One night, a colleague asked Crock if she wanted an audience with Divers.

But she had been ordered to avoid the creature, which was what she intended to do until ordered otherwise.

Then came whispers about whispers, and rumors wilder than any tale about old coronas coughing up unlikely beasts. And soon after that the tree-walkers decided to slaughter each other in a mad, idiot attempt to murder one boy. Crock found herself in briefings about situations that had already changed in the field. Three times, she sat onboard her whiffbird, instructing her team about a new destination but always with the same goal—to grab up that miracle boy. But those important missions were aborted twice, and the third attempt was called off when an orange flare was sent past their bird’s nose. Only the fourth mission mattered. That briefing came en route. Crock read from papers so important that they had to be burned afterwards. Like any assignment devoid of planning and good sense, there were needless casualties on both sides. But there weren’t as many dead as she feared, and Bountiful was theirs, and the boy was theirs again. He was stolen from a corona set on their land, after all. And if all of that wasn’t historic enough, Crock was told to take her three best men to the galley and sit on everybody but the boy.

Soldiers are consummate experts at sitting. Crock’s prisoners were slender short creatures, except for the boy named Karlan. They smelled odd but not sour, and it took time to grow accustomed to their wispy, unserious voices. Because she knew their language, at least to a point, she found herself interacting with them, and liking them for good reasons, and not liking them for different good reasons.

Just once, Diamond came into the galley to eat and speak to his father.

She watched the boy and listened carefully to whatever he said. Diamond loved his father, that old man Merit. Merit knew the papio and respected them, and she could see his love for the boy. But oddly, Diamond didn’t generate emotions inside her. He spoke words that she understood about subjects that didn’t exist, and he seemed out of place in more ways that she could count, and then he had left the galley for his cabin again and she was glad of it.

Later, after the storm broke and night was finished, Bountiful was spotted by the fletches. The mission commander sent orders that one soldier was to guard the former crew while the rest of the prisoners were brought to the machine shop and lined up in plain view. Tree-walkers liked to ride inside gas bags. Their quickest bags were approaching in a hurry, and their captains needed to be reminded who was at risk if real fighting should break out.

Crock considered leaving the big boy behind. Karlan was the only prisoner who worried her, and because of that, she liked him. She saw good qualities in his walk and manner and how he wore his little miseries, and that’s why she put Karlan beside her. To help the image of peaceful coexistence, she cut away the bindings around his wrists, and then she told him that if anything felt wrong, with him or the world, he would die first.

“Good to know,” the boy said, winking at her.

Then the Diamond boy was brought to the dock. Three fletches had already caught them, and the papio commander called down from the bridge with orders to get every whiffbird ready. Smart leaders wanted options in case of trouble, and the first option was to throw their prize into one of the birds and then flee into the tangled canopy overhead.

Karlan was standing on Crock’s left, and the big room was jammed full of engine sounds. Diamond stood to Karlan’s left, flanked by his father and his teacher while that tiny monkey perched on his shoulder. Two other papio soldiers were on her right, while past them were the disarmed bodyguard and two other children.

Every face looked tense and brutally tired.

Every face but Diamond’s, she realized. He was still smiling. Standing in that line, helpless as anyone in the world, yet that pale-eyed creature looked as if he was somewhere else entirely.

One fletch was visible, its flat top rising even with the shop floor. Crock hated the bouncy wrong feel beneath her. Hard coral, rough and honest, was what she wanted to walk across. Soon, she thought. Then she found herself looking at Karlan. Why was that? A lot of thoughts had been swirling inside her, and just then, willing herself to use fresh eyes, she finally saw what should have been apparent from the very first glance.

Over the roaring whiffbirds, she shouted, “You’re a little bit papio.”

Karlan turned. He was huge and bold and full of natural bluster, but her words left him mute. This was a revelation.

“It happens,” she said. “It doesn’t happen much, but the species cross. Our blood and bones get mixed with yours. Fifty generations pass, but the bodies remember their nature as they wander. Two tree-walkers meet and mate, and the old blood suddenly shows up in the big arms and legs and the strength that never sleeps. Which is the papio inside you.”

Hearing every word, Karlan was too stunned to react.

And others heard it too. Diamond noticed and turned to look at Crock, something in those words worthy of a near-giggle. Then the strange boy looked forwards again, and Crock saw the fletch hanging close outside and the whiffbirds looked eager to fly—although launching would be a tough trick with so many aircraft bunched together—and that was the moment when Karlan started to respond.

She heard the curse and the first shards of pain coming with his words, and she started to turn back toward the giant boy, wondering if she had made a mess of things, telling him what he didn’t want to know.

That was when an autocannon began to fire.

Every other sound in the world became soft, thin and weak.

The cannon fired three rounds and paused, and then three more. The fletch’s front gunner was aiming high, aiming at one point, trying to punch a big hole through the ship’s hull and first bladder. Crock was running before she gave her legs the order. She sprinted to the edge of the floor and shouldered her rifle, pinning her sight to a young man, and her first shot passed through the bubble and through his face.

Of course she fired. Fletches were flown by soldiers and soldiers had plans, and this had to be somebody’s plan. That’s why she swung her gun to the right, fixing the sight on the next gunner inside his little bubble. He was sitting. He was watching, his expression perplexed and a little irritated by what hadn’t been deciphered by his head, and she managed a fine piece of shooting that left that bubble shattered, its interior painted with blood and brain.

The third gunner was moving.

Crock got her sight pinned him.

But hydrogen was leaking out of Bountiful, and the ship was tipping severely as the engines began to accelerate. She missed her shot and missed again, and meanwhile the final gunner managed to sweep the dock with cannon fire, shells bursting through the walls and closed doors and the one open door, a fat round coming into Crock’s chest and out the backside before it turned into a hammer that pushed her dead body out into the bright rain-washed air.

With the first bark of the cannon, Merit put his eyes and one hand on Tar`ro, shaking him when he yelled, “Keep Diamond safe.”

As if the man needed encouragement.

Tar`ro slipped closer to the boy, hunting for weapons. Papio guns were big and hard to maneuver. He wanted a piece of steel, preferably something sharp. But who would he fight? That perfectly fine question asked itself, and the man wasted another moment trying to piece together some strategy that wouldn’t be impossible two breaths after it began.

The cannon stopped firing, and the papio woman was standing in the open door, firing at fresh targets.