Page 201 of The Space Between Stars

The weather lines in Niklaus’s face deepened. “Didn’t you already dismantle whatever was in the tower to do that? Isn’t that why they were trying to barge in?”

They both looked to Calver.

His eyes squeezed shut. How to explain to them that the entire thing had been a carefully laid trap for him? That the only reason they weren’t dead was because he had, fundamentally, a mental disorder absorbing the bulk of his sensory input that rendered him invisible? That there was no hope left for their objective?

“How?”

Because he had been betrayed by the person he’d spent a lifetime wishing he could save.

Or perhaps not. Why would she have told him to come home? Why had she sent him to Thacklore? Nothing was certain.

Niklaus looked at Calver long and hard. Calver wished he wouldn’t.

“Do you know where the real one is?”

“Then what’s the plan?”

Wind rippled through the shattered windows, whistling in Calver’s ears as the others watched him expectantly. It was all Calver could do not to lose himself. And why shouldn’t he? He’d lost. He’d lost his sister’s allegiance. If the Red Wing was eliminated, he and Raimee lost any chance at victory against Cul’Mon: the Tera’thian numbers would overwhelm them. Dex and Niklaus were next. He hung on, weathering a spike of pressure, forcing himself to keep his composure.

“So thousands of our countrymen are deathbound and we’re just going to sit here and watch the show?” Niklaus finally hissed. “No. I’ve accepted a thousand unacceptable truths, but I will not accept that.”

“We can’t do anything.”

“I’ll run out there with my arms waving if I have to!”

Niklaus’s face became very heavy. His eyes hardened like he might argue until something broke behind them. “So, all of this has been meaningless?”

“Not meaningless,” Dex muttered. “I might have an idea. Focus word might.”

Calver forced his attention to the boy. Dex had proven his worth time and time again. For his ‘might’, Calver could hold on for a little while longer.

“But we need to scope out the warehouse.”

In unison, they looked at the enormous building at the edge of the sea. “You can see there.” Niklaus tilted his head toward the window alongside the ladder. “Numbers. Layout. Guards. It looked as though there was a maintenance stair on the roof.”

“It seemed like it was? When I came in from the Cliffs of Thaligan?” Niklaus was anything but sure. They all stared at one another again, a bunch of idiots with five minutes to build a strategy from sawdust.

Dex started toward the ladder. Calver shouldered ahead of him.

Behind him, Dex elbowed Niklaus in the ribs. “You climbed the Cliffs of Thaligan? You? Niklaus-fucking-Meyernes?”

“And tumbled down the back side, yes.”

Niklaus’s voice was drowned by the wind as Calver dipped across the street and started up the warehouse ladder. When he reached the window, he peered in through the slits in its wooden shutters. Sconced Aetech lamps, at least fifty of them, lined the wall, illuminating the thousands amassed in the mostly windowless space. They huddled together like rats in a nest. The Survivor roiled at the hushed cries and low moans that rose above the sounds of the ocean.

The warehouse must have been a hundred meters long and half as wide. Bodies packed it from end to end, squeezed together like seeds in a pod. A catwalk rimmed the ceiling. As Niklaus had said, a stairwell led to the roof. The ladders at either end of the catwalk—one over the door, and one over the far wall—had been raised.

The main doors sat on the building’s eastern side, opening out to the dock. Perhaps a dozen Tera’thian guards stood in front of it. Those were not good odds. He swallowed hard and continued his ascent until the ladder rounded the ledge.