The Prisoner knew that the Ravagers’ ultimate goal was not control of the Warship. That was merely the means.

The Ravagers wanted to activate, then use, the external transport system, to expand their influence and field of operations.

So the plan must be changed.

It was not an easy thing for one of the People. But it was necessary for the Prisoner.

First, the dead habitat must be crossed, a challenge for any member of the People given the lack of water, elements in the atmosphere, and temperatures.

Then contact must be made with the nearest neighbors, the Air Creatures that guarded access to the Warship’s most vital systems.

The Air Creatures were not allies of the People nor of the Ravagers, but the Prisoner might be able to use that hostility to its advantage.

That action was moot until the habitat had been crossed.

And the Two Arms dealt with.

VALYA

“Where is this thing taking us?”

Valya, Dale, Makali, and Zack had followed Dash into the heart of the dead habitat for half an hour—sufficient time to cross at least two kilometers, maybe more—before Makali dropped back to ask the question. Sunk into a zone of sullen petulance, Dale kept close to Dash…conveniently leaving himself isolated from Valya and the others, who trailed at a distance of thirty meters.

Zack said, “I don’t know.” He smiled. “To the other side.”

The other side couldn’t come soon enough for Valya. This habitat was a landscape out of a cold war nightmare.

First they had traversed the open, shattered, scorched remains of a Beehive…though it was so distressed that none of them realized that until Makali pointed it out.

Then it was onto a surface that was nothing but gray, hard-packed ash. Occasionally they passed hillocks that seemed to cover structures that had been blasted or crushed. The weird twilight, approximately half the light found in the human or Sentry habitats, with a nasty bluish tint (based on the type of star that warmed the deceased inhabitants’ home planet?), made it downright eerie. As a girl, Valya had enjoyed more than her share of monster and nuclear disaster movies. Now she half-expected to be confronted by a team of post-apocalypse vigilantes in black leather, or a swarm of fast-moving zombies.

So far, however, there had been nothing at all. No movement, no color, no life, no sign that life had ever existed here. Just the settled ash of a nuclear winter.

“Look at that,” Makali said.

She had stopped in front of a good-sized boulder with fairly smooth sides. On it was the shadow of a creature that immediately struck Zack as crablike. It was wider than it was tall and seemed to be reaching out with flattened claws. “The former inhabitants, do you suppose?”

“Probably,” Zack said. “It reminds me of images from Hiroshima.” He trotted forward, catching up with Dash and Dale, and forcing Makali and Valya to do the same.

“Dash,” he said, “a question: What happened here? In this habitat?”

“Sanitary procedure,” the Sentry said.

“What needed to be sanitized?” Zack said. Valya wondered, had the crab creatures on the stone been the infection? Or the infected? Had the Architects—assuming they were the ones doing the sanitizing—destroyed a habitat in order to save it?

“Apostates,” Dash said. That was the way it was translated, anyway.

Zack looked at Valya, who shook her head. “Nonbelievers?”

“Beings that refused to take part,” Dash said.

“In what?”

“Corrective actions.”

“Against whom?”

There was an uncommonly long pause. “Creatures called Ravagers.”

“I don’t know that term,” Zack said, growing impatient. “We’ve got Architects and Sentries and Apostates and now Ravagers. What are the relationships?”

“Architects and Ravagers are at war.”

“So whoever lived here—they were the Ravagers?”

“No,” Dash said, and moved off so swiftly, with its long, relentless strides, that further interrogation was impossible. Dale hurried after the Sentry, leaving Valya with Zack and Makali.

All three were struggling with the lack of air. Valya wanted to prolong the restful moment as long as possible. She pointed back the way they had come, saying, “Whatever was detonated in that war must have been located behind us.”

“Maybe they grew a nuke in their Beehive,” Makali said.

“Don’t assume it’s a nuke,” Zack said. “There are other kinds of weapons. Energy, microwave, plus things more advanced races could develop.”

“The results are the same, aren’t they?” Makali said. “Total destruction. So what difference does it make?”

It made this difference to Valya: She realized that the Architects weren’t as advanced as she had hoped. And that nothing was as good as she wanted it to be.

Valya, Zack, and Makali had to hurry to catch up, essentially having to take two steps for each one of the alien’s, like children struggling to keep pace with their parents.

“About time,” Dale said when they caught him. “Do you really want to linger here?” he said.

Valya was willing to concede that Dale had a valid point; the less time they spent here, the quicker they would reach the control center or power core, wherever the Sentry was leading them.

She was tired beyond belief, panting with every step. Hungry. Thirsty. So afraid that she was growing numb to fear.

And she hated everyone now. The stupid, unhelpful alien Dash. Dale, of course. And now even Makali and Zack.

The only encouraging thing about knowing she was likely to die…was that they would all die, too.

Zack hustled forward, closing to within earshot of Dash. Valya, Makali, and Dale did, too, even though it almost killed Valya to expend the extra energy. In fact, she lagged, and earned this: “Goddammit, Valya, will you fucking try to keep up?” Zack said. “I really need you.”

So she closed on the leader, even though she wanted to either kill him or die…or kill him, then die.

“When we emerge,” she heard him ask the Sentry, “where do we go next? And how far is it?” He smiled unsympathetically at Valya, as if to say, Feel free to answer, too.

“Exit habitat,” Dash said.

“I understand,” Zack said. “But where are we then? Which way do we go? Where is the control center?”

“Goals remain the same,” the Sentry said.

“Can we fly Keanu?” Dale said. “Whatever he calls it, the ‘warship’?”

“Control means control,” Dash said.

“So we could turn it around and head back to Earth,” Dale said, as irritating as he was persistent.

“Yes,” the Sentry said, its translator voice neutral.

“Why didn’t you do that?” Zack said to Dash. “Why didn’t your people head home?”

Dash never broke stride. “No control,” it said. “Before I was born.”

They were three quarters of the way across the dead habitat now. Valya searched for their way out the other end as she considered the possibilities.

While the translator offered the same words and phrases as before, there was something in Dash’s manner—the Sentry’s posture, even the pitch of its real voice—that had changed somehow.

Of course, Valya knew that the Sentry, communicating in a vastly different language, with its own matrix of habits and assumptions, might very well kick into a second mode when revisiting the same subject at a later time. That was certainly a possibility—

Before Zack could probe further, Valya stumbled and sprawled face-first in the dirt.

It was her feet; she had been barefoot so long that her feet were raw and numb. Makali was first to offer a hand. “How is it?”

In her former life, Valya had had a propensity for collecting foot injuries. Stubbed and broken toes, ripped-off nails; if it could be done, she’d done it repeatedly.

And her usual method of dealing with it was to delay looking at the damage as long as possible, in the silly hope that it would be less than feared.