By the time Kylee had staggered back and she and Falise had tried to pull the woman out, tendrils were already winding around the woman’s free foot, awkwardly placed as it was. The Third kept mechanically trying to rock to the side in the effort to free her foot. Didn’t matter that she made no progress. She kept repeating, mumbling, “Help here.”

“Kylee, go,” Falise had said. “I’ve got this.”

Turning, reeling for balance on the undulating roots, Kylee resettled Soukup on her shoulders, blinked the sweat from her eyes, and started up the slope. She didn’t look back. Didn’t want to know.

Probably should have been worried about Falise, but by then her leg muscles were burning, her thoughts muddled. Quetzal visions, hallucinations of old hunts, distant memories of exhaustion and thirst kept trickling into her brain. Fooling with her vision.

The ache in her back, Soukup’s constant moaning and whimpering, not to mention how hot the IG was, just added to her misery. And they had what? Another two hundred meters to go?

As she went, so, too, did the First. Like a biomachine, the gray-suited man followed along behind. His hazel gaze stayed fixed on Kylee and her mewling burden. The guy never looked at his feet. Couldn’t seem to grasp that giving thought to where he’d step might make his travel easier.

Flute? Where the hell are you?

The question had no more than formed when the quetzal emerged from the shadows, his collar flaring wide, rolling patters of color that informed her that he’d made it.

“Bogarten’s safe?” she rasped through her dry throat, gasping for breath.

Flute flashed an almost neon orange, twittering and hooting from his vents.

Kylee blinked, staggered; memories of a heat-prostrate quetzal, collapsing, dying on a hot hard pan filled her. She fought for balance, tripped over a root, and almost dropped Soukup.

Lost the world for a moment, only to have the load lifted from her shoulders. As it shifted and vanished, she almost toppled. Fought for clarity and fixed on Flute.

The quetzal had the suffering Soukup by the jacket. The quetzal’s serrated teeth were fixed in the fabric, and the forearms supported the rest of the man’s weight.

The images for Gone to sky fly. Come back for you. rolled across the quetzal’s hide, and he hooted, before the interrogative of yellow, green, and pink asked, Okay? Followed by orange for Yes?

“Yeah, go,” Kylee told him. “Try not to kill him on the way.”

Flute made a flatulent sound that Kylee knew mocked a fart, whirled, and trotted away in the growing gloom.

Kylee resettled her rifle, feeling cool air where Soukup’s hot body had been pooling her sweat. She felt a ton lighter as she sidestepped on the roots.

To her amazement, the First went trotting headlong after Flute, stumbling and waving his arms for balance as he did.