We walked and the desert unfolded around us, night birds flashing through the towering cacti as they made for safety, tarantulas rustling out of sight and rattlesnakes sounding their staccato warnings. Nothing bit us, or struck at us, or impeded us in any way. The sky was a sea of frozen diamonds overhead, glittering as they led us toward the inevitable. We walked in silence. When Tahlia reached for my hand, I let her take it, as behind us the senator and Jeff walked similarly joined, all of us clinging to each other, to the short shared existence we had etched between us like lines in the sand.

We crested a small ridge, and the smell of ozone grew stronger. That was our last warning before the land dropped away and became a long stretch of sloping hillside, revealing the crater at the bottom of the rise. It looked like nothing so much as a wound punched into the skin of the world.

Jeff yelped in delight and dismay, pulling his hand out of the senator’s and running for the edge of the hole. It was a hole, deep and dark and impossible to see the bottom of. The scent of the green was drifting out of it like a mist, invisible and everywhere.

“We should stop here,” said Tahlia serenely. She matched her deed to her words, digging her toes into the soil. Continuing would have meant losing my grip on her hand. That suddenly seemed like a very bad idea, for reasons I couldn’t entirely articulate.

I stopped. She turned to smile at me. Either my eyes had adjusted or there was more light than there should have been, because every line in her face was visible, even the uneven demarcation where flesh tone met jeweled green.

“He should be all right, if he’s careful,” she said. “I can’t say the same for all of them.”

Asking wouldn’t have done me any good. I turned back to the horizon, squinting into the gloom until I spotted the first dot of light. That was like the key that caused my mind to put everything in order, because once I saw one, I saw a dozen of them, spread out across the hills on the other side of the rise like smaller stars following the leader down to Earth. I gasped before clapping my hand over my mouth, trapping any further sounds inside.

“We weren’t the first ones here,” said the senator. He sounded disappointed. More, he sounded cheated, like he couldn’t believe anyone had had the audacity to beat him to the prize.

“We were the first to matter,” said Tahlia.

Inside the pit, something stirred.