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“If one swallows you, I’ll jump down his throat and we’ll cut our way out together,” he promised her.

“What if it chews?”

This time he did sigh. “You’re too logical.”

It took them the better part of four hours to climb to the top of the rubble heap that blocked the main entrance into the citadel. From the top, Ben could see the trench-like gap between portions of outer wall that had not fallen and the high, more intact inner wall of the citadel itself. He could see gray-blue skies and whitecapped forests stretching to the horizon. It was all so beautiful that he wanted to stay forever.

And it occurred to him that if he killed and ate the little girl, he’d recover his strength swiftly. Maybe he’d even cook her first.

But she was looking at him when the thought came, and the way she slowly drew away from him reminded him that the thought was not his own. He forced it away and gave her a little smile, a genuine Ben smile.

The stone doors beyond the rock pile were down, and it took far less time to descend into the outermost great chamber of the citadel.

The only lights available to him were little streaks of sunlight entering by windows near the ceiling. They let him see that there were no furnishings left in this chamber—not even moldy, tattered remnants. It had been stripped of goods long ago. All that remained were entryways into black hallways and curved stone staircases going up or down.

He desperately wanted to descend. He knew the eyeball-shaped ship was somewhere below, hidden, waiting for him. Calling to him.

But he had no strength, and he knew that if he were to become the ship’s master, he would have to conquer it.

“We’ll camp here,” he told Kiara.

She looked around dubiously, but said nothing.

Ben slept and dreamed that, in the darkest hour of the night, something detached itself from the ceiling far above.

It looked like three giant balls, the center one slightly larger and attached to the other two by pivots. A cluster of five legs emerged from each end ball, and they worked together to allow the thing to walk slowly down the wall.

In his dream, he said, “Go away.”

no

this is my home now

your kind is gone

I shall eat you

“I’ll kill you.”

It paused halfway down the wall.

give me the little piece of meat

I will leave you alone

“I’ll kill you.”

It began its descent again.

“Outside,” Ben said, “there are neks. Hunting me. I couldn’t bring myself to eat the first one. Now I wish I had. But you can. Go outside and hunt the neks. They’ll be close.”

The thing stopped again and waited a full minute. Then it changed course, moving toward the top of the rock pile.

Rocks tumbled down the pile as it squeezed through the opening.

In his dream, Ben thought he heard neks howling.

“Eat girl.”

“Grow strong.”

The voices faded as Ben awoke. Hurriedly he glanced around.

Kiara, looking pale, her features sharpening from strain and starvation, was still asleep next to him.

The ceiling was better illuminated. Around its edges there were many odd shapes—curved balconies, broken statuary, other forms he couldn’t identify. He wondered if any of them might become the thing he had seen in his dream.

He prodded Kiara awake. “Come on. We have work to do.”

“Are we going to wake Shaker up?”

“I hope so.”

As his last act of preparation, Ben reconnected the tracer’s severed antenna-leg to its main body, then hung the pouch loop around the dummy he’d constructed.

It wasn’t much of a dummy—just a carefully built pile of stone with red blankets draped around it. But perhaps it would do. It was situated at a spot where the outer walls still stood and the base of the inner wall was littered with stones that had fallen from the high reaches. The pouch hung from its neck.

Kiara following, Ben retreated past the shriveled, frozen nek body they had discovered upon emerging that morning. They found a spot concealed between two courses of dressed stone, and they waited. Ben was as alert as his starvation-induced