Letho nodded. “You’re right. Take who you need to get it done, and leave the rest with Deacon.”

Bayorn bowed his head slightly, then went about gathering a few of the remaining Tarsi to complete their sorrowful mission.

“Maka, let’s go,” Letho said, gesturing in front of him.

But before he could move forward, a weakness overcame him, and a black void began to form at the edges of his vision. He could hear Thresha shouting, but it sounded like her words were coming to him from miles away. The blackness continued to grow, choking out his sight until nothing remained but darkness.

****

Letho snapped back to consciousness at the sound of Deacon’s feverish wailing. Searing pangs in his stomach reminded him of how long it had been since any of them had eaten. He was lying on a couch, a crinkly metallic blanket laid over him. Deacon was lying on a similar couch not far away, also under a metallic anti-exposure blanket, and a few Tarsi sat on the floor here and there, some sleeping, some conversing quietly. There was no light save for the blue glow of a few light-sticks that someone had spread around the floor of the semi-large room that Letho now found himself in.

“We’re coming in too fast—I’ve got to slow us down,” Deacon groaned, rolling from side to side.

“What the hell happened?” Letho asked.

Thresha answered. “You passed out. You’ve been out for a couple of hours. We were able to get back to the ship and get the first aid kits and a little bit of food. Here, drink this.”

Letho’s nose wrinkled as the stale scent of food paste hit his nostrils. He turned his head away like a petulant child, but Thresha guided his head back around with her inhuman strength.

“No. We can’t have you dropping on us again. Drink it.”

This time, Letho complied. The paste slid down his throat. It was warm and thick, and not as revolting as he remembered it. His stomach rumbled like an old engine coming back to life in anticipation of the meal. To his exhausted body, the protein paste was as sweet as anything Letho had ever tasted, and he felt immediate relief and strength spreading through his limbs.

“Thanks,” Letho said. “Make sure that everyone gets something to eat.”

As he said the words, his thoughts turned to Thresha and his mind drifted back to the horrifying image of her consuming the fluids of a hapless cat on the Fulcrum station. He studied her face, noted the drawn look of her cheeks, the overt paleness of her skin, even paler than usual. Her eyes appeared cloudy, and flesh around them was a bruised greenish-purple.

“What about you? You okay?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

She left his side, retiring to a dark corner of the room where she seemed to disappear before his very eyes.

“Right,” Letho answered.

He tried to sit up, but it made him feel lightheaded, so he fell back on an elbow and surveyed his surroundings. His innate sense of direction told him that they hadn’t gone very far into the building, though he had no way of knowing for sure. The doors were still on their hinges, and someone had pulled them shut, displacing the dust that had gathered there. Overturned tables were everywhere, and there were some plates and eating utensils strewn about. An ancient microwave yawned open from a counter to Letho’s left. Below the counter were the remains of what appeared to be a dishwasher, but someone had torn it to pieces, most likely in search of scrap.

The ceiling was a mess of deteriorated tiles. Some were altogether gone, while others were stained and broken open by some weather event that appeared to have happened ages ago. Rusted girders and metal support beams leered through gashes like crooked teeth. To one side was a single hole large enough for a person to crawl through, and it afforded Letho a view of the night sky. The stars glinted on a cloudless, black-velvet backdrop. The moon floated ever stalwart in the black, and he could see the Fulcrum stations laid out in a circular array that spanned outward from that ever-vigilant eye. They formed a new constellation in the heavens, a great oval, an eye that stared down in judgement, yet regarded the dead world below with indifference. It was still beautiful to Letho, to gaze upon the stars from beneath them as opposed to being among them. What he had seen of his home planet thus far had instilled little hope, but despite the tragedies that had occurred since they had landed, it was good to finally set foot on the ground that had spawned his forefathers.

Letho’s thoughts began to wander, and he found himself tracing a path along a splintered overgrown highway in his mind, one of many arteries that had once pumped automobiles like blood cells into the giant organism known as Hastrom City. Perhaps Alastor was there, now aware of Letho’s presence, and mobilizing forces to capture or kill him. It wasn’t a stretch to think that Alastor was able to monitor the Fulcrum stations even as they hung lifeless in the space above Eursus. And their spectacular descent had to have been visible for miles around. How far were they from Hastrom City, anyway? He would have to ask Saladin later, but frankly he didn’t feel like interacting with the A.I. at the moment.

Now that the sun was gone, the temperature had dropped significantly, transforming Letho’s breaths into smoke-like wisps. He marveled at the huge clouds erupting from the nearest Tarsi’s nostrils, and was immediately reminded of his time with Maka in the underneath, watching in awe as the stalwart Tarsi scrubbed away the grime in the frigid air treatment ducts with what seemed to be an endless wellspring of energy.

As if summoned by Letho’s very thoughts, Maka appeared from the shadows and settled his bulk upon the couch, a little too close for Letho’s comfort. Maka’s fur shoved itself up Letho’s nose. Maka’s reek was pungent, even to Letho’s numbed senses.

“Hey, big fella. You mind?” Letho asked.

Maka looked at Letho, then at Deacon, and shrugged. He rose from the couch, grumbling, his soft complaints barely heard over the couch’s creaking protest. As he disappeared back into the shadows, he passed Bayorn, who regarded Maka with a grin and patted him firmly on the shoulder.

Bayorn walked over and kneeled beside Letho. “We have given him a sedative from the medicine bags we found on the ship,” he said, gesturing toward Deacon.

Letho was not surprised that Deacon’s condition had not yet improved; his previous experience with the withdrawal symptoms Deacon was suffering told him that Deacon would not be coming out of that place of darkness for at least a few days. Letho looked over at Deacon and was surprised to discover that Thresha had taken a crouched position at his side, one hand on Deacon’s forehead, the other laid gently upon his chest. Whenever Deacon would convulse or buck, Thresha would apply a bit more pressure, shushing him and humming in a low, sweet murmur. Deacon’s eyes were rolling back in his head, and his teeth were chattering. He spoke like a mad prophet, sputtering nonsense sprinkled with the occasional intelligible sentence. Letho felt a rather unpleasant sensation filling him as he watched the two together, and he used it to propel himself to a sitting position.

“And I’m fine too, by the way. You know, in case anyone was wondering.”

Thresha looked at him with a smirk playing across her lips. Those damned lips. How Letho longed for them to be at his ear, singing him a sweet song.

Ah, the girl chose him over you, Letho. What a big surprise. Stings a bit, doesn’t it? Then again, you’re probably pretty used to that feeling by now, aren’t you?

“Shut up,” Letho said.

****

Letho wrapped his metallic anti-shock blanket around his shoulders and crouched near Deacon.

“Hey, how you holding up?” Letho said, placing a hand on his friend’s forehead. It was cold to the touch, beaded with sweat, but his eyes were lucid, at least for the moment.