Maybe that’s why the Orin didn’t have advanced technology, he thought. No robots or computers. No cars or jets or spaceships. After all, stone bowls and straw mats don’t fail you when the storms roll in.

But then Leo remembered Crayt telling them that the planet’s unusual weather phenomena were relatively new—a reaction to the Aykari’s swift reaping of its resources. He thought back to something he had learned in school, about fossil fuels and ozone layers and global warming, about rising tides and dying coral and melting ice shelves. Hard to predict how a planet will react to being riddled with holes, to having unfamiliar chemicals released into its atmosphere, to the intrusion of a species that hadn’t evolved under its care. Or sometimes, even one that had.

“Lark.”

Leo looked up to see Scree with a steaming bowl in her hands. The Orin offered up a string of syllables he couldn’t understand followed by one he could—an Aykari word, no doubt taught to her by Crayt, but at least it was a word Leo’s translator could handle.

“Eat.”

Leo’s nose crinkled at the smell of something earthy and smoky and sour all at once, like a chicken leg dipped in rotten egg, covered in sauerkraut, and sprinkled with a liberal helping of mud. He smiled politely and took the bowl. Inside sat a blackened tendril of meat, curled around itself, its segmented body plump and oozing some kind of clear, viscous liquid.

Slurk. Had to be. Fresh from the fireplace. At least its head had been removed so Leo couldn’t see what he imagined were snakelike eyes and needle teeth. The thought of eating an alien worm that could chew through stone roiled his stomach. Still, Leo had always been taught that when you were invited into someone else’s home, you should at least take what was offered you.

“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t know the Aykari word and wasn’t sure how far the Orin’s vocabulary extended. Shree stood in front of him, watching, waiting. Apparently she wasn’t going to leave until he tried it. Terrific.

He grasped the slippery, glistening worm with two fingers and brought the tip of it to his mouth. Shree nodded her encouragement. He nibbled off the end. It definitely did not taste like chicken. Then again the last thing he ate that was supposed to taste like chicken didn’t even taste like chicken. He frowned at the flashing memory of fighting with Gareth over the last morsel of food and then immediately shut it out.

“Chewy,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t understand the word but hoping the smile would convince her. Shree rubbed the tip of his nose as she had before. Satisfied that he was satisfied, she offered him some water in a smaller wooden bowl to wash it down. The water, thankfully, tasted like water. He finished it in three gulps.

Through the stone arch of the open window, Leo could see Skits and Nine standing together outside, their sensors glowing in the descending dusk. Skits had been trying to contact Baz for a while now, but the storm was interfering with her transmissions. Boo told her to keep trying. To let Baz know that they were safe.