“Not true,” said Angelina, with more than a hint of gloating satisfaction. “He got sick, that’s for sure. Not as sick as me or Anna, or you, but sick enough.”

  “I don’t remember⁠—”

  “You don’t remember,” Angelina repeated, taunting her. “You were comatose for three straight days, Keira, and that’s not even counting the days I kept you alive on the skiff. Of course you don’t fucking remember.”

  Keira realised she was gripping her rifle hard enough to hurt and forced herself to relax her hands a little. “My father wanted you held in the Town Hall with the others,” she reminded Angelina. “I’m the one who persuaded him not to. But in return, I need you to stay put in the barn. I can’t guarantee your safety if Piper or anyone else finds you wandering around. Do you understand?”

  Angelina made a disgusted sound and turned away from Keira. Slowly, Keira let out her breath, pushing her anger to the back of her mind. At a critical time like this, keeping a clear mind was everything: another of her father’s lessons.

  “You should have seen their faces,” she said to Angelina’s turned back, unable to resist the taunt. “All your friends and family, once they realised just how easy it was for us to walk in here and take over.”

  Angelina’s shoulders tensed, but before she could reply, or do anything else, Keira had exited the barn.

  When she got back to the settlement, DeWitt handed Keira some rough grain crackers to eat and told her to get some rest. She slept in one of the huts, waking just a few hours later to the sound of the mini-copter’s return. When she stepped back outside the hut, she saw it dropping to a landing at the other end of the settlement, close to the Town Hall.

  She hurried over to see what was happening. When she got there, she saw Wardell disembarking from the tiny craft, followed by her two children, Connor and Lucia. Her father, Vic, stood nearby with her brother Sean. Behind them, she glimpsed the mesa’s inhabitants through a window of the Town Hall. Someone—probably DeWitt—was inside, guarding them all.

  Without further hesitation, Keira ran over to the copter, dropping to her knees and pulling her children into a bear-hug. She bit back a sob, and felt dampness touch her cheeks.

  “Granddad said they were holding you prisoner,” said Connor, who now looked so much like his father, Sparrowhawk, it made Keira feel like her heart was going to break all over again. “Did they torture you?”

  “No, they didn’t torture me. They looked after me. You’re well?”

  Both Connor and Lucia nodded. Keira turned to look at her father. “They were alone out there?”

  He shrugged. “They were in no danger.”

  This felt like a far from adequate response, but Wardell spoke up before she could frame a retort. “We figured it was best to leave them at home until after we had secured the mesa,” he explained. “It wasn’t for long. Connor took good care of his sister.”

  All that mattered, Keira told herself, was that they were safe. She moved to embrace her brother who, like her two children, she had not seen in months.

  “Connor, Lucia,” said Vic, “go with Wardell. We picked a place for you to stay. I need you out of the way while we finish our work here.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’d rather we put you to work?”

  “I could hunt,” Connor said hopefully.

  Vic laughed. “Not much hunting up here, kid. But soon.” He gestured to Wardell. “Now go.”

  Keira gazed after them longingly as Wardell led them toward one of the huts. She’d been half-afraid her father would hand them rifles and put them to work guarding the prisoners.

  “I need an answer,” she said to her father. ”I don’t understand why you and Piper are being so cagey about the new lander. We need a plan.”

  “What kind of plan?” Sean asked, puzzled.

  “To help them!” Keira said to him, then turned back to her father.

  “Help them?” Vic rubbed his chin. “Why should we do any such thing, Keira?”

  Was he asking her a trick question? “They’ll die if we don’t. They have no idea what’s about to happen to them.”

  Vic made a show of thinking about this. “Alright. Say we do rescue them,” he said. “Then there would be two of me. In that case, who’s going to be in charge? Me, or the other Vic Traynor?”

  “I mean…you, obviously,” Keira stammered. “You have the experience and the knowledge of how to survive on Aranyani. All they’ve ever known is Earth.”

  “And if this other Vic Traynor doesn’t like me being in charge?”

  “Then…” Keira struggled to frame a response.

  “I’m disappointed,” said her father. “I thought you would have seen immediately how such a rescue attempt would work out for us. If the Cents are about to lay siege to the mesa, as seems very likely, our resources are going to be stretched to the limit. How can we take care of and feed fifteen extra mouths, when we probably don’t have sufficient resources for the people already here?”

  Keira exchanged a look with Sean. He was just as taken aback by this reply as she was.

  “There’s more,” said Vic. “Remember the information we got from Sun? Half of the coastal expedition is made up of people we’ve never encountered. They don’t have a Vic, a Jess, a Piper or any of the rest of us. That means we’ve got no way of knowing who’s on board this new lander, and no reason to assume they’d be on our side. If we did mount a rescue operation, it could be we’d just find ourselves outnumbered and on the back foot.”

  Keira fought to ignore the sick, cloying feeling in her belly. “So we’re just going to let them die? There are so few of us. I thought⁠—”

  Her father’s tone grew harsher. “How many times have I told you before, Keira? Leadership means making hard choices. Better they die, than all of us, including them.”

  “But—!”

  “Enough, Keira,” he snapped.

  “How can I learn to lead our people, if you tell me nothing?” Keira snapped back, barely holding her temper. “You were talking to Piper about the lander, yet you excluded me from the conversation and sent me to the far side of the mesa. You didn’t even tell me you left Connor and Lucia behind while you came up here! How long were they alone in a forest full of Cents?”

  “Don’t talk back to me,” Vic warned her, his voice turning icy cold.

  “I brought you the pathogen,” Keira insisted. She saw Wardell coming back toward them from behind her father. “I⁠—”

  “No!” Vic shouted. “You had the pathogen, and then you let these people take it from you! You allowed yourself to be captured without a fight, and you got Shanti and Sparrowhawk killed.”

  Sean, Shanti’s father, looked suddenly away, the muscles in his jaw bunching. Wardell, who had been Sparrowhawk’s father, stiffened. Vic’s words felt like knife-thrusts in Keira’s belly.

  “I wasn’t to know they would die.”

  Vic laughed harshly. “You were in command, Keira. Are you telling me you couldn’t have done things differently?”

  “I—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You let Sparrowhawk return alone for no reason. You meekly gave yourself up rather than returning with him and the pathogen. If you had actually brought us the pathogen, we would never have needed to fight our way up here.”

  He stepped closer to her, his voice almost trembling with rage. “So I’m giving you one last chance to prove you can actually follow orders—do you understand?”

  It wasn’t my fault, Keira wanted to say, but her throat had become too clogged to get the words out. Worse, everything her father was saying echoed the same thoughts that had been circling through her head ever since she had learned of Sparrowhawk’s death: that she had made nothing but mistakes; that she wasn’t up to the job; that she had done nothing but fail her father’s expectations.

  “But…what about our mother?” asked Sean, his voice faltering slightly.

  Vic turned to look at his son as if he’d forgotten who he was.

  “Jess could be on that new lander,” Sean continued, briefly catching Keira’s eye. “I know it’s not her, not exactly. But if some version of her is on that lander, then isn’t it worth at least trying to⁠—?”

  Before he could finish, Vic had stepped toward Sean, grasping him by the throat. Sean grabbed at his father’s hand, his eyes wide with shock and his crippled leg almost giving way beneath him.

  Vic maintained his hold on his son’s neck for several more seconds before suddenly letting go. Sean staggered backwards, almost crashing into Wardell before collapsing onto the dirt just as it started to rain. He lay there, gasping for air, one hand pressed to his throat.

  “You want to find a replacement for your dead mother, is that it?” Vic raged. “Sometimes I think whatever gored you out in the forest should have finished the job. Instead, I’m left with a crippled burden. Even if another Jess is out there, she won’t know who I am, and she sure as hell won’t know who you are. So why the fuck do you think she’d give a damn about either you or your sister?”

  He shifted his attention to Keira, his eyes still blazing with anger. “You want to know my plans? Fine: here’s what you need to know. I’m going to leave you in charge of the mesa for a few days, Keira. And when I get back, Piper will report to me about how well you handled matters. In the meantime, I need you to work with Sun and Kevin to maintain order. Those two still have their freedom for now, but I want you to keep a close eye on them: I suspect they’re having second thoughts about having helped us. Kim Hanh Banh is cooperating, but only because we’ve warned him we’ll kill one of his people if he doesn’t. If at any time he fails to follow orders, I expect you, Keira, to carry out the execution—and anyone else you choose, until he gives us what we need.”

  Keira forced herself not to look away from her father, or even so much as blink. From out of the corner of her eye she could still see her brother lying sprawled on the damp soil, one hand at his throat and his eyes like white marbles. It almost felt as if they were playing some kind of game, one in which people said things they would never, could never, actually do.

  But where are you going? Keira wanted to ask him. Why leave now, when they needed him the most? What could be more important than completing the assault he’d been planning for years?

  Then she saw the fury still burning in his eyes and felt too afraid to ask.

  “I won’t fail you,” she said, hating how weak she sounded.

  “Good.” Vic turned to Wardell, who was staring in shock down at Sean. “I’ll need the mini-copter as soon as possible. You said there was something you wanted to check first?”

  “Nothing major,” said Wardell, tearing his gaze from Sean. “Some slight vibration issues during the return trip. I don’t think they used it much. I can get Karl to help me check it over. That should help speed things up.”

  Vic nodded approvingly. “Good. Fly it back over next to the lander, then have Karl give you any help you need.”

  Wardell nodded, then climbed back on board the mini-copter without sparing either Sean or his sister so much as another glance. Keira watched as the tiny craft lifted over the low roofs of the surrounding huts and buildings and passed out of sight.

  “I hope to be back before the Cents make their first move,” Vic said to Keira. “But in case I don’t, you need to distribute weapons as necessary and maintain order. The Cents must not be allowed to get onto the mesa.”

  “But…the only way onto the mesa is via the drawbridge. Surely we’re safe up here?”

  “Never make assumptions,” her father told her. “Plan for every eventuality. Besides…things may be different this time.”

  Keira frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve surprised us before,” he said, “and they’ll surprise us again.” He smiled grimly. “Be ready for anything.”

  Then he turned and walked toward the mesa’s lander without sparing his son so much as a glance.

  It began to rain. Keira ignored it, staring after her father with something very like despair.

  “I think he’s losing his mind,” Sean gasped, pulling himself upright with one hand still on his throat. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “He’s under a lot of pressure,” Keira said numbly. Her own throat tingled, as if in sympathy with her brother’s.

  “He wouldn’t even tell us where he’s going, or why!” Sean insisted, his voice ragged. “Wardell obviously knows—all of them do, except for us. What the hell are they hiding?”

  Keira tried to form a response, but couldn’t. All she could think about were her father’s lessons: that the mesa dwellers were the enemy. That the mesa dwellers forced them to live in the forest. That the mesa dwellers would leave them all to die unless they took the mesa by force.

  “Sean? Who did he mean when he talked about killing one of them?”

  “Florence. Angelina’s daughter.”

  Angelina.

  Something twisted hard in Keira’s gut, and she felt unbalanced, as if the ground beneath her feet had shifted unexpectedly.

  Keira remembered a skinny, frail-looking girl of about seventeen who had stood at the open barn door, wearing a mask over her mouth and nose, while Ethan, the doctor, told her to maintain a safe distance from her mother.

  Did Vic seriously expect her to kill the daughter of the woman who had saved her life, and in cold blood?

  “Why her?” Keira heard her voice wobble as the words came out. “She’s barely more than a child.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Sean. “Nothing dad does makes sense to me anymore.”

  “Keira.”

  She turned to see Piper approaching them. She glanced briefly at Sean and pursed her lips before shifting her attention back to Keira.

  “Vic’s told me you’ll be in charge during his absence,” said Piper, “so here’s the sitrep. DeWitt’s watching the rest of the prisoners. We put Kim Hanh Banh to work in the lab. He’s constructing something to spray the pathogen from the drones. I don’t really understand all the details, but he needs to dilute the liquid the bugs are suspended in before we can do that. Karl’s going to help Kim rig the drones, but right now, he’s busy checking the operational status of all weapons and vehicles, and I’m reconnoitring to see what else could conceivably be used to defend the mesa.” She raised an eyebrow. “Questions?”

  “No,” said Keira. “But I do have an order. Wipe the fucking smirk off your face, Piper.”

  The older woman’s face hardened. “I don’t think⁠—”

  “My father gets to talk down to me,” said Keira. “You don’t.” She stepped a little closer to the older woman. “Are you going to tell me what my father’s doing, Piper? Where is he going that he needs a helicopter?”

  “Focus on doing what your father needs you to do,” Piper spat. “If you need to know something, he’ll tell you. But only if you need to know. I thought you understood that much.”

  With that, all her father’s talk of her one day becoming the leader of their people seemed hollow: empty words and nothing more. Keira stared back at Piper, wondering what would happen were she to push harder.

  With an effort of will, Keira fought down her simmering resentment and tried to focus on the task at hand. “Apart from DeWitt, who else is guarding the prisoners?”

  “Just him.”

  Keira frowned. “Is that enough?”

  Piper shrugged. “He’s armed. They aren’t.”

  “You were armed, too, the first time you and my father tried to seize control of the mesa,” Keira snapped. “But you still managed to fuck it up, which is why they get to live up here and I had to grow up in a fucking cave!”

  Before Piper could answer, Keira turned to her brother. “You have a weapon?”

  He shook his head. “They have an armoury. There are guns there.”

  “Then arm yourself,” she told him, “and go help DeWitt. Make sure he and everyone else knows I want a minimum of two people at all times on guard duty.”

  Sean blinked at her, then walked unsteadily away, his limp more pronounced than before.

  Piper’s lip curled in apparent disgust. “He’s not fit to guard anything more than a latrine. Surely even you can see that⁠—”

  Keira didn’t let her finish. “Has anyone checked on the drawbridge?”

  “No. I⁠—”

  “Then stop wasting my time and make sure it’s in good working order. Report to me on any potential vulnerabilities—it’s the only way the Cents could get on the mesa. Is that understood?”

  Piper glared at her, but nodded. “Understood,” she said tautly, then turned away.

  Once Piper was gone and Keira was alone, she drew in a breath and let it out slowly. There was so much to do, and so much her father had planned for…only for him to walk away just when they needed him most.

  Then she made her way to the hut that had been Sam Newman’s home. When she stepped inside, Connor looked up from where he sat whittling a small figure with his knife: Lucia sat up from where she had been lying on the bed.

  “You’re well?” Keira asked, sitting by Lucia on the bed and holding them both close. “And you?” she said to Connor, forcing herself to be a touch more firm. “Did you do much hunting while I was gone?”

  “As much as I could,” said Connor. “Not much to do here, though,” he grumbled. Then he paused, his expression shifting. “You know about dad?”

  “I do.” She paused, finding herself suddenly lost for words. She never imagined she might have a conversation like this with her two children. Perhaps she ought to be grieving, but she still couldn’t quite believe Sparrowhawk wasn’t about to walk into the hut at any moment. Perhaps the grief would only come when she stopped expecting that.

  “Tell me,” she said, “everything that happened while I was away. And then I’ll tell you everything that happened to me.”

  They had nearly finished when the din of the mini-copter taking off interrupted them. When Keira went outside, she saw it rising above the rooftops before rapidly fading from sight.

  THREE

 

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