Leo frowned as he dipped his hand back into the barrel.

It didn’t take long to fall into a rhythm. Skits and Nine kept them in a steady supply of materials. Rint would stack low and Boo would build up from there. Leo and Shree would follow behind to fill in the gaps with the sealant, careful not to leave any holes. Every now and then Shree would reach out and rub Leo’s nose, which he assumed meant he was doing a good job. Either that or she was planning to eat his face when they were finished and wanted to make sure it was tender.

About halfway through, the Orin set down their tools and gathered in a circle, passing around a flask. The sun had reached its zenith, though a fleet of clouds had moved in to blunt its heat. Boo stretched his arms and sat with his back against the wall he’d just helped build. “This feels good,” he said.

Leo joined him, pulling his knees to his chest. “Sitting?”

“Making something,” the Queleti answered.

Leo looked at the work they’d done already and then at the thin layer of the goop drying on his hands, under his nails, flaking off his clothes. He could feel his efforts in his back and aching shoulders, and yet Boo was right: it did feel good in a way. Leo knew he would never siphon a single drop of water from this thing. Soon the Icarus would put this planet behind it. Even if Crayt failed, they would still need to find some other way to stop the Djarik, or at the very least, warn everyone what was coming. In the grand scheme of the universe, he knew this cistern hardly mattered at all, and yet a part of him felt like this was the first purely good thing he’d done in a while.

He looked up at the clouds—not the cottony white of the ones on Earth, but tinged violet, like the flower that adorned Skits’s armored plating. A breeze had finally kicked up—nothing like the crazy tornado-like swells on Vestra—just enough to be refreshing.

“I think I like it here,” Boo said.

“Really?” Leo questioned. “This place?” Had he forgotten about the worms that could chew through rock? Or the fact that the whole planet was obviously still plagued by giant quakes? Or the lack of electricity or air-conditioning or working toilets?

“It’s peaceful.”

“I guess,” Leo said.

With one claw Boo began to draw a rough picture in the dirt, starting with some hills, then long, narrow needles jutting out of them. “Back on Quel we built towers. Giant ones. As high as we could. We wanted to be able to look out over the landscape, to take it all in at once—the mountains, the forests, the endless fields. So up, up, up we built. It was beautiful seen from that distance. But when you are that high, you forget what the grass feels like on your bare feet. When you’re only looking down, you forget how loud the waterfall’s roar can be. Everything comes to you muted. Blurred. You lose touch.” He nodded at Shree and Rint, huddled close together, passing their flask between them. Their clothes, like Leo’s pants and Boo’s robe, were coated in a layer of yellow dust. “The Orin carry their planet home with them. They live low to the ground.”