Xavier stopped before entering, because he could hear noise from inside the Beehive, some kind of terrible screeching and scratching, and his mind went right to his nightmare of an animal devouring another animal.

But the noise lasted only a few seconds. He waited, listening.

Nothing.

He looked around. No one watching, of course. And no four-legged thing approaching.

Xavier entered the Beehive.

He was instantly sorry that he had. While it was immediately impressive for its size and the collection of odd-shaped cells, some of them recently opened, others clearly in the cook phase, it smelled like locker room and garbage pile and flower shop and maybe something else, all at the same time.

It wasn’t all stinky…but it was thick. It made him sniff and made his throat itch, which was very unpleasant.

The ground was all slimy, too, not just muddy, but with some kind of yellow goo that was either drying or nowhere near dry.

He decided to ask Nayar and Jaidev to have the Temple give them shoes. Size ten, anything you’ve got.

After a couple of minutes, however, and a few dozen meters deeper into the Beehive (which turned out to have branches leading in three different directions, making him wonder how big it really was), Xavier was feeling more comfortable and confident.

He hadn’t heard any further screeching, so that was good.

He hadn’t found anything worth bartering yet…but let’s see now.

He turned up the nearest branch and found that the cells here were all large, and new-looking, and busy. Don’t hang around here, he told himself.

So he doubled back to the main chamber and struck off farther down what appeared to be the old, primary passage.

He hadn’t taken ten steps when he realized he ought to stop.

He heard screeching from somewhere in front of him.

And close!

The passage was twisty-turny and the light was low—really nothing more than the eerie glow from the cell fronts—so it was difficult to see much.

But Xavier saw a terrifying and familiar shape coming around the corner.

A goddamn monkey!

It wasn’t a big monkey—not gorilla-sized, for sure. But it was waving its arms and looking unhappy.

So, as Momma would have said, Xavier ran like Satan himself was in pursuit. Back to the main chamber, then outside…he made sure to put about fifty meters between himself and the Beehive before he slowed, stopped, and, panting, dared to look back.

He stopped next to a large rock that sat on a low hill. There were trees and bushes to his left…if he had to, he could slip in there and likely lose his pursuer.

The monkey had gone silent and hadn’t emerged. Maybe it found a banana or a pawpaw to gnaw on.

Xavier was happy to leave the creature to its business. It made him feel stupider than usual, however, having come all this way with such high hopes, only to end the adventure running in terror.

The one thing he had liked about Keanu seemed about to vanish, to go wherever other great notions went, when they turned out to be crap.

Well, if he hurried back, he’d still get most of a night’s sleep.

Even before he started back, he thought of something cool. He knew about this monkey. Drake and Nayar and Weldon and Jones would want to know, too. They would want to take care of it; otherwise it would be scaring off anyone who tried to enter the Beehive.

And who would be the guide? Who would be the hero? Why, Xavier Toutant—he would lead the first monkey hunt on this new world.

He had gone no more than a dozen steps when he heard another sound.

This wasn’t an animal grunt…it was a moan.

Xavier tried to remember what kinds of animals could make sounds like humans. Panthers? Something like that.

Since he didn’t know, why worry about it?

But he wanted to check it out. Sounded pitiful…maybe some kind of cat that got mauled by some bigger, meaner animal.

The sound was coming from the trees. Xavier carefully approached, pushing an overhanging branch aside. He smelled tree of some kind.

And that weird Beehive smell.

Another moan, much closer.

Human! He was sure of it.

He pressed on and stumbled across a body lying near a tree.

It was a woman not much older than Xavier…but she was covered in some kind of brownish material, clinging to her like caramel on an apple.

She had scratches on her face where she must have clawed the material away.

She looked at Xavier and, sobbing, said something.

In two days of working and living with people from Bangalore, Xavier had learned a few Hindi words and phrases.

One of them was this: “Help me!”

PAV

Pav’s father, Taj, had a saying. “As the rabbit said while screwing the porcupine, ‘I’ve enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand.’”

Pav’s mother hated hearing such talk…. In retrospect, Pav realized, his mother, Amita, had grown more openly proper and Victorian as her illicit relationship with Vikram Nayar progressed.

Wing Commander Radhakrishnan wasn’t usually so racy, either, but he had a naughty side that emerged under the pressure of socializing at Star City, where vodka, as one of Pav’s friends there joked, “wasn’t only a breakfast beverage.”

Running ahead of Rachel Stewart and Zhao toward a mummy…trying to reach it before the cat’s-eye rolling toward them…Slate bouncing against his back (after being soaked in plasm, it was probably broken)…Pav had totally enjoyed as much of this as he could stand.

That was, if he had time to think.

The dog got there first, barking ferociously and jumping in front of the mummy like some sheepherding animal.

From the way the mummy threw up its hands, trying to protect its face, it was frightened by the dog.

Which made Pav even more terrified, because he could see the cat’s-eye rolling closer and closer, the strange blue light pulsing. It was like a slow subway rolling toward him…but there was no doubt that it was going to arrive—

Wait!

There was another tunnel to their left! He’d just passed it as he closed to within two meters of the mummy. “Rachel,” Pav shouted. “That way!”

“What about it?” Rachel shouted.

“You and Zhao—go there!”

Pav reached the mummy, performing a good American football—what Wing Commander Radhakrishnan called “carry ball”—tackle, knocking it down.

Then picking it up. Pav was fairly tall, but no taller than the mummy.

Nevertheless, he had gravity and what was surely his final surge of adrenaline on his side.

It was a fireman’s carry, something he’d never actually attempted, but, whoof, up on the shoulders, turn around, scream “Come on!” to the dog.

Start running toward a stupefied Rachel and Zhao. “Into the fucking tunnel!” he screamed.

They weren’t far away and he actually reached the tunnel just at the same time, bumping into Zhao and losing the mummy.

But only for a moment. He grabbed the mummy’s arm, and to his surprise, the mummy grabbed back. “Go, go, go!” he shouted. He could hear the cat’s-eye’s approach, as the main tunnel groaned like metal under strain.

Then he could feel it on his whole right side, as if he were being tugged that way.

Ten meters now, maybe twenty from the main tunnel—

And getting dark.

The cat’s-eye passed behind them with a crunching whoosh that made the light pulse.

Pav lost his footing, not because he stumbled, but because he was flying.

All of them were flying and falling down, down, down a dark tunnel.

Pav had time to count to a hundred, which meant that they fell or floated for probably three whole minutes, because he was too freaked out to think for part of the time.

He was afraid they were going to hit hard, like they’d been dropped off the top of a building.