Alight_ Book Two of the Generat - Scott Sigler Page 0,4

doesn’t seem to notice it.

Coyotl made the strangest choice of all—he still holds the thighbone he used against the Grownups. His skin has a bright hue, as if he spent far too long in the sun.

I meet Spingate’s gaze. Her eyebrows rise in a silent question.

It is time.

“Open it,” I say.

The shuttle doors slide apart.

The morning sun is a blinding, reddish ball creeping above the high tree line. I lift a hand to block out the light, feel the sun’s heat against my skin.

A breeze caresses us, carrying new scents. My head spins as Matilda’s fractured memories rush to the surface, try to put names on what I smell: damp wood, burned grass and something like mint.

I step onto the shuttle’s platform. I don’t know where the platform goes when we fly, but it is exactly as it was on the Xolotl: a metal rectangle big enough to hold us all. A ramp leads down to flat ground covered in dark-blue vines with wide, pale-yellow leaves. Some of the leaves and vines are burned black; maybe our shuttle did that when it landed.

We’re in the center of what looks like a large, round clearing. A dense wall of leaves—the same pale yellow as the vines that cover the ground—towers up from the clearing’s curved edge. The sky is a circular patch high above us.

I understand why Gaston thought we flew into a hole.

Bishop walks slowly down the ramp, both hands on his axe. Muscles twitch and flex. He scowls at the trees, at the vines covering the clearing, maybe at the sun itself—he wants this world to know he is ready to fight.

He stops at the ramp’s end, reaches one bare foot toward the vines.

“Wait,” I say. “Spingate, come with me.”

The reddish sun seems to ignite the air around her hair. If anyone was made for this place, it is Theresa Spingate.

We walk down the ramp and join Bishop. I point down at the vines.

“Do you think those plants are safe to step on?”

Spingate kneels at the ramp’s edge. Fingers outstretched, she waves her bracer-adorned arm over the leaves. The black jewels come alive, sparkle in many colors.

“The shuttle doesn’t detect any known poisons,” she says. “None that can go through the skin, anyway. Just don’t eat anything.”

I glance back at the big silver ship that brought us here, then at her.

“The shuttle told you that?”

She turns her head and pulls back her hair, shows a small black jewel nestled in her ear.

“It can speak to me through this. So can Gaston.”

I again look down at the vines. This is it—our moment. I consider letting Bishop go first, or even Spingate, giving one of them the honor of being the first person to set foot on our new world.

But I want that honor for myself. I am the leader, and it is my right.

I step off the ramp. The leaves are soft and cool under my bare feet, except for the ones that were blackened during the landing; those crunch and break. There is something firm beneath the leaves. I turn my spear upside down. Dried red-gray—Matilda’s blood—coats the blade’s flat metal. I need to clean that up soon; I want to leave all memories of her behind.

I push the spear tip into the plants. It sinks in a little, then clonks against something hard.

“Bishop, come help.”

He kneels beside me. His big hands rip at the blue vines and yellow leaves. That minty smell grows stronger. He clears the plants from a small area, leaving only crumbly brown dirt. He wipes that away as well, revealing flat metal.

I walk to a new spot, push the spear tip into the vines: clonk. I move to my right, do it again, hear the same sound.

The tree line…those leaves go straight up, a sheer curved wall of pale yellow surrounding a perfectly circular clearing. That can’t be right…can it?

Bishop stands. “Farrar, Coyotl, come with me.”

The three boys jog toward the wall of trees.

I turn back to Spingate.

“We’re standing on metal,” I say. “What is this place?”

Wide-eyed, she blinks. “I don’t know. The shuttle told us where to land, so we landed. I’ll see what Gaston can find out.”

Her lips move, but I can’t hear what she says. She cocks her head, hearing a voice meant only for her.

She’s so exhausted she didn’t think to ask about where we landed? Until this moment, neither did I. We were all so focused on escaping the Xolotl we didn’t give much thought to what awaited us