I give my statement from where I sit on the ground, but I’m not sure what I said. Monica put her glasses back on a few minutes ago, but stayed out of earshot, and then walked off. Jimmy and Grant are nearby, giving statements of their own. Cal writes for a while after I stop talking, and I catch myself falling over. I’d nodded off.

  “Let’s get you in the car.” Cal hauls me up with a hand under my arm.

  I’m still a little unsteady, so I let her guide me over to the back seat of her government vehicle, as she calls it, and I fall asleep before the door closes.

  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

  Stuck.

  I’m stuck up to my neck in cool, gelatinous mud. It’s everywhere. Mud as far as I can see, stretching out in a vast, flat brown plain all around me, without a blade of grass or stone to interrupt it. Somehow, I know that if I could peek over the horizon, all I’d find is more.

  The sky is clear. It isn’t raining. I don’t even feel wet. Nor am I sinking, so I’m not sure why my heart’s pounding like it is.

  The mud doesn’t smell. Either that or I’ve been here so long and gotten so used to it, I have no sense of it any longer.

  I do hear something, now that I think about it. A faint, rude, sucking sound, like someone slurping soup a few tables distant in an otherwise empty restaurant, comes from directly behind me.

  With some effort, I can sort of swim myself around. Approaching me is an enormous steamer ship slicing through the mud from less than a mile away. Even from here, it’s easy to see how the abrading goop has scraped the paint free, whetting its gleaming prow into a blade aimed at my face. There’s a dark figure standing by the rail, watching me, and I know he means to run me down, plow me under.

  I can go nowhere. When I try to raise my arms out, it just pushes me down, dipping my chin into the muck. Yeah, I’m able to turn, but it doesn’t seem to work if I want to move away. It doesn’t make any sense. I have nothing on me that’ll help. I’m not sure I’m even dressed.

  There’s something wrong with the shape of the figure on the ship. He’s too big. That and he’s not just standing there but moving, steering. He’s got his hands on the wheel, gripping it at ten and two, but shouldn’t that be up in a wheelhouse? Nobody puts it at the prow, right?

  Regardless, it chugs along, black smoke pluming up to stain the sky, and the helmsman isn’t a man at all. Horns warp up and around on either side of his cow’s head, and fur, thick and brown, curls in obscene little twists everywhere. Thank God I can only see the thing’s upper body. I mean, what if he’s not wearing pants?

  I bark a laugh.

  The minotaur snorts and grins at me. He’s close enough now to make out his flat white teeth.

  I struggle to get away, but it’s no use.

  “Hey.”

  Who’s that? Someone else is in the mud? I start to scream.

  “Hey!”

  I’m in the car.

  “Hey!” Cal’s shaking me by my knee. “You okay?”

  I’m in the back seat, and the dream still has me so scared that, for a moment, I think I might puke in my lap. “Dream. Just a dream.”

  “One hell of a dream.”

  “Stupid.”

  “One of those, huh?” Cal puts her hand back on the wheel and smiles at me in the rear-view mirror. “Those are the worst, right? Stupid and crazy and then, when you wake up, you feel like an idiot for being so terrified.”

  “Yeah.” I concentrate on my breathing, helping myself to quiet. What the fuck kind of dream was that? I snort. “My dreams are always weird. Every time.”

  “Do tell.”

  I sigh. “I was trapped on a… mud planet? Like, up to my neck.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And there was this ship coming at me with this guy on it. He was going to run me over.”

  “A guy?”

  “A minotaur because why not?”

  Cal laughs. “Really? You don’t see it? This sounds like something Amir would dream up, not you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Cal gets quiet. Her demeanor shifts. She nods to herself but doesn’t say anything more as she slows the car and steers it into a turn.

  I haven’t been paying attention to where we are, but I recognize it. There’s a thick red brick apartment building on the edge of Willamette that I’ve admired each time I pass it. The merlot of the brick framed in pale yellow trim looks homey. Cal passes a tiny visitor’s parking lot, empty at this hour, and follows a drive that winds around back where one of several garage doors the same color as the trim rumbles upward. It all looks in good repair.

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  The an immense garage contains fourteen other cars parked one after the other in rows so that the front row is blocked by the second. Huh. I’ve never seen anything like it. If I were married, say, and my wife came home before I did, I’d have to park behind her. If she wanted to go before I left for work in the morning, I’d have to move my car out first. Annoying. Maybe we’d just switch cars every day? Or maybe we’d make a schedule. We’d have to figure it out.

  Like I’ll ever get married.

  She parks. “Come on.” Her tone is all business. She’s not being careful with me anymore, which is unlike her. Did I say something wrong?

  We weave our way through the cars, the garage goes dark automatically just as she reaches the interior door and opens it, revealing a brightly lit hallway beyond, so I’m able to see well enough to avoid barking my shin on a bumper as I follow.

  The floor is clean green carpet cropped close. It’s almost like walking on a pool table. It’s a little worn from foot traffic, and there’s a bit of a musty smell that the air freshener in the corner can’t quite defeat. The stairs are wide, the banister mahogany, and I figure this building is of another age. One where they built a little better, for longer.

  She leads me up two floors before stopping in front of apartment four.

  “I like this place,” I say.

  She grunts and steps inside.

  I follow her in and close the door.

  She stands in her living room, eying me with her hands on her hips and her mouth tight.

  “What?” I can’t think of anything I might’ve said or done to upset her.

  She raises her chin at me. “What have you got on you?”

  I stare at her.

  “The asp? What else?”

  “Yeah, the asp. Some marbles. Throwing knives. What is it?”

  “Get them all out. Dump the marbles on the floor. Whatever you want.”

  “What? Why?”

  She takes off her blazer and tosses it onto a tasteful blue recliner. “We are about to have an argument that you will lose. Right after that, I’m going to punch you as hard as I can in the stomach.”

  “Cal—.”

  “Do it. Now.”

  Not knowing what the hell I’m doing, I draw the asp from my pocket and snkt it out to full extension.

  She nods and gestures for me to continue.

  I pull the marbles out. Five of them in a paper packet closed with a rubber band designed to burst when I throw it at something or on the floor. I undo the band and pour the contents on the floor, then I put a foot up on the coffee table, which is a nice rich mahogany, matching the wood from the stairs, to reach for my knives.

  “You’re thinking of running,” Cal says. It’s not a question. “And not from this, but from everyone and everything.”

  I make no reply, tearing the velcro fastener apart to free the sheath of knives.

  “Gonna go be a recluse in the woods somewhere?” I don’t like that smile. It’s contemptuous and looks genuine. What the hell? “Moving from campsite to campsite, keeping your distance from everybody and everyone.”

  “Melanie kissed me.” I toss the knives down on the table, wincing when I hear it hit, hoping I didn’t damage it any.

  Cal flinches, then, after a moment, “I thought she might. I’m sorry, Ben. She made a choice, though, and you should respect it.”

  “Respect it? She’s dead. Not by the Sidorovs, though. I killed all of them. All of them everywhere.”

  “You’re not a monster, Ben. You didn’t kill the Sidorovs or Melanie.”

  “They died! My luck killed them!”

  “Okay, some of the Sidorovs, but you had no way of knowing you could affect them all. Your intent, which was understandable and human, was to get to Monica. You were angry and wanted to hurt the people who were scaring you and harming your friend. You didn’t know all that could carry that far. To that degree. As for the Betans, we figure they did the shelter. We knew they might hit back, but I don’t remember telling you that.” Cal grimaces. “They’re hard to hide from and we messed with their plans.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.”

  “If I hadn’t run off. If I’d stayed with her—.”

  She takes a step towards me. “Okay. Time to kick your ass. Better Push.”

  “What? I—.” But she’s coming, face set and grim, arms up into a guard position. I back away, confused and Pushing.

  She shuffles her feet, knocking the marbles rolling instead of stepping on them, ensuring there’s no chance of her doing so.

  I hold my baton between us, ready to block. No way I can do more than that. It’d be like hitting my sister. You know, if I had one.

  Her right hand flashes out and I think she’s going for the baton. But she seizes my wrist and pulls me close, driving her left a mile deep in my gut.

  “Gee, Ben, it turns out you aren’t some all-powerful godlike being, whatever else you pulled off today.”

  I’m on my hands and knees. My back hurts. Air is a forgotten memory. There’s a puddle of vomit in front of me I don’t remember making. Wait. Do you need to breathe to barf? And how is my back hurting? Did she hit the inside part of my spine?

  “I told you what was going to happen, but I was ready for you, and now you know you aren’t invincible. Betans use lasers, Ben. If you had been there, maybe you could have helped. Maybe you would have died. Maybe you’d Push too hard and blow the water heater or something. Or the boiler. It’s an old building.” She squats beside me, speaking into my ear. “Sometimes, there’s just no chance of winning. Eventually, everybody’s chances dwindle down to zero. All we can do is the best we can, hoping it’s the right thing. You and I both know you’re one of those people, and you have better odds doing all this kind of stuff with friends who, I might add, do not seem to get hurt when you are around. You’ve noticed that, right?”

  I still can’t breathe. I hate not breathing.

  She pats my back. “I’ve got a spot cleaner for the rug, but if you scratched my table with those knives, I’m going to punch you again.”

  By the time she gets back with the cleaner, I’m sucking down ragged breaths. I can’t yet do much more than look apologetic.

  She shrugs. “I’m the one that hit you.” She has a little vacuum thingy the size of a soccer mom’s purse with a hose and brush on its end. She unwinds the cord, plugs it in, and then sops up the thicker yuck with some paper towels. The brush has a button on it that sprays water and soap over the stain and then she starts to scrub.

  “How’d—?” I start, but I can’t quite talk yet.

  “How’d I know you were going to run?”

  I nod.

  She grins. “First, I know you. You like to take responsibility for way too much. I get it. Your abilities are screwing with your perspective, but what it adds up to is you don’t respect your friends enough to agree with their choices.”

  I want to respond, but she holds up a hand.

  “You should think about that some more before you argue with me. I told you that you’d lose that argument, and you did. You’ll realize that sooner or later. Second, was your dream.”

  “Dream?” I croak.

  She rolls her eyes and goes back to scrubbing the rug. “Come on. You’re stuck. You want to escape. The danger approaches.” She glances at me. “A male minotaur?”

  I nod.

  “Operated by a male minotaur sailing a ship?”

  I shrug, not getting it.

  “A bull’s ship?”

  Oh no.

  “That wasn’t mud, Ben.” She giggles. “You’re telling yourself you need to get away from all this bull’s ship before it kills you. Your subconscious likes puns.”

  Amir will be so pleased.

  “You think your stupidity will kill yourself and others. The problem is you think that me, Mo, the Wests, and whoever else is part of your bull’s ship should leave you to it, when losing us will kill you faster than anything, you dummy. I really should let you have it again.”

  Instead, she ruffles my hair and shoves my head to the side good-naturedly. The fond look on her face makes me want to cry.

  “You’re sleeping on the couch.”