After these explanations, an uncomfortable silence fell. No doubt they wanted to know what had happened to me, but I didn’t want to talk about it, especially not about the fire. Kara asked me a few questions, and I answered monosyllabically. When she persisted, I just got up and walked away, tossing them some lame excuse about stretching my legs.

I kept going a ways, well out of the circle of firelight. When I finally stopped, I looked up at the stars. There were so many of them. The Milky Way stretched across the sky in a blaze of white light, mottled with red and gold and swirls of darkness. I didn’t recognize any constellations.

I could taste soot at the back of my throat. The wind blew the stuff all over the place.

I had done this. I’d come to some little corner of the S-Em. I’d found Octoworld, Miniworld, and Fernworld, and I’d destroyed at least two of the three. I’d made a generous friend and gotten her killed.

At the same time, I’d survived. I’d survived what Graham did to me, and I’d survived my own bad choices.

The wind found the holes in my sweater, chilling me.

Eventually, Kara came looking for me, and I went back to the fire.

Everyone except Ghosteater crawled into a sleeping bag. No one said anything.

Climbing back up the mountain took almost two days because everyone had to stick to the slower pace I set. As we finally crested the summit, I was terribly afraid I would find the tree-’puses’ rainforest burned as well, but it was intact. The fire damage stopped abruptly as we walked into the rain: there were blackened earth and torched trunks on one side of an invisible line, lush ferns and towering trees on the other.

“Is there a barrier, here?”

“Yes,” Ghosteater said.

I wondered why we could go through it but the fire couldn’t. I didn’t ask, though. If I raised the subject, it’d invite questions.

We stopped for the night shortly afterwards. The forest was too dense and wet to build a fire, so we huddled under the tarps, eating dried meat and fruit. Once everyone was settled in their sleeping bags, I slipped away into the darkening forest and found a ’pus. I coaxed it into my lap and then explained what had happened to the one I’d carried with me — that she’d saved my life, and that I knew it was my fault she was dead, and that I was sorry.

The ’pus stared back at me, its strange oblong pupil reminding me of my friend’s. Not surprisingly, it didn’t respond. I had no idea if it understood me.