Time passes. I’d lose track, except they give us a new packet of food each morning, and I note the arrival on the wall beside me. On the fourth day, a small alt-Mareq male steps into the hut with us. He bears some interesting implements, which look like a knife, a scanner, and something I’ve never seen before.

He explains, “Fix smelly female,” before setting to work.

That’s more sense than I’ve gotten from any of them yet. He uses all three tools on me, and I scream while he burns the infection out. It requires Vel holding me for the Mareq healer to finish the job, and I’m weeping by the time the wound seals. Afterward, Vel pets my hair with his claws until the shaking stops.

We wait more. Ten meals. And marks. If my poor count holds true, we’ve been stranded here six weeks. Dina and Hit must be petrified. Now I bear a nasty, puckered scar in the shape of the creature’s teeth, and since the Mareq worked on me, I’ve shaken the fever that’s plagued me since the attack in the jungle.

“How’s your hand?” I ask Vel.

He peels off the dirty Nu-Skin to show me the blunt tip, where his claw once grew. But the gouge where it ripped free has sealed over cleanly.

“On Ithiss-Tor, I would be cut in caste for such a disfigurement,” he says quietly.

“Even with a prosthesis?”

He nods, but before he can say more, I hear footsteps, and it’s not mealtime. Hopefully, this means they’ve come to some decision about what to do with us. If they haven’t, Mary help them.

Because I’m Sirantha Jax, and I have had enough.

CHAPTER 32

We’re escorted to the town hall, though it’s just a large mound. The alt-Mareq eye us as we enter, but I can’t interpret their expressions. I wasn’t among the regular Mareq long enough to learn their body language, as I can read Vel’s, and these aren’t the same peaceable creatures we left on Marakeq.

There are too many of them talking at once for my chip to distinguish any words. Consequently, I hear only croaking en masse, no distinct meanings. This appears to be a judgment of some kind, though, as I’m brought to stand before a committee of seven: three males, four females. Their colors are all lighter than the others, which makes me think they’re older—that and the baggy skin around the throat. Some signs of aging are universal.

They motion the others to silence with wide, sweeping gestures from their webbed hands. Soon it’s quiet enough in here that I can hear my own breathing. That’s not a good sign, especially the way I’m laboring; I sound nervous even to my own ears. Not surprising, that, given they hold our lives in their hands.

The female who visited us has laid her eggs since we last saw her. She’s leaner now, and more vicious-looking. In one hand, she bears a weapon similar to the one they trained on us before. She comes to a halt before Vel and me, surveying us from head to toe. I know we’re filthy, and we smell disgusting. Mary, we did before they locked us up.

“Talk,” she says. Or at least, that’s what my translation chip claims. “Not killing, it might know some useful thing.”

Hard to say if that’s a statement or a question, but I’ll try to know some useful thing if it keeps us alive a little longer. “About what?”

“Close Broken gate.”

“Take us to it. Maybe we can fix it.” That’s quite a gamble. But honestly, we can’t worsen our plight at this juncture.

More rumbles and croaks, so that I lose the meaning. Vel doesn’t seem to be having any better luck processing the group discussion. Eventually, I make out one word from the elders:

Go.

Please let that mean we’re going to the gate.

“Follow,” the warrior female orders.

I comply, not only because she’s jabbing her weapon between my shoulder blades. From here, I move out of the assembly mound and out of the village. It’s a forced march, probably less than two kilometers from the village. The gate sits atop a hill like some kind of ancient temple, and unlike the pad where we came through, the structure’s intact, including arch and crystals. The bottom is paved in the same black stones I noticed on Marakeq.

“Near Broken gate,” she says, pointing at it with a flourish.

But it doesn’t look busted like the first one we saw here. Keeping an eye on her weapon, I edge a little closer for a better look. Yeah, it’s the same in every respect, and I cast back to when we fell through. What the hell happened, exactly?

“Do you remember how we activated it?” I ask Vel, low.

Depressingly enough, he shakes his head. To the best of my recollection, I just stepped on the pad while Vel was examining the crystals. Which we haven’t done yet. The lights in the crystals are still dim, so I guess that means we’re not close enough. The lights came on first, before anything more interesting happened.

If this gate works like its twin, then our proximity and weight on the pad should activate the mechanism. I’m guessing it recognizes something in our DNA. Big if. The question is, will she-with-the-gun shoot us if we step onto it? I motion Vel toward the crystals, and he gets it at once.

After taking a deep breath, I step forward as he moves into the position, and the crystals click to life, one by one, a dazzling glow even in daylight. The Mareq warrior behind us croaks out a protest:

“Broken!” she insists, even as the lightning kindles between the upthrust arms of the arch. She seems to have forgotten her weapon, wide mouth hanging open.

“Not for us,” I say.

Violet energy ebbs and flows madly, creating the pocket maelstrom that sucked us through before. I hope to Mary these gates don’t have multiple stops. Come on, right back where we came from. Come on.

The universe grants my wish in a violent twist, dissolving my being in a fashion that’s now familiar to me. Sickness swirls through me, though I lack any sort of a body to encompass it. I can’t feel my hands anymore, and the last thing I see with eyes that aren’t eyes any longer is the strange Mareq female fighting not to be pulled into the vortex. But she falls, as we do, into the endless darkness.

Numbness ripens into pain when I land, hard, on the other pad. I recognize this one. We came from here. Thank Mary. Oh, thank you. We made it back.

The crystals flicker on our arrival, but they don’t power up. I guess they know the difference between coming and going. Just to be safe, I crawl off the pad as soon as I can control my arms and legs again, then collapse against the wall. The way out is pretty simple, and I think I can find the Mareq village. This time, Vel shakes it off faster than I do, bless his adaptive Ithtorian physiology, but the alt- Mareq female makes a noise that sounds like weeping, low and hopeless and without end.

I try to comfort her, but she slaps me away and shoots me in the face. Or, at least, she tries to. She doesn’t realize that the gate fries technology, a serious drawback in any transportation system. So it leaves her weapon clicking in her hand instead of killing me like it’s supposed to. In absolute rage, she hurls the thing at my head, and I slide sideways.

Soon enough, I climb to my feet. Just a little farther, and we’ll be done with this fragging planet. I’ve spent enough time here to last a lifetime. Vel’s already waiting by the far end of the sunken room, ready to put this disaster behind us.

When it becomes clear to her that we’re heading out, she staggers upright and pleads, “Not to leave behind.”

With a faint sigh, I motion her onward. She can live among the native Mareq, from whom her people come; I have no doubt. Right now I don’t care, either. I just want off this rock. Once more, doing the right thing had unforeseen consequences. Still, despite the hardship and fear, I’m not sorry I brought Baby-Z2—Zeeka—home.

The return journey passes quickly because I’m running. This swamp holds no horror for me, compared to where we’ve been. The other two follow close behind.

At first, I don’t notice the changes because I’m in such a hurry, but as we get closer to the village, I can see that the undergrowth has been cut back, creating a definite road that wasn’t here before. I cast a glance at Vel, who’s noticed it, too. There are score marks on the trees from laser fire, as if someone was determined to burn a path.

“How long were we gone?” I ask softly.

He lifts one shoulder in a mute shrug. Hard to say. I don’t stop to ponder the number of trees that have been removed, however. I keep moving toward the settlement, which has changed as much as the surrounding swamp.

There’s a definite modern presence here now, bits of technology that might’ve come from our ship. A metal shard stands in the middle of the green, a comm tower, if I don’t mistake its purpose. Unease crawls through me, but I’m sure Dina’s been out to look for us. It may have been as long as a month or two; she’s gonna be so mad when we finally see her again. I don’t know whether she’ll punch me or hug me. Probably both in quick succession. Before I can decide whether to hike to the ship right away, the natives take the choice from me.

The villagers greet us with a glad hue and cry, Dace leading them. Somehow, she doesn’t seem surprised to see us. She greets us with open arms and a bump of her chest. I gather that’s something like a hug. I stumble a few steps in answer to her exuberance.

“The door to otherness is unlocked,” she proclaims. “The prophecy of Oonan has come to pass. Long live Jax Oonan!”

What the hell?

“Explain,” I demand.

“The star-walkers own the otherness doors. We walk them only with our masters.”

So the Mareq were, long ago, enslaved to the Makers? That’s my best guess.

“Will they work for you now?”

“It is promised.”

A cheer goes through the village, terrifying our alt- Mareq companion. The warrior cringes behind us, much as I would if confronted with a specter from mankind’s evolutionary past. Others push closer, touching her skin to see if it’s sleeker than theirs. They gasp and marvel while she whimpers with discomfort.

“I don’t think she likes that,” I warn them.

To my surprise, the Mareq back off immediately, and the female quivers, taking a step farther away. I understand her culture shock; this has to seem so surreal. One minute she’s in her own place, minding her business, and the next, she’s here. I get that displacement from the ground up.

“Dace, I have a ton of questions for you, but right now, Vel and I need something to eat and a place to sleep. We’ll head for the ship tomorrow.”

“The flying boat is gone,” Dace tells me.

A cold shock runs down my spine. “Gone where?”

“For many turns now,” she answers. “Gone up above the rains. But I knew you would return, for it is written.”

Many turns? Surely she doesn’t mean turns in the way I do. This must be the chip screwing with me.

“Just how many ‘turns’ were we missing?”

A puzzled silence falls in response. They don’t count as we do. They just do “few” or “many” and in conjunction with the simplicity of their lives, it works for them just fine. For Vel and me, this could be catastrophic. I really need to know how long we’ve been gone.