But the boy had to tell him one last wonder. “Her blood was red. I saw that. It was red and shiny just like mine.”

Nissim dragged up shiny fire suits, looking like flattened bodies. Karlan was standing at the edge of the shop floor, one giant arm holding a strap so that the big body could lean into the open, affording him a better view of the world.

Merit fought his leg until he was standing.

The suits came in various sizes, few able to fit anybody properly. Diamond found the smallest two and gave them to his friends, and while Elata dressed, Seldom said, “You can’t let yourself burn. Even if you healed, that would be awful.”

“I’ll wear something big and share it with Good.”

Good jumped when he heard his name.

The crash chairs were built into the long back wall, and everyone would sit with the wall on their right, backs to the bridge. It took several recitations to dress and get into position. Merit wished he could help more, and he was glad not to be tempted. He claimed a chair behind his son, and Diamond turned and looked back at him. But the face was working to smile, the last of the genuine joy being spent.

As promised, the oversized suit had room for a monkey. But the animal had his own plan, climbing into a high cupboard filled with tools that were quickly flung across the shop, leaving an empty volume that was dark and cool when the door was secured behind him.

Outside, coming too slowly and too late, were a squadron of whiffbirds. But the at least wings had stopped flying close, making the world quieter when the final siren came to life—a bright screeching roar warning of an imminent collision.

Karlan was last to claim a crash seat, but he didn’t bother with the undersized suits.

Nissim was behind Merit, struggling with the clips on his various belts.

Bountiful’s engines screamed, begging for speed. Then they suddenly fell silent, and Elata asked, “What’s that mean?”

“We’re going into reverse,” Karlan shouted. “Kill some momentum before we smash into the reef and die.”

The airship jumped, passing from the open air into the confused breezes above the coral. Merit looked out the missing doors, glad for the pressure of the belts and sitting close enough to his son to touch him, waiting for smart words to come to mind—a last thought before everybody but Diamond was cooked to death.

That’s all that seemed possible just then.

And then a papio appeared, galloping down the hallway and into the shop. The man was using an arm and both legs to run, and under the other arm was an insulated box bound tight with cords covered with various pillows pulled from various beds. The stranger ignored everybody else, sprinting to the first missing door and grabbing the same strap that Karlan had held, eyeing distances and speed before very carefully flinging the box into the open air.

Merit looked ahead, checking on Diamond.

His son had dipped his head, and his father couldn’t be certain, but Diamond looked as if he was crying.

Then the old slayer looked at the open door and the papio standing with the strap in hand, and suddenly the papio was off the floor and rising, caught up in some fantastic gust of wind that was visible for a moment. It looked like a quivering mass of hard gray smoke, and whatever it was carried the papio up the side of the ship, out of sight, so suddenly that it seemed as if the man had been imagined, had never been.

Bountiful’s engines coughed and returned, propellers aiming for a hard reverse.

The great ship slowed noticeably, and it plunged harder.

Merit hoped for a valley, flat-bottomed and relatively safe. But then he saw a ridge of coral edging towards them, lifting higher as they dropped . . . and to his son, to everybody, he shouted, “Wait for us to stop, then run!”

The collision was abrupt, and it was softer than he had any right to expect. Grinding roars ended with a merciless jerk of corona bones and lightweight alloys. In an instant, the bottom section was torn free of the half-deflated bladders. The shop and hallway, cabins and galley were lodged inside a long crevice, and they stopped moving while the rest of the ship found itself lighter again, leaping high before shredding and collapsing, the engines igniting a wealth of hydrogen in a scorching blaze that even at a distance felt like the world had been shoved inside a hot angry oven.

Screams came from everyone, and then silence.

Merit couldn’t say when he got to his feet or if there was pain. But he was mobile enough to run, and what he did first was unfasten Diamond’s belts and then the other children’s. The knee didn’t complain until they were out on the barren, eroded coral, and he was counting every head, not believing the number but still thinking that this was so much better than he dared guess. Karlan’s hair was burnt, and maybe some flesh. And Nissim had gotten only one belt fastened, and now he was bent double and looking sick. Bountiful’s bridge and upper quarters were destroyed, the wreckage scattered along the higher portions of the ridge. The various fires were awful but growing weaker, and Merit wished the crew were alive, and he was thinking about Fret . . . and that’s when Seldom asked somebody, “Did you see him die?”

See who die? Merit thought of Good, but the monkey was here too.

“Something grabbed him and took him,” Seldom shouted.

“That’s what I saw,” Elata said. “Was it real?”

“What was real?” Diamond asked, stepping out of his fire suit.

“That papio man,” Seldom explained. “When we got over the reef, he threw that box out the door. And then . . . ”

“Your sister picked him up,” said Elata.

“It had to be Quest,” Seldom said.

“She was going to eat him,” Elata said.

“No, I don’t think so,” Seldom said, shaking his head. Those kinds of thoughts troubled him.

“Where did you see Quest?” Diamond asked.

“I didn’t,” Seldom said.

“She was higher on the ship, riding on the bags.” Elata said the words and then believed them, pointing up the long slope.

Diamond turned, and after a moment of saying nothing, he began to run toward the brilliant blue fires.

Merit tried to follow. The knee fought him, but the man refused pain and weakness and his own gathering age. He wanted nothing but to take care of the last shred of his family, and that’s why he managed to sprint for a fair distance. Nobody followed. He discovered that he was alone, limping along the ridge’s crest. Then he stepped wrong on the weak leg, tilting and recovering. But as the pain escalated, his strong leg slipped out from under him. He fell hard and spun down the far side of the ridge, and his cheek shattered and one wrist snapped before he came to a rest inside a wide bowl where rainwater clung to the sandy coral grit.

Merit lay on his back.

Machines were flying, approaching from every direction.

For a moment, he could hear Diamond calling for him. Or he imagined the familiar, wondrous voice. Either way, Merit sat up and remained sitting upright, and a creature that was scampering up that same slope spotted him and turned its course, approaching close enough that there was nothing in the world but the coral beneath and the titanic beast that overwhelmed—a papio’s shape but enlarged, juvenile in the face but powerful and sure-footed, strange pink hair that wasn’t hair, and lungs like bellows breathing hard after a very long run.

“Divers,” said Merit.

“And you are?” a booming voice asked, in papio.

He said his name both ways. “Merit,” and then, “Deserve.”

“I know you,” said the creature. “Yes, I know all about you.”

Then Divers reached down with both of those huge hands, one set of fingers carefully cradling the injured body while other fingers closed together, and that was the hand that pulled, removing the man’s tiny head.