The Fate of Ten

I glance over my shoulder at Adam. He’s pretending not to hear Phiri Dun-Ra, but his hands have stopped working and his shoulders are bunched up.

“You want to get knocked out again?” I ask Phiri Dun-Ra, taking a step towards her.

She looks thoughtful for a moment, then continues on. “Although, hmm . . . something only now occurs to me. I remember hearing of young Adamus’s technical prowess. He was something of a prodigy with machines as a young trueborn. It is odd, then, that he’s been unable to fix one of these ships, especially with all that equipment at his disposal.”

I glance again at Adam. He’s turned now, a confused expression on his face, staring at Phiri Dun-Ra.

“I wonder if he is stalling on purpose,” Phiri Dun-Ra muses. “Perhaps, now that Mogadorian Progress has proven inevitable, he thinks keeping you here will earn him favor with our Beloved Leader, so that he might come crawling back to his real people . . . Or perhaps he is simply too much of a coward to face the losing battles to come.”

Adam is past me in a blur. He crouches down in front of Phiri Dun-Ra and yanks her head back. She tries to bite him, but Adam is too quick.

“Death is coming for you, Adamus Sutekh! For all of you!” she manages to shriek, before Adam shoves a rag into her mouth. Next, he tears loose a piece of duct tape and slaps it across Phiri Dun-Ra’s face. Her breath now comes in furious and forceful bursts from her nose, the Mogadorian glaring venomously at Adam. Over on the grass in front of the Sanctuary, Marina has stood up to watch this scene play out, a small frown on her face.

Adam stands over Phiri Dun-Ra, his teeth bared, dark lines creasing his face. It’s a murderous look, one I’ve seen on the face of many Mogadorians, usually right before they tried to kill me.

“Adam . . . ,” I say warningly.

Adam whips around to face me, trying to get control of himself. He takes a deep breath.

“Everything she said is a lie, Six,” he says. “Everything.”

“I know that,” I reply. “We should’ve gagged her sooner.”

Adam grunts and returns to his workbench, his eyes downcast as he walks by me. Phiri Dun-Ra definitely knows how to get a rise out of him. Out of all of us, really. Well, except for Marina. I know she’s trying to drive a wedge between our group, but it isn’t going to work. How stupid does she think I am? I’ll always take the word of a Mogadorian that was allowed to walk through the Sanctuary’s force field over one that tried to blow us up with a grenade.

With the skirmish over, Marina sits back down in the grass before the Sanctuary. I join her, watching brightly colored birds fly playful loops around the ancient temple.

“Would you have stopped him if he tried to kill her?” Marina asks me, after a moment.

I shrug. “She’s a Mogadorian,” I reply. “One of the shittiest ones I’ve ever met, too. And that’s saying something.”

“In the heat of battle is one thing,” Marina says. “But when she is tied up . . . she is not like the warriors we’ve faced so many times. She’s like Adam, a trueborn. When I used my healing on him, prevented him from disintegrating, I could . . . I could feel the life there, not so different from ours. I fear what we might become as this war goes on.”

Maybe I’m overtired, and I’m definitely beyond stressed with our current situation, but Marina’s moral-compass thing is beginning to wear thin. When I reply, there’s more harshness in my voice than I’d like.

“So what? You’re a pacifist now? A few days ago, you stabbed out Five’s eye with an icicle,” I remind her. “He’s a lot more like us than Phiri Dun-Ra is, and they both have bad shit coming to them.”

“Yes, I did that,” Marina replies, running her hand over the sharp tips of the grass. “I regret it. Or, actually, I regret how little regret I feel. Do you see what I mean, Six? We have to be careful not to turn into them.”

“Five deserved it,” I reply, softening my voice a little.

“Maybe,” Marina admits, and finally looks at me. “I wonder what will be left of us when this is over, Six. What we will be like.”

“If there’s anything left of us,” I reply. “Big if, at this point.”

Marina smiles sadly. She turns her gaze back to the Sanctuary. “I went inside the temple early this morning, before the sun was up,” she says. “I went back to the well, to where the Loric energy came from.”

I study Marina. While I was sleeping, she was climbing down those twisting stairs back into the Sanctuary’s underground chamber. The stone well where the Entity erupted from, the glowing maps of the universe on the walls. I wish we’d gotten more answers from that place.

“Find anything useful?”

She shrugs. “It’s still there. The Entity. I can feel it, spreading out from within the Sanctuary, although I don’t know for what purpose. I can still see the glow, deep down in the well. But . . .”

“You were hoping for some advice?”

Marina nods, chuckling softly. “I’d hoped it might guide us. Tell us what we should do next.”

I’m not surprised that the Entity living inside the Sanctuary, apparently the source of our power, didn’t poke its head out for another visit with Marina. When we first encountered the Entity, it seemed almost amused with us—happy to be awoken, sure, but in no rush to help us win the war against the Mogadorians. I remember something it said during our conversation; that it bestows its gifts on a species, it doesn’t judge or take sides, not even in its own defense. I think we’ve already gotten as much help from the Entity as we’re going to get. I keep this thought to myself, not wanting to discourage Marina or shake her faith, which seems to be mostly keeping her together, even if it does lead her to some morbid ethical questions that I frankly don’t feel like thinking about.