Talina sighed, turned back. “It’s like having a second and third being inside you. A total lack of privacy and an invasion of who you are as a person. You lose part of yourself, and nothing is private. All those hidden memories, the ones that you’re so ashamed of, the ones you hoped would die with you? All the shitty stuff you wish you’d never done? Never thought? They’re now shared with aliens. Doesn’t stop there. Quetzal memories are constantly flooding your thoughts. Like tonight. I won’t sleep. It’s a quetzal night. I want to be out hunting. And that’s what I’m going to do. Tonight, I’m quetzal.”

“What keeps you from going crazy?” Cinque asked as he stepped closer. She could see the water sheeting from his slicker and the quetzal-leather hat he’d acquired from somewhere. Like Wejee and herself, Cinque now cradled a rifle under his rain gear. Something fancy with an engraved stock that had been in his luggage. She wondered if he knew how to use it.

“I did.” She gave a shrug. “Then I figured out how to put myself back together. Well, me and Rocket.” To Wejee, she said, “Stay frosty, old friend. I can feel it. They’re planning something.”

“If I see steaks and leather move out there, I’m blowing a hole in it,” Wejee replied. “You don’t worry about me, Tal.”

“You’re the last guy out here I worry about.” She gave him a slap on the shoulder and turned for the avenue. As she led the way, her night gaze scanned the warehouses, the parked and disabled machinery. “Wish we could haul half of this junk out of here. It would sure make life easier when it came to hunting quetzals.”

“Then, why don’t you?” Cinque asked. “None of the reports going back to The Corporation are exactly glowing when it comes to Port Authority. They call it a junkyard, a slum, a collection of hovels and dirt.”

Talina gestured. “Because . . . okay. See that broken-down track hoe beside the pipe racks? That’s one of three on the planet. The one that still works is running on parts scavenged from this one and the second one that’s broken down out at the mine. I know for a fact that the functioning track hoe is working on the last clutch. When it goes, everything out at the mine stops until Lawson and Montoya can make a new clutch. Maybe they can use some of the old parts, maybe they build it from scratch. Given that, like every other specialist, they have a list of emergency repairs as long as their arms, it might be weeks before they can get around to it. But, if it’s a driving sprocket? There it sits on that defunct track hoe. Bernie Monson can have it unbolted and ready to install within hours.”

“So, do you reuse everything?”