Sorrel stopped. It was slightly cooler in the bamboo grove. It was hard to keep her eyes open against the glare. On the Lowlands, she would have already been blinded, but the vegetation softened the blaze of the sun. She thought of her mother in the dark culvert and the possibility of a rain bomb. She turned in a circle but couldn’t see the girl. Why would she have brought her here only to vanish? She called out again and heard rustling to one side.

“What the guata are you waiting for?” the girl demanded, pushing her way into the bamboo. “You want to die outside?”

“I didn’t see where you went.”

“You’re guatan slow. Can tell you’re a Lowlander. You’re guatan lucky I saw you fall into the cenote. This way!”

Sorrel struggled through the bamboo trunks. They were as thick as a man’s thigh and tore at her clothes. Then, ahead, the girl turned sideways to go through a narrow opening in a sheer cliff face. Sorrel followed her. The opening led them to a cave, and inside the darkness was total.

The girl’s footsteps stopped. Sorrel took a few steps forward and bumped into her. She smelled of green things and sweat. “What’re you doing?” she snapped. “Don’t move. Wait for your night vision.”

The air in the cave hung still and was neither hot nor cold. Sorrel could hear and see nothing, but she sensed they were in a much larger space than the opening had suggested. “This is a cave?” she said, to break the silence.

“Of course, it’s a guatan cave. Where else could we go?”

Very slowly, the darkness lessened, and Sorrel began to see some details. The floor of the cave was rocky and dry, scattered here and there with loose stones or pebbles. The roof was slanted to the floor, as if a slab of stone had fallen. She stretched out her hands and touched nothing.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Kill you? You sure are a Lowlander. There’s no need to kill you. All we have to do is put you out.”

“We? Are there a lot of you?” Definitely Tribals, Sorrel thought. Ses was right after all.

“Nineteen. You’ll see. We had a death last week, a girl, maybe about your age. How old are you?”

“Fourteen. How did she die?”

“A feral got her. An avian. Dug out her eyes before we could beat it off. After that, well, there was nothing anybody could do.”

“Ferals are up here?”

“Ferals are everywhere.”

“I left my mother in a culvert.”

“You’re in the mountains with your mother? Why?”

“She was tired. Couldn’t walk anymore. The day was coming.”

The girl snorted. “I meant, why are you with her at all? We have no need for old people.”