For that, Felix was ever so thankful. He hated being afraid. This other feeling of being reassured, calm, was so much better. He understood that he should be sad for Bill Martin. Bill Martin had always been good to him. Smiled and winked. And since they’d come to the Pod, Bill Martin had slipped Felix and the rest of the children special treats when the other grownups weren’t looking.

Funny how he wasn’t sad. Wasn’t tempted to cry. He was just normal. And what had happened to Bill Martin was normal.

Felix looked down at the blood on his skin. Then up at the clock. People would be getting up soon. Martin always came to the kitchen to start breakfast at 4:00. The time now was 5:35.

“I should go take a shower now,” he told himself. If Mother saw him all covered with blood, it would scare her. And Felix didn’t want to scare her. She was already sad enough about Father being taken by the thing in the night.

If he hurried, he could be back in bed before Mother even woke up.

58

The sheer brassy ingenuity of it had to be admired. Dek would have marveled over it had he not been so busy huffing and puffing as he blew into the sleeve of his overalls. It was a constant battle, and he was getting light-headed. But the fact was, he and Talina were out of the water. Mostly.

Talina’s plan was simple: Build a frame out of the chabacho log and the smaller aquajade poles that had beached on the gravel bar. By themselves they were nowhere near buoyant enough to float two people. But with the overalls placed beneath an ad hoc netting made of knotted cord, the contraption made a sort of inflatable raft. The inflatable part being the variable as the once-close-knit fabric over their overalls wasn’t nearly airtight. The more egregious leaks—like where the tube things had chewed—had been sealed with Talina’s adhesive. The rest had been smeared on places like elbows, knees, and the seats where wear had loosened the weave. After that, the wrists and ankles had been double knotted, the fasteners closed, and they’d blow the things up, then cast out, adrift.

And blow. And blow. And continued to blow. The overalls deflated as fast as Talina and Dek could huff and puff in a frantic effort to keep the things afloat.

But they were almost to the alluvial fan as the current wheeled them around and seemed to play with them. When Dek looked down through the clear water, he could see things moving down there. Nothing he could discern, just shapes. And periodically invertebrates would break from the surface to fly a short distance before hitting the water again and disappearing. Like they were being chased from below.