“Let’s get back to making dinner,” she called above the murmuring. Everyone could feel the Setebos spawn’s clammy voice in his or her mind.

Mommy, Daddy, it’s time for me to come out now. Open the grill, Daddy, Mommy, or I will. I’m stronger now. I’m hungry now. I want to come meet you now.

Greogi, Daeman, Hannah, Elian, Boman, Edide, and Ada sat talking late into the night. Above them the equatorial and polar rings whirled silently, turning as they always had. The Big Dipper was low in the north. There was a crescent moon.

“I think tomorrow, first light, we abandon the idea of the island and begin evacuating as many people as possible to the Golden Gate at Machu Picchu,” said Ada. “We should have done it weeks ago.”

“It would take weeks for this stupid sky-raft to get to the Golden Gate at Machu Picchu,” said Hannah. “And it may break down again and never get there. Without Noman to fix it, the people on the sky-raft will be stranded.”

“We’re dead if it breaks down here as well,” said Daeman. He touched Hannah’s shoulder as the young woman seemed to slump. “You’ve done an amazing job keeping it working, Hannah, but this is a technology we just don’t understand.”

“What technology do we understand?” muttered Boman.

“Crossbows,” said Edide. “We were getting damned good at building crossbows.”

No one laughed. After a few minutes, Elian said, “Tell me again why the voynix can’t get into the habitation part of this bridge at Machu Picchu.”

“The habitation bubbles are like grapes on a vine,” said Hannah, who had spent more time there than any of them. “But linked together. Clear plastic or something. It’s late Lost Era technology, maybe even post-human technology—some sort of forcefield just above the surface of the glass. Voynix just slide off.”

“We had something similar on the windows of the crawler Savi drove us in from Jerusalem into the Mediterranean Basin,” said Daeman. “She said it was a frictionless field to keep the rain off. But it worked for voynix and calibani too.”

“I’d enjoy seeing one of these calibani,” said Elian. “And also the Caliban thing you described.” The bald man’s mouth and other facial features seemed always set to a show of strength and curiosity.

“No,” Daeman said softly, “you wouldn’t enjoy seeing either one. Especially the real Caliban. Trust me on this.”

In the silence that followed, Greogi said what they had all been thinking. “We’re going to have to draw straws… something. Fourteen get to go to the Bridge. They can carry weapons, water, and minimum rations, hunt along the way perhaps, so a full sky-raft load of fourteen can go. The rest of us stay.”

“Fourteen out of fifty-four get to live?” said Edide. “Doesn’t seem right.”

“Hannah will be one of those who goes,” said Greogi. “She flies the sky-raft back if the fourteen get to the Bridge on the first trip.”

Hannah shook her head. “You can fly the thing as well as I can, Greogi. We can teach anyone here how to fly it as well as I can. I’m not automatically on the first trip and you know… you know … there won’t be a second trip. Not with the shape the sky-raft is in. Not with the voynix continuing to mass out there in the dark. Not with the Setebos thing getting stronger every hour. Those fourteen short straws, long straws, whichever, will have a chance to live. The rest will die here.”

“Then we’ll decide as soon as it’s light,” said Ada.

“There may be fighting,” said Elian. “People are angry, hungry, resentful. They may not want to draw straws to see who lives and who dies. They may rush the raft right away, or after they don’t get a seat.”

Ada nodded. “Daeman, take ten of your best people and have them surround the sky-raft—protect it—even before I call the council together. Edide, you and your friends quietly try to collect as many of the loose weapons as possible.”

“Most people sleep with their flechette rifles now,” said the blond woman. “They don’t let them out of their hands.”

Ada nodded again. “Do what you can. I’ll talk to everyone. Explain why this is the only hope.”

“The losers will want to be ferried to the island,” said Greogi. “At the very least.”

Boman nodded. “I would. I will if I don’t get the right-sized straw.”

Ada sighed. “It won’t do any good. I’m convinced that the island is just another place to die… the voynix will be there minutes after we are if the Setebos thing isn’t there to protect us. But we can do that. Ferry those who want to go, then let the fourteen head for the Bridge.”

“It will waste time,” said Hannah. “Put more stress on the sky-raft.”

Ada held her hands out, palms upward. “It may keep our people from killing each other, Hannah. It gives fourteen people a chance. And the rest get to choose where they stand and die. That’s something—an illusion of choice if nothing else.”

No one had anything else to say. They broke up to head toward their own sleeping tents and lean-tos.

Hannah followed Ada and touched her arm in the dark before they reached Ada’s sleeping tent.

“Ada,” whispered the younger woman, “I have this feeling that Harman is still alive. I hope you’re one of the fourteen.”

Ada smiled—her white teeth visible in the ringlight. “I have this feeling that Harman is alive, too, my dear. But I’m not going to be one of the fourteen. I’ve already decided that I’m not going to take part in the drawing of straws. My baby and I are staying at Ardis.”

In the end, none of their planning mattered.

Just after sunrise, Ada jerked awake to cold hands in her mind and within her womb.

Mommy—I have your little boy here. He’s going to stay inside for a few months while I teach him things—wonderful things—but I’m coming out to play!

Ada screamed as she felt the mind in the Pit touching the developing mind of the fetus inside her.

She was on her feet and running, carrying two flechette rifles, before anyone else could fully awaken.

The Setebos baby had bent the bars of the grill back and was squeezing its gray brain-girth through the bent mesh and bars. Already the thing had tentacles flung out fifteen feet to a side, three-fingered hands sunk deep in the dirt. Three of its feeding orifices were open and the long, fleshy, trunklike appendages there were already drinking grief and terror and history from the soil of Ardis. Its many yellow eyes were very bright and as it rose out of the Pit, the many fingers on its large pink hands were waving like sea anemones in a strong current.

Mommy, it’s all right, hiss-thought the thing as it pulled itself free of the Pit. All I’m going to do is …

Ada heard Daeman and others running behind her, but she did not look over her shoulder as she stopped, jerked down the flechette rifle from her shoulder, and fired a full clip into the Setebos thing.

It spun as thousands of crystal darts shredded part of its left lobe. Tentacles lashed toward her.

Ada dodged, slapped in a second magazine, emptied it into the writhing brain.

Mommmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ada dropped the first flechette rifle when the second magazine was empty, raised the second rifle, clicked it to full automatic, stepped three paces closer between the clawing tentacles, and fired the full magazine of flechettes between the yellow eyes at the front of the brain.

The Setebos spawn screamed—screamed with its real many mouths—and fell backward into the Pit.

Ada strode to the edge of the Pit, slammed in a new magazine and fired, ignoring the shouts and screams behind her. When that flechette magazine was empty, she slapped in another, aimed at the bleeding gray mass in the pit, and fired again. Again. Again. The brain split along its hemispheres and she blasted each pulped hemisphere as if smashing a pumpkin. The pink hands and long stalks spasmed, but the Setebos spawn was dead.