dream.

Ten thousand refugees filled her hull. Some were survivors of the re-education camps. Some were survivors of the brothels, girls as young as twelve, sold into slavery, their souls forever scarred. Others were drug addicts. Many were war orphans. Many had grown up in slums or on landfills.

They were Bahayans. But Bahay had been a cruel home to them. A home they loved, yes. A home they would always cherish in their hearts. But a cruel home. They traveled the wilderness like the children of Israel, free from captivity, seeking the promised land, the home of their ancestors. They sought Earth.

Yet when they arrived at this holy land, they found its gates closed.

The corvettes of Earth Patrol surrounded the Pangarap ni Maria like sharks around a whale. Warning lights flashed. A warning flare burst overhead, blazing like a star. A stern message washed over the silver starship.

Come no closer.

The leaders of the refugees tried to negotiate. To seek amnesty on Earth. At least to let the people land, to seek food, medical care.

Earth Patrol had none of it.

"If we let one ship in, we'll be flooded with millions of refugees," said the captain.

The Pangarap ni Maria refused to leave.

"Then shoot us down," the refugees of Bahay replied. "We have nothing to lose."

The silver starship and the blue planet reached an impasse.

For long days, they remained deadlocked. The silver starship hovering in orbit. Earth Patrol ships buzzed around it. Neither would budge.

The refugee leaders met on the bridge.

Charlie was there, speaking to the other leaders. Some were village elders who had survived the war. Others had led cells of resistance within re-education camps. Some were Kalayaan or Luminous Army heroes. All had shed blood and tears and sweat for Bahay, and today they led a starship full of lost souls.

It was a council. Every leader was equal to the others. Ostensibly, the ship had no one leader.

But in practice, everyone looked toward Charlie.

She had fought alongside Holy Maria all these years. Many here revered Maria as a saint, and they held Charlie in special regard. She was a disciple of their blessed Maria.

In fact, she didn't even go by Charlie here anymore. She had begun to use her real name again. The name from before the brothels. Dalisay Cortes.

But she had to admit. Even though she asked others to call her Dalisay now, she still thought of herself as Charlie. Some changes just took a while.

"All right, listen up," Charlie said to the council. "This morning, I finally got Earth's president on the phone. We had a nice long friendly talk. I told him all about my kids, and I asked him about his kids, and we even talked about how he's going to be a grandfather soon. I'm not going to be a grandmother for many years, of course. I'm still so young, not even thirty yet! Why are you laughing? Anyway, grandkids. See, someday I plan to have twenty or thirty of them, and—"

"Charlie. I mean—Dalisay." Jay Jay cleared his throat. "Did you talk to Earth's president about anything else? Like … our situation?"

"Ah yes!" she said. "Anyway, the president said we can land temporarily. They'll grant us a piece of land on the moon. They'll offer some pressurized trailers. And over the next few years, we can apply for refugee status in different countries on Earth. The process is slow. Very bureaucratic. But the president believes that within ten years, most of us can find a home on Earth."

Everyone looked at one another.

Nobody seemed happy.

"Hey, come on, it's what we wanted, right?" Charlie said. "A home on Earth?"

Jay Jay sighed. "It's hard to feel very welcomed."

One of the elders spoke up. "And what of the others? So they accept us ten thousand refugees now. But we planned to fly back to Bahay after this, to pick up another ten thousand refugees. And another. To eventually save a million souls."

Charlie winced. "Yeah, I tell ya, I don't see that happening. Earth will accept us from this ship. Kind of. Gradually. But a million of us?" She sighed. "Already there are voices on Earth calling us invaders. The president is on our side. But it's an election year, and his opponent is painting him as pro-Bahayan, which is polling badly."

Everyone looked at one another again.

"So what do we do?" Jay Jay said softly.

One of the elders spoke up. "We should go back to Bahay! You heard the reports from Earth. Papa Dominus is dead! It's safe to return."

Another elder scoffed. "Return to what? Burnt forests? Wastelands? Scorched earth? There's no home for us there anymore. Papa or no Papa."

"And the inquisition is still active, if you believe the tales," said a man, a scarred war hero with one eye. "Even with Papa dead, they'll still cause trouble, mark my words."

"Better to deal with inquisitors than the damn Earth Patrol!" somebody cried out, drawing mutters of agreement.

Charlie looked at Jay Jay. He looked back. He smiled softly, gave the most imperceptible of nods.

Charlie turned toward the crowd.

"We're leaving Earth," she said.

Her voice was soft, but everyone stopped talking. They all turned toward her.

"We're leaving Earth, but we're not returning to Bahay," she continued. "We'll keep going."

An elder placed his hands on his hips. "Keep going where?"

Charlie gestured vaguely at the stars. "Thataway."

The elder harrumphed. "Thataway?"

Charlie nodded. "It's a big galaxy. There are billions of stars out there. Billions of planets. I'm sure we'll find a nice one."

"Find a nice one?" the elder demanded, face flushing. "Like shopping for a good mango at the market?"

A few people snickered.

"It was always our plan B," Charlie said. "We knew Earth might not work out. We all knew. We can find a new home. Colonize a new world. We humans are natural wanderers. A hundred thousand years ago, we traveled out of Africa, and we colonized our planet. A few centuries ago, we left Earth, and we colonized Bahay. Why stop now? Let's be the generation of new travelers. Those who sail into the unknown and find new lands. The universe is big and full of room for us. Let's create another world for humans. One that doesn't fall under Earth's domain. Let's do what humans do best. Let's wander."

So the silver starship turned around.

Pangarap ni Maria sailed into the distance.

After the others retired to their chambers, Charlie and Jay Jay remained on the bridge. They faced the stars, side by side.

"All my life I dreamed of Earth," Charlie said. "It's hard to let go."

Jay Jay held her hand. "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

His hand was strong and warm. Comforting. Charlie leaned against him, and he wrapped an arm around her.

"I miss Bahay," she said. "I miss Maria. I miss my dear Rodrigo, and I hope he's happy in his new home under the ocean. I hope he's happy with his new wife. I hope … I hope this works out."

"Hey, and if it doesn't? We have a starship. We'll just fly to another planet. Or another. Or back home. Or we'll fly around forever and live here among the stars." Jay Jay looked at her, eye sparkling. "It'll be an adventure. You and I will experience it together."

Charlie kissed his lips. "I love you, silly boy."

She looked back at the stars. For the past few years, Charlie had felt such despair. She had turned forty this year—though she would never admit it. She had four children, three on this starship, one trapped forever undersea. She had a life full of bad memories. A childhood spent scrounging on a landfill for rotten scraps to eat. Twenty-five years as a brothel slave and drug addict. A lifetime of pain.

But I saw beauty too, Charlie thought. I met Maria de la Cruz, and I fought at her side. I explored the secrets of the oceans, and I flew among the stars. My life has been worthwhile. And it's only halfway through. She squeezed Jay Jay's hand. The second half will be even more amazing.

Chapter Forty-One

With Stars in her Eyes

The big day was here. Lily's first day at school.

Jon walked the girl to school, holding her hand. His new prosthetic was a remarkable piece of technology, coated with soft white plastic full of sensors. Jon could actually feel Lily's hand in his.

Kaelyn was with them, holding Lily's other hand. The wind rustled the maple trees, streamed her long red hair, and dappled her with sunlight.

They're both so beautiful, Jon thought. The two ladies of my life. I'm so lucky.

Maples, oaks, and birches lined the streets of Lindenville, leaves dancing in the late summer breeze. Flowers bloomed in the yards of the colonial houses, filling the air with their sweet scent. It was late summer, and soon all those leaves would turn red and gold, and pumpkins would sit on porches, and apple pies would cool on windowsills. Then the snow would fall, and the Christmas lights would shine, and finally spring would fill the town with its blooms.

Lily loved all of it. Every smell and sight in Lindenville. It was a good home for her. As it had been a good home for Jon growing up.

But today the girl was nervous. And so was he.

"What if I don't like the first grade?" Lily said.

"You'll love it," Jon said.

"What if I'm dumb and can't learn things?"

"Lily!" He laughed. "You're a genius. You already read better than I do."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "No I don't. Don't be silly, Daddy."

"I'm dead serious. You're an excellent reader. And you already know math too. You'll probably have to help the other kids. Can you do that?"

She nodded. "Okay. I'll help them. I won't be scared."

It was funny, Jon thought. They had both survived war. They had seen bombs fall. Seen people die. And this morning, they were both so damn nervous about the first grade.

"Sometimes the little things can be scary too," Jon said. "But we're brave."

Lily paused to hug him. "I love you, Daddy."

He knelt on the sidewalk, hugging her. "I love you too."

"Daddy, are you sure it will be okay? If I put Mommy's picture on my desk?" She held the little framed photograph.

Jon nodded. "Yes. I'm sure."

She kissed the photo. "I love you, Mommy." Then she turned toward Kaelyn and hugged her. "And I love you too, Mommy Kaelyn."

Kaelyn had to wipe her eyes. "Love you a ton, little one."

Jon's heart melted. He loved seeing them like this—the two most important ladies in his life. At first, it had been a little awkward. For a while, Lily had been shy around Kaelyn, not sure how to call her. And Kaelyn had seemed awkward around the girl, her husband's lovechild.

But after a while, Kaelyn and Lily warmed up to each other. Then learned to love each other. Maria would always be Lily's mother. But Kaelyn had become a mother too, just as important, just as loved and loving as Maria.

It was complicated. For all of them. But it worked. They made it work.

They reached the school, and butterflies fluttered through Jon's stomach. Him, the warrior, the veteran—he had butterflies in his stomach!

Other parents were parting from their children. Kids were running around, playing, laughing. But Lily stood shyly, head lowered, not approaching the other children.

Jon knelt before her. "You ready, Lily?"

"Yes." She hugged him. "Thank you."

Then she ran into the school and vanished in the crowd of children.

Jon took a deep breath, remaining for a moment outside, looking at the school.

She's happy, Maria, Jon thought. She's safe, and she's wonderful, and she's living the life you wanted for her. I don't know if you're watching us. But if you are, I know that you're proud.

Some of the other parents stayed outside the school, too nervous to even go home. Every once in a while, they crept toward the window and peeked into the classroom. But Jon knew Lily would be okay. She had survived a war. She would survive the first grade.

Jon and Kaelyn walked away as the trees rustled and the birds sang.

Yes, it was a beautiful town, a beautiful day, a beautiful family. But Jon knew this was not a happy ending. The war had ended, yes. But most nights, he still dreamed of the war. During the day, he could force himself to forget, to shove the memories down. But at nights, they came to him. The burnt children. The blood on his hands. His dying friends. Some nights he still woke up screaming.

So did Lily.

I'll never forget Bahay, he thought. I'll always remember the horrors. But the beauty too. The death and despair will always haunt me. But I'll also remember Maria's smile. I'll remember George and Carter and Lizzy and all the rest of them. I'll remember the bad but also the good. There is no life so painful that joy cannot touch it. There is no darkness so great that light cannot shine. We will always walk in shadows, we humans. Sometimes shadows we cast ourselves. Sometimes the shadows of the valley of death. But we will always shine a light that can lead us through any darkness.

A few hours later, Jon picked up Lily from school. She ran to him. Some other children came out crying, traumatized by their first day at school. But Lily was smiling. She hugged Jon.

"I loved it!" she said.

They walked along tree-lined streets, holding hands all the way home.

* * * * *

"Jon!" Maria laughed. "Jon, it's too fast!"

"Ah, nonsense." Jon beamed. "It's fun!" He put the tuk-tuk in high gear. "Let's see how fast this baby can go."

He had rented the motorized rickshaw for the week. At eighteen, Jon was not an experienced driver. In fact, he had only gotten his car license a few months ago, just before joining the army. He had only ever driven down Lindenville's peaceful green streets. Driving here in Mindao, the crowded capital of South Bahay? This was a whole other world. Terrifying and exciting.

Not least because a beautiful woman sat beside him. Jon had to admit. He was probably going a bit too fast to impress her.

Ah, what the hell? He had survived the battle of Surigao Hill. He could survive some traffic. He kept going, zipping around jeepneys and mopeds. The tuk-tuk was little more than a rickshaw with a motor, a tiny little vehicle, open to the air. The wind whipped his face and billowed Maria's black hair.

The young bargirl squealed and clung to Jon. But she was laughing. He held her with one arm, using his free hand to steer. The city whooshed by. Jeepneys clattered all around them, as colorful as caterpillars. Mopeds honked everywhere, coughing smog. A few military jeeps rumbled by, Earthling soldiers inside, wearing full battlesuits. Rickshaws raced back and forth, some of them motorized, others classic rickshaws with men to pull them.

Thousands of kiosks, cafes, and restaurants lined the streets. They were humble places. Some of the little businesses operated from shanties. Many were simply set up along the roadside under an awning. The smells of cooking meats, hot tea, and spices filled the air, mingling with the smog.

"Jon!" Maria clasped his arm painfully. "Jon, look!"

Jon hit the brakes. What? A dog on the street? A child?

The rickshaw skidded to a halt in the middle of the road. All around, jeepneys and mopeds honked. Drivers cursed and flipped him off.

"What is it?" Jon asked.

Maria pointed. Her eyes lit up. "Halo halo!"

Jon looked. He saw it there. A little stand by the road, selling halo halo, a local desert of crushed ice drizzled with syrup and topped with sweets.

"I thought it was an emergency," Jon said.

"It is!" Maria grinned. "A halo halo emergency."

A military jeep honked. A corporal leaned out the driver's seat. "Hey, get off the road, asshole!" He blew a kiss to Maria. "Why don't you dump that jerk, sweetie, and join me instead?"

Maria blew him a raspberry. "Why don't you get lost?"

Jon laughed, flipped off the corporal, and pulled his tuk-tuk off the road. The jeep trundled away, vanishing into the snare of traffic.

The sidewalk bustled with people. Refugees. Orphans. Shoppers going about their day. A few Earthling soldiers. Every corner of Mindao, this city of strange dreams, was crammed full of people, smells, colors, terrors and wonders.

Maria is a wonder, Jon thought, looking at her.

Suddenly his eyes stung. He thought of the battle a few days ago. How his platoon had fought up Surigao Hill in the jungle. How the enemy had mowed them down, killing half the platoon. How Jon had seen the men fall. Just boys. Just boys as they lay dying, calling to their mothers. Some without limbs, without faces.

But Maria was so beautiful. Her hair like dark silk. Her smile so bright, a smile that shone through the sadness in her eyes. He held her hand, and she kissed his cheek, and his heart overflowed.

They were both eighteen. Both caught in this war. Both so scared. Two kids from different planets. Different realities. In love.

They ordered two servings of halo halo, topping them with ice cream, sliced fruit, and jellies, and they ate the treats while walking down the street. Maria paused to pet every stray cat and dog. They passed by stalls that sold thousands of butterfly knives, street artists who painted scenes of stars and planets, and buskers who juggled and sang. Maria gazed at all these wonders with wide eyes, but Jon found her more alluring than anything in the city. He kept sneaking glances at her, marveling at her beauty.

All my youth, I've been in love with Kaelyn, he thought. I never thought I could love another girl. But I love Maria more than anything. In this hell, I found an angel.

Last night, they had slept together. They had both been virgins. Jon would never forget it.

They kept walking, and they found a miracle. A grand piano! A grand piano here in the middle of Mindao! It stood on the patio of a bustling little cafe. A tank rumbled down the road. A jet streaked overhead. Bargirls leaned against a brothel across the street, drug dealers collected their cash, urchins ran underfoot, jeepneys scuttled everywhere, and here in the midst of all this chaos—a grand piano.

Jon paused and stared, eyes wide.

"Do you play?" Maria said.

He nodded. "Come, I'll teach you."

She laughed. "My hands were made for planting rice. I don't have nice long fingers like you."

"Well, if you suck really bad, I won't make fun of you. Much."

She playfully punched him. "Bully."

They entered the cafe. Jon put a few dollar bills on the counter, not buying anything to drink, just buying some time. He sat at the piano. Maria sat beside him on the bench.

"All right, let's see how my tiny little fingers do," Maria said.

He taught her Chopsticks. She picked it up quickly.

"I'm doing it!" She laughed. "I'm playing piano!"

They played Chopsticks a few more times until a few patrons in the cafe groaned.

"Play something else!" somebody cried out.

Maria blushed, but Jon only laughed.

"Do you know other songs?" Maria said. "Play me something that is sad like the rain, but beautiful like sunrise. Something that is soft like a newborn chick, yet powerful as a soaring eagle. Play me a song from Earth."

So he played her a few songs. Songs he had written for Symphonica. They were sad but beautiful. They were soft yet powerful. And as he played them, everyone in the cafe listened, and Maria cried.

When he stopped playing, she leaned against him. "It's beautiful. You're beautiful."

He kissed her cheek. "You're so cheesy."

She tilted her head. "So cheesy?"

He nodded. "Definitely."

Her brow furrowed. "Do you want to eat some cheese?"

"It's an Earth saying. Never mind. Here, let me play you something a little more upbeat."

He began to play "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, an enduring classic. He wasn't much of a singer. But he sang as he played. Maria sang with him. She knew all the words. Apparently, the Beatles were known across the universe.

A few people in the cafe rose from their seats, approached the piano, and sang too. Soon the entire cafe was singing as Jon kept playing, and even people from the street paused and joined in. Maria blushed, shy in a crowd, but she sang as loud as anyone.

Jets streaked overhead, flying to war. Tanks and jeeps rumbled down the roads, carrying troops to battle. Only a few miles away, the jungles burned, and millions were dying. But here right now, in this little cafe, they were happy. Here was a pocket of peace, music, and love. It was the best day of Jon's life in the middle of his worst year. It was the best of humanity in a war that stained humanity's soul.

As he played the piano, Jon looked at Maria. She smiled, looked into his eyes, and kept singing. He knew that no matter what happened, no matter where this war took him, no matter how much he suffered and bled, he would remember this day. He would remember Maria as she was now, sitting beside him, singing with a voice as pure as dawn, her eyes like the stars.

The End

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading We Are Earthlings. This concludes the Soldiers of Earthrise series. Thank you for taking this journey with me.

One story has ended. But there are more stories in the Earthrise universe.

Have you read Earthrise: The Original Series? Set about a century before the events in Soldiers of Earthrise, it tells the story of Earth's first alien war. Start reading with Earth Alone.

Children of Earthrise is set in the far future. Start reading with The Heirs of Earth.

And I'm still writing new Earthrise stories. This universe will keep growing. A universe full of heroes, battles, and a little blue planet we all fight for.

Want to know when I release new Earthrise books? Here are some ways to stay updated:

 * Join my mailing list at (and receive three free ebooks): DanielArenson.com/MailingList

 * Like me on Facebook: Facebook.com/DanielArenson

 * Join my Facebook fan group, The Dragons of Darkness.

 * Follow me on Twitter: Twitter.com/DanielArenson

And if you have a moment, please review The Earthling (the first novel in this series) on Amazon. Help other science fiction readers and tell them why you enjoyed reading. Leave your review here.

Thank you again, dear reader, and I hope we meet again between the pages of another book.

Daniel

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

MINTARI

A World of Dinosaurs

STARSHIP FREEDOM

Starship Freedom

Starship Freedom II: The Cost of Freedom

Starship Freedom III: We Fight for Freedom

Starship Freedom IV: For Death or Freedom

Starship Freedom V: Let Freedom Ring

Starship Freedom VI: In Pursuit of Freedom

Starship Freedom VII: The Guns of Freedom

Starship Freedom VIII: A Time for Freedom

EARTHRISE

Earth Alone

Earth Lost

Earth Rising

Earth Fire

Earth Shadows

Earth Valor

Earth Reborn

Earth Honor

Earth Eternal

Earth Machines

Earth Aflame

Earth Unleashed

Earth Remembers

Earth in Darkness

Earth, Our Home

SOLDIERS OF EARTHRISE

The Earthling

Earthlings

Earthling's War

I, Earthling

The Earthling's Daughter

We Are Earthlings

CHILDREN OF EARTHRISE

The Heirs of Earth

A Memory of Earth

An Echo of Earth

The War for Earth

The Song of Earth

The Legacy of Earth

KINGDOMS OF SAND

Kings of Ruin

Crowns of Rust

Thrones of Ash

Temples of Dust

Halls of Shadows

Echoes of Light

THE MOTH SAGA

Moth

Empires of Moth

Secrets of Moth

Daughter of Moth

Shadows of Moth

Legacy of Moth

REQUIEM

Dawn of Dragons

Requiem's Song

Requiem's Hope

Requiem's Prayer

The Complete Trilogy

Song of Dragons

Blood of Requiem

Tears of Requiem

Light of Requiem

The Complete Trilogy

Dragonlore

A Dawn of Dragonfire

A Day of Dragon Blood

A Night of Dragon Wings

The Complete Trilogy

The Dragon War

A Legacy of Light

A Birthright of Blood

A Memory of Fire

The Complete Trilogy

Requiem for Dragons

Dragons Lost

Dragons Reborn

Dragons Rising

The Complete Trilogy

Flame of Requiem

Forged in Dragonfire

Crown of Dragonfire

Pillars of Dragonfire

The Complete Trilogy

ALIEN HUNTERS

Alien Hunters

Alien Sky

Alien Shadows

OTHER WORLDS

Utopia 58

Eye of the Wizard

Wand of the Witch

Firefly Island

The Gods of Dream

Flaming Dove