As soon as I regain my balance I stop dead still and take a deep breath. This is no time to lose it and run around bawling like a stampeding bison.

Core snaps into military mode. What is your position?

The glow remaining in the fall debris shrinks to ashes, and I have to fight not to turn on my torch to beat back the darkness. Any sudden or bright light could attract the attention of whatever is out there among the trees around me.

I'm in the middle of the nest – it's a double yolk – and there's evidence I'm not alone here. There are tracks.

Did you get a visual?

No. Only the tracks. They lead away from the egg, Core. Out of it.

Are there any more?

Slowly, I reach up one hand to switch my visor's screen to night-vision. Golden-yellow dots culminate before my straining eyes into the remains of the egg before me, bright and almost white with the flickers of fire around its base. I glance behind me to reassure myself the nearness tiptoeing claws down my neck and spine is only in my imagination, then crouch down to ease my trembling legs and inspect the nest. There are only the one pair of tracks, tinged orange with traces of non-flora or mineral DNA. They're still relatively fresh.

No, just the one set, and they look like they're from something roughly four hundred pounds. Pretty churned up – it was limping. It's wounded.

Be careful. Desperate creatures are unpredictable.

I know.

Loosening the prods in my belt, I lock my visor onto the DNA trace in the tracks and lift my eyes to scan for it among the trees. But I almost forget it, the soal, the darkness, the trees...

Everything is shining.

Through the night-vision screen, the skypoles are transformed into massive cylinders of gold that vanish into a darkness no longer solid and choking, but a liquid that ripples with tides of life. All around me the orange sheen of sentient-creature DNA trace swirls and shifts like migrating flocks, larger clusters glowing like a new kind of lava between the roots of the trees and even glimmering faint high, high above me where the darkness enforces its rule over the Ocean of Trees once more. I was never alone here at the impact site, after all – the only real question now is why I didn't hear any movement before now.

As my eyes adjust to the night-vision I can see the DAN trace more clearly and begin to pick out the individual creatures. There are shoals of miniscule six-winged moths, three of which could neatly sit on my pinky nail, sweeping between the trees in such quantities as if a visual solution to the lack of wind. Other creatures weave between the roots quick and curious as mice, varying in shape from long and lean to plump, cactus-like things. Still others are little more than long, streamer ribbons dangling from the lowest of the branches or across the spaces between trees. The bird-like animal I thought I saw earlier returns higher up, with a half-dozen of its kind. Their bodies are ghostly silhouettes against the black but their curved, intricate bones are easily visible in the DNA scan – lyrical, sparse marionettes bobbing and weaving as if tugged by overenthusiastic hands far above.

I laugh.

I'm standing alone in a hostile wilderness that could likely be the last place I see, in near proximity to a wounded, desperate creature, and this close to losing my job and everything I love. And I'm laughing. I stand up and crane back my head, mouth open, to gape at the place I earlier thought dead, and overflow with something I guess is close to hope as I become aware, at last, of the life that has always filled this place.

Am I the first person to see this beauty? My ancestors never had night-vision, and it wasn't invented until years after Yearling Swift's expeditions.

I have to bite my lip to keep the sob that suddenly swells in me from breaking the silence. How many hundreds, thousands of years have these creatures lived here in the dimensions of sound, smell, and touch alone, independent of and unknown entirely by the five senses of humanity? I had thought those explorers I'd learned about in grammar school were cowards for turning back from their voyages into the Far-Flung Territory. Wasn't that humanity's purpose, our bird-like instinct to migrate where we hadn't been before simply because we have not been there? But I understood, now. There are more than just dangers in the Far-Flung Territory that are better left alone.

To keep the home fires burning and conquer the skies for the betterment of humanity, the Fire-keeper's pledge states, but it doesn't apply to this. It can't.

This, these creatures, the beauty that existed only to exist, never before admired – it isn't to be conquered. Conquering means wars, and wars mean enemies. The Far-Flung Territory isn't my enemy. Enemies means fear, anger, and misunderstanding. The Territory is beautiful, and that is all. The fear, anger, and misunderstanding came with me.

Viridian? Core's panicked voice jerks me back into my body, into my place in the soal fall nest, crouching in the ash. Viridian, answer me!

What? What is it?

I called you three times and you didn't answer. What is your status? Do you have a visual on the creature?

My throat tightens with threatening tears as I look up at the lights that each prove life around me. No. I can't tell him. This wonder will become scientific names and data and numbers and processes once known. Already just my viewing of it has marred it.

I turn off the night vision, but the darkness that follows is more like that at the end of a moving picture – the end of a satisfying sight.

I'm fine, but no, I saw nothing that could have left the tracks. I'll take some scans of them and the DNA trace, then take what soal I can carry and get back to you as quick as I can. Wounded animals flee before fighting, so if I don't do anything threatening, I should be fine.

Just stay calm and be careful.

When am I ever not?

The distraction of the creatures all around me gone now that I can no longer see them again, I quickly am able to focus on the task at hand once more. Convincing Core that I am confident and reasonably out of harm's way is easier than convincing myself. I know, now, that I am indeed not alone in this place. But as I inspect them again, keeping my torch on it's lowest setting, I see that the tracks are obviously made by something heavier and bigger than anything I saw just moments ago. I have to force myself to walk slowly back to the mono to fetch the strongbox, and I linger longer near it than is necessary before returning to the egg. My destruction of it has ruined any traces the creature may have left, and I have to dig around a while before locating the soal.

This really is a curious fall – the dark, ashen smear around the egg, like the residue of a bug hitting a windscreen, isn't as large as they usually are. The soal crystals themselves, though, are real beauties. Fat as my fists and up to as long as my forearm, they fill my strongbox quite quickly. Soal is minerals, the scientists back at base explained to me and the other new recruits our first year of training. Mineral deposits that, during the burning of atmospheric entry, turn into a charcoal which, due to their unique chemical makeup, burns slower but with more heat than any previous fuel known to man. That's why everyone, Guild especially nowadays, are so keen on getting it. Animals too now, apparently. But what could have been attracted to a sulfurous crater is beyond me. Maybe a giant shrimp was drawn in by the light, only to get burnt, and then it backtracked as it scrambled away? It seems the most logical explanation.

Nothing else appears to combat the idea as I haul the strongbox, more than half full, over to the mono and strap it behind my seat. The DNA traces around the deep, indistinct tracks are starting to fade, eaten away by the acidity in the burnt residue in the nest, by the time I'm able to scan them, and my scanners can only follow it a few dozen yards in among the trees before it fades away. Ah, well. It's in our systems now, and Core can process it from the safety of the Verve. As I seat myself on the mono, I almost turn my night vision screen on again, just for a moment. But I don't.

Kicking the mono into gear, I head back for the Verve and wince at the rumble of the engine among the silent trees. How deeply I have intruded into this place.

My red dot location indicator on my visor's screen is just about halfway to the Verve's energy signature when another window pops up. Sonar activity?

I pull up the mono at once over the solid roots of a skypole, and widen the window to inspect the readings. Vapour faultlines are as plentiful as cracks in old pavement out here, and if things are starting to shift down below, I need to know where. I can't let this soal be compromised by a vapour storm.

But these readings are not from underground. They aren't even readings. At least, not mine. My visor's picked up outside sonar activity, originating from somewhere behind me and to the left, about ten miles away. My first thought is of Guild. The ship that shot us down likely stuck around to make sure we were really dealt with, then picked up the soal fall as I did. Good on me that I got to the fall first – I only hope they contribute the damage to the egg, and lack of soal crystals, to the violence of atmospheric entry.

But then I pick up a pattern in the sonar. Or rather, a lack of one. It's fluctuating all over the place between little repetitive bursts and long wavering ones. This isn't a machine omitting these waves. Well, if it is, they've got an idiot who doesn't know his job at the controls. Whatever it is, however, it begins to move away from me, the waves growing weaker. Just in case, I record the last bits my radar can pick up before it fades altogether, then kick the mono back into gear and race the rest of the way back to the Verve. There's starting to be much more activity out here in the Far-Flung Territory than I thought, and the sooner I get my ship powered up and launched the better.

Duster is still working on the Verve's hull when I return, his torch and the soldering sparks combatting the dark. He turns off the soldering gun as I pull up the mono nearby him and kill the engine.

"Not a scratch," I say over the comm, grinning him through my now-transparent visor.

The spark-resistant screen over his own vapour-proof suit rises slowly to reveal his face under his own visor. He narrows his eyes.

"She's filthy."

I look down at the mono. Grit is plastered all over the front and windscreen.

"Clean her. Actually, no, leave her to me, you'll do it all wrong." Duster shakes his head, glaring at me. But then he catches sight of the small strongbox behind me, its soal-icon glowing golden at the half-full point, and promptly christens the load with some names I won't repeat. "Shoot, dame, you got it! Whooee!"

Putting down the soldering gun, he sprints over to me as I swing a leg over the mono, and he grabs me by my shoulder and shakes me so that our visors smack together. "You got soal! We getting out of this smoke-hole!"

I laugh and push him away. "That depends on you, Duster. I did my part, now how you doing on yours? How are the repairs going?"

"You were gone eh, what, an hour? Didn't get too much done – just two of those major cracks. I say the last five or so that compromise the hull'll be done by sunset. Or nearabouts as we can tell down here. You're He's been spiffing up things inside, so we're right on track for repairs. Four days, like I said." Duster grins at me for a moment more, then taps his visor against mine again. "We getting out of here!"

He spins around and starts for his soldering gun again, but pauses halfway to jerk one fist downward at his side in an action of victory. I hear him start to whistle as he picks up the soldering gun, and I smile as I unlock the strongbox from the back of the mono and carry it towards the Verve's airlock. His energy level is soal-powered too, I'd bet.

Probably because he's got to eat the same thing his beloved machines do.

It's a stupid thought, and I laugh at myself as I pause before the airlock. How nice it is to laugh, even with everything going on right now. Especially with everything going on right now. It's wonderful, how a sight of the beauty always around you can ease your anxiety about the trouble around you, as well.

"Open the door please, Core. I've got a half-bushel of soal to begin processing!"

As soon as I step out of the airlock and into the lower hold, Core opens the comm link.

Now I can say you're back safe. Thank goodness.

I pull my suit's helmet off and wriggle out of the rest of the suit, and the cooler, fresh air inside the ship feels like the first downburst of a shower. You can say that again!

Did you see the creature from the fall at all?

No. I frown as I unlock the left-side hold door and step into the narrow corridor between the empty strongbox shelves.

But something else happened. I can tell. You're worried.

It's a little uncanny how well Core can still read me, having only my mental voice to go off of. But that's what I liked about him the most at first – he knew when I need to have fun, when all I needed was a hug and silence, and when, like now, something is heavy on my mind. And I know him well enough to know he won't stand down till he knows how he can help.

I open the soal storage chamber at the back end of the hold that connects to the soal processors in the engines via a chute. As I begin placing the grey-blue crystals in the chamber, narrow-end towards the chute, I bring up the recorded sonar readings on my visor. I send them to Core.

What do you make of that?

It looks like... biological sonar. Echolocation of some kind, but using electrical pulses instead of sound. Where did this come from?

About sixteen miles west of here. Does it match anything in your database?

The closest match to these kind of sonar patterns is... a whale.

I put down my now-empty soal box and close the storage chamber. In the Far-Flung Territory? That can't be right.

It isn't. Like I said, is some kind of energy pulse. It makes a sound, yes, but a weak one. I think the energy itself is the focus.

And you said it's biological? So it's an animal?

Probably. Unless its another of the Guild's tech-human mashups. Maybe a couple of them together – it's a pretty strong pulse, too strong for just one human body.

I remember the dents a certain pair of titanium-enhanced hands made in my corridor wall, and purse my lips. Do you think they've sent someone out after us?

Could be. It's difficult to track heat signatures, and even energy signatures, among this much vapour, but it's possible they got an advanced lock on the Verve's signature before we went down. It'd take some doing, but there's a chance they could piecemeal a track on our location.

I overcome the urge to kick the soal strongbox at my feet, and instead shove it into a nearby empty locker. We need to get going, then. What soal I've just brought should give us another week or so of energy, but we can't stay here that long.

No.

Core is quiet for a moment. If he were standing beside me, his left hand would jiggle against his leg as he stared at the floor as if to incinerate it with his eyes until I took it between my own and pulled him back from whatever intricate thought-process was going on in that brilliant mind of his.

Then the comm link tickles my head again.

You're going to have to ask Duster to become part of your crew.

What?

There's enough food on board to last the two of you at least three weeks, and he can have me old bunk. You'll do fine.

My breathing becomes shaky, and grip the frame of the soal hold's door as my desire to hold Core's hand here and now grows overpowering. What do I need him for? I've got you!

If he can repair the hull enough to be air-worthy by tonight, the both of you can work on the downed engine next. I can get the rest of our systems online overnight. That'll be enough to get us airborne and to a better location.

But there'll still be a lot of damage!

That's why we'd take Duster. He can finish the repairs at our new location. Explain his inclusion to the crew to base as an emergency drafting, and tell him he can have some of my salary when we get our load of soal delivered, as payment for his services.

Your salary? But Core –

I'm not doing much to earn it right now, lying here in a stasis membrane.

Flinging the soal hold door shut behind me, I almost kick down the door to the med ward opposite and shake my finger at the still form lying on the med table.

"Core Hallifax, don't you ever say you're not doing much! If I didn't have you I don't know how I'd get anything done on board this ship, and to be honest I don't know how I'd do anything anymore, really. I don't need that Duster any more than I want him, and don't you dare think I somehow care about him that way at all, even if he can talk to me in person and, I don't know, touch me, and –

Touch you?

"Not in that way!" I almost stamp my foot. Marching over to the med table, I slide my hands through the membrane to take hold of Core's and shout at his motionless face. "I love you, Core. Don't you ever dare question your value to this ship's team, to the Fire-keepers in general, and especially to me. Don't you dare, you hear me, or so help me the moment you're on your feet again I'm going to knock yourself off them like I did our first training session!"

I don't realize I'm crying until I hear a soft cough behind me at the door and whirl around to see a brown and green smear that must be Duster in his workshirt and jodhpurs again. Wiping my face on my sleeve, I quickly turn away again.

"What is it?" I snap.

"Eh, I... eh... heard what you were yelling there."

I put a hand back on the med table to steady myself, but don't turn around. "All of it?"

"Mostly just the bit about not needing me." Duster gives a short, dry laugh. "That true? Should I be jetting out, then? And after I did I that work for you to, and let you filthy up my mono. That's cold, dame."

Taking a shaky breath, I brush my fringe back behind my ear and straighten my spine. I turn around and meet Duster's gaze.

"I'm sorry you overheard that. It's not quite what it sounded like."

"Sounded like a proper row," Duster mutters, glancing between me and Core.

"It was... sort of." I slip my hand around Core's again and swallow hard to keep the tears back. "We were discussing having you join the crew. Temporarily, that is. Until we get our next load of soal delivered to base."

Duster puts his hands on his hips and raises an eyebrow at me. "Sounds like the vote tied."

Setting Core's hand down, I step up to Duster and put my hands on my hips, as well.