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Slow, slow, chameleon-slow. Every so often, a shadow silently crossed his path
the mechanical rotation of the caterpillar s anchored upper length. The terror would
well up. Ori pushed it right back down again. He couldn t afford to tremble.
Most of the stretch was sand, but an unfortunate patch of jagged rocks had
scraped his right thigh. Sand filled the cuts and halted the bleeding.
He imagined a million possibilities and eventualities, spending the most mental
effort on the ones where Kalani finished safe and free. Even now, even if the giant
mandibles drove into Ori s flesh, it would mean half a second of wrenching agony
before death and engulfment, but also half a second of hope that his death was
worthwhile as Kalani sprinted for the rock.
Kalani s crawl to the other direction was silent too. All Ori could hear was the
faint whine of the wind.
Almost there. One more rocking stretch. One more chameleon contraction.
A clatter of stones. Oh God, Kalani.
No. Wrong direction.
124 Heidi Belleau & Violetta Vane
The shadow fell forward until it paralleled Ori s body, like they were both hands
of a clock pointing toward noon. He was under the thing. Right under it. He lifted his
eyes up from the sand, breaking out of slow motion but staying smooth and please let
him not die blind and not knowing why, or where he was going.
Kuewa. He d almost forgotten their existence in this world. A knot had crept
forward. A knot, yes, clinging to one another, their joints like knots too, bodies
elongated and desiccated, bellies concave, dark, dry lips drawn back from leathery
gums drawn back from stained white teeth.
Ori was just about to count the kuewa when the caterpillar struck. Its hovering
head jackhammered down. Half the kuewa disappeared into the thing s maw.
Mandibles pumped. Chitin-clawed head-legs sank into human thighs, greedily stuffing
the rest upward. The kuewa s foot flopped convulsively as the caterpillar reared back
into the sky, the last useless gesture of a useless wasted afterlife.
The rest of the kuewa turned and fled backward toward the cliff. The caterpillar
struck down twice more, engulfing one, neatly scissoring the head from another. That
kuewa ran for a couple of paces, its truncated neck oozing thick black blood, before it
collapsed to the sand.
One of the kuewa hadn t moved. Couldn t move. Ori realized it was half-sized, a
child, a girl or maybe a long-haired boy, though the hair was only a few ragged patches.
Kuewa faces might as well be shriveled masks, but this one s body spoke of fear. The
way it trembled and cringed. They d held on to one another& Had they been a family,
before they died? None of this was right; there was no justice to the metaphysics of this
world.
The original plan was hopeless. But now they had a new opportunity and a clear
path to the jumping-off point. A short sprint, and they d be there, leaving the caterpillar
to the kuewa and the kuewa to the caterpillar. Kalani would be free.
That was all that mattered. That was all that was supposed to matter.
Kalani was the world. Kalani was
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He looked over, for strength, to remind himself of who he was doing this for, who
he always said he would do anything for, and Kalani stared back, silent, but eyes
burning holes into Ori s.
There was no mistaking that expression. It said, Don t you fucking dare.
Dare to move? Dare to let the child be eaten?
I love you, Ori mouthed, tightened his fist around the spear, and jerked himself
upright.
The scissoring hulking head came down to meet him.
The motion was slower than before, more deliberate, stalking instead of striking.
Taking time to choose between Ori and the kuewa child.
Ori seized that time, and when the huge swinging head lowered into range,
jumped forward and jabbed the spear into the largest cluster of eyes just above the
mandibles. A weird feeling swept up his arm, a burning numbness thin, stiff bristles
like foot-long hypodermic needles had jabbed his arm in return.
The caterpillar writhed upward, horribly silent, all its pain and anger trembling on
the surface of its mottled, bristly skin.
Ori thought he heard someone calling his name.
Kalani. He was getting up, ready to run. Yes. Now.
The head lashed down. Ori ran like an animal, like the prey he was, dodged to the
right, then calculated, back in human headspace, that the uncoiling would intersect his
course. He slammed his right heel into the sand and halted his momentum. The
caterpillar struck, the thick pillar of its freakish body slamming against the ground Ori
would have been running on. Sand puffed up around it. Ori stabbed, ripped, and ran
back down the length stabbing and ripping again, ignoring the jabs of the protective
bristles that broke off on his arm, on his chest, on his thighs.
The skin was soft. A dense meaty jelly welled up in the wounds, quivering but too
viscous to be called blood. Feel this hurt, look to me, I am the one, look to me. Kalani would
126 Heidi Belleau & Violetta Vane
be running for the leaping point now, and that was the most important trajectory to
calculate.
Except he wasn t. Kalani was the kuewa child. Kalani bounded up the beach,
sand flying under his feet, and without stopping scooped the child up under one arm
and kept running.
Ori shouted, Kalani! No! after him, but he was already off, rushing the child
back to the rest of the kuewa even as it writhed and rolled in his grip until it could
gnaw at his arm.
It was all going to hell.
The caterpillar reared again, this time swinging pendulously, off-balance and, he
hoped, in pain. Could it feel pain? Irregular thuds sounded, signaling the shift of its
anchoring rear leg cluster. It rocked away from Ori and back toward the ocean, clearing
space for another strike.
So huge, and growing impossibly more huge right in front of his eyes. Its shadow
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