After the clan leaders take a ten minute break to compose themselves (and Butterfly Builder cleans off his pants in a nearby stream), we gather once again under the forest canopy. Broom is the first to speak.

"So, are we all in agreement that Sky is almost certainly telling the actual truth about the events of the past twenty four hours, and not just something fervently believed?"

A chorus of hasty assents fills the air, Butterfly still fidgeting with his trousers. Broom smiles.

"Good." She looks at Chief Engineer MacWillie, her smile vanishing between one breath and the next. "Now, outsider Chief Engineer MacWillie, I would like you to explain what you meant about 'our village isn't safe.'"

Chief Engineer MacWillie sighs, then points at Window Doctor.

"It's him, and your 'trees.'"

The way she says 'trees' makes me think she thinks they're something else, but she's already continuing.

"And probably some other weird shit this place does that me and the lad haven't stumbled across yet. What you did, the way you healed me..." she draws in a breath, "there are corpos out there that would glass this entire planet to keep or kill that kind of knowledge. Bloody hell, they'd singularity-bomb the entire system, even if it is the birthplace of us all." She drags a hand across her face, trying to compose herself. When she looks back up, her eyes are hard. "And they're gonna come looking, now that the Old Man's ship is dangling from a mountain-top for all to see. A Wutan-Weylan infiltration deep in Voidhome space coupled with an Entity incursion isn't going to go overlooked, especially when everyone's already searching for the prototype."

She points at me, and I try not to flinch.

"We beat the cruiser-" I begin in a determined tone, but Chief Engineer MacWillie cuts me off.

"Aye, so you did, putting aside the sustainability of your methods for the moment. That was one ship. Wutan-Weylan has a thousand more just like it. The Voidmarch has double that. Hypertron has battle moons. If they get even a sniff of what this forest can do, let alone that this is your home, there won't be aught left of this place but smoke and cinders and survivors in chains, and that's the best case. The corpos will tear each other apart over what's here."

"But it's just medicine," I say angrily, trying not to get upset with Chief Engineer MacWIllie. She's not a bad person. "Why do these 'corpos' care so much?"

"Because non-causal healing is something they've been searching for for a very long time, Sky," she replies evenly. She turns to Window Doctor. "You, the healer." He looks at her questioningly. "What you did to me, that 'as above so below' hoodoo shit; could you use it to reverse the effects of cell aging? Make someone young again?"

Window Doctor sucks in air like Chief Engineer MacWillie just punched him in the stomach.

"You are talking about proscribed knowledge that would shame any Doctor who-"

She slices a hand through the air, cutting him off.

"I'm not asking if you would, I'm asking if you could." Her eyes harden, and an air of menace fills her voice. "A crew of the hardest, evilest voidbastards you'd never wish to lay eyes on, holding your entire village and those trees to the torch. Skullfucking the eyesockets of the screaming children. Could you do it?"

I growl at MacWillie's sudden hostility, but Window Doctor seems to wilt, looking at the other clan leaders, then down at the ground. When he speaks, his voice is filled with sadness, and he seems to age twenty years before my eyes.

"...I could, even though it would lead to nothing but pain. It was tried before. Once. The village almost perished. It took us hundreds of years to recover. No one is meant to live forever."

"And that's what I'm speaking of." Chief Engineer MacWillie's voice returns to its previous gentle cadence. "Right now, no one knows you're here but me and the lad. Assuming this is Earth, and I haven't got much left to challenge that assumption based on your lack of integrators, it's what's protected you all this time. The reality left over from the first Entity means no one wants to explore the planet until it's reclaimed, and the Voidmarch ain't finishing that job anytime in our lifetimes." She snaps her fingers. "Unfortunately, the Old Man decided to make this personal, which means now a whole lot of folks have a whole lot of reasons to look here, despite the risk, and if they learn you have non-causal healing, they will raze you to the bedrock and take it."

"Why are you telling us this, outsider Chief Engineer MacWillie?" Great Grandpa Axe's voice is soft, but a dangerous light glitters in his eyes as he looks from her to Huckens. "Aren't you risking both your lives?"

Chief Engineer MacWillie bares her teeth.

"Aye, you could kill me and the lad, at a price, but that wouldn't stop the looking. All the corpos want what's inside Sky," she points at me, "and even were you to stake that body out on some hilltop somewhere, there's still the matter of the Old Man's ship on that mountain. The Voidmarch is going to want to know if there are any Wutan-Weylan infiltrators running around, which means they'll be taking an electron-tunneling microscope to the entire surrounding area real soon, which means they find the people living in this forest eventually. A planet's a big space, but it's not so big you can hide forever." She pauses, looking around at the upset clan leaders. "I'm telling you this because you dragged me back from the reaper's scythe, and a blood debt isn't something a MacWillie forgets."

"Villages can move," Needle Crafter proclaims defiantly, but her voice is uncertain, and Chief Engineer MacWillie seizes on it.

"Aye, but can you move quickly? We don't know when the Voidmarch will start looking, but by my guess it'll be in the next week or two. Maybe sooner."

"You sound as if you're tying your fate to our own," Stove Mind says into the silence, adjusting her glasses atop her button nose, expression narrowed. Chief Engineer MacWillie grins mirthlessly.

"That I am for now, lass, me and the lad both," she looks at Huckens for confirmation and he replies with a firm nod. "Neither of us are prepared to make a run from the hounds, let alone a run on Earth, but-" she smiles, perfect teeth gleaming, "I figure we have considerations we can offer each other."

"And what would these 'considerations' be?" Broom asks, stepping in front of the other clan leaders, hands threateningly empty. "What can you offer us that we don't already have? What reason do we have to upend our entire way of life by admitting you to the village? Sky is one of us, but we don't know you two at all."

I see Dirt and Torch taking positions to complete the killing triangle in my peripheral vision, and try not to let my nervousness show. This was supposed to be a simple meeting before we returned to the village for lunch. If Chief Engineer MacWillie notices the encirclement, she doesn't let it show.

"Why, the expertise of two of the finest space dogs the Galactic Diaspora's ever had the pleasure of conscripting, of course," MacWillie smiles even wider, acting like we're all friends relaxing on top of Watchers Hill as the stars dance overhead. "And if that doesn't wet your whistle, well, me and the lad here are no strangers to hard work for little pay. Story of our lives so far, and may the never-god strike me dead if I'm not speaking truth. I've no love for Wutan-Weylan, nor any of the other corpos. On my name as a MacWillie."

Tension sings through the air, distrust hanging like a noxious mist, so alien to everything I'm used to, and it's suddenly more than I can bear. I step into the middle of the confrontation.

"Why are we doing this?" I ask the clan leaders bluntly, focusing my attention on Broom. "I told you that Chief Engineer MacWillie and Huckens saved the village. If they're telling us we're not safe, why aren't we listening? Why aren't we bringing them back for food and shelter, planning what steps we need to take next to protect us all?"

"The words of a child," Butterfly Builder scoffs, and I whirl towards him, amazed at my own audacity. It's incredible how confronting my own mortality so recently has opened my eyes to what's important and what's not. Being a clan leader means nothing if he can't think.

"Do you want to clean your pants a second time, Butterfly? I said we can trust them!"

His face reddens, unintelligible epithets struggling to make their way past his lips. Broom shifts imperceptibly, and I scythe out a limb behind my back, low and fast, knowing that Dirt is taking advantage of the distraction to creep up on us. Sure enough, my limb makes contact, and he tumbles to the floor, laughing the whole way down, and Torch freezes on the opposite side. The assembled leaders of the village flinch from the brief flash of bone-white segments, Butterfly most of all. The air falls still, quiet except for Dirt's odd mirth.

"I told you, Broom," Dirt giggles, making no move to rise from the ground, "this is our Book. I will not fight. There is nothing to learn there but death." He makes a negating gesture at Torch, still tensed with her hands tucked behind her back. "Relax, Torchie. This will not come to blood. Besides, you cannot win."

Torch glares at him, but slowly settles into a crouch, poking at the ground with a knife. In front of me, Broom glowers, then suddenly relaxes into a more casual posture.

"You truly trust them, Sky?" she asks me conversationally. "These outsiders? You would protect them, leaving your back unguarded?" It takes me a second to process the mental whiplash.

...your Idiots could give the elite combat units of the galaxy a serious challenge. That is some scary mental flexibility.