Karlan was the only prisoner whose hands were tied. He liked that. There was an honor in the caution, and he picked up his thick wrists, studying the sharp brown cords that were already cutting into the flesh.

“So you’re taking us to the reef,” said Tar`ro.

The guards said nothing.

Nissim and Tar`ro were facing the children, facing the kitchen. Merit had been told to sit alone at the far end at the table, closest to the woman soldier.

“I’ve never walked the reef,” Tar`ro said.

“I have,” Seldom said, and then he smiled at the memory, momentarily forgetting his bellyache.

“Flying the canopy at night,” Merit said. “That’s a tough game.”

The ship’s crew made concurring sounds.

“I hope we don’t snag a sneaky branch,” he said.

The male papio didn’t know the language, and they didn’t approve of any noise. One of them said something harsh to the woman, and showing her canines, she said a papio phrase to him.

“What did she say?” Elata asked Nissim.

The Master and Merit glanced at each other, neither answering.

The papio woman had a quiet, careful laugh. “Wanting this and wanting that don’t matter, I said. Orders have been given, and we are walking the path.”

Elata squirmed against the steel seat. “But why take all of us? If you want Diamond, put him inside a whiffbird and fly home.”

Merit knew why but decided to keep quiet.

“Whiffbirds can’t fly far,” Seldom said.

Karlan snorted. “But they can refuel from Bountiful’s tanks. They’re probably doing that right now.”

His tiny brother squinted at nothing. “Yeah, I forgot.”

The woman papio shifted, letting her weight find a little more comfort. “I’m brave,” she said, “but I wouldn’t risk such a trip. Night inside a little craft is too dangerous. A rotor clips one branch, and the mission ends. And if we sit still and wait for daylight before launching, then your people would enthusiastically shoot down the whiffbird before it’s home, and that would be a terrible loss for the world.”

Nobody spoke.

“You see, we believe the boy is precious,” she said. “And we aren’t like you, killing ourselves while trying to murder him.”

Seldom let loose a moan.

“Let me take him to the toilet,” said Elata.

“No,” said the woman. Then she spoke to the other guards, and a cooking pot was found under the counter. One guard handed it to her, wanting nothing to do with the prisoners, and she kicked it along the floor, putting it under his seat. “Heave into that bucket.”

“Throw up in front of people?” he asked unhappily.

“Do it,” she said.

Always agreeable, Seldom bent down, and his last two meals spilled out into the bright steel pot.

Elata patted her friend on the back.

To nobody in particular, Tar`ro said, “Thunderflies.”

The Master nodded.

“Know of any chrysalises sitting around in easy reach?” Tar`ro asked.

Merit looked at the two men, curious now.

“Not so far,” said Nissim. “How about you?”

“No. But I’ll keep hunting.”

The papio understood none of that. But the woman was suspicious enough to say, “Be quiet now.”

“Sorry,” Tar`ro said.

Merit took a breath, and then against the rules, he stood.

“Sit down,” said the woman.

In papio, Merit said, “No, I will not.”

“Sit down,” she repeated, in papio.

He shook his head. “Shoot me.”

The male guards were willing. The woman studied the old tree-walker, planning where she would slap him and what would break if she used force.

A solitary thud came from some distant part of the ship.

Nobody inside the galley noticed.

“My son won’t be safe with your people either,” Merit said, shifting back to the prisoners’ language.

Inside her mind, the woman beat him.

“Your weapons dropped our trees,” he said. “I’m sure of that much. My people helped you, but the blame rests mostly on you.”

“None of us,” she said.

Merit rocked slowly from side to side, thinking.

A door opened and closed in the hallway, and papio feet walked past the galley, making no effort for speed.

Once again, the woman said, “Sit down.”

“Are you certain?” Merit asked.

“Certain?”

“That they’re trustworthy,” he said, gesturing at the papio soldiers who couldn’t piece together any of this noise.

The woman looked at the three faces.

Another thud was followed by shouting, not close but loud enough to seem loud. A papio had yelled a few words.

“What did that mean?” Elata asked.

Merit hadn’t heard enough.

Nissim had, and he gave Tar`ro a careful glance.

Somewhere in the back of the ship, somewhere past the shop, gunfire suddenly broke out, intense and swift and then gone again.

Echoes and the memory of gunfire lingered. The imprisoned crew jumped to their feet, and the four papio shouted orders at them and each other, waving their automatic weapons. But then nothing else seemed to happen. Normal sounds of engines and life drifted into the galley, lasting long enough that the mind could almost wonder if nothing was wrong. The slayer crew began to sit again. Nobody relaxed, but most of the room was ready to stop breathing fast.

Then another voice shouted, closer than the first.

“Enemy,” a woman called out, in papio.

Gunfire erupted again, and wild shouts, and this time the mayhem didn’t melt into doubt.

Three guns were firing. Soldiers were fighting inside the machine shop, and then they were climbing and shooting. Diamond was almost glad for the distraction. He counted the guns and listened to voices, imagining a single brave crewman who had managed to remain free. He pictured Tar`ro running with his pistol in hand, and then Karlan swinging a huge steel bar. But he didn’t imagine Master Nissim, and he never used Father. Even in his head, those two men weren’t allowed to be heroic.

Eventually the gunfire slowed and then was gone. Shrill papio words wandered through Bountiful. Someone yelled for someone to be careful about the bladders. Corona flesh was strong, but bullets were stupid. If a bullet found weakness and the hydrogen jetted free, they could be screwed. That’s what the papio were shouting in both languages. “Screwed screwed screwed.”

The cabin door had been left slightly ajar, allowing the guarding soldier to keep watch over Diamond. The guard filled the hallway. The boy was lying on the narrow bed, wearing his school trousers again, watching his new thumb emerge. Good was sitting in the cabin’s safest corner, his back to the walls. The hated sack needed to be torn to ribbons. Still furious for being shoved inside that blackness, the monkey punched holes in the sack with his incisors, and he tugged with his arms and with curses, creating long ribbons of canvas.

“Bad evil bad wrong,” he told the growing stack of rags.

Diamond watched his thumb, but he wasn’t thinking about his thumb.

Then a single shot rang out, as far from the cabin as possible.

One very big body ran up to the door and the soldier. An officer looked inside the cabin, staring at the chewed-up hand, and without a word, the newcomer shut the door and used a small key to work the lock.

It was dark inside the tiny room.

The soldier in the hallway said several papio words, including, “Why?”

The officer responded with orders. Listening to papio was different than reading it. Diamond didn’t understand, but the tone and breathless speed of the words made the orders important. Then the officer named the enemy with a word that was the very much the same in both languages.

“Jazzing,” he heard.

“Angry angry angry,” said Good, staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” Diamond said. But he didn’t feel sorry. He had saved the monkey’s life and was bitten for his trouble.

Good had never been this furious with his boy. “Angry mad pissed,” he said.