“Go,” I say.

  He and Naomi run at the same time, low and fast, Brig faster. He vaults over the side of the ship smoothly, even with the armor that bristles near the railing. Naomi takes longer, but she makes it over, too.

  I don’t hear any shots.

  “Go,” I say to the others. Eira nods to me and darts across the ship deck, careful around the armor. She climbs up, and then she’s over.

  “I can’t swim,” says one of the machinists, huddled down on the deck. We’re almost out of time.

  “You can,” I say. “Or they wouldn’t have let you on this ship. You’ll be fine.” I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to plead and cajole. “I’ll help you. Go.”

  “No,” he says.

  “We can’t survive the raiders out there,” another machinist says. “We can’t survive the woods.”

  “You can.” I lift the rifle, threatening them. “Now.”

  Something in my eyes makes them flinch, but no one moves to leave.

  I could shoot them. That’s what I should do. I should slick the deck with their blood as they cower and waste time. If they won’t help me, I should make it so they can’t help the raiders.

  On the bluff, the raiders are moving into some kind of formation.

  They’ve noticed us up here. They’ve seen us jumping in the dusk. They know the armor is down.

  It was only a matter of time, and time’s up.

  People will die today.

  But not me. When I die, Call is dead.

  “You’ll help us when it’s time to get back on,” I tell the machinists, and I put down my rifle. I can’t risk it going off as I jump. I reach into my breast pocket for Call’s ruler and hold it as tight as I can in my hand, swinging my legs over the railing and teetering on the bristly edge of my porcupine ship.

  A group of raiders take their leap from the bluff a moment before I jump from the dredge. They glide down like bright dark comets from the sky, the cloth of their chutes glowing, their bodies silhouetted black against the lowering sun.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE TASTE OF RIVER WATER is strong in my mouth, and the edge of the ruler cuts into my hand as I crawl out into the long grasses near the bank. I’ll get up and keep running. Head for the dream Call and I had. Leave the others behind.

  For a moment, I’m tempted.

  Then I hear the river slapping against the ship behind me.

  And I can’t help it. I look back.

  One of the raiders stands up on the deck, silhouetted. My heart misses a beat. He’s standing in the spot where Call used to keep a lookout on the other dredge. Against the orange blaze of the sky, the pink tips of the mountains, the night about to be new with stars, the figure could be him.

  But it’s not Call.

  Because of these people, it won’t ever be Call.

  I will never run until I take them all down.

  CHAPTER 13

  WHAT A MESS I’VE MADE.

  I laugh to myself under my breath.

  I wish I’d held on to my rifle instead of leaving it behind on the deck. Maybe it wouldn’t have accidentally gone off on the way down. Maybe the water wouldn’t have ruined it.

  I’m soaking wet. I wipe my hands on my sodden shirt and stick the ruler into my pocket, feeling around to see if the knife I took from Brig’s room made it, too. It did. That’s all I’ve got.

  Night is coming down, and even though it’s summer, I feel an edge to the air.

  I wonder whether Tam is still locked up.

  He didn’t have a chance to explain. Everything went wrong and I left him on the dredge. But I did the best I could.

  I should never have been in charge of this voyage.

  I don’t understand people. I only understood Call.

  And my ship.

  I can still get one of them back.

  * * *

  • • •

  In the last of the light, I find footprints in the mud, heading deeper into the forest. Two sets, together, and the tread on the boots is like mine. By the size of them, I would guess Brig and Naomi, or Brig and Eira. Two of the crew have found each other and are walking together, which means they made it out of the river and to shore. Four of us jumped, and at least three of us lived.

  That’s something.

  The dredge remains still, so I hear every sound I make as I follow the footprints north. They parallel the river but stay in the cover of the forest. How did the others get so far ahead of me so fast? I didn’t waste that much time trying to persuade the machinists to come with me.

  It’s strange to walk on land after so long on the boat. Everything feels solid and slippery at the same time. Leaves move under my feet, but the ground itself doesn’t shift. The air smells wonderful. Clean. From what I can tell, much of the scent comes from the green pine trees around me. If only Call could have smelled this. This is air for running.

  Do it. Go.

  That feeling again, so strong.

  Something catches my eye in the darkening woods farther upriver. Lights, glimmering through the branches of the trees. They flicker and move, the way sunlight catches on ripples in a pond.

  I leave off tracking the footprints and creep through the trees. I don’t know how to move through the brush fast and quiet at the same time so I have to settle for going slow. The branches scratch and water drips down my back. But the lights draw me closer. Stars. I think they’re stars. A stick cracks under my feet. Slow down. But I have to see. So many.

  Faster, faster through the trees.

  The lights get bigger. Did I remember stars all wrong from when I was on the river with Call? These aren’t high and cold, but close and low. It feels like I could pluck them, cup my hands around their warm, burnished radiance.

  Too close, too gold.

  Not stars.

  I stop in the underbrush, stunned.

  The lights are part of a village, which is up in the trees.

  The houses bow out from the tree trunks like boats, like full bellies. People move inside like silhouettes, climb up on ladders from the ground. Aren’t they worried about setting the forest on fire, with lamps up in the trees? What are they using to keep those lights aglow? There’s no electricity outside of the Outpost. And how did they attach the houses to the trees? I creep closer.

  The people call to one another, shouting out in voices that seem celebratory, happy. Are they raiders, too? If so, what have they heard from their associates on the dredge? Are they pleased with their victory? Do they know some of us escaped to the forest?

  I need to try and find the others. I can’t take the dredge back by myself.

  It’s fully night now, and I’m tired and cold. I finally tear my eyes away from the raiders’ beautiful, impossible village and make my way back through the bush. I find a place to rest where I can still catch a flicker of light through the trees.

  Curling up on the ground, I pull leaves and dirt over me. There’s no danger I’ll sleep. It’s too cold and I’m too near the raiders for that. But, lying there alone in the dark, I make another promise to them.

  You’ll pay for taking my ship.

  CHAPTER 14

  DAWN FILTERS THROUGH THE TREES. The villagers are awake, calling out to one another. I stretch my cold limbs and stand up partway, keeping my head well below the brush but rising up enough that I can see their village in the light for the first time.

  I wasn’t imagining things.

  The homes remind me of wasp or swallow nests tucked up under the eaves of houses in the Outpost. They’re like the little ships we studied in machinery school, the kind that sailed by the power of the wind. Wooden frames bow out from the trees, their limber golden struts covered by canvas. The design reminds me of the gliders, and the peoples’ clothes and the cadence of their words are familiar as well. They are raiders.

  It strikes me as oddly cannibalistic, the way they make their structures out of wood and then adhere them to the struts’ own unhewn counterparts. But it’s effective. They’ve made what they need out of what’s available.

  When I designed the armor for the dredge, I was trying to protect us from the raiders without knowing much about them. I’m not going to make that mistake again.

  The engineering intrigues me. I want a closer look. I want to know how they do it.

  It must be hard to anchor the houses in the branches. As I edge through the brush, I see where the raiders had to cut away limbs from the trees to make enough space for the homes.

  Why build up so high? Are they afraid of something on the ground?

  My fingers are locked and cold and I blow on them, bowing my hands out like the tree houses so I can get more air in. I’m wondering whether I dare risk getting even closer when the village swings into movement.

  Some raiders swarm down the ladders. Others lower bags and boxes to the ground. The canvas sides of the houses seem to breathe and billow, and then the cloth falls to the earth slowly, ballooning and undulating on its way down.

  They’re breaking camp.

  Was there a signal? Did I miss it?

  Once all the canvas has been removed, teams of raiders climb up the trees using ropes. They detach the wooden struts and lower them to people waiting on the ground. Once the backbones of the houses are down, the raiders dissemble them and wrap them in the canvas. Then they shoulder the bundles. Even walking, they’ll be faster than the dredge when it’s on the move.

  I lift my head a little higher to watch them go, the green leaves in front of me swaying. I put out my hand to still them.

  So this is how they follow us, how they have so many people. How they’ve lasted all this time, and the leaders of the Outpost were never able to flush them out entirely. The raiders have villages, and they live on the move.

  A sound, behind me. I duck down and turn and see—

  A girl. Dark hair, damp clothes. Slight. Staring right at the patch of brush where I’m hiding. The husky rasp of leaves against my ears and hair makes sounds like see you, see you.

  It’s Eira.

  There’s no point in hiding. I stand halfway back up, slowly. She followed my orders and jumped off the dredge, but is she a friend or an enemy? All it would take to reveal us to the raiders is a shout.

  Eira’s hair is tangled and her clothing dirty, her lips bluish. I wonder if she’s as cold as I am, and where in the woods she spent the night.

  She says something, but I can’t hear.

  Eira creeps another step closer. Hardly any sound. She’s better at keeping quiet than I am.

  Her mouth moves again and this time I can make out the words.

  Captain. Come with me.

  Behind us, I hear a groan and crash of wood and the raiders shouting. Something has fallen. A strut. A tree. I’d like to turn and see what happened, but I don’t want to have my back to Eira.

  Brig, she mouths. Again, I see the words she’s saying but I can’t hear them. Naomi. This way.

  We all made it.

  Will they help me get the ship back?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  * * *

  • • •

  “How did you find me?” I ask Eira, as she leads me through the woods.

  “I came to get a better look at the raiders,” she whispers, holding back a branch so it doesn’t slap me in the face. It’s a kind gesture, but almost futile—with so many branches growing high and low and thick in the forest, I’m already scratched up.

  “How quickly did the three of you find each other?” I ask.

  “It didn’t take long,” she says. “Brig and I came ashore at nearly the same place. Then he saw Naomi struggling and went back for her. She’s hurt.”

  I look over my shoulder in the direction of the raiders’ camp.

  “How much farther?” I ask. I don’t want to lose track of them.

  “Not far.”

  “How bad is Naomi’s injury?”

  “It doesn’t look good to me. But she says she’s fine. It’s her arm.”

  A few more moments and there they are, dirty, ragged patches sitting in the green and brown and gray of the forest.

  “Captain,” Brig says, standing up. There’s a gash across the bridge of his nose. “You made it.”

  “I did,” I say. “We all did.”

  The three of them had one another to stay warm during the night, but they look as cold and hungry as I feel. Naomi holds her arm awkwardly, and blood has soaked through her sleeve. Part of the bottom of her shirt has been torn off to tie around the injury. “I hit something in the water when I came down,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

  “The wound’s deep,” Brig says.

  “At least I’m not pouring blood anymore,” Naomi says. “Let’s get moving. We’re too close to the raiders.”

  “I don’t want to lose them entirely,” I say. “We need them.”

  “For what?” Eira asks.

  “To take back the ship.” Brig’s eyes meet mine across the heads of the other two. He knows that’s the next step. Good.

  “We have some time, not much, while they take down their village,” I say. “But we can’t lose them. They have information we need. And we’re going to have to steal from them if we want to keep from starving. I don’t have any food. Do you?”

  All three of them shake their heads. No.

  I hold out my ruler and Brig’s pocketknife, the one I confiscated when I searched his room with Tam. Brig raises his eyebrows when he sees it, but doesn’t say anything. “What else do we have?”

  “I’ve got these.” Eira pulls a pen and pencil from her pocket.

  “We’re a fine group of soldiers,” Naomi says. “We all left our rifles behind.”

  “The water would have damaged them anyway,” Brig points out.

  “We can draw and measure them into submission,” Eira says, and Brig’s mouth quirks up in a smile.

  I study Naomi’s face for signs of pain. I see resolve and exhaustion. She’s the oldest of the four of us by many years. “Has anyone cleaned the wound?”

  “Eira did a good job of it last night,” Naomi says.

  “Can you tell me how, exactly, we’re going to get the ship back?” Eira asks.

  “I don’t know yet,” I say. “I haven’t had much time to think.”

  “You didn’t imagine that your armor would fail, did you?” Eira’s tone is matter-of-fact.

  “Her armor didn’t fail,” Naomi says. “There was a traitor on the ship. They shut down the mining system, and the raiders got on through the stacker. Without the traitor, the raiders never could have boarded.”

  Mist curls against the dark-green backdrop of the trees. Our clothes—dirty, still damp—blend in, so it feels that the faces of the others are in sharp relief as they consider me, and one another.

  “It’s possible,” I say, “that the traitor jumped with us.”

  “It’s not me,” Brig says. “I want to get home. I’ve got family there.”

  “So do I,” says Eira.

  “There’s no way for either of you to prove that,” I say. “We’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “That’s true.” Eira doesn’t sound offended.

  “I don’t have any family,” Naomi says. “But these ships are my life. I’ve been on every dredge voyage. I want to see the last one through.”

  “I don’t have any family either,” I say.

  Brig laughs softly. “I don’t think any of us suspect you.”

  We all want to get the ship back, for one reason or another. Brig and Eira care about returning to the Outpost. The ship is Naomi’s home, and it’s my creation.

  “Why did you lock Tam up?” Naomi asks.

  The other two turn to stare at me.

  “I found gold hidden in his room,” I say. “Right when the alarm started going off. Naomi and I needed to find weapons and get to the mining deck. I wasn’t about to hand Tam a gun when I didn’t know who he was or what else he was hiding. He could have shot me in the back.”

  “The raiders will let him out,” says Eira. “If he was the traitor, they’ll be glad to see him. If not, he can surrender like the rest.”

  “If it was Tam, he was working with someone else,” I say. “He was with me when the mining system went down.”

  If it wasn’t Tam, who was it? How many traitors are there? The questions hang between us in the soft air of the forest.

  “We’ll have to be careful,” Brig says, after a moment. “We don’t want the raiders to know we’re out here.”

  “They probably know it already,” I say. “They must have communication with the raiders on the dredge. They have to know some of us jumped. Maybe they even saw it happen. And our bodies haven’t washed up on the shore.”

  Just thinking about the water, the river, makes me restless to get back to the ship.

  “We follow the raiders and figure out how to take them down,” I say. “We’ll figure it out.” I’ve already got some ideas from the few hours I spent observing them, but I’m not ready to share. I put the ruler back into my pocket and keep the knife out, at the ready. “Brig, you lead. Naomi next, then Eira. I’ll come last.” I want to keep my eyes on all of them.

  Eira shivers now and then as we creep back slowly through the brush, even with the morning sun finally slanting through the trees. But she doesn’t complain. None of us do. Naomi looks over her shoulder and gives me a wry, tight-lipped smile, as if to say, It could be worse.

  Brig’s height means that he has to constantly duck and keep low where Naomi and Eira only have to bend their heads. He holds back branches and waits for Naomi to take them from him so that she doesn’t get whacked in the face coming through the brush. There’s a leaf in his hair, and my fingers itch to pluck it out. Not because I want to touch him, but because I want to put things right.