“I’ve been called worse,” Black said.

“I called you worse two minutes ago,” Kat whispered to him. “You just didn’t hear me.”

Baz looked around, sharp eyes scanning. “Where’re the rest of you?” Leo could tell the captain was still sniffing for a trap. Leo wasn’t sure what he had expected to find down here either, but a disheveled-looking Aykari wasn’t it.

“If you mean more of my kind,” Lark replied, “I am the only one.”

Leo had spent enough time with Baz to know when he wasn’t buying what someone else was selling—the raised brow, the little twitch at one corner of the mouth. Leo didn’t trust the alien either. Not after everything that had happened. Not given what he now knew. He remembered something Baz had said—about the Aykari and the Djarik and which was worse: The Djarik will always charge you head-on, but maybe that’s better than getting stabbed in the back.

“We are looking for someone,” Kat chirped up. “Goes by the name Zirkus Crayt. We were told we could find him here.”

Leo studied the Aykari’s face, looking for some spark of recognition, but it betrayed nothing. Their species weren’t known for their expressions, incapable of producing a smile or a frown or rolling their eyes. Even their voices maintained a steady monotone, whether they were offering you a hand in friendship or condemning you to death.

Lark looked up at the sky, squinted into the distance at the Icarus gleaming in the sunlight. “Let us go somewhere we can talk, out of the sun. The atmosphere has grown thin, and this planet’s star can burn quickly if one is not careful.”

“I’ll burn you if you’re not careful,” Skits muttered so that only Leo and Boo could hear, clearly still itching to use her flamethrower.

Baz glanced at Kat, who nodded, then motioned for the Aykari to lead the way.

With the Orin parting before him, Lark picked his way along the rocky path with the crew of the Icarus in tow. He led them through a cracked archway into the shade of a vast chamber where several of the planet’s denizens were engaged in handiwork of one kind or another. Some were making garments using what might have been a loom, though Leo wasn’t entirely sure he even knew what a loom looked like—only that they existed on Earth centuries ago. Others were fashioning pots and cups and bowls from stores of thick red mud, carefully shaping them with their furry mitts. A couple in a corner were busy building a wooden barrel out of some surprisingly pliant wood, bending it and securing it with metal fasteners. They were all fully immersed in their work, paying little attention to the motley band of intruders ducking under the archway.

Apparently any friend of the Aykari’s was a friend of theirs. Or of this particular Aykari, at least.

Lark ushered Leo and the others toward a circular stone table barely bigger than the metal one crowded into the Icarus’s mess room and knelt down beside it. Perhaps the Orin hadn’t yet invented chairs. Or simply had no use for them. Leo got on his knees next to Kat.