Mestido managed one word: “Green.”

Pol thought it was green anyway. His fingers released. Mestido coughed, wheezing for breath as if his esophagus had been crushed. It was a terrible sound. Pol could already see the skin darkening on his neck. He waited, breathing through his nose like an enraged bull.

“What?”

“Their planet… was green.”

Something inside Pol’s heart broke open. There was a sob low in his chest. Green. That was right, wasn’t it? This place was all gray: gray sky, gray stone, gray dust, gray bombs, battlefields of soil as icy and gray as the uniforms of the corpses that lay there. Even the plants were sickly pale. But he remembered green.

Mestido was struggling to sit up.

“Show me,” Pol said.

It was after dawn when they got to their destination. They’d caught an early-morning bus that carried Irons and low-level Bronzes to a construction project beyond the City line. From their drop-off point it was a mile walk.

To… nothing that Pol could see. They had come to a ravine, a V-shaped gorge that might have once been a river but was now only a dark sludge of a stream half-clogged with dirt and ash and other nameless pollutants. The sides of the ravines were overgrown with tenacious brambles. Mestido stopped at the edge of the ravine, arms folded.

“Where?” Pol licked his lips, took out his gun. There was nothing here, but maybe that was the point. The aliens would choose an isolated place, a place where no one would be around, wouldn’t they? “Show me.”

Mestido started down the sloping bank. Pol followed, moving carefully. The brambles were uniquely configured to latch on to the textured wool of his uniform.

They moved like this for perhaps fifteen minutes before Pol realized Mestido was doubling back, going in a circle. He stopped, freeing his arm and the gun from the vegetation with a jerk. “Stop!”

In front of him, Mestido hesitated, as though considering not stopping, but a glance over his shoulder showed him that the gun was still too close.

“Where the hell is it?”

“Here. Somewhere around here.” Mestido began walking forward again.

Pol wrenched himself forward quickly, the brambles tearing his clothes. He grabbed the Bronze’s arm. “I said stop!”

Mestido froze.

“What is this? What are we looking for?”

Mestido turned to look across the ravine. “I saw them land here. It was right here.”

Pol’s eyes narrowed, trying to read something, anything, on Mestido’s face. He didn’t look like he was lying, but he didn’t look sane, either.

“Tell me what happened.”

Mestido rolled his tongue around in his mouth. His throat was swollen where Pol had throttled him, puffing out until his head and neck looked like a ball. “I was looking for ore stone.” He kicked at the dirt. “You can sell it on the streets. One day I saw this ship—”

“A ship?”

Mestido turned to look over the ravine, motioning with his hand. “A flying craft. It was like a ball and it glowed with light, the whole thing. It hovered above the ravine, lights flashing all over it. Then they came out and—”

“They?”

“The aliens. They looked like gigantic green bugs, but that’s just their native form; they can take any shape they want. They had weapons and they took me into the ship and—”

The report of the gun rang out in the ravine, echoing down and back, muffled by the brush.

Mestido dropped to his knees. The brambles hooked on to the flesh of his face, caught in his hair. Dark, runny blood streamed from the back of his shirt. He fell forward, dead. The brambles didn’t allow him to reach the ground but held him up at an angle, allowing the blood to pour down his back, making a tunnel to the ground over his right hip.

The gun was still outstretched in Pol’s hand as the bugs began to gather at the sticky feast. He stared.

Fool. Stupid, scarping, brain-damaged fool.

“Kalim N2!” The voice came from above, like the voice of God.

Pol operated on instinct, diving into the brambles just as a shot whizzed by. He pulled himself a few difficult feet through the cover, and only when he was sure he was no longer visible did he allow himself to look up.

There was no one at the lip of the ravine. They—or just he; Pol was not yet sure—would be standing back, would not present themselves as a target for his gun.

“I know who you are,” Gyde’s voice drifted down.

Pol wanted to laugh. Even he did not know that.

“The state wants you alive! They want to question you. I doubt anyone has ever dared what you have dared. Killing a Silver. Taking his identity. That is bad, Kalim. Very, very bad.”

Pol was lying as flat as he could in the brambles, ignoring the thorny pain. He found that he was not surprised or angry or afraid. This moment had been coming for a long time. Still, the gun shook with the tremor in his hand. He felt… profoundly sad. He wanted to say to Gyde, You don’t understand. They did something to my scarping brain. But the man at the top of the ravine was not his friend.

“However, I will grant you a mercy since you were my partner. If you come out to me now and surrender your weapon I will give you a clean and swift death right here, right now. Think about it, Kalim. Think hard.”

He did. He lay on the frozen ground, shivering. His mind was that of a soldier, whatever his rank or class, and he understood his options. Gyde’s mistake had been saying his name. Perhaps Gyde had not been 100 percent sure. Perhaps he had wanted that raised head, that moment of shocked recognition, as final confirmation before shooting Pol dead. Instead, the name had served as warning and Gyde had missed his shot. Now Pol had the opportunity to work his way to the top through the brambles and attempt to trick and overpower Gyde. He was fairly certain Gyde was alone. He would not have offered the “mercy” if he were not alone. Gyde was alone because he wanted all the merits for Pol’s capture. Pol’s odds of taking him were fifty-fifty. But he did not want to even try.

Father. A voice in Pol’s head made the plea. He dismissed it cynically. The man at the top of the ravine was not that, either.

Pol’s fingers were stiff as he began removing his uniform. It was snagged in the fibrous spines all around him, making the job more difficult.

“Don’t make me come after you.” Gyde’s voice glittered, dangerous, like his eyes.

Now Gyde would either call backup or work his way into the ravine and attempt the capture alone. Whether he called for backup probably depended on just how many merits he needed to achieve his goal. Pol thought he didn’t need many.

The brambles were already working at the skin of his arms and back as Pol raised his hips to pull off his pants. He left the boots on. Their surface would not attract the thorns and they would protect his feet. Last, he removed the woolen undergarment of the Silvers.

“You have a few minutes left, Pol. This is your final chance to surrender. If you do not, I would advise you to use that gun on yourself before they bring you up.”

Pol, naked, his clothes discarded on the ground behind him, began worming his way through the brush, heading down, down to the bottom of the ravine.

Gyde understood all the options, too.

“Pol.” His voice was softer now. “Do your old classmate a favor and surrender. I told you—a quick death. If you’re thinking about escaping, forget it. Even if you did, you would be hunted. You cannot live without a name; you know that. You can’t buy food or anything else. And if you’re caught on the streets you’ll be shot. Surrender to me.”

Pol’s flesh moved through the brambles more readily than the cloth of his uniform. Still, hooks caught and tiny pieces of him ripped out—here, there—as he moved on his belly over the frozen earth. The pain was stinging, worsening as his own sweat salted the wounds. But the pain inside him overshadowed it like a guillotine over a switchblade.