Kylee pointed with her rifle barrel. “See that thing that looks like a potato? Don’t touch it. It’s some kind of relative of the slugs. Sticks to your boot and will start eating through it.”

Falise waved at a whirling flight of invertebrates that hovered around her; the things chittered and clicked before buzzing their way up into the aquajade overhead. “Lovely place you have here.”

“Yeah,” Kylee told her in an almost absent voice as she scanned the route ahead. “We could be down in the deep forest, knowing every instant that a spike on the end of a tentacle could come shooting down from above to spear us through the guts. For Donovan, so far, this is kind of warm and fuzzy.”

Falise ducked another branch. “Warm and fuzzy? Really?”

Kylee pointed ahead. “If there were anything really dangerous, Flute would be back to warn us.”

Falise struggled for balance on a rolling root, leaped to another, and caught herself before falling into the gap. Kylee said that would be bad. “Anything dangerous? Like the roots?”

“Only if you get trapped by them.”

“What about that big colorful flower thing hanging from that chabacho limb?”

Kylee didn’t even look. “Remember? That’s tooth flower. That wicked-looking pod drops down, snaps closed, and drives the spines through your flesh. Then it pulls you up and eats you, crunchy bite by crunchy bite.”

“No shit?” Falise gazed up at the blazing red, yellow, and black colors displayed inside the pod. As she hurried around it, the pods rotated on their stems, following her movements.

Maybe fifteen minutes later and a hundred feet down the sloping ridge, they hit the tree band—the chabacho, aquajade, and blue leaf all crowded together, roots intertwined as they reached up the hill, crowding into the upslope trunks as they sought to move away from the crash site.

Flute appeared, his hide flashing a psychotic blend of colors and patterns; at the same time his ruff expanded, and he made a warbling hooting sound from his vents.

“Flute’s found us a way around this tangle,” Kylee said. “Follow him.”

The quetzal led the way down off the ridgetop, skirted the slope, and started back up. Falise saw the sidewinder get one look, feel, smell, or whatever, of Flute before it shot back into the dark recesses under the roots.

She was panting, sweating by the time she climbed back to the top and into the devastated swath left by the shuttle’s crash.

Kylee stood out in the sunlight, her blonde hair shining and golden. Beside her, Flute radiated several laser-bright patterns, a rainbow of colors communicating . . . what?

“Stay back,” Kylee told the quetzal. “To them, a quetzal’s a quetzal, and they’ll shoot you on sight.”

Yeah, that makes it unanimous, Falise thought as Flute let them pass.