Rieka insisted Coll take another night to recover, and after the last time Coll didn’t argue. Instead, they spent the day getting packed and ready. Rieka collapsed her equipment and when Fillan woke up (delighted and excited to see Coll up and about), he took Coll foraging for supplies. Fillan was surprisingly good at foraging. He seemed to have an instinct for finding berries or fruit, or leafy plants they could eat.
“Radishes,” he said, pulling one out of the ground. “They taste of pepper. And this kind of leaf with the crinkly edge. And these berries, I love these. One time I ate a whole bush full, and then I was sick, and it was purple sick!” He laughed. “But they’re OK to eat a few.”
Coll followed him around. “What about these?” he said, plucking a few tiny red berries off a bush.
Fillan shook his head. “Bad,” he said. “Bad, bad, bad. They made me poo.” He screwed his face up. “Very bad.”
Coll spat them out. “You’re pretty good at this,” he said, and Fillan beamed. “Where did you learn?”
“I just did. After…” Fillan stopped. “I just did,” he said. He wandered on ahead, pulling up roots and plucking fruit. Coll realised he still wore the little leather bag round his neck.
Fillan turned back. “Come on, lazybones!” he shouted.
When Coll caught up, the little boy took his hand and Coll let him.
They set off early the next day. It was a warm morning, and the long yellow grass was already dry. It rustled as they walked, and swished as the wind rippled through it.
They saw Ant tracks and occasionally Coll thought he heard their “chick-chick” questions. He still had his zapper with him and he kept it ready, but they saw nothing. They came across scattered pieces of metal and plastic, and Fillan discovered a long black steel feather almost as tall as him.
Then they found half a wing that had been torn away by Dragon’s terrifying jaws. Metal struts poked out like bones, electrical cables dangled and hydraulic fluid had stained the ground.
“We’re close,” murmured Rieka.
The grass was flattened in patches around them. It felt like a battlefield, but everything was eerily silent. Just the swish of the grass, the tramp-tramp of their own footsteps and the buzz of insects. And a feeling at the back of Coll’s neck that they were being watched.
They came to the edge of a crater, and there in the middle were the remains of Raven.
She lay where Dragon had smashed her down: sprawled out, her metal feathers shoved out of place, one wing trapped underneath, the other gone. The razor-sharp beak was snapped in two. Her neck was twisted back horribly.
Coll thought about what Rieka had said. It’s just a machine. But it wasn’t.
Boxes and canisters lay around. Some might have been flung clear in the crash, but others looked like they’d been unpacked afterwards. There were Ant tracks, but also human footprints.
“Where did they go?” Fillan murmured.
Coll gripped the zapper, but Rieka ignored them and studied her scanner.
“No internal power,” she muttered. “The central core has shut down.” She turned to Coll. “I’m going aboard.”
They clambered up the side of the missing wing. Rieka climbed awkwardly – Tocks weren’t used to this kind of thing – but Coll found handholds among the feathers and heaved himself up to the top first and peered over the deck rail.
Nothing. It looked a little like Wolf’s deck. There were seats with harnesses but no one in the seats. The deck had twisted in the crash and broken metal struts pushed out at odd angles. Something about it seemed … soft, as if its edges were blurry. As if it was melting in some weird way.
“Coll!” hissed Rieka behind him.
“It’s OK,” he said. “There’s no one here.” He leapt over the rail and almost stumbled. He realised he’d expected it to be moving, but it wasn’t, of course. It was dead. Rieka followed, then Fillan. The wind curled through the deck with an eerie whistling sound. Somewhere a door banged.
“It’s reverting,” said Rieka. She saw Coll’s blank expression and pointed to the soft edges. “The anthryl is holding everything together as Raven, based on the crew’s psychic field. But the field is collapsing and the anthryl is reverting.” She seemed to think this was an explanation. Coll had no idea what she meant.
“Right,” she said briskly. “I’ll check the processor; you find food.”
Coll bristled. “What, are you Alpha now, giving orders?”
She gazed at him. “You get food,” she said, as if talking to a small child, “while I access the central processor, recalibrate the sensors, analyse the damage report and initialise for cold start. I mean, unless you know how to do that?”
Coll glowered. “Fine.”
She made her way carefully along the ruptured deck to an entrance and disappeared.
Coll turned to Fillan. “You heard her,” he growled. “Hop to it.”
Some of the boxes on the ground had rations and supplies – water, dried meat, flour, grains, even medical supplies. Coll and Fillan gathered enough to keep them going for weeks.
“They must have brought these out after the crash,” said Coll. “Why not take it with them?” The door was banging still, somewhere inside. Was it the wind? Coll frowned. “Stay here,” he said.
Fillan looked at him, and then around at the silent site. He swallowed. “OK.”
Coll went back up to the deck and climbed down through the entrance. A shadow moved behind him and he realised it was Fillan.
“Stay,” he said again.
“OK,” said Fillan.
Coll took another step and the boy followed.
