“What are you standing around for? Hop to it!”

*   *   *

Sheridan prodded them back through the mists toward a far wall. They followed a trail of glowing blooms, which shone fainter and fainter as they went. Avery supposed the ghost-flower species was gone now, and he thought of all the native tribes who had depended on harvesting it for their livelihoods; they would suffer because of this. He consoled himself that there were plenty of other exotic species in the Crothegra for them to exploit—assuming, of course, that they weren’t all consumed by the maggot infestation first. As he went, Avery was more and more bothered by the fact of the Key, and that Sheridan had known what it was, where it was. Had it been her main objective all along?

But no, he’d seen her attempt to kill Layanna outside the village. If she had meant to retrieve the Key from the beginning, she would need Layanna to open the Dome’s door for her. She would not have tried to kill her.

Unless, of course, she hadn’t been doing that at all. What had Avery seen, really? He had seen Sheridan coming at Layanna with a knife, about to cut her with it in the only exposed place she could, what with the armor Layanna had been wearing—the knife which could render Layanna powerless. It had looked like Sheridan was about to slit her throat, but had Sheridan merely been making sure Layanna couldn’t bring over her other-self, the better to compel Layanna through the jungle and to the Dome? If so, that meant that Sheridan had just gotten what she’d wanted all along. If it were true.

The group found the wall and walked along it till they came to a stairwell leading up into one of the towers. This one had no stairs, really, but was a long, curving ramp, curling ... up. With Sheridan trailing behind, her gun ever at the ready and Janx just before her so she could keep an eye on the Key, the group ascended the ramp, a long, grueling climb requiring several stops, before finally bursting into sunlight at the top of a slender black tower.

Drawing away from them, Sheridan spoke into her radio, and they waited, as wind howled all around them and the sun began to lower toward the jungle to the west. How long had they been in the damned Dome? Avery’s head throbbed from where Sheridan had clubbed him, and he still heard the roar of the carapaced behemoth or god-thing in his ears, though at least that was beginning to fade.

Several times Janx drew too close to the edge of the tower, perhaps planning to hurl the Key into oblivion, but always Sheridan’s gun jerked in his direction, and he moved back to the center.

Once, looking over the side, Sheridan said, “I’ll tell you one thing. The first order I give when I’m picked up will be to firebomb this whole fucking area.”

Avery made himself say, “Have your people in Ezzez do the same to the chapels of the Restoration. The maggot people are there, too.”

Two shapes appeared in the sky, growing larger, and at last resolved into dirigibles, both Octunggen. The craft docked with the tower, and the crew from one transferred to the other, which Sheridan boarded, her minions having taken possession of the Key. While Hildra kept her gun trained on the admiral, Avery and Layanna checked the dirigible they were being given for booby-traps and other sabotage, then made sure the ship’s guns were loaded. They were. The two trained them on Sheridan’s dirigible as Janx and Hildra climbed in.

Looking at Avery, Sheridan said quietly, “You could come with me, Doctor.”

“Come with you?”

Her expression didn’t waver. “Yes.”

He was aware of a certain feeling, a sort of tug. Part of him wanted to go. Just a short time ago he had wanted to finish what he and Sheridan had begun. He still did. And, he hated to admit it, but there might even be something more to it than that.

Flicking her gaze to Layanna, Sheridan added, “You don’t seem wanted here.”

“Thank you,” he said. “No.”

Sheridan nodded, perhaps sadly, and Avery—to his chagrin—felt a pang in his own chest. Damn her.

“Shove off,” she told her crew, speaking Octunggen, and they obeyed. Her ship sailed away, presumably to rendezvous with her fleet or the zeppelin they operated from. The two ships’ crews kept their weapons locked on the other all the while.

As Janx shoved off the group’s own dirigible, Avery powered up the engines and steered it away.

“You are wanted,” Hildra told Avery. “Maybe not by blondie, but you’re still our doc.” She indicated Janx, who nodded. “So you fucked up. You are a guy.”

To all this—to whom it had surely been directed—Layanna said nothing.

In a low voice, Janx told her, “He did throw himself on a gun for you, darlin’.”

For a moment Layanna remained rigid, but then she began to relax, just slightly. Instead of addressing any of this, she said, “What is the Key?”

“We might never know,” Avery said. “And if we do find out it can only mean it accomplished something terrible.”

“She indicated it was more important than anything,” Layanna said. “I don’t understand it.”

“Think she’s really gone?” Janx asked. “I mean, is she goin’ back to Octung now? She’s a hero there.”

Avery peered over his shoulder, watching Sheridan’s dirigible recede to a tiny pinprick against the clouds.

“I doubt it,” Layanna said. “She’s most valuable to them in Ghenisa, and I suspect that’s where she’ll be bound to next.”

“I hate to admit it, Doc,” Janx said, “but we’d have been dead without that bitch. Stuck in the jungle and surrounded by those things. Maybe she didn’t mean to, but she saved our asses.”

Hildra snorted. “Yeah. Shit. If she’d died on Activation Day, we’d be dead now, wouldn’t we?” In dawning dismay, she said, “She’s the one got us away from that big maggot, too. Fuck! Maybe saving her wasn’t a total cock-up.”

At her words, Avery felt an unexpected lift, as if a weight had been removed from his shoulders. With a start, he realized that in some strange, inexplicable way, Hildra had just forgiven him. Absolved him of allowing Sheridan to continue living.

Wordlessly, blinking in surprise (and blinking away some tears, too), he nodded to her. Thank you. Just as wordlessly, she nodded back, seeming just as surprised.

“What about the nectar?” Janx said. “We went through a lot to get it. Is it ...?”

“Soon we’ll be far enough away for me to bring over my other-self,” Layanna said. “Then I can store the nectar in an organelle until it’s time for me to use it. When the Starfish arrives.”

Avery thought, Ani, I’m coming home.

Chapter 3

Black times had come to Ghenisa, that much was obvious as soon as Avery and the others stepped off the plane at Hissig. For one, the airport was packed, as if any that could afford it were desperately fleeing by air; others must be going by bus, car, even by foot. There were only a few planes going out, and, as with Ezzez, Avery’s group had had a hard time finding one coming in. This had been a major problem, as the wave of Starfish had been getting closer every day and Avery’s group wouldn’t be able to reach the coast by the time the creatures arrived, thus unable to stop them. Then, even as the group flailed to find a connecting flight, came the day when the Starfish were due to have begun their assault—but, for some mysterious reason, they didn’t.

No one outside Ghenisa had known what was going on inside the country, but on the way back Avery’s party had heard rumors running wild of Admiral Haggarty on the warpath and fighting in the streets. Now Avery saw multitudes sitting in grave silence in the airport terminals, waiting for planes that might not come. Many stared with blank, dull faces at television screens, where a news anchor was giving an address. Without having to discuss the matter, the four paused to listen:

“... still no sign of the Prime Minister. She’s been missing for three days now, and though many reports have come in that she’s dead and that her body has been recovered, each corpse is revealed to be that of someone else. She may still be alive and in hiding. Some say she and General Hastur are together, planning to strike back when they can ...” The anchor’s eyes moved to someone off-screen, and his posture changed, becoming more rigid, and when he spoke next fear tinged his words, and also bitterness. Was someone in the studio with him censoring his report, possibly at the point of a gun? “Grand Admiral Haggarty claims he has no knowledge of …”

“Doctor Avery?”

A man grabbed Avery’s elbow. When the doctor turned to him, he saw a breathless, gaunt-faced young man, urgency in his every tic.

“Who are you?”

In a whisper, the man said, “I’m a supporter of Denaris. Please. Come with me. My associates are distracting Haggarty’s agents even now.” Darkly, he said, “They were awaiting your arrival.”

“How do we know you’re not with Haggarty?” Hildra said.