My eyesight spun and my stomach heaved. I tried to concentrate, but that didn’t help much.

  “Tell me about your prisoner,” I said to Gorthak, partly to distract myself from the increasing nausea.

  Gorthak took his time answering, as if he had to think about it for a while.

  “Not a true Tog, but not pureblood like you, either. The Forgotten found her in the Science Sector, living alone in a sealed vault. It took much prodding, but they discovered that she knows old things like machine codes.”

  I shook my head.

  Gorthak seemed to think more deeply. “She knows secret words that make dead systems live.”

  “The codes to the Synthetic Minds,” Philip said. “Don’t you remember the Chaunt System?”

  I looked at the little hominid. Then I did remember. The Philip back then had known codes to put Synthetic Minds to sleep. Might this prisoner know something like that? If so, I could see why Gorthak wanted to know it.

  “What is Chaunt System?” Gorthak asked.

  “A different world,” Philip said. “Do you know about different worlds?”

  “You question me like a dog?” Gorthak demanded.

  “I’d give it a rest,” I told Philip.

  “I was just trying to explain,” Philip said.

  “Why do you keep her prisoner?” I asked.

  Gorthak quit glaring at Philip as he looked at me, his expression darkening. “She has knowledge that could end war. But she refuses to share it. Says we don’t understand what we ask for.”

  “Maybe she’s right,” Philip said.

  Gorthak spun and backhanded Philip, sending the little hominid sprawling onto the ground. “I said silence! Do you defy me, small-kind?”

  “Please, I’m sorry,” Philip whined.

  Blood welled from his flat, wide nose.

  Gorthak held up a big hand, stopping the others from firing at Philip.

  “Can I help him up?” I asked.

  “Is small-kind your friend?” Gorthak asked, sounding angry.

  “I need his knowledge to get back home,” I said, which was true, I think.

  “Where your home?” Gorthak asked.

  “Mu,” I said.

  Philip looked at me.

  “Do you lie?” Gorthak said, maybe catching Philip’s look.

  “I was born on Earth but now I live on Mu,” I said. “I’m not lying.”

  Gorthak grunted and nodded.

  I helped Philip up, noting the calculated look in his eyes. Was he gathering information talking like that? I had no doubt that was so. It just surprised me he’d risk any kind of physical injury to do that.

  A block later, my foot caught on some debris, and I stumbled. One of the Togs caught my arm—surprising gentleness from someone who looked like he ate nails for breakfast.

  “The glow-death grows stronger in you,” Gorthak said. “We must move faster.”

  He increased the pace, which I found hard to keep up with. Finally, a Tog grabbed an arm and helped me along.

  Soon, we entered the old subway tunnels proper. Philip muttered something under his breath. It turned out that the Togs had set up barricades and checkpoints, with armed guards who saluted Gorthak as we passed. At times, curved walls were covered in a mix of spray-painted warnings and what looked like tactical markings. I studied one. It struck me as a map of the surface, machine patrol routes, and possibly attack plans.

  “You fight a coordinated war,” I said.

  Gorthak nodded with pride. “We not the savages the small-kinds think we are. We remember the beforetime through stories. We learn and adapt. Most important, the machines think in straight lines. We think in circles.”

  That actually made sense, and maybe explained how they’d been doing this for so long.

  They thought in circles. I staggered, wondering if I’d ever learn more, or if the radiation sickness was going to finish me off before anyone could help me.

  -25-

  The tunnel opened into a massive subterranean station. I guessed it had once been a hub where multiple lines had converged. The Togs had turned it into an underground settlement. Hundreds moved through the space. I saw workshops where it seemed that they modified scavenged weapons. I saw what looked like hydroponic gardens growing under grow lights. That would explain how they managed to grow enough food down here to survive decades. Then there were children—actual children—playing war games with stick guns. Figures.

  Everyone stopped to stare as we passed. The baan on my belt drew gasps and pointing. Several older Togs dropped to one knee, which seemed to embarrass Gorthak.

  “They think you are legend come to life,” he said. “Plasma-singer from the stories.”

  My vision blurred, and I had to grab a railing to stay upright. The metallic taste in my mouth was overwhelming now. When I coughed, there were specks of blood on my hand.

  “Hurry,” Gorthak commanded his warriors.

  They led us to what might have been the station manager’s office. Two massive guards stood outside.

  Gorthak nodded, and they opened the door.

  Inside, working at a makeshift desk, was a strikingly beautiful woman without tusks. She had normal-seeming features.

  She was tall—maybe five-ten— with auburn hair that fell to her shoulders. Her features were refined, aristocratic even, with high cheekbones and intelligent dark eyes. I was wrong, though—she was definitely mutated. Her skin had a faint scaled pattern along her arms, almost like a snake’s but somehow elegant. Compared to the Togs, she looked almost pure human.

  She glanced up from her work, took in our group, and her eyes fixed on Philip with immediate suspicion.

  “An Institute observer,” she said. Her voice was cultured, educated. “Have you come to watch the final act of the tragedy your kind helped author?”

  Philip bristled at that. “The Institute had nothing to do with—”

  “Please, I don’t want to hear your lies,” she said, interrupting.

  So she knew about the Homo habilis clan, did she?

  She turned back to her work.

  “You’re very bigoted,” Philip said.

  She looked up, raising her eyebrows. “Do you think so?”

  “I know so,” Philip said.

  “That’s quite interesting,” she said. “You see, I’ve read what records survived, and they show…” She looked around before shrugging. “What does it matter? That’s all ancient history now.”

  She had what looked like an old Geiger counter on her desk. It started clicking rapidly as we entered. Her eyes snapped to me, and she stood quickly.

  “You,” she said, grabbing the counter and approaching. The clicking increased to a steady rattle as she got closer. “Radiation levels at least 400 rads absorbed. You should be dead. Why aren’t you dead?”

  “Takes more than that to kill a Marine,” I said, though the words came out slurred.

  She reached out and lifted one of my eyelids, studying my eye. Then she grabbed my wrist, feeling for my pulse. “Rapid. Internal bleeding must have started.” She turned on Gorthak. “Get him to the waters. Now.”

  “First, you help us,” Gorthak said. “You know what we need from you.”

  “What you need is impossible,” she said. “How many times must I tell you? The systems are interdependent. You can’t just—” She stopped herself, glancing at Philip. “We’ve had this discussion before,” she told Gorthak. “Why bring it up again with an Institute spy listening?”

  “Forget about small-kind,” Gorthak said. “We have this talk until you agree or unless this one can convince you otherwise.” He gestured at me. “He carries plasma-singer. He kills machines. Maybe you listen to him.”

  She looked between Gorthak and me, her expression unreadable. “You’re trying to use a dying man as leverage against me? That’s pathetic.”

  “I use what works,” Gorthak said.

  “He’ll be dead within the hour without treatment,” she said.

  “Then you better listen to him quickly.”

  Gorthak nudged me.

  I tried to focus, but the room was starting to spin. I remembered what Philip had said about the Synthetic Minds in the Chaunt System, but I asked, “What… what do they want from you?”

  She studied me for a long moment. “They want me to give them something that would destroy everything. They think it’s salvation, but they’re wrong.”

  “She lies,” Gorthak said. “She protects the machines.”

  “I protect everyone, you fool,” she shot back. “That includes your children playing in the tunnels.”

  My knees buckled. The Tog warrior who had been helping me caught me again, holding me upright.

  “Please,” she said to Gorthak. “Use the waters first. Then I’ll… I’ll explain everything to him. Let him judge for himself what I should do after that.”

  “No. You explain now, or—”

  I didn’t hear the rest, as the floor rushed up to meet me. My vision went red, then black at the edges. I heard shouting, felt hands grabbing me. Then voices argued above me.

  “Dying right in front of you.” Her voice was urgent.

  “Made promises before, never kept,” Gorthak said.

  “The Institute portal is still an option,” Philip said, scheming even now.

  “Enough!” Her voice cut through everything. “You want my cooperation? Then save his life. Or watch your plasma-singer die and take your last hope with him.”

  There was a long pause. Then Gorthak said, “Take him to the waters. But you come too, woman. And if this is a trick…”

  I felt myself being lifted and carried.

  The woman’s voice was near my ear. “Stay with us, soldier. The waters aren’t far. Just hold on until then.”

  Through the haze, I heard her say something else, so quiet maybe only I could hear: “You might be the one who understands—the one who can find a third option.”

  Then darkness took me, and I fell into dreams of burning cities and dying worlds, of eleven thousand spearmen marching across a desert to their defeat or death, and of a woman who held a secret that everyone wanted to use.

  -26-

  I drifted in and out of consciousness as they carried me deeper underground. The world came in fragments— bobbing motion, echo footsteps in tunnels, voices arguing above me.

  “He should have died already. Look at the radiation readings.” That was the woman’s voice. Someone had called her Rhea. So that was her name. She sounded clinical but concerned. Rhea seemed like the right kind of name for her.

  “The plasma-singer is strong,” Gorthak said. “The ancestors protect him.”

  “The ancestors have nothing to do with it,” she said. “His physiology is different. For one thing, he has a denser muscle mass and more efficient cellular repair. He’s not from Tellus.”

  “Yes, yes,” Philip said. “He’s from Earth originally. It has different gravity and different evolutionary pressures. It’s also possible that his Traveler genes have given him different—”

  “Shut up, small-kind,” Gorthak said.

  I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t work right. And everything tasted of copper and ash. I hated that—hated it, hated…

  It felt like I was back on the Tsargol Plain, watching pterodactyls fall from the sky. Was that delirium, or a dream? Then I was on this crazy world, watching that mushroom cloud rise over Ploor. In a moment, the images merged, dart rifles and energy weapons, Ophidians and robots battling against each other.

  “His fever’s spiking,” Rhea said. “We need to move faster if we’re going to do this.”

  I opened my sore eyes a few times. The tunnels… I glimpsed smooth polymer walls instead of rough concrete, signs in multiple languages, radiation and biohazard warnings. We passed through airlocks that still functioned, their seals hissing as pressure equalized.

  That didn’t fit right with the Togs. They were mutant barbarian warriors. But here they knew about technology.

  “How much farther is it?” Rhea said.

  “Soon,” Gorthak said. “The Deep Waters are not given lightly. He must be worthy.”

  “He’s dying. That should be worthy enough.”

  “The waters are not infinite, woman. Each use depletes them. My people have children who may need—”

  “Your people will have no children if the war continues,” Rhea said sharply. “You know what’s coming. The Steel Mother grows stronger while you grow weaker. This man might be your only chance.”

  “You speak in riddles, as always.”

  “I speak in truths you don’t want to hear.”

  She was a bit hard to take, I realized. She was too certain, too much of a know-it-all—too much like some of my high school teachers back in the day who thought they knew everything.

  Then their voices faded, maybe as I slipped back into delirium. I dreamed I was in the command center again, but Commandant Thom was alive, showing me displays of Tellus before the war. I saw green fields, blue skies, cities that touched the clouds. Then Thom pressed a button, and it all burned before me.

  “The mistake,” he said in my dream, “was thinking we could control the Synthetic Minds. But also thinking we could live without them. Both were true. Both were lies.”

  What a stupid dream. He was beginning to sound like Rhea with her cryptic sayings.

  I came partially conscious as we entered a large chamber. In the center was a pool, maybe thirty feet across. The water glowed blue. It didn’t look exactly like water. It was too thick, and steam rose from its surface, but the steam sparkled with tiny lights like fireflies.

  “The Deep Waters,” Gorthak said, speaking as if he were in church. “They have been here since before the war. Since before the beforetime, some say.”

  Rhea was already at the pool’s edge, pulling equipment from a bag. “It’s not water—it’s a suspension of medical nanites in a biological medium. That’s pre-war medical technology, probably military. It’s obviously been self-maintaining for centuries. This is incredible.”

  “You speak blasphemy,” one of the Tog guards said.

  “It’s science, you dolt,” Rhea said. “Your ancestors found this place and must have recognized its value, even if they didn’t understand it.”

  Philip crept closer to the pool, pulling out a small vial. “If I could just take a sample—”

  Gorthak’s blade was at his throat. “The waters are sacred. You take nothing.”

  Philip backed away, his eyes shining with something I didn’t trust as he pocketed the empty vial.

  Togs lowered me toward the pool. The moment my skin touched the liquid, it was like being struck by lightning in reverse, if that made any sense. Instead of burning, it was cooling, soothing. The liquid crept up my body like it was alive, seeking out damage.

  “Do a full immersion,” Rhea said. “It needs to reach everything.”

  They lowered me, dunking my head under. The world became blue light and warmth. I couldn’t breathe and then I didn’t need to. I had a feeling that the liquid was in my lungs, but instead of drowning me, it must have been feeding oxygen directly to my blood. I could actually feel it working.

  “Yes,” Rhea said, sounding far, far away. “It’s neutralizing the radiation, repairing cellular damage, and purging the toxins from his body.”

  I wanted to laugh.

  “Do you see these readouts?” Rhea asked, her voice distant, like from the moon. “His radiation levels are dropping fast.”

  I floated in the blue solution, my head bobbing up, feeling better than ever.

  Time lost meaning for me in the pool. I drifted, dreaming of Sky Island floating above burning cities, seeing good-old Suvorov holding the line against impossible numbers of sky-rafts, and finally pterodactyls rising from gray ashes.

  Then hands were pulling me up, out, and I gasped as my lungs remembered how to breathe air again. The world rushed back: the subterranean chamber, the Togs, Philip’s hairy, cunning face, and Rhea leaning over me with a medical scanner.

  “The radiation levels are normal,” she said. “The cellular damage has been repaired. It looks like he’ll live.”

  I sat up, coughing out the last of the blue liquid, which slithered to the pool, reentering it. I felt restored. Like I’d been running on fumes and someone had finally refilled the tank.

  “The waters accepted him,” Gorthak said, as if he’d been singing praise songs. “He is worthy.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Gorthak shook his head and then stared at me with intensity. “You owe us now, Plasma-singer. The waters are precious. Their gift must be repaid.”

  The other Togs looked at me far too intently. They had given me a gift. That was true. I did owe them, and I wanted to repay.

  “What do you want from me?” I said. “Name it.”

  Gorthak turned to Rhea, pointing. “Convince her to do right thing. Make her understand we need her knowledge. We need what she knows, or we all die in the end. The missile today shows that, yes?”

  Rhea’s face was unreadable. “He’s in no condition for that conversation—yet.”

  “Then he better get in condition,” Gorthak said.

  I looked between them.

  “What are we talking about?” I asked Rhea. “What do you know?”

  She studied me and seemed to be thinking hard.

  Behind her, Philip leaned forward, watching and no doubt listening closely.

  Was she going to tell me? What could she possibly know that was worth all this? I was beginning to be very curious.

  -27-

  “We must leave chamber,” Gorthak said. “The healing is done and it is sacrilege to stay too long.”

  Rhea nodded and maybe sighed, because she couldn’t keep her knowledge quiet.

  We went from the Deep Waters chamber into an adjacent room. The walls were lined with dead monitors and old control panels. A few lights still functioned—that was something.

  I wondered why this room wasn’t in as good a shape as the healing chamber, but maybe that didn’t matter.

  I sat on what must have been an office chair, its padding long since rotted away, leaving just the metal frame and springs.