 
PRAISE FOR THE MAKER:

"[W]ill delight middle-grade readers, and has the satisfying feel of a classic '80s kids movie that older readers especially will find highly charming. The characters are colorful and winning...Henry, a stalwart alien companion reminiscent of Chewbacca, is a particular standout. Readers will appreciate how prized intelligence is within the book, as they figure out plot twists at about the same time as the characters. This book is well worth a read for sci-fi fans of any age." \- RT Book Reviews

"An enthralling, page-turning sci-fi adventure. The makings of an epic!...The characters, many of them very, VERY odd, spring off the page...If you are looking for a fascinating sci-fi/fantasy adventure populated with interesting characters and an intriguing setting, this book is for you." \- The Wishing Shelf Book Awards Reviews - Five Star Review

"Tweens and teens--and kids at heart--will encounter thrills, mysteries, and an abundance of life lessons in The Maker, a whimsical novel set in space." \- IndieReader Discovery Awards - The Verdict

"[A] fast-paced and engaging read, with a fresh take on some familiar concepts and a strong character arc at its center." - IndieReader

"[A]wesome! Vibrant and energetic characters living in an amazingly designed world...This book gets something I rarely give, and that's my whole hearted recommendation. It may be labelled a children's book, and it will certainly inspire and engage that audience, but it also possesses great value as an adult read...In short, great writing style, brilliant ideas, gripping plot, funny to read. Basically, The Maker, is everything you could want in a book." \- Author K. J. Simmill for Readers' Favorite - Five Star Review

"A great delight for young readers, The Maker by D.F. Anderson introduces readers to a hero that is inspiring and lovable in a memorable adventure...The author has the uncanny gift of creating a world that is abstract but that feels familiar to readers...The writing in The Maker is masterly and the pacing awesome...fans of this genre will be gripped." \- Arya Fomonyuy for Readers' Favorite - Five Star Review

"[A] quick and enjoyable read. The fast-paced action and suspense kept me glued to the book." \- LitPick Student Reviews - Five Star Review (13-year-old reviewer)

"Anderson writes like a master and readers will enjoy the way he brings out the thoughts and the worldview of the protagonist. He actually makes his hero lovable. Character development is superb...The setting of the story is great and cinematic, and readers will find vivid images flooding their imaginations...[O]riginal, gripping, and utterly delightful."\- Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite - Five Star Review

"Anderson deftly explores the limits of human potential in this entertaining and action-packed story...Meer, the parallel planet he ends up on, is endlessly fascinating... While this is listed as a children's book, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of metaphysics sprinkled into their fantasy....The Maker is most highly recommended."\- Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite - Five Star Review

"I have never read a book with a concept quite like this before....It got exciting very quickly, and I found myself enjoying it immensely. Packed with action, a smoothly-flowing plot, and a unique setting, this book made for a read that kept me on the edge of my seat." \- LitPick Student Reviews - Five Star Review (16-year-old reviewer)

"[An] enchanting story about Nate, a teenage boy, who loves to draw...The characters are unique and fantastic...[W]ritten with beauty and skill...The mixture of nature science and the fantasy of magic is refreshing... Anderson has a great imagination and does a wonderful job sharing it...I would recommend this story to anyone who wants to lose themselves in a terrific adventure." - Kris Moger for Readers' Favorite - Five Star Review

Also by D. F. Anderson

Chapter Books (ages 6–9):

Charlie Sparrow and the Secret of Flight:   
Tales of Tree City, Book 1

Charlie Sparrow and the Book of Flight:   
Tales of Tree City, Book 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2017 by D F Anderson

Published: 2017

ISBN: 978-0-9918003-4-6

Publisher: Underdog Books, proudly independent

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Cover and book design by Rachel Lawston

Author photo copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Fulton

First eBook Edition

Visit the author's website:

www.dfandersonauthor.com

Join D. F. Anderson's newsletter to be automatically entered into his monthly print book givewaway and learn about his upcoming book releases!

Thank you for supporting an independent author!

For Genesta and Isla

Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey.

—Rumi (Translation by Coleman Barks)

Contents

One-Eyed Jellyfish

Thieves in the Night

The Transplanter

A Small Harvest

Petal City

The Grand Scientist of Meer

The Workshop

Making

Philip

The Factory

Guardian

The Needle

Escape

The Burrow

The Circuit

Ship Alongside

The Plan

Instructor Zin

A Different Kind of Prisoner

We Need You

The Third Planet Wobbler

Vishus

Nate's Power

The Mica Network

Dad

Home

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1

# One-Eyed Jellyfish

It starts as a half-moon with a braided cord hanging from the bottom. Wavy strings grow from the cord. Tentacles. Kind of looks like a jellyfish. I add more curvy lines until they're a thick maze slithering down the page. I close my eyes, focusing on the image in my mind. A lidless eye glares at me from the jellyfish's back. With a sinking heart, I trace out every creepy detail.

I look up, remembering myself. The microwave reads 4:55. They'll be home any minute. I glance at my report card on the kitchen table. My stomach tightens. This won't be good.

I turn to the sketchbook. The jellyfish stares at me. I look at the ceiling, my heart thudding, my stomach curling. The eye burns in my mind.

My drawings are always detailed, but this is extreme even for me. Hundreds of tentacles, shaded to appear lighted from within. And the eye, staring. I can barely tell the drawing on the page from the image in my mind.

This is it. I'm officially losing touch with reality.

There's something missing. Frantic, I add the fireflies, dots that to me are sparkles of light. They make the image come alive, the way it appears to me.

"Earth to Nate!" Ted shouts, flapping the report card in my face.

I jump. Ted and Mom are home. I didn't hear. It seems Ted's been ranting about the number of Ds this term. I don't answer because they don't care how I feel, though it should be obvious.

First, Mom and Dad separated—that was July. In September, they announced they would divorce. The next day, Dad left for Florida and didn't come back. Fast-forward to November when, out of the blue, Mom brings home Ted. Ta-da! Meet my new boyfriend. By the way, he's moving in. Oh, and do you mind calling him Dad?

That would be enough to tank anyone's grades. Then, to ring in the New Year, the package arrived with that wonderful, horrible note. Cue the visions and hours-long drawing sessions. I didn't tell Mom and Ted about the package.

It's March, and the visions are getting stronger, the drawings wilder.

"That's the problem right there," Ted says, grabbing my sketchbook. "These things."

He glares at my work like it's garbage. I shrink away, my stomach twisting up.

"Give it back!" I lunge forward, but he swings the sketchbook out of my reach.

"Mom? Mom!"

The old Mom would defend me, tell Ted to back off. The new Mom scowls, silently disapproving of me. A fly lands on her forehead, hops, and settles in to stare at me—also disapproving, it seems.

"Give it back!" Ted mocks, tossing the sketchbook on the counter. He pulls my backpack out from under my chair, flips it over, and shakes everything onto the table. Sketchbooks, pencils, pens.

"Don't!" I grab the shoulder strap.

"Let go," Ted growls, digging in. Strap threads burst as we strain against each other.

"Nate!" Mom cries. "Stop!"

She pulls my arm. I hold the strap tight. More threads pop.

Ted works a jackhammer on a construction crew. He's six-foot-two with huge shoulders. I'm five-foot-two and spend my time drawing. I can't out-pull him, so I let go.

He stumbles backward into the fridge.

"Seriously?" he barks. "Ah, Natey wants his drawings? Take them!" He starts tearing my sketchbook pages, showering me with the pieces.

My response is instinctive. I reach for him, but Mom steps between us.

"Go," she says. "Just go."

"He's not worth it anyway," I snap.

I rush out of the kitchen and upstairs to my room, slamming my door.

I go for the bed, but footsteps come up the stairs. The handle jiggles and the door creaks.

"Nate?" Mom calls, slipping inside and closing the door.

"What?" I demand, still shaken.

"Why are you so mean to him?" she asks.

"Why do you defend him?" I answer.

She looks shocked. "He cares about you. He wants you to pass eighth grade, like any father would."

I almost scream back: "He's not my father!" I've done that too many times. A big reaction doesn't help. I grit my teeth and say, calmly: "Ted is not my father. Ted is—Ted, and that's it."

A fly followed Mom in. Its high-pitched buzz fills the silence.

"You'll come to see things my way," she says as the fly lands on her forehead. She glances at the desk. "Is that all your drawing stuff?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I'm taking them."

At first, I don't understand. "Taking them? You can't!"

For a moment, Mom's face screws up like she's confused, then her eyes soften. "I can't? You're right. I—I don't want to take them away," she stammers. "You love drawing." The fly starts buzzing wildly, zipping back and forth in front of her eyes. The buzzing gets so loud, it hurts my ears. Mom shakes her head and the next time she looks at me, it's with scowling eyes. "Don't try to stop me. It's been decided. No more drawing until your grades improve."

I tremble, afraid as much as angry. "But I need to draw."

"Grow up, Nate. It's not like you have a future as an artist."

My chest and stomach knot. Who is this person? Mom used to ask to see my work all the time. She seemed to like it. She bought a lot of the drawing supplies on my desk. Now she thinks my drawings are garbage, just like Ted? "Dad wouldn't allow this," I protest weakly. Mom's words have sucked the fight out of me.

"Dad? Dad left. He's never coming back. Ted is Dad now."

"He is coming back."

"Oh? He hasn't called, texted, emailed, Skyped, Facebooked, or written a letter in six months. So what is it? What makes you so sure?"

I shut my mouth. I can't tell her about the note. Then I would have to show her the package.

"Nothing," I say. "I just know Dad would never abandon me."

Mom's stare is more pity than concern. "You really have no idea, do you? Your dad had flaws. A lot of them. Why do you think I want a divorce? He was away on business half the year. When he was here, he was lost in thought or locked in his study doodling." She shakes her head. "Your dad abandoned me and he did it to you, too," she says. "It's time you forgot him, like I did."

The words are a knife in my chest. Her mouth is moving, but I can't believe the words are hers. This isn't my mom.

She turns to my desk, picks up my 11 x 14 sketchbook and my stack of 8 x 12 sketch pads, then riffles through the drawers, grabbing any paper she can find. She takes my two pencil cases, my rulers, my cup of inking pens, and my bottle of India ink, setting them on the pile.

When the door swings open, Ted stands in the hallway, glaring in. Mom walks out, the fly swirling over her, and shuts the door.

I fall on the bed, my insides twisted up, my eyes wet. Wiping my eyes, I grunt the words "she's wrong," and pull the folded note from my pocket. The paper is as thick as card stock but with a silky texture. Each time I take it out—which is a lot—I'm struck by the paper's strangeness. Written in capital letters across the middle are words that uplift and sadden me:

DEAR NATE,

YOUR FATHER WOULD WANT YOU TO HAVE THIS, SEEING AS HE IS CURRENTLY UNABLE TO GIVE IT TO YOU.

SINCERELY,

W (AKA TGSOM)

PS PUT THE GOOD ONES IN HERE

Chapter 2

# Thieves in the Night

The note proves Dad didn't abandon me. He's out there. He wanted to give me something—he just can't right now.

But who is W (AKA TGSOM)? And why not spell out the name in full? And where is Dad? And what is keeping him? And why is he still gone, all these months after the package arrived?

I found the package on my windowsill wrapped in brown paper with the note on top on November 24. Whoever did it climbed the garage and opened my bedroom window from outside. I reread the message at least ten times before unwrapping the paper. Inside, I found a fourteen-inch, leather-bound binder full of clear, empty sleeves.

I slip my hand between the mattress and bed frame, grab the hard edge, and slide the binder out, running my hand over the ornate 'N' tooled into the smooth green leather. The scrollwork of the N looks medieval.

I puzzled over what "PUT THE GOOD ONES IN HERE" meant. It took me a few days to come to the obvious answer: drawings. The problem was I knew I didn't have a good drawing in all my piles of sketchbooks. Not after what Dad said the night he left.

Dad is a real artist. Well, he's a neuroscientist for his job, but art is his calling. He works in pencil, mostly, sometimes charcoal or conté, and he can draw anything. Teacups, vases, cars, trees, houses, flowers, cityscapes, mountains, cats, horses, squirrels, elephants, bears, me, and Mom. He's careful with his lines. He sees what matters and draws only that. Some of his drawings are so lifelike, they freak me out.

I turn the pages, smoothing my hands over the clear sleeves. They're like the note paper—silky. They must be an expensive plastic, if they're plastic. The drawings puzzle me. Vines wrapped around metallic objects. Hovering trees. Contraptions with buttons, switches, gears. Elaborate seashells that look like they could fly. The most bizarre flowers I've ever seen.

These are my drawings now. I can't escape them because I can't stop the visions. I put every vision drawing in the binder, even though I have no idea if they're good. Mom and Ted are probably right to call them horrible. Dad's art is real things, real life. How can these be art? They're made up. Some fantasy I'll never understand. Even if they're bad, a part of me is attached to them. They're mine. When I'm lost in drawing a vision, I find peace from my messed-up life.

Why haven't I gone looking for him? I wonder. I've had the thought before, but now I'm ready. Mom has turned against Dad. I've got no reason to stay anymore. Florida is on Google Maps like every other place. I can slip out tonight.

As I sit on the bed mentally packing my broken backpack, there's a tingle in my stomach. It swells until it feels like the bed is dropping under me. At the same time, a kind of curtain draws apart in my mind and a bright image appears, clear and flowing.

I fumble at my desk before remembering Mom took my drawing supplies. Frantic, I open the binder and find a pencil stub in the inner pocket, then slide a drawing out of its sleeve. It's of what looks like two diving flippers. Or maybe they're leaves.

I sharpen the pencil with scissors, set the page down blank side up, and start. Now and then, I notice what I'm doing. It looks like the image in my head. What that is, I don't know, but it has a thin body and a long spiral nose.

After finishing the main outline, I work on the details, zeroing in on the image, sketching out the tiniest parts, shading, and adding textures. When I finish, I glance at my phone in its docking station. 12:30 AM. I don't remember time passing. I've whittled the pencil tip so many times, it's a stub.

Whatever I drew looks like a wingless mosquito with a spiral seashell for a stinger.

I finish by adding an aura of dots. The fireflies. The images in my mind are covered in shimmering lights. The fireflies are like a period at the end of a sentence. My drawings aren't right without them.

I look it over, wondering if it's any good. I can't help wondering. But I know the answer. Dad set me straight.

He drank wine that evening in his apartment. He was upset—I would go as far as to say deeply sad. It makes sense, because it was the day Mom told him she wanted a divorce. I got out my sketchbook, like usual, and suggested we draw the bowl of oranges on the table. He got angry. Dad never gets angry. I knew it was serious.

"Don't you see? Drawing ruined my life! If I didn't draw, maybe your mom and I would still—" He didn't need to finish the sentence. Instead, he took a gulp of wine. "Do yourself a favor, Nate. Toss out your sketchbooks and take interest in something normal. Hockey. Baseball. Chess. Anything but drawing."

I went numb. I've gone over his words again and again. There's only one explanation. He was doing the hard thing. Being honest. Letting me know I'm no good. Why else would he tell me to give up drawing?

After dessert, he dropped the bomb about going to Florida. The next morning, Mom picked me up, and he left later that day.

I'm sweaty and lightheaded. I slide the window open, inhaling the cold night air, shaking out my cramped hand. It's March but it's been above zero all week, the snow mostly gone. Global warming. I stare at the shingles on the garage roof sparkling in the moonlight. The sky is rich with stars, but the view is blocked.

If only that big tree wasn't in the way, I think, I could see the sky and clear my head.

Then I realize how disturbing this thought is.

Tree? There is no tree at the end of the garage. That's where the driveway is.

I can't figure out what that branchy silhouette, shooting up past the roof, swaying in the breeze is.

A gust of wind streams into the room, blowing my drawing off the table. I catch it and as I slip it back into its sleeve in the binder, there's scratching on the roof. It stops, then starts, this time closer. It's a skittering sound, like tiny, clawed feet on the shingles.

Must be a squirrel. I poke my head out the window to find only dark shingles in a dark night. I look up and there is that unexpected tree, shaking in the wind, its lower branches scraping the roof.

So that explains it, I think. The branches against the shingles. But this isn't comforting. It means the tree is there.

I decide I really have lost it. I am no longer only having visions. I am seeing things in real life.

Scritcha-scratcha, scritcha-scratcha, scritcha-scratcha comes the noise. It isn't the tree's branches. It's too close. There is something on the roof. Or that's what my mind is hearing.

Something white scurries into the rain gutter. I lean out the window to see. Another white thing scurries over the other side of the roof, racing up to the house's vinyl siding, which is also white. I lose sight of it.

I've never seen white squirrels, I think. Could they be cats? But they don't move like cats.

I pull the window shut so I can go bury my head in my pillow and forget this happened. Before it's a quarter closed, a furry white creature leaps against the glass, flashing tiny sharp teeth. I cry out, falling. I huddle on the floor, listening to the silence, then leap to close the window. But the furry white thing jumps again, bouncing over the sill and into the room, hissing. I fall and flatten myself against the wall. Another furry white creature jumps in behind the first.

They stand side by side. They are furballs on thin legs with backward-bending knees and three-toed feet, kind of like chicken legs. Black eyes peep out from under the fur. One crouches down, copying me, then pounces.

I throw my hands over my face. It lands on my leg. I scream, dog-paddling at it. It ducks, scurries up my body, springs off my forehead in a back flip, and comes down on my bed. Its hard claws scrape my scalp when it pushes off, but it doesn't hurt.

It's all too much. I slap myself. My last hope is that this is a dream. Mom just left my room, I'm still sleeping, and the drawing, the tree—all of it—happened in my head. I'll slap myself awake if I have to.

The furball bounces across the bed, flings itself up the wall, and blends into the white paint in the corner. Then it opens its black eyes and mouth and launches at me like a plush cannonball. Just when its tiny teeth are about to clamp down on my nose, it bounces off my forehead again and lands on my desk.

The second furball is already there among the pencil shavings, shoving the Luke Skywalker action figure I made on a 3D printer at the library into its fur. This stuns me so much that I don't react when the furball then lifts one end of my drawing binder with three-fingered hands at the end of short, hairless arms. The first furball's arms appear from the depths of its fur and it hoists the other end of the binder. The two creatures bounce in unison from the desk to the windowsill and onto the garage roof.

I'm terrified to move, sure that budging will bring on more crazy visions. Then I realize what the creatures have done.

"Hey!" I shout. "That's mine!"

Chapter 3

# The Transplanter

I propel myself over the windowsill onto the roof, chasing the furballs as they scurry along the peak with my binder propped between them. My foot slips and I land on my knee. When I'm steady, I see the creatures jump onto a branch of the mysterious tree.

I hurry after them, stopping short at the edge. The branch is a foot away, and it looks thin. I almost give up, but it's the drawing binder Dad wanted me to have. I can't explain why, but those drawings are more important than anything else in the world.

I stick out my left foot, setting it on the branch, which bobs at the slightest touch. I count to three and push off the roof, grabbing a higher branch. When the branch stops bouncing, I shimmy to solid footing near the trunk. There's a squeak from above, then another that sounds like a titter. If I'm not mistaken, the furballs are laughing at me.

"Give it back!" I shout, outraged and terrified. It's too dark, but I climb anyway.

When I'm a few branches up, a rumbling hum starts beneath me. I ignore it, assuming it's a truck going by. I also notice the branches moving, but ignore that too, assuming it's the wind. It dawns on me that the branches are moving too much for wind, and the hum can't be a truck because it's still going. Then I see it. The branches are closing. I huddle close to the trunk, watching in fear as the branches curl up like an umbrella being closed upside down. The biggest branches curl into a rounded cage, and I'm in the middle. Any extra branches are absorbed into the others. Soon, I'm locked in.

"Help!" I shout, trying to shake the branches, but finding they no longer budge.

A skin spreads over the branches, stretching across the gaps, weaving the whole skeleton together. It's rough and woody, like bark, except it has a dim, bluish glow. It grows until the cage is a giant pod with me trapped inside.

"Help!" My throat cracks in desperation. "Mom! Ted! Help!"

"Now, now," a voice speaks out of the darkness. "No need to shout. I'll tell you anything you need to know. Just don't make noise. There's nothing worse than screaming and fussing during a pickup."

I squint into the darkness, lit by the soft blue glow from the pod's skin. A figure creeps down the wall on long, thin, stick-like limbs. It moves slowly, smoothly, creepily. It reminds me of a stick bug. A man-sized one. Except it's not quite a stick bug. It might have six legs, but it uses the top two like arms. Its glinting black eyes are set on either side of a thin brown head with pincers flanking the mouth.

"Who are you?" I ask, my voice trembling. "What are you?"

"I am Stik," the figure answers, still upside down. "I am the captain of this ship. To answer your second question, I am what you Earthlings would call an alien. I am not of this world. Nor are Whiff and Biff, my crew, whom you have met."

I jump as the two furballs crawl out of the shadows, also upside down. They each wave a three-fingered hand, grinning.

"They frightened you, didn't they," Stik says. "Well, Nate of Earth, you mustn't blame them. They were only doing their job."

When it says my name, I'm too stunned to speak. I decide the part of my brain that keeps me in touch with reality has given up. I've lost it. I'm probably lying on the floor of my room right now, hallucinating.

"So stealing my sketchbook is their job?" I demand.

"Yes," Stik says. "By order of the Grand Scientist of Meer."

"I have no idea who that is. What are you going to do to me?"

Stik blinks, then tosses back his head, laughing deeply. "Did you hear that, fellows?" The furballs titter like munchkins. One of them nearly drops off the pod wall. "He thinks this is an alien abduction. You've seen too many Earth movies, child. We're not going to probe you or operate on you or do anything untoward. This is a true emergency. Your help is desperately needed. You know, they all start out this way, protesting and whining, but you'll be glad you came. 'What an adventure it was,' you'll say. 'Do I have to go home?' you'll plead."

To say I'm confused would be the understatement of the millennium. Terrifying as it is to learn in the middle of the night that aliens exist, there's something about Stik that I like.

"My help?" I ask. "With what?"

"Oh, you know," Stik answers as he inserts his arms into some holes in the skin of the tree capsule. An array of blue lights appears on the skin in front of him, like a night sky full of throbbing stars. "Something to do with science. They'll explain it to you when we arrive. I'm just the transportation. Now, if you don't mind," he says, as he glides his limbs along tracks between the blue lights, "we have to get moving." A low hum starts.

"What is this thing?" I notice how big it is in here.

"She's called the Transplanter. She's custom made. They don't get any better than this, so be happy she's taken you as a passenger." Stik inserts two of his legs into holes, spread-eagling. With this motion, the tree shakes and my stomach feels funny. It's the sensation I get when a drawing calls me. But that only lasts a few seconds. This feeling keeps getting stronger.

"What's happening?" I ask, fumbling for something to hold.

"We've lifted off," Stik says. "We'll be out of Earth's atmosphere shortly."

"What do you mean?"

"Three—"

"I can't leave!"

"Two—"

"Take me back!"

"One. And we're here."

"Where?"

"Space. I thought it was obvious."

I have an urge to throw up. "What's going on?" I demand, grabbing at the air as I rise like a helium balloon. A white furball floats by, turning slow circles, grinning at me.

"Ahem. Sorry, sorry," Stik says. "The straps. I've been forgetful lately. I keep telling them I'm too old for this."

There is a high-pitched, devilish laugh and the other furball shoots overhead. At the last second, it curls into a ball and smashes into its friend, sending it bouncing off the wall and into Stik's face.

"Would you two quit it!" Stik growls, batting the furball across the pod with his stick arm.

Sighing, he bows his head and inserts the woody tip into a large hole in the lighted skin, which I now realize is the ship's control panel. Stik pilots it using the blue holes, which also anchor him to the wall. He turns his head four or five times, his body not moving an inch.

A vine grows up below me, wraps around my leg, and guides me down onto a stump seat that rises out of the floor. Smaller vines creep up around my ankles and thighs, holding me in place.

I sit in silence, reflecting on what has happened. I have endless questions. Where are you taking me? Why did you steal my drawing binder? Do you know who W (AKA TGSOM) is? Does this have something to do with Dad? The questions are jumbled. I manage only: "Are we really in outer space?"

Stik, whose head is now free of the hole, inserts his middle legs into two holes and slides them in outward swirls. There is a click and the floor vibrates.

"See for yourself," he says.

The skin beneath my feet peels open in a circular motion, revealing a round viewing hole. The thick, knotted tree trunk I saw on my driveway sticks out beneath the ship, glowing bright blue. Beneath the trunk is a sight I at first don't understand. Fading into the distance is a bright blue sphere no bigger than a basketball. I stare at it in awe, hypnotized by its radiant beauty. Now it's the size of a baseball. Then a marble. As it disappears into the vast screen of stars and black space, I realize what it was. Earth. I groan, overwhelmed by what I can only describe as the worst homesickness I have ever felt.

"Don't worry. You'll be back," Stik assures me, moving his limbs along various slots in the wall, tangling himself in a complicated game of Twister. He ends his movements with each limb inside a nodule of throbbing blue light that turns red.

"Prepare to Transplant!" he declares with a delighted snarl. He cranks all his limbs, unraveling himself in one athletic, impossible move.

I stare down at the viewing hole as the ship lurches powerfully. The next moment, my body is pulled into the stump as if by a huge vacuum cleaner with the most powerful suction imaginable. My stomach leaps into my throat and there are streaming lights.

Then everything goes black.

Chapter 4

# A Small Harvest

Drool runs down my chin.

"'Ow 'ong 'as I ou'?" I mutter, my words slurred, my tongue and lips numb.

"Pardon me, lad?" Stik asks. "You have the speed slur. It will pass. Transplanting speed does strange things to the body. It does different things to different species." He points to Whiff and Biff, whose eyes bulge from their heads, having doubled in size. They slowly deflate.

"How long was I out?" I repeat, my tongue and lips tingling.

"Blacked out, did you? Perfectly normal for a human. You couldn't have been out long. The trip only took thirty-four seconds."

I don't know what to make of a thirty-four-second journey through space. How far could we have gone?

I don't have time to ask. Stik swirls his arms, his hands inserted into a track that lights up as they pass through it. As he does this, viewing holes whir open all over the spacecraft. On one side it's all black space salted with stars. I'm taken aback by the sight on the other side. Filling most of the viewing holes is a glowing planet. It is Earth-like, with patches of blue, brown, and green, but there are also reds and purples. I can tell this is not my home.

"We have arrived at Meer," Stik says.

"Meer?" I stammer, hypnotized by the swirls of color.

"Meer," he repeats. "It is the life-bearing planet in a solar system 4.2 light-years from your solar system."

I mutter: "I'm only dreaming. I'm only dreaming. I'm only dreaming."

"Dreaming? You are wide awake, child."

"I'm only dreaming!" I shout, hitting myself in the head with balled-up hands. "I'm only dreaming!"

"Ack!" Stik cries, pushing off the control panel. He floats toward me, which only makes me hit faster. "Stop!" Stik orders, wrapping his stick fingers around my wrists. The bark-like skin of his fingers scratches like a cat's tongue.

Stik looks at me. "Don't go hitting yourself. It might knock you out but it sure won't wake you up. You are awake!" His mouth is a slit at the end of the woody rod that is his head, hidden between brown pincers that remind me of crab claws.

"I'm seeing things!"

"You are awake and seeing clearly, I promise you. Can I let go?"

I nod, relaxing my fists and slowing my breathing.

"That's better."

"What's that?" I ask, pointing out the viewing hole on the other side of the ship.

"What now?" Stik plants a leg and pivots.

"That!" A bright object is hurtling toward us.

"Ack! C'mon boys, it's time!"

"It's going to hit us!" I cry.

"Shouldn't," Stik answers. "I triple-checked the calculations. We should be immediately to the left of its trajectory."

Just then, the glowing thing whooshes past the ship. It's ten times our size and is covered in a sparkling gold dust. I get a glimpse of the center, which looks like a regular space rock—not that I know what one of those looks like. It's gray and boring.

The golden dust envelops the ship, pattering against the windows like sand—sparkling sand.

"Did you get any?" Stik demands.

Whiff and Biff answer with chatters and growls.

"Not enough notice? Well, get ready then! We're going after it!"

All six of Stik's limbs latch on to the control panel, sliding back and forth in a dizzying dance. The ship wheels around.

"What was that?" I ask, still shaken from the close call.

"Mica-gome," he answers abruptly.

"Mica what?"

"Gome. Mica-gome. Home of mica. It's the Meerish language. Ah, never mind. It's a comet."

"Why are we chasing it?"

"The harvest, of course. We need mica. Hold on!"

Stik makes a dramatic stab forward with his arms and we launch after the comet.

The vines cinch around my ankles and legs, holding me against the stump.

We accelerate, gaining on the comet. The tail is mostly gray dust, speckled with golden sparks. These shower the ship in a space sandstorm.

"We need to get inside the golden part of the cloud," Stik explains as he moves the ship into the tail.

We can hardly see out the viewing holes. Up ahead, flecks of light brighten the darkness.

"Get ready, boys!"

Whiff and Biff climb into holes at the front and back of the main pod wall. Through the viewing hole in the center, I watch bulges shaped like leaf buds grow out of the ship above each hole. These buds are pushed out on the tip of rod-like branches, which grow to the size of ship masts.

We've made it most of the way through the dusty comet tail—the edge of the golden cloud is ahead.

"Nets ready!" Stik commands.

What Whiff and Biff do inside their holes, I can't see. But the tops of the buds crack open, revealing flashes of color.

"Steady! Steady!"

The ship's front end dips into the golden cloud, and so does the front mast.

"Whiff! Open! Open!"

The front bud bursts open into a huge leaf, or maybe a huge flower. Whatever it is, it's colorful and multi-pointed, and it flaps and folds as the sparking gold particles crash into it.

"Ha ha!" Stik declares. "That's how it's done! Steady, Biff—I'm positioning you to open. There's a lot of turbulence."

Just then, there's a bang and the ship shakes. Another bang and shake. On the third bang, I realize it isn't turbulence. The top of the rear mast is gone, including the bud. Out the rear viewing hole, I see a flash of red hurtling toward us, striking the ship's trunk and root system. Another bang and shake.

"We're under attack!" Stik cries. "Get out of there, Biff! Get out!"

Biff crawls out of the rear mast hole, looking singed around the edges.

"You too, Whiff! Abandon the harvest! Abandon the harvest!"

Whiff's net folds into the bud as the mast retracts. Another blue shot zings a few feet over the bud. The mast and bud are in. Stik contorts his body on the control board, sending us diving away from the comet. A moment later, Whiff slinks out of his hole. Behind him comes the bud, hanging upside down like a hornet's nest. The bud's thick skin peels back to reveal a clear ball, about the size of my head, filled with glowing gold dust.

"You devil! You got some!"

We've dropped clear of the comet and I see we're being chased by a ship that looks like shards of metal jammed together. It shoots red bursts, which Stik maneuvers away from.

"Who's chasing us?" I ask.

"Gratches. Stupid, bloody gratches."

I hold on tight as Stik swings the ship around, bringing us directly behind our pursuer. "I take it they don't like us?"

"They want the mica. All of it! They'd probably take the whole comet, the fools. You can't take all the mica or there won't be another harvest. They need a healthy colony to reproduce. Ready, boys?"

The ship swings back and forth in front of us, but Stik holds to it.

"Fire at will!"

Whiff and Biff have taken up stations behind swiveling branches extending into space. The branches are revealed to be cannons by volleys of blue shots that come from their tips. The bursts, which remind me of water droplets, hit the gratchean ship, sending it spinning.

Stik scans the area for the comet. It's gotten far from us. He checks a screen on the control panel, which displays a bunch of red dots flashing their way toward a blue point in the middle—us, I guess.

"There are more ships," he says. He glances at the ball of gold dust dangling from the bud. "It's a small harvest, but it will have to do." He turns to me. "Mica is nice, but getting you to the surface alive is our priority."

He steers the ship toward Meer. I watch the planet, but find myself drawn to the harvest of gold dust. It reminds me of something. Fireflies.

"What is this stuff?" I ask.

Stik smiles as much as a creature with such a small mouth can, his pincers opening. "The mica? It's why you are here."

Chapter 5

# Petal City

The ship closes in on Meer, entering dense red mist. We shake violently before coming out over a rich blue sea. We dive toward the water, which appears to be covered in yellow spots.

"Do you see the spires?" Stik asks.

Soon, the spots are revealed to be tall spears of rock shooting out of the ocean. We weave between the spires toward a dark green shoreline, which resolves into a dense jungle that spreads forever away from the sea. The jungle canopy is splashed with fuchsia, orange, violet, and deep red, as though it has been bombed with paint. If my eyes aren't fooling me, these colors form towers and domes.

Shielding my eyes, I see not one but two suns shining down on us. One is large with a yellow tint and the other, off to the left, is smaller and reddish.

"Two suns!"

"Only two?" Stik asks. "Above the midpoint between them. It's sun number three."

It's a speck, but intensely white, brighter than the other two.

The ship arcs over the canopy, slowing as it nears the colors. These are not random splashes of color—they are structures above the canopy. I'm not sure what they are, but they remind me of flowers. Big ones, the size of buildings. Some tall and angular, some shorter and pod-shaped. But still flowers. A lot of them.

We reach a tree poking up above the jungle canopy at the edge of the city. At the end of each branch is a huge, red flower, flat as a pancake. Stik angles the ship upward, with the root system down, and guides it onto the highest flower platform. The vines retract from my legs as Whiff and Biff scamper down the ship's skin propping my binder between them. I step forward, hands out to accept it, but a hole whirrs open in the skin beside me and they rush outside.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

I turn to Stik, who makes a flourish with his limbs on the control board, causing all the lights to go dark.

"Where are they going? They don't have my permission! It's stealing!"

"Yes, yes," Stik mutters, cartwheeling to the floor. "You will find out where they are going."

Stik struts over to the bud holding the mica and peels back the edges, revealing the glowing sphere. Inside, the mica shimmer, dance, and swirl. Much like a farmer picking fruit, he twists the sphere, plucks it from the bud, and drops it in a brown sack.

"Please," Stik says, gesturing toward the opening, the sack under his arm. "After you."

I stand mesmerized by the mica. He steps past me and out the hole.

I go to the opening, ready to shout, but fall silent at the sight of Whiff and Biff near the edge of the platform passing my drawing binder to a hairy creature with a jutting lower jaw. He reminds me of a big orangutan, but less floppy. The hairy creature slides the sketchbook into a satchel hung over its shoulder. It nods to the furballs and turns to leave, but one of the furballs leaps up and pulls on its arm fur. The beast whirls around, its brow raised. The other furball pulls an object out of its plushy fur and holds it up.

It's the Luke Skywalker action figure I made on the 3D printer at the library. I forgot he swiped it from my room. The big hairy thing's jaw drops, revealing quite a few teeth, some pointy. It plucks the figure from the furball's hands with a finger and thumb, squeezes it to its chest, and squeals. It then picks up both furballs in one huge hand and hugs them to its cheek. The hairy beast seems to remember itself, hardens its face, sets the furballs down, stashes the figure in its satchel, charges across the platform, and leaps off the edge.

I rush down the ramp, which is springy and seems to be made of woven sticks. The petals of the flower platform surprise me with their solidity as I hurry to where Stik stands with Whiff and Biff at the edge.

"That monkey stole my binder and my Luke Skywalker action figure! I worked on that for a week!"

"That's no monkey," Stik corrects, as we watch the beast drop from branch to branch down the tree, sometimes falling thirty or forty feet at a time. "That's Henry. He's a Puskawatch. There's a resemblance to what you on Earth call monkeys, but he's much smarter. He's as smart as a human being, in fact. But he can't speak. He has underdeveloped vocal cords. Puskawatch communicate in grunts and hand signs. But don't be fooled—Henry understands approximately one hundred spoken languages, including English."

"Henry? Really? That's his name?"

"Yes. Suits him, doesn't it?"

"But—why? That's an Earth name."

Stik chuckles. "Yes. He's what the meerish call an 'Earthy.' An enthusiast of Earth culture. His real name is Goophsst! But he has always loved the name Henry. It's evocative of the planet Earth, don't you agree? Of all the life-supporting planets in the known universe, not a single one but Earth has a name like Henry."

I consider. "Is that why he took my action figure? Because he's an 'Earthy'?"

"Yes. He'll add it to his collection."

Whiff and Biff chatter.

"Yes, fellows. When we go to Earth, we bring back a trinket for Henry. He has a soft spot for little human dolls. Your action figure was the perfect gift. You don't mind, do you? Henry is a dear friend of ours, and there isn't much that he wants in all the universe except a little human."

"Mind? No, he can have it. It's just a toy." Yet, it's painful to see it go. I'm too old for toys, but I don't exactly have a lot of friends. Losing the figure somehow makes me feel lonely.

Stik smiles. "Very kind of you, lad."

We can't see Henry anymore. I look out at the flower city. Some of the colorful structures are tall branchy things like this tree, but there are some even stranger ones. Some are shaped like scrunched-up balls of fabric. Some are rolled into cylindrical columns. Some are complex origami masterpieces. I can only imagine what they're like inside.

"What is this place?" I ask.

"Ah, I forgot to introduce you. Welcome to fesha gome. In English, that's something like: 'Dwelling Place of Flowers.' Petal City will do."

I take the whole amazing sight in, turning until I face the spired ocean. Then I turn to the Transplanter. On Earth, I only saw it as a tree. The ship version, with the branches folded up, is like a spear—a tall, knobby pillar of a trunk with a pod shaped like a sunflower seed on top. I see how, if the top part were to unfurl again, it would go back to being a tree. It's beautiful.

While I admire it, tingles travel up my neck. It's familiar. I'm sure I've seen it before.

Chapter 6

Coral

"Nate of Earth?" The words interrupt my queasy realization about the Transplanter.

It's a girl in a flowing green robe holding out her hand. There's something off about the hand. Her eyes, too. One is bright green and the other is an icy silver. Her eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair are silvery blonde, her nose is small, her skin pale, her cheeks round. Her hair is pulled back behind ears with small points at the bottom, middle, and top, making them star-like.

"Hello!" She gets ahold of my hand and shakes it up and down, the way kids shake hands for fun. I see what it is about her hand. She has six fingers.

I draw a blank.

"How was your journey?" she asks.

"This is Coral," Stik interjects. He glances around. "Where's Bako?"

"He's so slow. Talking to Dad about army stuff. I wanted to meet Nate!"

Stik responds with rapid chatter. "Coral! You know it's not safe for you to be alone!"

"Tell me about Earth," Coral says, ignoring Stik. "Do you live in a two-story, wood-frame house? Do you have a pet canine or feline? Do you like to watch films with your friends?"

"Uh—yes, no, and yes but I don't really have friends to watch them with."

"Don't mind her," Stik says. "She takes any chance to practice her languages. Even at her own peril."

"I speak one hundred and fifty-seven languages, including three from Earth," she says. It doesn't come off as bragging. She's just stating a fact. "Cantonese, Arabic, and English. How many languages do you speak?"

"One."

She looks shocked. "Oh! Forgive me. I forgot that most Earthlings only know two languages. And most English-speaking Earthlings only know one. As a rule, meerish know at least fifty languages. English is easy, so it's popular here. Plus, Earth is such a close neighbor. Forty-five percent of meerish older than twenty will be able to converse in your language. Twenty years on Meer is only ten years on Earth. Isn't that interesting? The meerish year is fifty percent shorter than the Earth year. I'm twenty-six in meerish years, but that's equal to thirteen Earth years."

"I'm thirteen too. In Earth years."

"I know. That's why I wanted to meet you. I've never conversed with a young Earthling before. An adult, yes, but never a child, like me."

"Ahem!" Stik interrupts. "The child is overwhelmed by all this information. Perhaps you should slow down?"

"How did you know I'm thirteen?" I ask.

"We all know. Of course we do. You're—"

"Ahem!" Stik cuts her off. "We should get going. And maybe the boy can have some peace on the way?"

Coral looks upset, then seems to understand something. "Oh. Yes, sorry."

"I'm who?"

"What I meant was, you were chosen. So of course we know who you are." She glances at Stik, who clucks, shaking his head. Whiff and Biff echo Stik's disapproval with squeaky chatters.

"Chosen by who? The people who want my stolen drawing binder?"

Stik turns his agitation on me. "You have the wrong idea. Nothing has been stolen."

"What do you call two terrifying furballs with pointy teeth breaking into my room in the middle of the night and running off with my drawing binder? That's not stealing on Meer?"

Whiff and Biff react with rolling growls, urging me to be reasonable.

"Ack, they didn't steal it, child. It was a ploy to get you on the ship. That's all."

I glance at Stik, then the furballs. "Then why didn't you give it back yet?"

Whiff and Biff fall silent, staring helplessly at Stik.

"Because we were asked to bring it upon landing. So we sent it along ahead of us. I can assure you the drawing binder will be waiting for you when we get there."

"Who wanted it?"

"The Grand Scientist of Meer," Coral says, brightly, trying to ease the tension.

"There," Stik declares. "You can't argue with that. If his Grandness wants it now, he wants it now. Now, come, child. Those gratchean ships aren't gathering up there for a visit. They mean to attack. We don't have much time."

Stik steps off the edge of the flower platform. For a moment, I expect him to plunge to his death. Instead, a smaller flower platform, this one purple, has appeared at the edge. Coral follows Stik.

"Are you coming?" she asks.

"Wait a second. The Grand Scientist of Meer. TGSOM! Like the note!"

"What note are you referring to?" Coral asks.

"This one!" I say, pulling it out of my pocket and unfolding it.

She scans it, glances at Stik.

"You may be onto something," Stik says.

"So the note is from the Grand Scientist of Meer! Which means—Dad's not in Florida?"

"As I said, I'm just the transportation," Stik answers. "I wouldn't know about Florida. Though I hear it's nice all year round."

Coral looks like she's going to say something.

"And neither does Coral. Right?" Stik stares her down. "Neither does she know anything about Florida."

"Right," she says. "I don't know a thing about it."

"Now, are you coming or not?" Stik asks.

Eyeing them suspiciously, I step onto the platform.

"Go on back to the ship," Stik calls to the furballs. "Hide her in the jungle, near the processing lab. I'll call you to pick me up."

Whiff and Biff rush across the landing platform and up the ramp into the ship. Shortly, its root system glows blue and it coasts over our heads before veering down toward the jungle.

No sooner has it passed than Coral shouts: "Ga-droan!"

In response, the edges of the petals bend upward and the flower starts going down.

"Whoa!" I stumble, but Stik steadies me with a tap from a spindly leg. They're strong for being so thin.

"Thanks," I say. A question that's been on my mind comes out. "Why is the elevator a flower? And why is the spaceship a tree? Everything is plants here!"

Stik stares at me as though I have two heads.

"We like them that way," Coral answers. "Plants are inspiration. They are perfect organisms. So we use them as the basis of our society, including our machines."

"Machines?" The word seems funny to describe a flower elevator or a tree spaceship. "But, are they machines? It's like they're alive."

"They are," Coral agrees. "Earthlings haven't reached the stage of living machines yet. Your production is still broken and mechanized. Your machines will be of the dead variety for millennia. You won't discover holistic production anytime soon. You will have to master long-range space travel before you will even discover a mica-producing comet. And then it will take hundreds of years to harness the mica's power."

I stare at her blankly.

She smiles knowingly, reminding me of a girl from school who always puts her hand up in class to give the answers. I don't mind. Coral really does know more than I ever could.

We go down past more landing platforms. On the tree beside us, the flower platforms aren't for landing. Instead, they have pods made of folded yellow petals. Some of the petals aren't closed, leaving the insides exposed. They have rooms, beds, seats, and tables, cooking areas. And there are people in there, staring at us. Most of them are like Coral—wearing robes, human-like, but different. A few are not so human-like. They're too far away to make out details, but I'm sure one of them is green with four arms.

"Are we floating?" I ask.

Coral shakes her head. "The flower carries us on its stem," she says.

I try to imagine how long the stem must be to travel so far down.

Without warning, our flower stops and we step onto a walkway. It's see-thru except for the faint patterns of woven green strands. It looks like we should fall through, but it's solid, if a bit springy.

I follow Stik, who clutches the sack with the mica, and Coral, who holds her hands at her belly with her robe sleeves touching.

Shortly, we're hit by a crosswind as we gaze out over a vista that was hidden a moment ago. A walkway bridges a massive gap to the colorful city over the jungle. The canopy is a hundred feet below us.

The wind brings a sweet, flowery aroma from the city. It's a little overpowering—like having a bouquet shoved in my face. We start crossing as wispy, see-thru balls swirl around. They get in my hair and I wipe them off my shirt and face.

"Seeds of the opellsha flower," Coral says.

The flowers of Petal City are all shapes and sizes. Petals lie flat to form platforms and bend to form openings. Some flowers are made of closed petals that resemble upside-down bowls. Others are spheres, with rows of petals like scales. Others fan out like the spokes of a wheel on thick stems. The tallest structure, in the middle, is a tree-like tower skewering three globe-shaped flowers like a shish-kebab.

Wide walkways of see-thru fibers form the floor of the city. When I step off the bridge, I'm knocked backward by a meerish boy zooming past on some kind of hoverboard. It's thin as a leaf and has three points at the back, sort of like a huge diving flipper.

"Ipsha!" the boy yells.

"He's sorry," Coral translates.

"What was that?" I ask.

"A bish-bish. That's something like 'air board.'"

We enter a public garden with walkways weaving through flower bushes and vine curtains and other alien vegetation. At times the vines coil out of the way. The flowers are bold, throbbing colors. Some are like Earth flowers, but many aren't. One has pointy triangles with little globes on them. Another very large flower has smaller flowers inside of it, like Russian nesting dolls. A cluster of puffy flowers seems to have eyes, which I'm sure watch us. One flower seems to float there, stemless.

We leave the garden onto a busy street of, well, aliens. They're mostly meerish, but there are others. I try not to stare, but they stare openly at me.

"Hello, Earthling," a man with strange loops in his hair, forming a kind of crown of circles, says. He has the same pale skin as Coral, the same bi-colored eyes, but his robe is blue. "Would you please sign this?"

"Excuse me?"

"Would you please sign this?" the man repeats. He holds out a piece of cardboard and a Crayola marker.

"Why?" I ask. The cardboard is red with a picture of Cap'n Crunch on it.

"I collect them," the man says.

"Cereal boxes from Earth?"

"Yes, and also signatures. I am Curator of the Earth section of the Meerish Museum of Intergalactic Languages. I specialize in earthen signatures. The cereal box is also of interest, but it is just something to write on. It makes my display colorful. Also, one can compare the handwriting with the designed writing."

"Oh," I say, not having a clue what he is talking about. I take the marker and write NATE in capital letters on the captain's hat.

"Thank you, Nate," he says, smiling broadly. "Very interesting lines! A fine specimen!"

"Are you an Earthy?" I ask.

"Yes. Earth is among my top five favorite planets. It's got such a wonderful spirit, don't you think?"

"There must be better planets out there. Meer seems amazing. I've seen more flowers in an hour here than I think we have on the whole Earth."

"Yes, Meer has wonderful flowers," he says. "But, they get boring to someone who has lived on Meer his whole life. Now, Earth"—he smiles serenely—"that's a planet with character. How I would love to visit."

"Nate!" I hear. "They're waiting!"

Coral waves from the base of the shish-kebab tower.

"Gotta go," I say.

The man with the loops in his hair bows, and I run through the crowd to Coral.

Chapter 7

# The Grand Scientist of Meer

Coral leads me through a vine curtain in an arched opening into the tower. The vines bend, ushering us into a huge lobby with soft blue walls that tremble like fabric. Up ahead, Stik stands in a shaft of light falling from high in the tower.

We pass a group of robed meerish speaking urgently. Their eyes turn to me, but Coral yanks me past, into the light, which lands like a massive spotlight on sixteen flower mosaics arranged like a necklace in a perfect circle on the floor. Stik stands on one, holding the sack, and Coral guides me to the next one over. The flower at our feet is a design of purple and teal tiles that flow into each other like a drawing by M.C. Escher—an artist Dad and I both admire.

Coral shouts: "Ga-hup!"

I'm knocked off balance as the tiles puff up, turning three-dimensional. It's the opposite of what happens when you press a flower in a heavy book—it's a flower being unpressed.

I realize the group of meerish is below us, getting further away. The puffed-up flower is rising.

"I'll see you soon!" Stik calls. "Have to process the harvest!" He then says: "Ga-droan!" causing his mosaic elevator to go down, leaving a hole in its wake.

We fly through the light until the walls around us bulge out, which I realize is because we have entered the first sphere of the shish-kebab.

It's full of greenery splashed with bright flowers. Set into the green is a ring of about thirty pods, some bowl-shaped, formed of petals curling up from the ground, and some bell-shaped, with the petals hanging down.

"Do you live in those?" I ask.

"Yes, flower pods are the preferred domicile of meerish," Coral answers.

"They're...amazing!"

A few pods have open petals, revealing a cozy living space inside. There are seats, beds, tables, everything one could want in a home, all made of various plant parts. Meerish people pass in and out of their pods. A young meerish zooms by our elevator on one of those hovering leaves.

We pass into the second shish-kebab sphere, which sports more pods, then on to the third, again full of pods.

"That's my home," Coral says, pointing to a bell-shaped pod with yellow petals.

"Wow!" I say.

Finally, we enter a long stretch of pillar, in which the light is overpoweringly bright and hot.

It gets windy before we pop out at the top into bright sunlight and wild wind. Jungle stretches for miles in every direction. To the left, the yellow spires shoot out of the sea, and to the right, the three suns hang in a lopsided triangle.

We step off the elevator and walk toward a circular flower structure. Coral gestures to a curtain of yellow vines, which roll up like spaghetti around a fork.

We enter a bright, open room with a ring-shaped table surrounded by about twenty chairs. A meerish man with shimmering white hair and a shimmering white beard sits in a tall-backed chair at the table, hunched forward, peering into a tube.

As we approach, another meerish man in a gray robe sticks out his walking stick, cutting us off.

"Coral! Yesha mish calmat?" He speaks in an angry whisper, pointing his stick at Coral.

She pushes it aside. "It's rude to speak Meerish in front of a guest who doesn't understand," she says with calm scorn.

The man notices me and his face turns green. "Yes, I am sorry, Nate of Earth. I am Bako."

I wave. "Hi."

He turns to Coral, eyebrows arched. "Coral, we'll speak about your disappearance later. I'm very annoyed with you."

"I didn't notice," she replies.

He looks like he's going to answer, but bites his lip. "The Grand Scientist awaits."

"Yes," she says. "That's where we're going."

She takes my hand. "Come on. He's dying to meet you."

She leads me toward the bearded man at the ring table, but stops short and clears her throat. "Your Intelligency?" She clears it again. "Your Intelligency!"

The bearded man jumps. "Oh!"

"Your Intelligency, I present Nate, of Earth. Nate, I present His Intelligency, the Grand Scientist of Meer."

"Oh my!" The man rushes toward us, grabs my hand and shakes it. His hands are six-fingered, like Coral's. "It's you! It's really you!"

He isn't much taller than me. His hair and beard are long and wavy. He has the same small nose and big cheeks as Coral. He wears the funniest outfit so far. It's more of a shiny white nightgown than a robe. When he smiles, buckteeth show, giving him a goofy look.

"Hi, um...Your Intelligency?"

"Let's dispense with the important-sounding names. You're Nate, and I'm Wishnal. There can't be any fluff between us. We have too much work to do."

"How does it look?" Coral asks.

The Grand Scientist stares back blankly.

Coral points to the tube. "The sample," she says, shyly.

"Ah. The sample is promising. Very promising."

The tube points to a clear platform under the table, on which sits something familiar—my drawing binder, open to a page with a bizarre flower sketch.

"Please, take a look," he says, noticing my face flush.

"Was it you?" I ask.

"Me?" he says, innocently.

I whip out the note. "'W AKA TGSOM.' It's got to be you. Wishnal, also known as the Grand Scientist of Meer."

"Oh, that! Well, yes, you have me there. I wrote the note."

"So the binder came from you!"

"I won't deny it. It did."

"Then—you know Dad?" I ask, less sure of myself. "It says right here: 'Your father would want you to have this.' You must know him."

"Hmm, that's something we will get to soon enough. But there are important things to cover first. Like the microscope."

"I don't care about that. I want to know where Dad is."

"I don't blame you. I would too, in your position. But if I told you now, you would have so many questions, we would be here for hours. Time is something we don't have. Can you wait? When the time is right, I will tell you everything. I swear it."

"At least tell me if he's okay," I try.

Wishnal draws a sharp breath. "Eh. Best not get into that."

I stare at him in disbelief. "So he's hurt? Is he dead?"

"No, he's alive! We're pretty sure about that."

"Pretty sure?"

Wishnal grits his teeth. "This is exactly why we didn't want to get into it. Now, please, look into the microscope. Soon, all will be told about your dad."

A part of me wants to push. But I believe he will tell me later.

I glance at Coral. "I know how you feel," she says. "Someone I love is missing too. But the Grand Scientist is telling the truth. It would be inefficient to explain now."

Something about Coral's look calms me. Choking back my frustration, I step toward the strange, pool-noodle-shaped microscope. "In here?" I ask.

The Grand Scientist nods.

I bend and peer into the eyehole, seeing what looks like gray lines made up of much smaller gray dots.

"Isn't it magnificent?" Wishnal asks.

"May I?" Coral takes a turn. "The striations are wavy," she says, matter-of-factly. "They seem to flow."

"Exactly," the Grand Scientist says.

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"It's the lines of your drawings," Wishnal explains. "When viewed under a microscope, a line drawn with pencil or ink appears as millions of tiny particles, arranged randomly. Certain people, very few, when they draw, produce what are called striated particles. The particles form lines of their own. Microscopic lines within the lines, caused by forces that are quite out of the ordinary. For even fewer people, and I'm talking one in a hundred billion, the particle striations are curvy. As Coral says, they flow. This is extremely rare. You, Nate, have these curvy particle formations in your lines."

"I do? What does it mean?"

"For now, let's say curvy striations have been linked to qualities we need desperately."

I glance at Coral, then back at Wishnal. "So this is why you needed my sketchbook? Finding lines inside my lines?"

"Curvy particle formations in your lines. Yes, it's one test. It doesn't mean you are a sure thing, but it's a good sign. We will have to see how you do in the workshop. One's performance in the workshop is impossible to predict."

"Workshop?" My temper rises again. "I didn't ask for this! I didn't give you permission to bring me here. Where I come from, this is kidnapping. You would all go to jail!"

Coral's eyes widen and her face flushes green.

The Grand Scientist's eyes, one of which is silver, the other green, seem to smile. "You are right. You have been very grown-up, considering the shock this must be. In one night, you have not only learned that aliens exist. You have also been whisked to a new planet. But, as already stated, there is no time to explain. We will soon be under attack. And so, I must ask you to follow me right away."

He grabs my sketchbook and hands it to me. "There is no reason to keep you separated any longer."

I pause, afraid it's a trick, then snatch it, tracing the engraved N with my fingers. Relief washes over me.

I follow them onto the roof, where I stop short, a chill running up my back. A hairy creature, bigger than a grizzly bear, stands there. Henry, the Puskawatch. His droopy lips pull back, showing off big square teeth between sharp canines, in what could be a threatening expression but could also be a smile. He reaches out his long, dragging arms, picks me up, holds me above his face, bounces me, and hugs me to his chest, squishing the binder between us. My face is plunged in layers of fuzzy fur that smell like horse. When he sets me down, I pick hairs out of my mouth and eyes.

"Don't worry," Coral says. "He won't hurt you."

"He's an Earthy, right?"

"Yes." She smirks. "He likes humans. A lot. Which means he likes you a lot."

"Stik told me about him."

Henry shows his teeth again. It's strange to be admired by a huge, frightening beast.

"Glad to meet you," I say.

Henry reaches into his satchel and pulls something out, which he swooshes back and forth, making a whirring noise. It's my Luke Skywalker action figure. He's making a lightsaber sound.

I feel a twinge seeing the action figure again, but Henry enjoys it so much that I'm glad he has it.

A shout startles us.

"Hup!" It's the Grand Scientist, calling out to Henry. "Hup! Hup!"

Henry stashes Luke in his satchel and hoists the old man into the air. Wishnal looks frail in his massive hand. It's clear Henry could easily toss him off the edge of the tower. Instead, he places him on his shoulders. Wishnal grins.

"To the workshop!" he shouts, giving Henry a pat.

Henry raises his arms and makes a "Raaar!" sound, then lopes across the roof and leaps off the edge.

Coral shakes her head. "Henry and His Intelligency are really childish sometimes."

Chapter 8

# The Workshop

Bako, Coral, and I go to the sixteen elevator shafts and find one with a flower in it. It seems you could fall down an empty shaft, but they're covered with mesh. Coral gives the down command and we zip through the three spheres to the lobby, then keep going down.

I hug the binder as we plummet through darkness.

"Um, where are we going?"

"To the bottom," Bako answers.

I consider. "Are we still in the tower?"

"The tower goes to the ground," Coral says, "and keeps going, deep into the rock below the jungle. There are things it is safest to do hidden underground."

The elevator emerges into light and stops. When my eyes adjust, it's to find a small room with a curtain of silver vines at the end.

"Go ahead," Coral says. "Henry's fast. The Grand Scientist will be waiting for you."

"Are you coming?" I ask.

"You have to take this test alone. I'll be watching." She and Bako head for a vine curtain to the left.

I steel my nerves and pass through the silver vines into a room the size of my school gymnasium. The Grand Scientist sits at a drafting table made of a curved branch that widens into a flat surface for holding paper.

Wishnal scribbles on a piece of paper with a black pen, but there's a surprising mix of colors in the scribbles. I watch his pen draw red, green, and blue lines, all seamlessly.

"Take a seat," Wishnal says, not looking up.

There's another drawing table with a stool hardly wide enough for my rear end. A pristine sheet of paper sits on the slanted surface.

"What do you do?" Wishnal asks.

"Do?" I can't figure out how to sit on the stool.

"To loosen up. I scribble. Always have, since I was a boy. It gets the juices flowing."

"Nothing, I guess." I lift my leg over the stool and lean back.

"Nothing? More likely, you don't know what you do."

I stare at the page, realizing I'm still squeezing my drawing binder to my chest.

"Go on, set it down," he says.

I set the binder next to the paper.

"Don't be shy, Nate. You know what comes next."

I pick up the black pen from the table ledge. It's thicker than most pens, with the weight and smoothness of marble. I check to see if the tip is ballpoint or felt, but there is no tip. I press on the back end, but there's no mechanism. I flip it around, wondering what I'm missing. I catch a glint of gold light in the pointy end.

"Don't stare at it," the Grand Scientist says. "Draw."

"I think it's broken. There's nothing to draw with."

"Just draw, would you? Earthlings are such cautious creatures. Use the narrow end."

Scowling, I set the pointy end to the paper and make a squiggly line, certain that nothing will happen. To my surprise, a gray line appears, following the path I traced. I make another line, this time slowly. There's a delay between the line I trace and the line growing behind my pen.

"Think of red," the Grand Scientist spouts.

I'm busy being amazed. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. Think of the color red. Fill your mind with it. My word, it's not that complicated, is it?"

A bit peeved at his tone, I think of fire, leading me to a fierce red. I'm surprised when it comes as clear as my visions. Stronger. Except, this time, it didn't appear out of nowhere. I thought it up.

"Okay, I've got red," I say.

"Good. Now draw."

I draw a looping line. I predict what will happen while not believing it. It's too fantastic. But it happens. The line that appears is red. The same red I called forth in my mind. I make a new line, this time blue, and another, starting it green, then yellow, then black, then gold.

"I made colors," I say.

"You have colors?" the Grand Scientist asks. "He has colors!" He jumps up from his stool, waving his pen.

I laugh and find Coral, Henry, and Bako at a window in the workshop wall. Coral waves. Henry gives a thumbs-up. Bako nods.

"Try thickness," the Grand Scientist says.

"Thickness?"

"Of the lines. You can control that too. It's harder, so don't worry if it takes a few tries."

"It's not," I say, drawing a thin line, and then a thick one next to it.

"Not what?" he asks.

"Hard. I just did it."

I draw a line so thin, I can hardly see it, then one as thick as my finger is wide, even though it's thicker than the point of the pen. Then I have an idea. I draw a line that starts thin and gets gradually thicker. It takes focus, but it works.

I turn to tell the Grand Scientist, but find him at my side, mouth agape.

"He has thickness," he whispers. He turns to the audience, raises his arms, and dances around. "He has thickness!"

Henry cheers, but Coral looks stunned.

"It's wonderful that you have colors and thickness," the Grand Scientist says. "It makes sense, given the drawings in your binder. They show hard-won craftsmanship. More importantly, vision. You have been practicing these techniques, even if you didn't know it. The mica pen just gives your imagination free rein over the page."

"Mica pen?"

"Yes. If you look closely at the pen tip, you will see gold sparkles."

"So I did see that." I hold my pen up, catching the glint again. "What is it?" I ask.

"That is a cluster of mica," he says.

"Mica. The comet dust."

"Actually, they're not dust at all, but yes, their primary habitat is comets."

"Are they magic?"

Wishnal cringes. "As in wizards and witches? Earthlings. Any scientific phenomenon they don't understand appears to them as magic. No, they are not magic. The mica pen is science. Meerish society is based on facts and knowledge. The scientific world is full of such marvels as to make your storybook magic boring by comparison. Mica are real, living organisms. Have you learned what a cell is in your Earth schooling?"

"Of course. All living things are made of cells."

"Each mica in your pen has sixteen cells. And these cells are tiny—the size of a few hundred molecules, in fact."

"Then how can I see them? You need a microscope to see cells."

"A good question. The sparkle is the mica releasing and absorbing millions of energy particles. It's like breathing. In, out. In, out. It is how they stay alive. There is no ink because the mica leave the pen and create the lines out of molecules, adding pigments to match the colors you imagine. Sometimes it takes time, so there's a delay."

"Wow. But I don't know anything about molecules. How did I make the pen work?"

"You don't need to know that. All that matters is your connection to the mica. The mica have access to information hidden in the very fabric of space-time. They know how to build molecules. The mica pen turns your imagination into a tool capable of creating physical matter as it wishes."

I'm in awe. Holding the pen and listening to these mind-blowing ideas makes me strangely at home. A hunger to learn more about this alien way of drawing rears its head inside me.

"What's next?" I ask. "Do we move on to cross-hatching? Or shading? I feel like I could do my best work ever with the mica. I've never been so in touch with my artistic side. It's like I can picture anything I want. I bet my drawings would be photographic."

Dad's face is strong in my mind. I have an overwhelming urge to draw him. Maybe the mica pen is what I need to finally become an artist.

"You misunderstand," Wishnal says. "This is no art lesson. Drawing lines is just a warm-up. Now we give you the real test. We see if you're a maker."

Chapter 9

# Making

"I'm going to show you something," the Grand Scientist says. "It may frighten you, but don't worry. You are safe."

He crumples his scribbled-over page and tosses it, then presses a button under the drawing table.

"And keep your arms in," he adds.

A see-thru membrane grows up out of the floor. Wobbling like a soap bubble, it shapes itself into a sphere around the Grand Scientist and his drawing table. Seconds later, another membrane seals me and my drawing table in. When I poke it, it bends to the shape of my finger.

"Ready?" Wishnal says.

"What is this?" I ask, now jamming the see-thru stuff with my fist.

"A shield of flexible trilesium tube molecules," he answers. "Colloquially called a making pod. It can absorb and deflect vast amounts of energy. If a nuclear bomb goes off out there, you will be safe in your making pod."

As I wonder why we need protection against nuclear bombs, a wooden ball shoots out of the wall, carried on the tip of a telescoping pole. The ball opens, revealing a hand-shaped leaf. On this leaf is an object that emits a brilliant gold light. The leaf flings the object like a catapult, following which the ball snaps shut and the pole is sucked back into the wall. The object, which is about the size of a pool ball, bounces toward us.

Immediately, a third shield grows out of the floor, spreading like an immense pool of water, creeping under our making pods, extending out to climb the workshop walls behind us and on all sides. It arcs over the room, joining in the middle, sealing our making pods and the whole empty space in one massive see-thru enclosure.

"Big making pod," I remark.

"Making dome, actually," Wishnal corrects. "Same trilesium tube molecules, just bigger structure. Making pods protect us, the makers. The making dome is like a huge room containing the making itself."

I glance at the viewing window, finding Coral and the others watching the rolling sphere. It hits my making pod, which flings it away. During the moment it sinks into the wall, I glimpse a swirl of shining gold flecks. It's like a snow globe full of dancing stars.

"Eyes on me!" Wishnal says.

I watch as Wishnal draws a gray line down his page, then another line next to it. He joins the lines with a curve at the bottom and a circle at the top. It's a simple drawing of a cylinder, one of the four basic shapes in drawing—sphere, cylinder, cone, and cube. Dad taught me those. I stare at the doodle, wondering why it's special. I assume Wishnal will change its color or shape with his mind.

A series of crackles rends the air, sounding like static electricity, except as loud as a backfiring engine. I jump in my seat, my heart skipping. The sphere out in the making dome vibrates and spins, fizzing out golden specks like a shaken soft drink spraying fizz. The specks swarm the air like fireflies, then the sphere flashes and emits a deafening crack, as loud as a gunshot. When I take my hand away from my eyes, the fireflies are swirling into a column.

Sparks spew up and down the column, ricocheting off my making pod. The cracking intensifies into a chaotic gunfight, ending a few seconds later when the fireflies swirl and funnel back into the sphere.

In the place where the golden specks sparked and flashed, a six-foot cylindrical post stands. It teeters and crashes to the floor with a clang.

"Well, that's it," Wishnal says, as our making pods retracts into the floor. He walks toward the post, waving for me to follow.

I take a wide curve to avoid the glowing sphere. It's dazzling, but seems dangerous.

"It will be a bit hot now," he says. "But the orb is usually perfectly safe to hold." He nudges his head toward the post. "I do want you to touch that."

I bend over, but get worried and pull back.

"Go on," he says. "It's just a post. Common on Earth."

I set my fingers on it. "It's warm."

"Yes. Heat residue from the making process. What is it made of?" he asks.

I run my finger along the smooth surface. It feels, and smells, like the goal post of a soccer net. "It's metal."

"Solid steel. Now, where did it come from?"

I look at the sphere holding the mica, which he called an orb. Then I turn to the piece of paper he drew on. Finally, I eye him. His mica pen is stowed behind his multi-pointed ear, gold glinting in the tip.

I point at his ear.

He gives a bucktoothed grin. "Good. That"—he points to the post—"is what I drew on that page." He points to the drafting table. "And this fine piece of technology," he says, holding out the pen, "was the intermediary, if you will. When I drew the post, the mica in the pen tip communicated the design to the mica in the orb, much like a computer sends a message through what you on Earth call the Internet. The ten billion mica in the orb took that message and built this post."

"But, there was nothing here," I say, amazed. "And then there was solid steel."

"Mica are an amazing species. In a network, mica think and feel and are conscious. But the most amazing thing is the mica's microscopic size. Mica are so tiny, they can sense and grab on to and move around the very building blocks of matter: molecules, atoms, particles. Combined with their vast intelligence, this makes them capable of things that no other being in the universe can do. What you witnessed just now was a legion of mica forging steel out of molecules plucked from the surrounding air, according to the design set out on paper by my hand."

A wave of emotion boils up in me. I laugh, then whimper, my eyes tearing. "That's impossible!" I mutter, my body jolting. "It's totally impossible!"

"It is most certainly possible," the Grand Scientist says. "You just witnessed it. It is called making. And I believe you can do it."

"Me?" I ask, a tremble going through me.

"You look terrified, Nate. That's normal. Making is scary. It's a calling that one must rise to meet. You are one of the rare, gifted beings in this universe with a connection to mica. You proved your connection when you not only drew lines, but changed color and thickness. It takes most students years to do that."

It's a lot of information for my reeling mind. "I may have a connection to the mica," I say, "but I don't think I'm the one you're looking for. I'm not very smart. I got a D in science. And math. And English and history."

"Oh, you are much smarter than Ds. You aren't living up to your potential. But your grades don't matter here. With making, your creative imagination, your ability to let go and allow your mind to work at higher levels, levels you do not even understand, determines success. A maker does not need to understand what steel is to make it. At least, not the details."

"You mean you draw whatever you want and it appears? Like, you could draw a big gold brick and the mica would make it?"

"Yes, if all you could imagine in this universe was a gold brick. But I trust your imagination is vaster than that. Now, it's time to find out if you are a maker."

He guides me to my drawing table. My legs shake.

"The paper feed button is underneath, on the left."

I fumble to press the button and a clean sheet of paper rises from the ledge.

Wishnal places a six-fingered hand on my shoulder. "You'll do fine, Nate. Try to relax."

I nod, dropping my shoulders, which had crept up to my ears. "Is the paper special?" I ask. "For communicating with the mica, I mean?"

"It's normal paper—normal for meerish. The type of paper doesn't matter. It's there for us to see what we're doing. In theory, the mica could make something if we drew in the air. But how would simple beings like us draw in mid-air? We need the lines to be clear about what we want."

I lower the pen tip to the page and scratch a line. Instantly, the orb spurts mica like steam from a boiling pot. That gunshot sound rings out and sparks fly our way. Wishnal flings himself over me.

"Not yet!" he cries, yanking the pen from my hand.

I look up to find him flicking sizzling ash out of his beard. He takes my wrist and pulls my hand to the right side of the table, opposite the paper feed button.

"Always press this button before making. Always!"

I sheepishly press the button, and the making pod that previously encased me grows up around both of us.

"Now that we're protected," he says, handing the pen back, "go ahead and draw something."

"What?" I ask.

"A shape. The first that comes to mind."

I draw a circle, then glance at the orb.

It does nothing. "I didn't think I could do it," I mutter, but as I finish the words, the orb bursts to life, popping and fizzing out mica. It only lasts a second, then they retreat. White smoke peels away from the floor.

"There's nothing there," I groan. "Like I said, I can't do it."

Wishnal retracts his pod and marches to the orb. He bends, scans left and right, steps back. "Aha," he says, pinching something and holding it up. "Found it."

I watch curiously as he brings his find over. It's a tiny brown ball, no larger than a peppercorn.

"Um..." I'm unsure what to think of Wishnal's smile.

"You made it," he declares, dropping the ball into my palm. "It appears that your SMS calibration is: tiny, wood, sphere."

"My what?"

"SMS: Size, Material, Shape. These are the elements of making. Every maker has a tendency to make things of a certain size, material, and shape. This is your starting point, your baseline, as you learn to make other things."

"So I naturally make tiny wooden spheres?" I ask, staring at the brown grain on my palm. "Why?"

"It has been studied, and one's SMS calibration suggests one's psychological makeup."

"Psychological makeup? What do you mean?"

"For example. Your material is wood. Wood is associated with a love of nature, a respect for living things, patience and wisdom, a need to be nurtured, a desire for connection to a greater whole. Please understand: these are just associations. Each maker has a unique psychological makeup and it is unwise to generalize about any one person."

"What kind of wood is it?" I ask. "I didn't think oak or maple or birch when I drew it. I didn't think anything at all."

"It's no kind of wood," he says. "It didn't come from a tree that grew in the ground. It's an unknown wood, and will likely not match the makeup of any tree in existence, on Earth, on Meer, or anywhere else. It is yours, Nate."

"You mean I invented my own type of wood?"

"You could say that. If you wanted to make maple or birch, you could. But that's more advanced."

My eyes have adjusted to the tiny ball. I see the wood grain on the surface. "Why is it so small? My drawing is the size of a baseball. Shouldn't it be the same size?"

"If making worked that way, we couldn't make anything smaller or larger than we can draw. This is hard to explain. Making is all about turning your intention into reality. The size, along with the shape and material, is built into your intention."

I stare at him blankly. "Does the size say something about my psychological makeup, too?"

"You mean what does such a tiny wooden ball mean?"

I nod, crossing my arms.

"It's unique, I will admit. I haven't seen many size calibrations that are so—small. It could mean nothing."

"Do you really believe that?" I ask, nervous but trying not to sound it.

"To find out, you would have to go through a battery of tests. Questionnaires, brain scans, dream studies, psychiatric observation. Since there is no time for all of that, I will say that in past studies, the size of one's SMS calibration has been linked to, well, confidence."

"Confidence?"

"To be precise, self-confidence. It can also be called self-esteem, or self-love."

I look down. "Oh. So I fail the test. I can't make. At least not normal-sized things."

"Far from it!" he answers. "You can make. You have made. All that's left is to work out the kinks."

I take the ball and inspect it. "What does the shape mean?" I ask.

"The sphere can mean you are a perfectionist, or hopeful, or that you want to be a part of something bigger than you. Many things."

We're silent. I know it's true. I've never been confident. It's why I don't have friends. I've never felt good at anything. Not even drawing, the one thing I put effort into. The one thing I love.

I look at my mica pen and the orb.

I've never liked feeling small.

I flick the tiny wooden ball away.

"I'd like to try again."

Chapter 10

# Philip

"Good," Wishnal says, returning to his drawing table. "Make another sphere, this time three feet in diameter."

I draw another circle next to the first. When the mica finish, a light brown sphere the size of my fist sits on the floor.

"Again," Wishnal urges.

I draw a third circle, and this time the sphere is about the size of a basketball.

"What am I doing wrong?" I ask.

"You're doing wonderfully. Making anything is an accomplishment. Making the right size—that will come with time. Funnily enough, I remember size being a challenge for Philip."

I almost drop my pen.

"You mean Dad?"

"Yes. Your dad. I promised to tell you about him. Now that you understand making, it is time. Philip is a friend of mine. Of all of ours." He pauses, then forces out the next part: "In fact, he's a maker."

He tenses, bracing for a reaction.

I don't understand what he's said. He might as well tell me Dad is a giraffe.

"Huh?"

Wishnal retracts his making pod and walks over. "Philip Smith, your father, is, and has been for some time, a maker. He trained on Meer over ten Earth years ago and has helped make countless machines and structures of Petal City."

His words burrow into my brain. "That isn't possible. Dad can't be a maker. I've never heard of makers!"

"You have now. It's both possible and real."

My mind is a fog. A clear idea burns through: "So, he's okay? And all this time, he has wanted to come home, right?"

"He most definitely wants to come home. And, yes, we think so."

I'm giddy with relief. "I knew it!" I fumble under the drawing table, feeding three sheets of paper before pressing the button to retract my making pod. I rush out, jumping with excitement. "Wait—you think he's okay?"

"It's our best guess," Wishnal says. "The benefit of keeping him alive far outweighs the benefit of killing him. So it is highly likely he's still alive."

"You don't even know if he's alive?"

"I should explain. Twelve meerish months ago—that's six Earth months—your dad volunteered for a mission to a mica-producing comet called Hish in a galaxy quite far from here. He seemed to want a break from life on Earth."

"The divorce," I say.

"Pardon?"

"That was the day after Mom said she wanted a divorce. He wasn't himself. He told me he was going to Florida for a few weeks."

"Divorce?" Wishnal seems shocked. "He didn't mention that. He said he wanted to go somewhere peaceful, that's all." His brow pinches and he shakes his head as though some things now make sense. "Such a sensitive being, your dad. He didn't want to burden me with his troubles. Philip went with six other makers on what was to be a routine mica harvest. Philip had never harvested on Hish, and its beauty is famous on Meer." Wishnal winces. "I encouraged him to go. I said he would love it."

I picture Dad on a voyage to a far-flung comet.

"They harvested the mica and everything was fine. But then..."

"What?"

He clears his throat. "They stayed an extra day, just drifting there, taking in the view of Hish. If I recall, your dad was the one who wanted them to stay. And then..."

"What?" I say.

"Their ship was hijacked. Everyone was taken, and so was the harvest."

"Taken? As in kidnapped?"

"Yes."

"By who?"

"Gratches."

"Those ships that shot at the Transplanter?"

"The same. You haven't had the pleasure of meeting a gratch. They're ugly and mean. A lot of them are stupid too. Unfortunately, their leader is far too intelligent. Your dad and the others on the Hish mission were the first makers to be kidnapped. Many more have been taken since. Too many. To date, almost four hundred makers have been stolen by gratches."

"That many? Why? What do they want with them?"

"To use their making powers for gratchean ends. What the gratches planned we didn't know until two months after your dad was taken. Our neighbor, the planet Vot, was attacked. The gratches used it as a test run for the darkest, most vile machine I have ever heard of. We call it the Worm. It killed all life on Vot. The planet now supports only 0.01 percent of the life it once did. Over seventy million species of plants and animals went extinct in one week. It is unthinkable."

"The Worm?"

"Fe gurch in Meerish. On Earth, you have a roundish fruit called the apple. Have you ever seen a worm eat a hole thorough an apple?"

"Yes."

"Imagine the apple is a planet. And imagine the worm is a monstrous machine that will do to a planet what that worm did to the apple."

I consider. "Apples go bad when that happens. What happens to a planet?"

"The Worm went into Vot's core. A planet's core is like the heart of a human, or the heart-cluster of meerish. Delicate, not to be messed with. The core maintains a geo-magnetic balance, keeping the outer core, mantle, and crust—the ground we stand on—in the right place. The Worm burrowed through Vot in a mere five hours. Once at the core, it began emitting powerful disruption waves, instantly reversing the magnetic poles of the planet. North became south. With each pulse, the poles swapped. South to north, north to south, south to north. It not only reversed the poles—it bent them. North to east. South to west. These chaotic reversals and bends shook the planet from the inside, making its rotation uneven. In short, the planet began to wobble.

"It may not sound so bad, but planets are not meant to wobble. The wobble created earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, getting stronger until the planet leapt from its orbit. When the Worm stopped emitting disruption waves, Vot came to rest in a new orbit, too far from its sun to be warmed. A deep freeze fell over the planet, killing everything. Based on our models, only a scattering of organisms living at the bottom of Vot's seas still survives, and they are struggling. The rest of its plant and animal life was wiped out."

I'm stunned, unable to wrap my mind around the immensity of this story.

"The attack on Vot was worrisome not only because it wiped out Vot. It was a test run. They will surely make another. We have predicted for months that when they collect enough mica for another Worm, Meer will be next. That day has come. An attack on Meer is imminent. It has probably begun."

It's a lot to take in. My mind turns to Dad. I imagine him imprisoned by gratches millions of miles from Earth. Being their prisoner can't be pleasant.

My thoughts circle back to the Worm coming to Meer. It triggers anger.

"Why did you bring me here?" I ask. "Knowing a Worm is coming? To die? I thought you were Dad's friend!"

The Grand Scientist looks shocked, his face washing with green. "I—I didn't bring you here to die, child. You've got it all wrong. I brought you here to save us."

"Save you? How the heck am I going to save you? With this?" I hold out the mica pen. "I'm an eighth grader from Earth! I can't help you!"

Wishnal listens patiently. "You have every right to be upset," he says. "I can assure you, I am your dad's close friend and would never put his only child in harm's way without good reason. After Vot was attacked, the gratches ramped up the kidnappings until they had almost every maker on Meer, including the students of the Meerish Making Academy. They also ramped up their efforts to steal our mica and harvest their own. It would take a lot of mica to make a Worm. Meanwhile, we are left with only four makers, two of us past our prime, and the other two students with much to learn. No offense to Coral," he adds, turning to the window. "And we barely have any mica left. When Vot was first attacked, we sent scientists to study what happened. This is how we know what we do about the Worm. Realizing Meer was the next target, we makers who remained envisioned a way to stop it: a spaceship designed to penetrate its xenite armor. We made two attempts to bring it into existence. Both failed. A ship normally takes at least ten makers. We were foolish to try with four. Each attempt drained our mica supply, which we needed for other things. So we stopped."

Wishnal looks frightened. "I am not one to give in to despair, but I nearly gave up. Then hope found me. It was right in front of me all along." He points to my drawing binder.

"My binder? How is that a beacon of hope?"

"Your dad made it for you here on Meer, before he left for Hish. He asked me to hold on to it until his return. And there it was, buried under paper in my study. When I came across it, I knew what I had to do."

"Leave it on my windowsill with a cryptic note?"

"It was the best I could come up with. I sent Stik and the boys to drop it off. We needed makers, but your dad has told me countless times he didn't want you exposed to making. Not so young. I decided to take the subtle approach and test you first, to see if you had any promise."

"Were the visions a test too? You know, the ones that made me feel like I was losing my mind?"

"Visions? I didn't know about those. Some have vivid dreams when exposed to mica. Most find it easier to imagine things. Full-on visions are rare. They must have been difficult to deal with on your own."

"I almost flunked out of school, so yeah, it's been tough. The mica did that to me from this far away?"

"They were there with you. May I have your binder?"

I hesitate. "You won't steal it, will you?" I hand it over.

Wishnal lifts a hidden flap in the spine and pulls a tab. An insert slides out, which he hands to me.

"Tear it," he says.

It's like a waxy leaf, making it hard to tear. When I get through, it's hollow inside. Golden light glints out of the darkness.

"Go on," Wishnal says. "Take it out."

I pull out another insert, this one clear, with five or six mica gliding around in some kind of gel.

"Mica," I say with awe. "These were here that whole time?"

"Yes. Exposure to a micro-quantity of mica was my chosen means of testing you. I am truly sorry about the visions. The wonderful thing is it worked. The visions led to drawings, which gave you practice connecting to the mica, which hopefully prepared you for the task ahead. Making the spaceship."

"What if I can't help? I couldn't even make a three-foot wooden sphere when I wanted. What's the backup plan?"

"There is one. Evacuate Meer and watch it die from space."

I shake under the weight of Wishnal's words.

"You are free to choose," he goes on. "If you wish to leave, Stik will get you home. In less than thirty minutes, you could be back in your room. Your mom would be none the wiser. And us—we will flee the planet. We will survive. But before you decide, you should know something."

"What?" I already find it hard to stomach the thought of losing Meer to such a horrible fate.

"If Meer falls to the second Worm, it is likely that there will be a third. There is a high probability that this Worm will be heading—" He hesitates. "Well, there's no easy way to put it. To Earth."

My heart pounds. I think of Mom. "How do you know?" I ask.

"There is a pattern in the attacks," Wishnal says. "Meer is the closest life-bearing planet to Vot. After Vot, Earth is the next closest life-bearing planet to Meer. The gratches are locating planets with life, and wiping it out, leaving the planet intact. After Meer, Earth is next in line."

I imagine losing my planet. My house would be gone. My school. All my friends—not that I have many. Mom. Grandma and Grandpa. Even Ted. I wouldn't miss him being Mom's boyfriend, but he deserves to be alive, on Earth. Everyone deserves to live.

"I was already going to say I want to help save Meer. It sounds like if I went back home, I'd be sitting there waiting to be wiped out. I'm not willing to do that. I'll do whatever I can to help. But what can I possibly do?"

"You can follow me," Wishnal says. "It's time to make a spaceship."

Chapter 11

# The Factory

The making dome turns to jelly and drains away as I follow Wishnal to a vine curtain at the end of the workshop. Coral and the others join us as we pass through the vines into a narrow hallway ending in a metal door—the first non-vine door I have seen on Meer. Wishnal knocks and the door slides open with a clang.

"Welcome to the Factory," he announces.

Our footsteps echo as we enter what must be a vast chamber. Ghostly white flowers a hundred feet high illuminate the space. Up ahead, flashes of light come from two making domes.

A meerish man in a gray robe like Bako's stands by the first dome, holding a stick. Inside the dome is a making pod in which an old woman with curly white hair and a humped back hunches over a drawing table.

"That is Grildina," Wishnal says.

Her nose almost touches the page as she makes careful lines with her mica pen. Nearby, a mica orb whirls as streams of mica swirl above it. The air lights up with a white, smokeless flame, which stays roundish, moving up and down, left and right. In seconds, the flame disappears, like a birthday candle blown out, and a long, wooden object that could be a walking stick falls onto a pile of similar sticks. I glance again at the man on guard. He holds the same kind of stick.

"Excellent work, Grildy!" Wishnal calls.

She shows no sign of hearing.

"She can hear me. The dome's soundproofing absorbs the interior noise, so the factory doesn't sound like a war zone. But the sound passes from out to in perfectly fine. Right, Grildy?"

She flaps an arm at us, more shooing us than waving. She starts drawing.

"We'd better not bother her," Wishnal says, moving along. "She's been making since she was Coral's age, and she's one hundred and fifty now—in meerish years, of course. There's no one better than her for fine detail. She can make something ten molecules wide. Ten molecules!"

"What are those things?" I ask, pointing to the pile of sticks.

"Turons," Bako answers from behind, extending a stick from his sleeve. A blue pulse shoots out of it, exploding against the factory floor.

"Agh!" Wishnal cries. "A warning would be helpful."

"Earthlings never get it," Bako says. "It's always a walking stick to them. Even if you tell them it's a weapon, they think you hit your enemy with it. So I showed him. Now he knows."

"Was that a laser?" I ask, in awe.

"Photon beam," Coral says. "The ordinance of choice for the meerish military. Low energy consumption and the power of the shot can be selected. It can sting or obliterate, depending on the need. And yes, they double as walking sticks for peaceful integration into daily life. They also make efficient lighters, cooking implements, and welding tools."

I stare at her with surprise.

"My dad's a general. I grew up with turons and tishnoks and portistuns. I know weapons."

"They're for the fight against the gratches," I venture.

Wishnal nods. "We are low on supplies in Petal City, including turons. Grildina, Coral, Peek, and I have been working nonstop, provisioning our army. Earthlings have factories with workers and robots. We rely on making. In kidnapping our makers, the gratches have made it difficult to keep our society running, or defend ourselves."

"Can't you make things with your hands?" I ask.

"Of course," he answers. "For simple things. But with holistic technologies like turons, no. They cannot be made by hand or machine. And some materials don't even exist on Meer, or anywhere else. Only makers can create them."

Outside the next making dome stands a short blue alien in a tunic holding what looks like a dust buster. I stare at the alien until I realize he is staring back, his mouth an unsmiling line.

"This is Krip," Wishnal says. "And that," he says, pointing at an even shorter blue alien in a making pod, "is Peek." He shields his mouth. "Krip and Peek are from Vot, the planet I told you about earlier."

I nod, feeling horrible for them.

Wishnal drops his hand. "Peek is quite advanced, for his age, which is eight in Votian years—that's about ten Earth years. He recently developed the ability to make physical objects, as a student at the Meerish Making Academy."

Peek has a double-domed skull, making his head look like two heads joined together. A small black eye is set under each dome. He doesn't have a nose, but there's a mouth, the thin lips dark blue lines above a small, pointed chin. His head reminds me of a heart drawing. He wears a white tunic and shorts.

Peek dangles his pen above the paper on his drawing table. A small pile of what could be large scissors sits outside his making pod.

"Go ahead, son!" Wishnal calls. "You'll do fine."

Peek glances back, his mouth unmoving. He sets the pen to paper and begins. He draws slower than Grildina, and his mica orb glows but does nothing else. He balls up his page and tosses it away.

"He'll get it," Wishnal says, nudging me past.

"What's he making?" I ask.

"Xenite cutters," Coral answers. "They can cut just about anything in existence."

"Xenite—like the Worm's armor?" I ask.

"You are paying attention," Wishnal remarks.

I look around. "So this is all of us? Grildina, you, and three kids? And you two are—"

"Old?" Wishnal says, raising an eyebrow.

"I hate to say it, but yeah. It's the five of us against how many gratches?"

"Thousands. Petal City has an army too, but, as you have seen, we have been unable to protect our makers. We are not a warlike people. If the army can hold off the enemy long enough for us to make the ship, we just might save Meer. Which, by the way, we need to get on with. The gratches will already be attacking. We are safe here, for a while, but they'll find us."

I balk as Wishnal walks away.

Coral links arms with me and urges me forward.

"Don't worry," she says. "He's telling the truth. We're in the safest place in Petal City."

Those white flowers light his way to a pin board holding four drawings. At first they look different, but as Coral coaxes me closer, I see they are all of the same thing from different angles, and with different styles and levels of detail. The common theme is a long, spiral nose extending from a sleek, bullet-shaped body. Four wiry legs snake out from the ship in curves.

"We call it Dresha," Wishnal says. "The Needle."

"Wow," I breathe, as much out of respect for the skill of the drawings as awe at the strangeness of the ship. Suddenly, the blood rushes from my face and my stomach tightens.

"What is it?" Coral asks.

"Yes," Wishnal says. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Not a ghost," I answer. "It's the ship. I know it. I drew it last night."

"I don't remember seeing it among your drawings," Wishnal says. "I looked for it specifically."

I open my binder, remove the drawing of the flipper-shaped things, and turn it over. "It's here."

Wishnal's face lights up. "Ah! So it was there all along. On the back of a bish-bish, no less."

"Why do you say that? I had no idea what a bish-bish was when I drew that." I realize the flipper things do look like those hoverboards we saw kids riding earlier.

"That's clearly what it is," Wishnal answers, holding up the drawing for the others.

"Looks like a bish-bish to me," Coral agrees.

"And this," Wishnal says, flipping the page over, "is our Dresha." He holds it up to the pin board. "May I?" he asks.

I shrug.

He sticks it to the board.

"What does it mean that I drew a bish-bish, and that spaceship?"

"Everything," Wishnal says. "It proves that bringing you here was the right thing to do. The mica have been feeding you visions of meerish machines, and the vividness of your drawings proves how strong your connection to them is."

I realize something. "The Transplanter! It's in there too." I understand now why the ship looked familiar earlier.

"I saw that one. Everything in your binder is meerish." He opens a page. "This is a gerntoosh. It's a machine that makes a frothy drink. And this one is a pokpork. They're for cleaning. Like a—uh, a vacuum. And this is a cluster of turons."

I'm in awe that I've been drawing real things all along—just real alien things.

"So, what do you think?" I ask.

"Of your drawings? They're wonderful."

"Really?"

"The detail is stunning. The lines are both delicate and strong. I am in awe of the use of light and shadow."

I catch myself smiling at his praise. "But they're not art."

"Art? Who decides? When it comes down to it, if you loved creating them, then who cares?"

"I guess you have a point." But they're not art, I repeat to myself.

Chapter 12

# Guardian

"How did we all draw something that doesn't exist yet?" I ask, staring at the five drawings of the Needle on the pinless pin board.

Wishnal grins. "The Needle does exist. We don't have the physical thing, but it's out there, woven into the fabric of the universe—let's say, in the universe's data banks. When you drew it, you plucked it from these data banks and placed it there, on the page. Making works because everything you can possibly imagine already exists. Although our tiny minds can connect with shadowy versions of the forms, mica can access it all."

I twist my mouth. "If the Needle is just one form out there, floating around, why are our drawings different? You would think they would be the same. That one barely has a nose, and that one is almost all nose. And that one has four legs, but that one has wheels."

Wishnal clears his throat. "You are asking me to cram two years of study into a single lesson." He pauses. "Take a moment to consider all the possibilities."

"All the possible Needles?"

"Yes. Long nose. Short nose. Drilling nose. Blasting nose. Sleek body. Fat body. Four legs. Two legs. Wheels. Flat bottom."

"You could have any number of variations of the Needle," I say after considering.

"How many variations?" he asks.

"Too many to count."

"Exactly. There are infinite possible Needles. Just as there are infinite possible spaceships, planets—everything. Every advanced civilization in every solar system in every galaxy in the universe could make different variations of the Needle for billions of years and they would never exhaust all the possibilities."

"No. Can that be right?"

"Infinite is infinite. And where do you think all of these infinite possibilities reside? Without proper education, planet-bound beings make the error of believing that when they come up with a new idea, they have made it out of thin air. Humans. Meerish. Votians. Kartipasculans. Cordigrabits. Plinkees. They are all the same. But this is a false belief. Everything already exists. Including the Needle. Infinite Needles. Makers connect to the pool of infinite forms through the mica, and crystallize their choices through drawing."

I screw up my face. "Okay, but we all drew different Needles. Which means we all plucked different Needles out of the universe's data banks or whatever. How the heck do we make a Needle we all agree on?"

"We connect to the same version. Together."

As I consider how this might work, the flower lights flicker. High up in the darkness, far higher than the lights, a hole opens and a shaft of sunlight streams at least five hundred feet down. The cavern is even more enormous than I thought. A moment later, a ship hurtles through the opening, pulling up just as it dings the grid of hanging flower lights. It's the Transplanter. A jagged metallic ship shoots in behind it, firing streams of red that explode in random places. A gratchean ship.

Before I can think, I've been knocked to the floor, my face full of fur and a horsey smell. Henry stands over me.

I peek out as the gratchean ship careens around and comes at us firing. The Transplanter, which has arced back, launches blue pulses, three of which hit the enemy, exploding, sending the ship cartwheeling into the wall, where it bursts into flames.

The Transplanter circles and lands as the hole in the ceiling closes. I crawl out from under Henry's legs as the Transplanter door whirs open, puffing out smoke. Whiff and Biff skitter down the ramp that weaves itself in front of them. Stik steps out behind them, coughing and fanning the air, the brown sack he held earlier slung on his back.

"Are you okay?" Wishnal calls.

"Bah, we're fine," Stik answers. "Had a little trouble processing the mica. The gratches found me. They almost got the harvest, but Whiff and Biff showed up just in time. Three ships chased us here. The other two were destroyed out there before they could follow us in."

Whiff and Biff are jittery like dogs in a thunderstorm. They make a beeline for Henry, climbing into his hand. He strokes their fuzzy heads.

"They've found us, then," Wishnal mutters. "Sooner than I hoped. How many orbs did we end up with?"

Stik opens the bag. Golden light illuminates his narrow head. "Three," he says.

"Only three?" Wishnal croaks.

"Sorry—four," Stik corrects himself. "One orblet, as you asked."

Wishnal reaches into the sack and lifts out a mica orb.

"I could use that," a gruff voice says. It's Grildina. She holds up an orb that looks like a blind eye, having a dull, smoky color. "Mine's used up."

Wishnal tosses the fresh orb to Grildina.

"Who else needs one?" Wishnal asks. "Peek?"

He shakes his head.

"You do, Coral," he says, tossing the second fresh orb to her. "And Nate," he says, tossing the third my way.

I don't react and it shoots by my head, to be caught by the lightning reflexes of Henry with the hand not holding two furballs. He fans open his fingers, presenting the orb on his palm.

When I reach out to take it, a cord of some kind lassos me, squishing my arms into my body. I'm dragged across the floor as a high-pitched whirring sound, like an electric motor on overdrive, pierces the air in the near distance.

"Capture!" It's a rasp from the darkness. "Capture!"

Henry lets out a roar that makes my hair stand on end. He sails through the air, landing beside me, grabs the cord dragging me, and yanks. Something crashes to the ground, sounding like a tower of buckets being knocked over.

I hunker behind Henry's legs, still wrapped in cord.

"Capture!" the voice yells out of the darkness.

Booming footsteps close in on us. I cling to Henry's fur. Whatever it is wears clunky red boots, which I focus on as it crashes into Henry. Henry catches it in a bear hug, lifts it, and smashes it down. It lies motionless next to me, its red helmet sparking. This must be a gratch, I think. It wears bulky red armor to match the boots and helmet. The head slumps, the helmet's visor cracked in half. I glimpse green, sneering lips and follow the crack up the face to a yellow eye, which stares at me. The gratch bares long teeth at me.

"Capture!" it burbles, reaching a trembling red glove toward me.

Henry kicks, rolling the gratch like a barrel. It lies motionless.

I exhale.

"Are you all right?" Bako, just arriving, asks. He points his turon where the gratch came from.

"I'm okay," I answer.

"It must have come out of the ship. We should have checked to see if there were survivors."

I nod, distracted by a whirring sound, like an insect hurtling toward us. Suddenly, my ankles are cinched together and I'm sliding backward, flailing my arms.

"Henry!" I shout. "Henry!"

He charges after me. I crane my neck and find a gratch holding out his arms to snatch me up. He's less than twenty feet away. When I turn back, Henry has caught up. He leaps over me. From my awkward position, I watch Henry tear the cord from the gratch's hand, lift the creature, wave him around, and toss him, knocking him out cold.

Bako reaches me, peering into the darkness. He raises his turon, aims, and fires a blue pulse. It sends a third gratch, only visible by the light of the exploding shot, to the ground.

"Ripcord," Bako says, using a pair of the scissors Peek was making to cut the metallic cords from my ankles and arms. He shows me a small metal ball attached to the end of the cord. "This is the drone," he explains. "It propels the cord through the air and loops around the target. Ripcord is made of xenite, the strongest metal in the universe, so xenite cutters are the only thing that can cut it."

He steps on the ripcord and stabs the drone with the cutters. The ball cracks open like a walnut, fizzling.

"Ripcord," I mutter, stunned by Bako's demonstration. "I'll remember that one."

Bako helps me up.

"I'll check out the wreckage to make sure there's no more," he says to Henry. "Take him to the others. Time is running out."

Henry grunts and, to my surprise, picks me up like a doll. I'm too shocked to speak as he carries me to the other makers, who are surrounded by Peak's guardian, Krip, and Grildina's meerish guard.

"Nate!" Coral rushes out of the group.

"Coral, wait!" Wishnal shouts.

She's already at Henry. He lowers me and she wraps me in a hug.

"I knew you would save him, Henry," she cries with admiration.

Henry purses his lips uncomfortably as we gaze at him.

"Thank you," I say.

"He's the best guardian there is," Coral says. "You're lucky his Grandness gave him to you."

"Guardian?" I ask.

"Ever since the kidnappings started, each maker gets a guardian. In case you didn't notice, mine's Bako."

I glance back at the group. All at once, Krip and the other armed guard make sense. Something dawns on me. "You mean, Henry normally guards the Grand Scientist? Why would he want you to protect me over himself? He's so much more important."

Henry shrugs, peeling his lips back in a sheepish grin.

"The Grand Scientist doesn't see it that way," Coral answers.

Chapter 13

# The Needle

As we join the others, three deafening cracks echo in the factory, followed by a rumble that makes the floor vibrate.

Coral grabs my wrist.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

She nods, but seems shaken.

"The battle is worsening," Wishnal says.

Light streams down from that same portal in the vaulted ceiling. A ship that reminds me of a clamshell zings in, trailing smoke. The portal snaps shut as the ship makes a lopsided landing beside the Transplanter.

"Dad!" Coral cries, running toward the ship.

A ramp extends from the bottom and about two hundred meerish soldiers funnel down, forming two lines. A tall meerish man with a long wooden staff I assume is some kind of super-turon comes out and walks the pathway between the soldiers.

He crouches to hug Coral, who leaps into his arms.

His face has a burn mark on the cheek, and his robe is torn at the shoulder. He looks like he's had a close call in battle.

Coral drags him toward us.

"I want to introduce you to someone," she says. "This is Nate, the boy from Earth I told you I was going to meet. We're the same age. He's really impressing us. He just learned to make."

He raises his eyebrows. I gulp. He must be six-foot-six, broad set, with extremely good posture. Like Coral, he has two different-colored eyes, which somehow makes him more daunting. "That's some feat, Nate of Earth," he says, extending his large, six-fingered hand. "A handshake is the proper greeting for Earthlings, is it not?" he asks under his breath.

"Some Earthlings," Coral says. "For Nate, yes."

His grip nearly crushes my bones.

"Nice to meet you. Coral has some wonderful things to say about you."

My cheeks flush. "Well, she's the smartest person I've ever met."

I know I've said the right thing when he beams with pride.

Coral's dad bows his head to Wishnal. "Your Intelligency," he says.

Seeing such an intimidating man bow to the short, goofy Wishnal makes me understand his high status.

"How is it out there, General?" Wishnal asks.

Coral's dad glances at us, weighing how much to reveal. "Bad. Very bad. We cannot hold them off much longer."

"And? What else?" Wishnal asks.

"A massive ship was detected leaving Vishus's asteroid. It was over one kilometer long."

"It has to be the Worm," Wishnal says. "No other ship is that long. Where will it burrow?"

"The Resha Plains."

"I see. The other side of the planet."

The general looks around. "You haven't made the ship yet. How long do you need?"

"We were just getting to that. How long do we have?"

"Not long," he says. "They're blowing up the jungle above the Factory, trying to get through the rock." On cue, a tremendous boom fills the cavern, rattling the floor. Coral hugs her dad's waist. "We'll defend you until the end," the general says to Wishnal. He hugs Coral's shoulder, nods to me, and rushes back to his soldiers, yelling an order. The soldiers spread into a defensive semicircle around our corner of the Factory, turons drawn.

"The time has come!" Wishnal declares. Where his voice was previously gentle, it now holds authority. "To the making dome."

A dark area of the factory lights up. At the near edge are five drawing tables, which Wishnal leads us to.

I ask Coral: "What was your dad saying? About a vicious asteroid?"

"No, it's Vishus's asteroid," Coral answers. "Vishus is the gratches' leader. The asteroid is his fortress."

We sit at the drawing tables, Wishnal in the middle, Coral and I on his right, Grildina and Peek on his left. After sitting, or rather leaning against the stool, there's a tap on my shoulder. I jump, thinking I've been hit by a ripcord, but it's Henry, holding out the making orb I didn't get earlier. I accept it and he steps back ten feet, joining the other guardians, each behind their maker.

"Raise the making dome!" Wishnal shouts.

The gel-like membrane grows out of the floor some distance ahead of us, spreading for hundreds of feet in every direction, creeping under our tables. After laying a sizable barrier on the floor, it turns upward, growing walls a few hundred feet high that curve inwards, meeting in the middle. I realize making a ship must require a large making dome. Looking behind us, I find our guardians standing outside the dome.

"Cast your orbs!" Wishnal orders, ejecting an orb from the sleeve of his silky robe, sending it bouncing.

Grildina, Peek, and Coral throw their orbs.

"Psst. Nate," Coral whispers.

I toss my orb out into the making dome.

"Raise the making pod!" Wishnal orders.

Nothing happens, then Coral leans over and whispers my name again, pointing to the table ledge. The others are holding down their buttons. When I press mine, a single making pod grows out of the floor, enclosing our drawing tables.

"Paper!" Wishnal intones.

I catch on that I am to press the paper feed button, causing a page to pop out.

"Mica pens!" Wishnal orders.

I'm reminded why we leave the pens until last when Grildina draws on her page. Instantly, a bolt of electricity leaps out of her orb and hits the making pod in front of me.

"Good, Grildy!" Wishnal says as she strikes another line across her page, causing more lightning. "We'll allow a two-minute warm-up."

Coral scribbles furiously. Peek stares at his page, then sets the pen to it and makes a dot, swirling outward. His mica orb spins gently, making a beautiful swirl of flame.

Wishnal scribbles, causing his orb to spurt out a shower of sparks.

Coral's scribbling gets frantic. Her orb isn't doing anything.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

Her mica pen tears the page. "Rrr!" she groans. "I can't do it."

Wishnal touches her shoulder and she stops. "My dear, you are trying too hard. Remember what we talked about in practicum? Stop, breathe, focus."

Coral breathes. Her face is flushed green and green-tinted tears gather in her eyes. "I can't," she whispers.

"You can, and you must!" Wishnal answers, more harshly than I would expect.

"You can do it!" I say, brightly.

She scowls. "What do you know about it? You're gifted! I've struggled for years to do this."

I'm taken aback. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I really do believe in you."

Coral scrunches her eyes. "I didn't mean that. I'm just frustrated."

"It's okay."

"Aren't you going to warm up?" she asks.

"I guess," I say. "I just draw something?"

"Yes, to connect to the orb. You want as deep a connection as you can get."

I draw a line. I don't feel connected to anything, so I close my eyes. There they are, in the distance. Specks of light, dancing. What I have called fireflies, but I now know are mica. They come closer, or I go closer to them. Then they surround me, expanding into full, pristine images. Bish-bishes. The Transplanter. Turons. The one-eyed jellyfish. Meerish technologies. They are hoverboards, spacecraft, weapons—all of them living machines, unlike anything humankind has known.

I focus on calling the Needle. The gallery of visions clears as the mica swarm around an elegant spaceship with a long, spiral nose. It's not quite the Needle I drew, or that any of us drew. I open my eyes to rings of light radiating from my orb. My mica pen is frozen on the page. I haven't drawn anything.

Coral's orb isn't active yet. Her eyes are shut and she's breathing, holding her pen. Finally, she draws a few lines with a flicking gesture. A moment later, her orb spits blue flame.

"It's working, isn't it," she says, her eyes still closed.

"Yes."

"I feel it." She smiles.

"Well done, Coral," Wishnal says. "Now that everyone is connected to their orb, we'll connect with the Needle. It's here with us. Call it forth."

I close my eyes and there is the shimmering vision of the Needle I already located.

"If you haven't connected, don't worry," Wishnal says. "It will come simply by association with the others. Nate, it may not seem right that you are all to draw at the same time, since everyone's drawing of the vision will be different. Don't worry about such things. Draw the Needle however you wish. Whatever comes naturally is the right way. Allow the process to work. Mica do the making. And the universe itself, the great mind in which we exist, provides the forms, the data, the information the mica need. We meerish and humans and votians provide one thing only. Our will. Our wills connect the vision in the universe's mind to the physical matter the mica will make. So go ahead! Draw! Enjoy. Just remember one thing: the nose must be xenite!"

I close my eyes to see the Needle, open them to draw. As I move the pen, the vision strengthens until it's there with eyes open or closed.

At one point, I look at the working orbs. A flaming tornado roars around the making dome before splitting in two, then three, each one different colors of flame. I've been blocking out the booms and rumbles.

Whirling smoke surrounds everything. It's too thick to see if we are making anything.

"Focus!" Wishnal says. "It's not coming together! Stay with the image!"

Nervously, I seek the vision again. Up until now I've been calm, just going with the flow, not thinking too much. Watching us fail, I tense, my mind races, the vision dims and recedes. I look around. Everyone is working hard, some eyes open, some eyes closed, glancing up, then down at the page. They seem as worried as me.

"It's not working!" Grildina cries. "The children don't have the focus to join us in one vision. We should have known. It's just as before. The Earthling has no effect."

Peek is frozen, unable to draw the next line.

"Focus!" Wishnal insists. "We will not give up! Go back to the fundamentals. Stop, breathe, focus."

My heart races. Planet Meer is counting on us. Earth might be too. I have to get the vision back.

I breathe. You can do this, I tell myself. The same way that I block out Mom and Ted and school and everything else in my life to focus on my drawings, I let the world fall away and turn to the vision. It drifts closer, then in a giddy swell, I'm there again. The vision is all I see. It's all I am. The Needle and my mind have joined—it feels that way. The connection jolts my heart and sends shimmering waves of energy through my back and belly.

Time seems to stop. The thought drifts across my mind, like a puff of cloud, that I'm supposed to be drawing. I set pen to page and work. It's blissful. I don't think about anything except the image. I'm not looking, so I don't know what I'm drawing. All I know is I'm communicating what I see to the mica with crystal clarity. The pen moves light and clean, like I'm not moving it at all. My hand tingles.

When I'm done, the vision of the Needle drifts away, like a helium balloon set free. I open my eyes.

Coral is staring at me, shocked.

The smoky, flaming chaos that earlier filled the making dome has been replaced by a spiral of mica dust a hundred feet long. The spiral blows apart, pulls together and blows up again, then swirls one last time before exploding so brightly, we shield our eyes.

The mica cloud parts into five lines, streaming back into the orbs. When the smoke wafts away, there stands a hundred-foot ship. The nose is a spiral spear, like a narwhal horn, and takes up half the length.

"Dresha," Wishnal breathes. He turns to me. "What did you do?"

Chapter 14

# Escape

"I drew the Needle," I answer. "Like you said."

"But he didn't draw," Coral says. "Look!"

There are a few lines scratched on my page, but the rest is blank.

"Whatever he did, he didn't touch the page."

"It felt like I was drawing," I defend myself. "Maybe I traced it out in the air."

"I have seen makers trace out their designs on all sorts of surfaces, and even in the air on occasion," Wishnal offers. "But it is highly unusual for someone of your age and inexperience to make that way."

"You're not listening," Coral says. "He didn't draw at all. He stood with the pen in his hand and didn't move an inch."

Wishnal furrows his brow. "That can't be right."

"I swear."

Wishnal turns to Grildina.

"Never heard of that before," she says. "But the Earthling did something, I am sure of that. It affected me and my orb. He was with me as I drew. I would venture to say he brought us together."

I'm stunned. Making is new to me, and to find out that the way I'm making is strange knots my chest.

"I felt it too," Wishnal says. "I'm not sure what it was, Nate, but whatever you did worked. It gave us the juice to bring the Needle into existence."

As I puzzle over what I have done, red lasers rain down on the making dome. We look up to find a gratchean ship skimming over us. A round meerish ship chases it around the factory, bringing it down with teardrop bursts.

"They've breached the portal!" Wishnal declares.

The portal in the ceiling is indeed blown out. Another gratchean ship streaks in, strafes the room, and lands outside the ring of meerish soldiers. Gratches in red armor pour out, firing blasters at the meerish soldiers, who return fire with their turons.

"Get on the ship!" Wishnal cries. "Retract the making pod!"

We press the buttons under our drawing tables and the pod drains away. We rush for the ship, Coral, Peek, and I bursting ahead. The Needle drops a ramp from its belly.

"It's like it knows we're coming," I say in surprise.

"Of course," Coral answers. "It's a living machine."

A making orb lies near the ramp. Coral picks it up, but it's foggy like the used-up orb Grildina had earlier. She hands it to me. "Take this on board."

"Where are you going?" I ask as she runs under the ship.

I hand the foggy orb to Peek. "Here."

He accepts it with blue hands that I notice have little suction cups on the fingers. I chase after Coral, who I find near one of the ship's legs. She's picked up another orb, this one glowing.

"I said to get on the ship," she grumbles.

I spot a glint fifteen feet away. "There!"

"Fine, get it," she says. "But hurry. We have to get out of here."

"We should get all five, right?"

"As many as we can. We can't let the gratches get them. Not even the used-up ones. They regenerate."

"Let's split up," I say. "I'll go this way, you go that way. We'll meet in the middle."

She nods and runs off to the left. I go right, finding another used-up orb. At the edge of the making dome, five meerish warriors take fire from ten gratches. The meerish hunker behind a leaf shield, which reflects the gratches' shots. They're pinned. The gratches close in, forcing the meerish to surrender, then bind them with ripcord.

Something hits the dome in front of me. The transparent shell bends in like a poked balloon, then flings the thing back out. It's a small metal ball—a ripcord drone—attached to its cord. Another drone hits and bounces away.

Scratchy voices yell: "Capture! Capture!"

I run back to the ship's ramp, scanning for orbs as I go.

Gratches gather at the dome wall, clawing and kicking, getting flung back by the elastic shield.

Coral sprints toward me. "I didn't find any," she says.

"One," I say, holding up the drained orb.

"Children! Get on board!" Wishnal's voice rings out. He's still some distance back with Grildina, who appears to have fallen down.

"We don't have them all," Coral calls. "We have to keep looking!"

"It's too late!" he answers. "On the ship now!"

Coral looks like she's going to make a break for it. I grab her wrist. "Come on! The gratches are swarming the place! We've got to get out of here."

Grimacing, she nods and runs with me to the ramp. Henry, Bako, Krip, and Grildina's guardian watch from outside the making dome. Stik is with them, Whiff and Biff on his shoulders. Wishnal pulls Grildina's arm, trying to get her up.

"Retract the making dome!" Wishnal barks. "Run!" he calls to the guardians. "Run!"

The making dome turns to jelly and begins drawing down. The moment it softens, Henry bursts through like it's a waterfall. The other guardians are at his heels.

At the same time, laser shots pierce the dissolving dome. The guardians and Stik face the blasts fearlessly, heading straight for Wishnal and Grildina.

"Get up that ramp!" Wishnal cries to us. "The guardians will help us."

We stumble up the ramp, but stand at the top looking out.

Henry, leading the pack of guardians, has almost reached Wishnal. But, just as Grildina finally gets onto her feet, she falls sideways and slides away with amazing speed. A ripcord got her.

"Grildina!" Coral shouts, starting down the ramp. I grab her and don't let go.

Grildina's guardian veers after her, but she's already in the hands of gratches. The guardian gets one beast with a turon shot before being taken down.

A volley of ripcords sails toward Wishnal. Henry grabs one with each hand and flicks the cords like whips, sending the gratches on the other end to the ground. Krip explodes two ripcords with impressive shots from his dust buster blaster. One cord nearly gets Bako, but he ducks.

In the confusion, a ripcord hits Wishnal, yanking him sideways. Henry grabs him, holding him until a second cord gets Henry's leg, pulling him in the other direction.

"Leave me!" Wishnal shouts. "Protect Nate!" He tosses something small toward Henry. "I'm counting on you!" he wails as Henry lets go and he's dragged away.

Henry lets out a moaning roar, grabbing the cord binding his leg and yanking it from the gratch. For a moment, he looks like he's going to chase Wishnal, but he whimpers, picks up the object, and turns to the ship.

Just then, Krip zips past Henry's feet, wrapped in cord. Henry watches helplessly, but at the sight of his guardian being whisked away, Peek lets out a fierce cry and sprints down the ramp before Coral and I can react. In seconds, the short blue alien is sliding across the ground, his legs yanked out from under him by the ripcord of a sniggering gratch.

Bako and Stik lie low near the ship.

"You have a ward to protect," Stik calls to Bako. "But we don't. C'mon boys!" He leaps up and, with startling speed, gallops toward the clutch of gratches roughing up Wishnal. A cluster of meerish soldiers closes in from the other side, led by Coral's dad blasting with his outsized turon.

With a final moan, Henry races our way as Bako hurries to the ramp. They sprint to us, dragging us inside. The ramp pulls in just as Stik barrels into the gratches and the meerish soldiers crash into them from the other side. We don't see what comes next because the door closes.

Inside the ship, Bako and Henry rush off.

Coral's brow tightens.

"Your dad is a pretty awesome soldier," I say.

She nods.

"He's going to save Wishnal. They'll both be okay."

"If something happens to them, I don't know what I'll do," she says, matter-of-fact and nearly breaking down. "With Mom gone, I would have no one left."

"Gone, as in passed away?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Kidnapped by gratches. She's a maker."

Now I know why she said she understood how I felt about Dad.

"That's awful," I offer, knowing words don't help. "You wouldn't have no one left, though," I add. "There are other people who care about you."

She manages a weak smile. Just then, the ship shakes, hit by a blast from outside.

"We should go to the bridge," Coral says, leading me down a short corridor.

We find Bako and Henry at a control panel in front of a viewing screen, pressing buttons.

"There," Bako blurts. "That switch."

Henry hits a switch.

"Not that one. The other one!"

Henry grunts and hits the other switch.

"Hold on!" Bako calls, guiding the ship up.

A gratchean fighter shoots past and Bako jerks the ship sideways, sending us to the floor.

"Sorry, kids. Stik usually does this. And I've never flown this particular ship before."

Henry shakes his head.

With more jerks, Bako gets the ship pointed toward the ceiling and hits the throttle. Coral and I slide into the wall as we hurtle toward the portal and out into the jungle. We glimpse gratchean and meerish fighters streaming past as we speed between massive tree trunks toward a patch of blue sky. We burst through the canopy, climbing beside the huge central tower, until incoming fire forces Bako to veer sharply.

The vibrant colors of Petal City pass beneath us as we close in on the Horned Sea's yellow spires.

"Here we go!" Bako says.

Henry throws his arms over his head as Bako dives from jungle to sea, weaving through spires, hugging the crashing waves all the way to open water.

"We made it!" Bako declares.

The flight stabilizes. Coral and I realize we're hunkered at the wall right next to a bench, which we climb onto. Just as the Transplanter is modeled after a tree, with branches and bark, this craft has the smooth, iridescent surface of a seashell to go along with its spiral nose.

We leave the sea behind for land, going too fast to see what exactly we're over. I guess it's jungle, from the occasional tree in the smear of green. Then there are hills. Bako guides the ship close to them, then dips into a canyon, whose winding length we follow.

"Why don't we fly higher?" I call to Bako. "This seems dangerous."

"We have to stay invisible to gratchean radar," he answers.

"How long to the Worm?" Coral asks.

Henry points to a screen with a red flashing dot and a blue dot.

"The blue one is us," Bako says. "The red one's the Worm. It's on the other side of the planet. It will be two hours."

"Then we have to hurry!" Coral says. "Wishnal told me the Worm's burrowing speed. It will reach Meer's core in three hours. How long has it been burrowing?"

"We don't know," Bako says.

"Go faster!" Coral cries, surprising me with her forcefulness. "We can't fail. Everything depends on us."

Chapter 15

# The Burrow

After the canyon, we're over a gray landscape, then we're over purple-tinted ocean. I doze on the bench, waking often. The purple ocean is big. We seem to cross it forever, until a massive shadow looms ahead.

"Mount Pom," Bako says. "It's going to be slow going over it."

Coral has been keeping close watch on the controls, tracking our speed and the timing of our flight in relation to the Worm's progress. "How slow?" she asks.

"We have to hug the surface or the gratches will find us. The mountain's terrain is unpredictable. I'll have to cut our speed by seventy-five percent."

"You can't!" Coral cries. "The Worm will reach the core."

Henry points to a screen and groans.

"I'm trying to think," Bako says, ignoring him. "I could try half speed. But it'll be dangerous."

"It's not good enough!" Coral insists.

"What do you suggest?" Bako demands.

"Something that gets us there in time to save Meer!"

Henry growls.

"What is it?" Bako shouts.

Coral goes to Henry, looking at the screen Henry is jabbing with his finger. "The topographical map of Mount Pom," she says. "He's trying to tell us something."

She examines it. "Brilliant! Look, there's a passage under the mountain, straight to the Resha plains. It's much shorter. We would gain time."

"An underground passage?" Bako says. "I wish Stik were here to fly this thing. I'm not sure I can do it."

"There isn't much choice," Coral snaps.

Bako remains silent at the controls.

Coral glances back at me, then sighs. "Listen, I know we argue a lot, and it's probably not very fun being my guardian, since I'm always sneaking off." She pauses, as if the next part pains her. "But I think a lot of you, Bako. You've always protected me, and you're the best shot I know, except Dad. Stik isn't here, but you are. And if any inexperienced pilot can do this, it's you."

Bako stares at her as though she just grew an eye in the middle of her forehead. "Really?"

"I'm serious."

Bako holds back a grin. "It's not so bad being your guardian. Besides the sneaking off part. You're a pretty smart kid." He looks at the screen. "The passage looks fairly straight. You're sure it's big enough for the ship?"

Henry nods, spreading his arms wide, which I take to mean there's plenty of room.

"Okay. Under the mountain we go."

Mount Pom is about all we can see now. When it seems we're about to smash into it, Coral, eyes glued to the map, says: "Now!" Bako slams the control forward, sending us over a sheer cliff at the edge of the ocean into a crater. We follow the waters rushing into a massive tunnel under the mountain. Only a few spotlights on the Needle guide us through the narrow passage. The flight, which is only about five minutes, seems much longer. A few times, we seem to bounce off a wall or the ceiling as we weave around unexpected columns of rock and take sudden bends. Coral and I scream a couple times, sure we're going to crash.

"Hold on!" Bako warns, pulling up. I'm thrown against the bench as the Needle narrowly zips up a canyon wall on the other side of Mount Pom. Our flight evens out over a flat, green landscape.

"The Resha plains," Coral says in relief. "You did it!"

Henry slaps Bako's back, knocking him forward.

"That was crazy," I say. "I thought we were going to die at least twice."

"Me too," Coral agrees. "But only a little bit," she adds when Bako looks at her.

"Ha. I thought so too," he says. "And not just a little bit."

"What's that?" I ask, gaping at the screen.

The celebratory mood is cut short as our attention turns to a cloud of brown haze spewing out of a huge hole, hundreds of feet across. A brown film collects on the viewing window as we approach.

"It's the burrow," Coral says.

"It's a lot bigger than I imagined," I remark. "I guess I was still picturing a worm eating through an apple."

Coral shakes her head. "It's sad. All this dust from the vaporizing cannon will settle on the plains, smothering the grass, turning it to desert."

"Vaporizing cannon?" I ask.

"A big laser that vaporizes the dirt and rock," she says.

"Must be a very big laser."

"It is," she says, returning to the bench. "Wishnal said the Worm sucks the vapor up through its body and ejects it out the back end. That's what this brown haze is."

Henry hits a row of buttons until windshield wipers start up, smearing the dust back and forth on the viewing screen.

"At least the tunnel is big enough for the ship," Bako says. "Okay, Needle, strap us in please!"

Coral and I look at each other.

"Strap us in?" I say. "Would have been nice to know about that option earlier."

"It's been smooth sailing so far," Bako says. "At least we were horizontal."

Ribbons of silky material slither out of the back of the bench, wrap Coral's shoulders, and loop back into the seat. The same thing happens to me. The straps pull tight just as our stomachs float up to our chests. At least, that's how it feels to a human. I have no idea what a screaming nosedive feels like to the meerish.

After we've been diving for a few minutes, Coral, who has continued to monitor our speed, speaks. "You're only going nine thousand kilometers per hour. We need to go twelve thousand to reach the Worm in the next fifteen minutes. By my calculations, it will be nearing the core, which means we have three thousand kilometers to make up."

"Nine thousand kilometers per hour!" I blurt. "Shouldn't we feel it more?"

"We would have passed out if it weren't for the G-force inhibitor that kicks in during acceleration," Coral says offhandedly.

"I don't remember putting one of those in my drawing," I muse.

"That was us," Coral says. "We worked on the design before you came. That's why it's called cooperative making. Different makers can add different parts."

"I'm not sure speeding up is a good idea," Bako interjects. "The controls are shaking as it is."

"If we don't speed up, we might as well crash now because it will be over anyway!" Coral cracks.

Bako grunts. "Fine, faster it is!"

Coral's desperation reminds me this is do or die. We will either stop the Worm and save Meer, or we will fail and life on Meer will be lost.

The ship jolts and shakes like a carnival ride as Bako jams the throttle forward. The only sounds are rattles and clunks, and our gasps at each one.

Time becomes a jumble when you're clinging to your seat, gritting your teeth, and sometimes screaming. Soon, our fifteen-minute dive is over.

Coral announces we'll reach the Worm in sixty seconds and tells Bako to slow down.

"Time to rev up the drill," she says.

"You heard him," Bako barks at Henry. "Drill!"

Henry tugs at a row of levers until a grinding sound fills the ship, then evens out into a steady whir.

"Ten seconds to contact!" Bako announces.

"Nine!"

"Eight!"

"Seven!"

"Six!"

"Ram it!" Coral shouts, her hand latching on to mine.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

There's a tremendous crashing sound, like an explosion. We're thrown against our straps as the ship heaves, sounding like it's going to rip apart. A horrible grinding is added to the noise and the ship shakes the worst it has yet. The viewing window lights up with sparks from the drill boring into the Worm.

The drilling rattles us so much, my eyeballs shake. After about thirty seconds, I feel like throwing up. Coral does just that between her knees. I hold her hair out of the way.

Then the drill's whir winds down and we stop shaking. All we hear is an ominous rumble, like an endless subsonic bass note, which I realize is the Worm burning through Meer. Coral gets up, wiping her face.

"Did it work?" I ask. "Did we stop the Worm?"

"Stop it?" Coral says. "You thought the drill was going to stop it? That was just to get through the armor. Now we have to stop it." She holds up the orb she found under the ship earlier.

"As in, you and me?"

"Who else? Now get ready."

Coral goes to a nearby compartment, while I take out my mica pen and orb, noticing what I didn't have time to in the factory. The orb is cool and smooth, lighter than I thought it would be. The shining mica inside send streams of light to my fingers pressed against the wall.

Coral returns holding two drawing pads, handing one to me. "Follow me."

She leads us down a staircase into the ship's innards. We squeeze between spaceship parts—or maybe it's better to call them organs, because they don't look mechanical. Coral said the ship is living. I take the strangeness of the insides as proof. We reach two round things, as tall as the ship, that are like sand dollars with interlocking teeth.

"The power gears," she says. "They make the xenite drill go."

"You know a lot about the ship," I say.

"We envisioned it for a long time before you came. Wishnal taught us everything about it. I'm not so great at making, but I'm pretty good at learning."

We come to a round door.

"The core of the drill was left hollow," Coral explains as she spins a locking wheel and pulls on the door.

When she can't budge it, I help, then Bako does, and, finally, with Henry's strength, it opens.

"The Needle's purpose was always to drill through the Worm's armor to give us passage to its insides," Coral explains. "This tunnel goes through the drill into the Worm."

"Why not blast through?"

"Xenite armor reflects lasers and photon bursts—particles of any kind. It resists explosions of immense force. Anything we shot at it would bounce back. It had to be drilled, and the drill had to be xenite."

She steps into the tunnel, her orb lighting the way. I'm next, followed by Bako and Henry, who holds his arms in front of him to fit. It's a long shuffle.

Eventually, we reach a wall at the end. Coral feels around, shining her orb. "Where is it?" she mumbles. "Wishnal said there would be a button."

"Is that what you're looking for?" I ask, pointing to a lever near the floor.

"It must be. I imagined it as a button," she says, bending to pull it. "I'm pretty sure Wishnal did too. But I guess that's not how it came out."

When the lever doesn't move, Bako reaches over and adds his strength. There's a hum and the wall shifts forward, like a cork being forced out from the inside of a bottle. Then, it's gone.

Chapter 16

# The Circuit

When the drill tip falls away, hot wind whips into the tunnel. We shuffle carefully out onto a wide plank. Henry stays at the edge of the tunnel, anchoring us, while we hold each other's shoulders.

The Worm's inner wall gives off a dim glow and is crawling with strange mechanical parts that seem alive. In the distance is a massive tube, as wide as a grain silo, that stretches from the tail, where we drilled in, down as far as we can see. It glows a searing red that imprints itself on my eyes.

"That tube is the Worm's exhaust," Coral says, speaking loud over the wind. "The vapor flowing through it is superheated."

I notice it's so hot that I'm sweating.

The Worm shakes and Coral almost slips off the platform. I hold her, and Bako holds me.

"Thanks," she says.

"Maybe we can add railings to the next model," I remark.

She turns to me. "Ready?" Without further warning, she hurls her orb into the beating wind. The golden light falls in an arc into the depths of the Worm.

I'm so shocked, I can't speak.

"What are you waiting for?" she asks.

"This is our last orb! We can't throw it away!"

"It's the only way," Coral answers. "We can't make with the orbs in our hands. You know that. They'd burn us up. We have no making pods. Do you see anywhere else to put them?"

She's right. Yelling, I throw my orb as far into the abyss as I can.

"Now what?" I demand, my heart beating faster now that we're in darkness.

"We make," Coral says, not sounding as confident as a moment ago. She opens her pad. To my surprise, the pages glow white.

I slide my pen out of my pocket and open my pad. Then I notice Coral pointing her pen toward the darkness. I wave my pen a few times. "What are we doing?" I ask.

"Concentrate," Coral says.

"On what?"

"Find your orb," Corals says. "That's the first step in an operation like this, with the orbs so far away."

I see in the glow from her pad that she has closed her eyes.

I close mine and imagine the orb in the vast emptiness of the Worm's body. At first, the image is vague, but then the orb is right there, floating in my mind as vivid as one of my visions.

"What next?" I ask.

"You found it?" Coral asks.

"Yes."

"Um," she says. "Well, you make something."

"What?"

"Anything! Something to stop the Worm from destroying my home!"

I try to think of something. "I have no idea how to stop this thing," I say. "Do you?"

"We don't know much about it," Coral says. "Just the basics. Xenite armor. Vaporizing cannon. Magnetic wave disruptor."

"So what do we do?" I ask.

Coral doesn't answer.

"Coral?"

"I'm thinking."

Another long pause.

"Wait," I say. "I've got something."

"You do?"

"Images of the Worm. Drawings. Like blueprints."

"Images? Of course. The Worm was made by makers. The mica will know all about it. They must be feeding you the plans."

"I don't know," I say. "But it's all right here. It's just a big long tube with the vaporizing cannon and some rockets on the back."

"Look for a weakness," Coral says.

"I'm trying." I grimace. The vision is so powerful, it hurts. "I don't know what to look for. I wish you could see it. You're smart about this kind of thing."

"I'm trying," Coral says.

"I know what Wishnal would say."

"Stop, breathe, focus," she answers. She breathes. In. Out. In. Out. Her breathing speeds up. She groans. "It's not working."

I set my hand on her back. "Let's breathe together. Forget about everything else. We have all the time in the world."

"We have five minutes!"

"That just stresses us out. Forgetting everything always works for me."

"Everything? What about the things that are so important, you can't forget them?"

"Especially those things. It's the only way to focus totally."

Instead of answering, she sighs and I feel her relax. I match my breathing to hers. As we breathe, something tingles in my hand. An energy passing between us.

"My orb," Coral gasps. "I found it. It's so—vivid."

"What do you see?"

"The orb, shining on a dark surface."

"Focus on the dark part," I say. "That's the Worm."

She's silent, then says: "I can't believe it. I see the Worm. The whole thing. Its design, from top to bottom. Just like you said."

"Keep breathing."

She deepens her breathing.

"Do you see a weakness?" I ask.

She says nothing for what feels like a long time. I focus on the Worm too, searching for anything that could help. It's impossible. I don't understand alien technology. I wouldn't know how to disable Earth technology either.

"I may have something," she says. "The Worm's brain is a kind of organic computer—a simple one. It controls the rocket boosters in the rear and the vaporizing cannon in the front. It turns on the laser with a simple switch that closes a circuit. If we can break the circuit, the cannon should stop. The Worm can't burrow without the cannon."

"Could we cut the circuit?" I ask.

"It's in the head of the Worm. That's a kilometer away. It would take too long to climb down."

I refocus, zeroing in on the area she's talking about. I find the circuit where electricity passes from the brain to the cannon.

"Too bad we can't short it out," Coral muses.

Coral's words give me an idea. I move my pen, making as fast as the mica can respond.

"Nate? What are you doing? You dropped your pad!"

I'm too focused to notice what I am or am not doing with my pad. "Water," I say. "Make water."

My focus has become so intense, I'm there with my orb, seeing through the eyes of the mica themselves.

My orb makes sprays of water in a chaotic sprinkler pattern.

I see Coral's orb too. Water spurts out of it.

Soon my pool of water meets Coral's. I panic momentarily when I realize the circuit is far from the orbs. There's a lot of surface to cover with water. If we're going to drench the brain, we need to make faster.

I feel Coral's orb slowing down. She's having trouble. So am I. The pool isn't growing fast enough. We strain, pant, groan.

"You can do this!" Bako says from behind us.

Henry grunts encouragement.

"We can try!" I declare, taking Coral's hand.

A surge of energy passes between us. The same goes between our orbs. The mica are helping each other. We refocus and the water pours out stronger than before.

A small tidal wave rushes across the worm's head toward the gooey black brain matter, crashing into and encircling it. It flows into crevices and holes, including the spot where a root-like, hairy tuft reaches out to the vaporizing cannon, alight with electricity. A moment later, lines of electricity squirm across the water. Blue flames spark to life all over the brain. Smoke rises. Then the electricity fizzles out and the mica show me nothing but water flapping up against the edges of the head.

A chunk! echoes up the Worm. The low bass note of the cannon turns into a high-pitched scream. Then there's silence.

"It worked," Coral says in disbelief.

I open my eyes to find the exhaust pipe has dimmed to orange.

"You did it!" Bako cries.

"Oh, thank god," Coral says with emotion. She wipes her eyes, smiling through greenish tears.

Swept up in the moment, Henry reaches out and squeezes us together like an armful of puppies.

We burst out laughing, and I nearly fall off the plank.

"Okay!" Bako mutters. "Time to get back in the tunnel."

"What about the orbs?" I ask as we shuffle back.

"When it's over we'll send someone to get them," Bako answers.

On the way back upstairs, I notice that Coral used up many pages drawing streams of water. She was right about me—I dropped my pad off the plank.

"I did it again, didn't I?" I ask.

"What?" Coral says.

"Made without drawing anything."

She nods. "I guess it's just your way."

"I swear, it feels like I'm drawing. Some part of me is drawing. Just not my hands."

On the bridge, Bako and Henry take up the controls. "We have to get out of here," Bako says. "When Vishus realizes what's happened, he'll send ships."

He reverses the ship but it doesn't budge. He jams the control a few times, the ship wheezing.

"Considering the drill is lodged in twenty feet of xenite armor," Coral says, "you'll have to detach it from the ship."

"Oh." Bako elbows Henry, who pokes some switches.

There's a crunch.

"I think that was it," Bako says.

He reverses the ship and we hang above the fat end of the drill, noting how badly it chewed up the Worm's armor. Then we rise into the darkness.

As we climb, the vapor cloud thins into a snowfall of dust in the ship's spotlights. Soon we're going too fast to see anything.

Partway through the climb, I realize how gloomy we are. We saved Meer, but we don't know the fate of Petal City. Have the gratches taken over? How much have they destroyed? It's great that we stopped one Worm, but won't Vishus make another? These questions must weigh on everyone's minds.

After a while, Henry stands and reaches toward my head. He jerks his hand back, simpering. I can't figure out why until I see the shiny coin pinched between his enormous finger and thumb.

I think Henry pulled a coin out of my ear.

Coral claps. "Henry loves human magic tricks," she explains.

"Got any others?" Bako asks. "The room's a little dreary."

Henry nods. We watch in anticipation as he pulls a handkerchief from his satchel, which he flaps about. He stuffs the hankie into his fist, waits a moment, and flashes the hand open. The handkerchief is gone. He displays the palm of his other hand, also empty. Then he reaches into his fist and pulls out a string of hankies, all different colors.

"Good one!" I say. "That's how they do it on Earth."

Henry's eyes bulge with glee.

"There's no better compliment," Coral whispers.

When we reach the top of the burrow, Bako hovers the ship just below the rim. "Before we leave, I have a question. Where are we going?"

Coral and I exchange a look.

"I thought it was obvious," Coral says. "Petal City. To help fight the gratches."

"Too dangerous," Bako says. "The safest thing is to go back to the tunnel under Mount Pom. We can hide there until it's over."

"Well, that's a cowardly plan," Coral says.

"I thought you liked me as a guardian," Bako retorts. "Since I'm flying the ship, maybe my cowardly plan is the only option."

Coral folds her arms. "Not fair. We should vote."

"Hiding won't get us anywhere," I say.

"Are you an expert in guardianship?" Bako asks.

"Ha! Two against one!" Coral says. "Petal City it is."

"No, Petal City is going backward," I counter.

"Oh, is it?" she asks, a bit sharply. "How?"

"Petal City is overrun with gratches. Going there wouldn't do any good We're not soldiers. We're makers."

Coral chews her cheek. "Fine. I'm listening."

"What if we did the last thing Vishus expects? What if we went to him?"

Chapter 17

# Ship Alongside

"Nate might be onto something," Coral says.

"No," Bako grunts. He looks at Henry. "Back me up, here."

Henry purses his lips and lolls his head, as though he might be open to hearing more.

"How would it work?" Coral asks.

"I'm not sure," I answer. "But I wonder how long until Vishus launches another Worm. Who will save the next planet? We're it. The last makers. Wishnal, Grildina, and Peek were all captured. We have to stop him before it's too late."

"I'm hoping Dad and Stik saved his Grandness," Coral counters. "But point taken. We know Vishus's asteroid is orbiting Meer," she offers. "We could get to it. But the gratches would shoot us down or capture us."

"Hmm," Bako begins. "Not that I support this wildly inappropriate plan, but there's a way around that."

We look at him expectantly.

"Hypothetically speaking, you could pull a kishit tral on them."

"Bako! You came through!" Coral exclaims.

"What's a kishit tral?" I ask.

"It's a military trick," Coral answers. "It's hard not to learn those when your dad's a general. It goes like this: we get ourselves captured. But we go prepared, and use our capture as a cover to launch a surprise attack from within."

"Oh, like a Trojan Horse attack," I say. "I know about those. Well, my computer got a Trojan Horse virus once. I never should have downloaded that movie. So, in this case, us getting captured is the movie. But the gratches won't know we're actually a hidden virus, aiming to take them out."

As we consider, there's a blip on the tracking screen. Three red dots are coming our way.

"We better decide fast," Bako says. "The gratches are here. I still say we hide."

"Henry?" Coral asks.

He points up, then slams his fist into his hand. We get his meaning: he's for the asteroid plan.

"Nate?" she asks. "Going to the asteroid will be super dangerous. Are you sure you want to risk being captured by gratches?"

"My dad's on that asteroid. If we don't save him, who will?"

Coral furrows her brow. "Agreed. Mom, we're coming for you." She turns to Bako. "Three against one. You lose."

Bako grins slightly. "Let the record state I objected. But, since I'm outvoted, I'm dedicated to the mission. It won't be easy. We can't foresee everything that will happen. Be ready to improvise. We do know step one. Get captured without looking like we want to. Strap them in, Needle!"

With that, he slams the throttle, and the ship screams up out of the burrow into the dimming light of Meer's suns.

A jagged shape spits out of a rose-tinted cloud and streaks toward us.

"Taking evasive action," Bako says, sending us into a barrel roll. Thankfully, we're already strapped in.

We race away, careening around Mount Pom's peak and dipping into a ravine between it and a smaller mountain.

When we reach the end of the ravine, the other two ships await. Bako lets them close in, then scuttles up at the last second.

We rocket through clouds, the ship screaming with speed, emerging in space. We're greeted by an armada of shard-like ships, looking like a zero-gravity scrap yard.

"We put on a good enough show," Bako says. "They have us now. I might be able to slip away, around that command ship, if you've changed your mind."

"I'm not running," I say.

"Me neither," Coral agrees.

"That's it, then. We wait and plan our next move."

"Okay," Coral says. "Our next move. How do we make sure that when they capture us, they don't really capture us?" Coral asks.

"When they board the ship, there will be a lot of them and they will have weapons," Bako offers, appearing to think out loud. "They'll bind Henry and me in ripcord right away. If we try to take them out before they bind us, the gratches left on the ship will send an emergency signal. Then more will come."

"Then we wait until we're on their ship," Coral says. "Which means our only option is to have a plan for freeing Henry and Bako from the ripcord."

"If we had any orbs, we could make something," I mutter.

Henry raises a finger and says: "Ah!" He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a small black bag, which he tosses to me.

It takes me a moment to recognize it. "Is this what Wishnal threw to you back in the factory?" I ask, remembering the moment Wishnal got whisked away by gratches.

He nods, barely muffling a whimper.

The bag is velvet soft and holds what could be a large marble. I loosen the tie to find the bag filled with golden light.

"An orb," I breathe, taking it out. "A small one."

"The orblet!" Coral says. "Of course. Wishnal said the last harvest produced three orbs and one orblet. Orblets contain one billion mica. About one-tenth of the mica in an orb. Their size makes them easy to hide."

"This is it," I say. "Our way to free Henry and Bako." I drop the orblet in the bag and hand it back to Henry. "Hide this in your hand. Just like a magic trick."

Henry raises his eyebrows. "Hmmm?"

"Let them bind you. When they least expect it, I'll make a pair of xenite cutters." I hold up my mica pen. "The cutters will appear near the orblet. You grab them and cut yourself free. Ta-da! Surprise attack."

Just then, a boom rings through the ship and it shakes.

"Ship alongside!" Bako announces. "They've rammed us."

Henry holds up the bag and purses his lips, nodding.

"It could work," Coral says. "But, be careful with that orblet, Henry. It could burn you."

Henry waves his hand, indicating it's no big deal.

"They're setting up an air-lock tunnel between the ships," Bako says.

"Wait!" I blurt. "One last thing. How do I make xenite?"

"We all made it earlier," Coral says. "The Needle's drill was xenite."

"But you all knew what it was. Wishnal didn't teach me how to make materials I don't already know."

"It's true," Coral says. "You either have to know the material, or you need to hold a sample while making."

"Where am I going to get a xenite sample?" I ask.

"That's easy," Bako remarks. "Ripcord is xenite. When they bind you, you'll have your sample."

There's a boom.

"Get ready," Bako says as he and Henry get up from the controls and stand in front of Coral and me.

Heavy footsteps echo down the corridor.

I step closer to Coral, standing as tall as I can.

Moments later, ten gratches in clunky red space armor storm the bridge. They don't wear helmets, showing off hideous green faces with big yellow eyes and crooked mouths. Some have tufts of hair, others have horns, warts, or scales. They bark only one word through terrifying teeth: "Capture!"

They start with Henry, who makes a show of fighting back. I cringe as a huge gratch with five scars on his face wrestles him to the floor and wraps him in ripcord. Bako draws his turon, but allows the gratches to take it and bind him, after which a fat gratch knocks him over with a bounce from his belly and laughs.

A gratch with ornate armor, a shock of bristly blue hair, and a frizzy blue mustache gestures to Coral and me. "Capture!" he growls. "Capture!"

A short gratch with yellow horns ambles toward us as Mustache storms away, his minions dragging Henry and Bako. Using his finger to prod our backs, the horned gratch marches Coral and me behind the adults, barking, growling, and flashing teeth if we step out of line.

I glance at Coral, lifting my unbound hands.

"We're just kids," she whispers. "Not a threat."

I wonder how I'm going to make xenite cutters with no xenite ripcord on my wrists.

They take us through the air-lock tunnel into their ship, the inside of which is strange. Its corridors are like tunnels hacked into a solid block of metal. They seem to like pointy decorations. You wouldn't want to go running because you might impale yourself on a spike sticking out of a wall.

The maze of corridors leads to the bridge, where control boards flash all around, manned by five gratches sporting red jumpsuits. A viewing screen displays the fleet of gratchean ships clouding over Meer.

Mustache barks a command and a jumpsuit waves a small device over Henry and Bako, apparently with no effect. Mustache growls, pointing to Coral and me.

When the lackey holds the device over Coral's head, it beeps. "Maker," he mutters, sounding bored. He hobbles on to me, and the device beeps fast and loud. The gratch's eyes bulge, as though he has been knocked awake. "Wompa maker!"

Mustache stomps over and grabs the device, staring at the flashing lights, then at me. His mouth twists into a terrifying grin. "Wompa maker!" he announces, pounding his chest as drool runs down his face.

Just then, the screen beside the viewing window comes alive with static, resolving into the face of a gratch with a bushier and longer mustache than the captain's. It's dyed yellow, with little braids set with metallic spikes at the ends.

Mustache barks at him in Gratch, tripping over his words. "Wompa maker!" is spoken boastfully at least five times. A twisted grin appears on the face of Braided Mustache. He grunts and the screen turns to static.

"Get ready," Coral whispers.

I look at Henry, who has crouched. He catches my gaze and nods, inching sideways so I can see behind him. With deft magician's fingers, he works the orblet out of the bag.

I hold my breath when the bag drops away and the orblet's light comes into view. The gratches are too busy hooting and smashing their chest armor to notice.

Now I just need some ripcord. Bako and Henry are too far away or I would sidle up to them.

The gratch with the big belly comes toward us yawning. He bounces us out of the way and flops on a bench, closing his eyes. Coral grimaces at his breath. Then she elbows me and nods at the beast's middle. At first I don't get it, but then I see the ripcord dangling from his belt.

I raise my eyebrows. "Seriously?" I mouth.

She nods emphatically.

She's right. It's my only option. I nonchalantly shuffle back until I'm close enough to feel his belly heaving as he snores. Ever so slowly, I reach down to the ripcord, lifting it gently. The gratch snorts and rolls, jamming my arm between his belly and the wall. I cringe, but don't let go of the ripcord. I slip my other hand into my pocket, grip the mica pen, and close my eyes.

Chapter 18

# The Plan

I tune into the orblet, picturing a large, sharp pair of scissors, repeating xenite in my mind while squeezing the ripcord. I open my eyes to flashes in the shadow behind Henry. His brow scrunches and he drops the orblet. Coral's warning has come true—it's too hot. It bounces off the wall and rolls, but Henry flicks it back with a finger.

The dozing gratches haven't noticed the lights in the corner behind Henry. Then a crack rings through the bridge. Smoke rises, seemingly from Henry's head.

The gratches are jarred awake. The mustachioed captain leaps out of his seat and orders the others to action.

Sparks fly behind Henry, who grows more distressed each second. There's another crack, this one louder than the last, and Henry squeals. This is why we don't make without a making pod, I think.

The captain narrows his eyes at Henry. He points: "Gitchtaga!"

Just then, the fat gratch grabs my hand and tears it from the ripcord, burbling at me. The gratches glance at us, amused. I grab the ripcord again, just to keep their attention off Henry. Big Belly grunts and tries to get the cord back, but I pull back and forth, evading his scaly hand. The gratches point and laugh at the match-up of Big Belly and the Earthling kid. In anger, Big Belly pulls hard on the cord, and I let go. The gratch stumbles backward, thumps his head on the corner of a storage unit, and hits the ground. The gratches laugh so hard, a few fall over.

I glance at Henry. The making is done. He's wiggling around, grasping for the cutters with his bound-up hands. When he lifts them with two fingers, my heart sinks. They're a quarter of the size I meant to make them. I think back to my making lesson, when I couldn't make a big enough sphere. He drops them, then catches them again. They seem to be hot.

Tired of the comic relief, the captain grabs me by the shirt and lifts me off the ground. I'm sure he wants to crush my head like a melon.

"Catachaka! Kloochick mek itakee!" he barks in my face.

I peer at Henry, who works the tiny cutters back and forth with his fingers. It's like he's trying to cut a piece of barbed wire with a pair of nail scissors.

The gratch goes on yelling. I cringe, sure he's going to throw me or bite me or tear off my head. He raises his fist.

Instead of him thumping me, I fall. When I look for Mustache, I find him on top of the fat gratch I sent to the floor. Henry stands in his place, his arms freed of the ripcord, holding the tiny xenite cutters threateningly against challengers.

"Henry!" Coral cries. "You're on fire!"

Smoke rises from a flame in his lower back fur. Coral snuffs it out with the sleeves of her robe.

"Sorry!" I say.

He snorts, then corrals Coral and me in behind him.

Three gratches fan out in front of him, forcing him back on us, and us back into the wall. He gives off a primal growl that makes my neck hair stand on end. The gratches return growls, screeches, barks, shouts.

"Henry!" Bako shouts.

Henry tosses the cutters over the gratches to Bako, who catches them in an impressive sideways grip, his hand still bound to his leg.

Bako gives the cutters a baffled look, to which I shrug apologetically. Then he starts on the ripcord.

The gratches charge. Henry grabs two by the armor and smashes their heads together, then kicks out the third attacker's legs and throws him onto the pile of Mustache and Big Belly.

By the time Henry drops his attackers, Bako is free. A gratch comes at him, but in a move that amazes and sickens me, he sends the cutters spinning through the air into the gratch's eye. Bako leaps on his victim, knocks him out, and takes his blaster, which he uses to take out two more armored gratches.

The last armored gratch standing is the monster with the scars. He rushes Bako from behind, bodychecking him on a berserker path to Henry. Henry stands his ground, locking arms with the raging monster. The gratch soon learns that grappling with a Puskawatch is not a good idea. Henry flips up into a kind of handstand, wrapping his feet around the gratch's neck and his hands around his ankles. He then flips himself upright, at the same time turning his opponent on his head. Henry finishes the beast off by bouncing on his head like a pogo ball. When he lets go, the gratch's body crashes to the ground.

Finding themselves without any defenders, the gratches in jumpsuits advance on Henry, who is joined by Bako. Henry sends three flying with a swipe of the arm while Bako knocks out the other two with the butt of his blaster.

We glance at the fifteen gratches strewn around the bridge, knocked out cold, or worse.

I spot the orblet in the corner and scoop it up, dropping it in its bag. As I stand, the gratch with the cutters in its eye seems to stare at me with the good eye.

"Sorry about the cutters," I say to Henry and Bako.

Henry shrugs it off.

"Yeah, what was that?" Bako cracks. "I have bigger rear navel hair trimmers."

"Rear navel? Like, on your back?"

Bako nods like I can't possibly not have heard of a rear navel before.

"Look, I know. I haven't mastered size, okay?"

"Leave him alone," Coral says. "He made them, didn't he?"

"I'm just kidding," Bako says. "Sort of."

A gratch groans. Henry stomps its head.

This reminds us we don't have time to waste. We're in a gratchean ship, surrounded by hundreds of gratchean ships. Our lives are in danger, not to mention the fate of the other makers and possibly two planets is in our hands.

"Forget the cutters," I say. "Let's get to the asteroid."

"Nate's right," Coral agrees. "The captain already checked in with the command ship. They'll be expecting us to move."

"I'll see if I can get this scrap heap going," Bako says. "You three clean up this mess before they start waking up. Bound up in the brig should do."

Henry starts dragging gratches, motioning for us. We follow him down the maze-like corridor to a back room holding a cage with metal shards for bars. When he drops the gratches inside, we find out our job is to help wrap them in ripcord, a task that goes faster with more hands. When we return to the bridge, Bako announces that we're on our way. We take another seven trips to the brig with Henry, until every gratch is there in a big ball of ripcord and red armor. We discover that even the gratches that were shot with blasters are still alive. Their armor protected them. The one with the cutters in his eye is alive too. I suggest we take them out, but Coral says he might bleed. We decide to leave it alone. Henry slams the brig door shut and, using a pointy key hanging from a spike on the wall, locks them in.

When we're done, we take a breather on the bridge. We turn to the viewing screen, where gratchean ships stream to and from a huge, gray rock, pockmarked with craters and flat on the top.

"The asteroid," Coral gulps.

I get nervous as the asteroid grows larger. I can tell Coral is nervous too. I try to come up with something to distract us.

"Do our parents know each other?" I ask.

"Of course. They're good friends." She tears up. "Remember how I knew who you were when you first got here? Your dad told me all about you. My parents have had him for dinner more times than I can count."

Maybe it was a bad idea to bring up our parents.

"You were his favorite topic. And the drawings! When he was on Meer, he would draw pictures of you from memory. Lots of them. He said it made him less homesick."

"Really?" I turn away to hide my own tears.

Chapter 19

# Instructor Zin

We watch the asteroid grow until it fills the screen. In the middle stands a mountain with a curved peak.

"What is that?" I ask.

"The Claw," Coral says. "Vishus's lair. Wishnal was sure it is where he's holding the makers. Where they're making the Worms."

"How are we supposed to get in there?"

Coral scrutinizes each of us, as if weighing our particular strengths and weaknesses. Her eyes turn from Henry to me. A faint smile forms on her lips.

"Bako is going to wear that," she says, pointing to a suit of gratchean armor in a cupboard against the wall.

"Then what?" Bako asks from the controls.

"We go as your prisoners."

Bako turns to Henry. "Can you handle the ship?"

Henry tosses up his hands and groans as if to say, "Of course I can!"

"Okay, okay," Bako says, standing. "Had to ask. I'll only wear clean stuff," he remarks to Coral as he passes. "Nothing that stinks like gratch."

"Good luck with that," Coral says. She turns to me. "Tie me up."

I grab some ripcord left from the fight and begin wrapping her arms to her body.

"Leave my hands free."

When I finish, she begins walking ripcord around me with some difficulty.

Bako returns suited in gleaming red armor, a blaster holstered at his hip, the helmet under an arm. "I'll do that," he says, taking over from Coral.

Coral chuckles. "Nice look."

"It's your head compared to the armor," I giggle. "It looks shrunken."

Bako pulls the cord tighter than necessary. "Shrunken, huh? Like your xenite cutters?"

The ship rumbles, then evens out. Henry grunts, drawing our attention to the screen, which is covered in droplets.

"We entered the asteroid's artificial atmosphere," Coral explains. "The drops on the window are mist."

"The asteroid has an atmosphere?" I ask.

"An artificial one. It's kept in place by an invisible particle membrane no doubt made by the makers. The membrane is kind of like a waterfall—large objects like ships can pass through and the membrane's flowing particles fill in the hole right away."

Henry focuses on bringing the ship down on a vast, gray airfield lined with gratchean ships.

"Not bad," Bako says when we touch down safely. "Maybe you should have flown it under the mountain. Now come here." Henry stands, allowing Bako to wrap his arms to his body with ripcord.

"If there's a hint of trouble, pull free, grab the children, and get out," Bako says. "Don't worry about me. They are your priority."

Henry nods.

"Time to cover my shrunken head," he says, putting on the helmet, closing the visor, and drawing the blaster. Now he looks like a gratch. He falls in behind us as we march along the jagged corridor to the exit hatch, which whizzes open. We descend the ramp onto a field of chunky stones. Gratches move about lazily, working on their ships, snorting and rasping at each other, or just staring menacingly.

Bako leads us onto a path to the mountain. The first gratches we pass scowl. Bako barks something incomprehensible and kicks me on the backside.

"Had to," he whispers when we're past.

As we march, I tremble. We're completely alone on this asteroid crawling with thousands of vicious space monsters. I'm glad Henry has the lead in our lineup. If we're attacked, he'll protect us.

Suddenly, Henry stops. Coral bumps into him, I walk into her, and Bako crunches into me.

"Keep moving," Bako hisses.

Henry stares at a creature walking by. Coral watches it too, her eyes wide.

I'm no expert in alien species, but it's no gratch. It has light purple skin, slender shoulders, and a large nose like a bike horn. Its legs are short and thick, its feet huge. It also has a silver eye painted on its forehead, with a glowing red dot in the middle.

"Lishna Zin?" Coral says in Meerish. "Esha Coral!"

The creature passes, ignoring her.

"Who was that?" I whisper.

"Instructor Zin," Coral says. "My favorite teacher."

"Teacher? Like, making teacher?" I ask.

She nods.

Bako growls and we start moving.

"If he's a maker," I whisper, "why is he wandering around? I thought they were in a prison. No one's even watching him."

"I don't know," Coral answers. "There's something wrong with him. It's like he didn't even see us."

I look back, hoping to see the purple-skinned maker dashing for a ship. He stops at a ship, but not to escape. When the door opens, a gratch inside tosses a small creature at Zin, who catches it. My heart leaps. It's blue, with a heart-shaped head. Peek.

Zin sets him on his feet.

"Look!"

Coral turns.

"Slow down!" she hisses at Bako. "Zin's coming back."

Bako turns to find Zin marching toward us, Peek stumbling along behind him, his arms bound.

"Instructor Zin!" Peek shouts. "Instructor Zin! I'm taking your history of making class. Remember me?"

Zin doesn't answer. A passing gratch bares its teeth at Peek, who stumbles backward, falling. He rolls on the ground until Zin mechanically traces his steps, lifts him onto his feet, and goes on his way.

"Instructor Zin?" Peek calls weakly.

As we watch Zin and Peek, a large gratch storms up to us and gets in Bako's face.

"Katch tik witchnak taki!" it roars, gnashing its teeth.

Bako does his best impression of a gratch's snarl and nudges me forward with the butt of his blaster.

"He told Bako to get us to something called the 'marking' room," Coral translates.

"You speak Gratch?" I ask.

"Yep. Dad insisted on that one."

We go slowly, allowing Zin and Peek to catch up. When they're at our side, Coral turns. "Are you okay?"

"Coral!" Peek says. Then his voice deflates. "They caught you too."

"Where are Wishnal and Grildy?" she asks.

"I did not see," Peek answers. "They threw me on a ship alone. I waited for hours before leaving Meer. It seems logical that the adults would have been brought here on another ship."

"And Petal City?" Coral asks.

Peek shakes his head. "The battle was still on when I left. The gratches were winning."

Just then, with the coldness of a robot, Zin tucks Peek under an arm and keeps walking.

"It's okay, Peek," Coral calls. "We're here."

We follow Zin between jagged stone columns at the base of the mountain into a shadowy tunnel. It's a lot like the interior of the ships.

After some confusing turns, we come to a metal door, which Zin opens. We're greeted by three sneering gratches in red jumpsuits. Behind them is a line of metal tables with straps. Zin sets Peek in front of the gratches, one of which has yellow eyebrows and a horn beside its nose that could be a wart.

The gratch cups Peek's chin with a calloused hand, waving a maker-detector over his head. It beeps. "Maker," it grunts before rasping an order at Zin, who obediently lifts Peek onto a metal table as the other gratches strap him in.

The horned gratch glances at Henry skeptically and points the maker-detector at him. The meter is silent. "Maker?" the gratch asks Bako, pointing to Henry.

I get the impression only makers are supposed to be brought here, so if Henry's not a maker, it's a problem.

Bako nods vigorously. "Chee! Chee! Maker!" he barks in a low, gravelly voice.

The gratch bangs the maker-detector with his palm, then points it at Henry again.

From the side, I see Henry slowly wiggling free of the loose ripcord. The gratch steps closer, waving the detector back and forth.

"Cho maker!" the gratch spits, getting in Bako's face.

"Chee! Wompa maker!" Bako insists.

I expect Henry to step in at any moment, but he's struggling with a tangle in the cord.

I rush forward, getting as close as I can to the maker-detector. It beeps so fast, it sounds like it might blow up. The gratch's eyes bulge as it shakes the meter in disbelief. It stares at me with pure greed. Its eyes say: you are my prize.

"Wompa maker!" it blurts, yanking me toward him. "WOMPA MAKER!"

Chapter 20

# A Different Kind of Prisoner

The gratches shove and scratch over who gets to carry me to a table. In the end, all three take me, nearly pulling my arms and legs from their sockets. They toss me on the metal platform and strap me in. I lift my head to see if Henry is free yet.

Coral is helping him.

The horned gratch sees me looking and glances back. "Gutcha bootch? Yitch gutcha boo!" It storms toward Coral, but just as it grabs her arm, Henry breaks free and knocks the gratch against the wall.

The other two gratches clank around on a countertop behind the tables, oblivious to the skirmish. I turn my head enough to see one of them stick a long pair of tweezers into a glass jar of red sand. The other dips a rounded stick in a jar of thick silvery liquid. The first picks out a single red grain and holds the tweezers over Peek's left forehead, then the right, then, with a grunt, plants the grain on the crease in the middle.

The second gratch brings the stick, dripping with silver liquid, down on the grain in Peek's head, drawing a gooey eye over it.

The gratch with the tweezers next sets a grain on my forehead. The other one dips the goo stick and holds it over my head. A drop of the silver stuff hits my ear, but the brush never comes down. There's a blast and the gratch falls out of sight. I crane my neck and see Bako aiming his blaster my way. He pulls the trigger and the other gratch falls. Behind him, Henry holds the horned gratch against the wall by the throat.

"Peek! Are you okay?" I ask. The dot between his foreheads glows red. "Something's wrong. He's not answering."

"Peek," Coral says, going to his side. "Peek? Say something. Henry!" she calls across the room. "Don't knock out that gratch!"

She rushes to him and stares down the gratch.

"Gitch litchak pitch pitch?" she demands, surprising me with the loud, guttural speech. "Gitch litchak pitch pitch?" She pulls at the creature's huge armored boot, but can't budge it. With Bako's help, she undoes the locking straps and slides the boot off.

As Henry holds the gratch to the wall, Coral latches her hand to its wart-covered foot. Whatever she does, the gratch squeals.

"Gitch litchak pitch pitch?" she repeats.

The gratch answers this time. "Atch! Cho! Cho!" it wails.

I see now that Coral is pinching its small toe. "Chee! Chee!"

It jangles its head. "Pitch schicka! Itcha wotchka."

Coral turns to us. "He says the red dot controls their minds. The silver stuff activates the implant and marks them as controlled."

Zin, who previously stood unmoving in the corner, steps forward and unstraps Peek. He slides off the table, his eyes empty, and charges.

"Look out!" I call.

Seeing Peek coming his way, Bako opens his arms. He's shocked when the blue alien grabs his blaster.

Zin shuffles around behind me, appearing with the jar of silver paint. He holds the stick over my head and lets a cold, goopy drop hit my forehead.

"Help!" I shout, knowing when the silver stuff hits the red dot, I'll lose control of my mind too.

After some tug-of-war with Peek, Bako gets control of the blaster and aims it at Zin.

"No!" Coral screams.

Bako grits his teeth and pulls the trigger. The stick coming down on my head blows to bits. Zin yelps and pulls back his hand. Bako races across the room, tackling Zin to the ground.

"Now, Henry!" Coral cries. "Knock him out!"

Henry thumps the horned gratch against the wall and lets him drop. He then leaps, grabs a light fixture hanging from the ceiling, and swings, sailing past my head onto Zin and Bako.

Coral restrains Peek with a bear hug.

After some grunts and thumps on the floor, Henry appears beside me and pulls off my straps. I rub the middle of my forehead, peeling off the red dot. I examine it, but it's so small, I can't make out anything except the color. I toss it away. Coral has wrestled Peek toward the tables. Henry scoops him up and sets him on one, where Bako straps him in.

"What now?" I ask. "They're mindless robots."

"All this time, we imagined the makers in an actual prison," Coral says. "But it's their minds that are imprisoned. Our task is bigger than we thought. We aren't just busting them out of jail. We have to free them from the mind control."

I pick at the glowing red dot in the center of the silver eye on Peek's head. It doesn't budge, and Peek cries out in pain.

"Wait!" Coral grabs my wrist. "It's burrowed in his skin. It must extend into his brains."

Bako picks up a walnut-shaped device from the countertop. "This should tell us," he says. "It's a battlefield brain scanner," he says when Coral gapes at him.

"I know what it is," Coral says. "I'm shocked you can use it."

"What can I say? Started my military career as a medic. Maybe if you spent less time defying me, you would get to know me."

Coral rolls her eyes as Bako holds the scanner over Peek's head, a band of light shining down on it. A three-dimensional image of Peek's brain—or, rather, his two brains—is projected into the air.

"There it is," Coral says, pointing to the line where the brains meet, which is kind of like a ravine with long grass—the grass being the brain connections, I guess. "Do you see it?"

The image shows a red blob with a mess of lines dangling down from it like spiderwebs, connecting to the grassy parts of the brains.

"Whatever it is, it's anchored to his synapses," Bako says. "Deeply anchored. We can't possibly remove it without damaging his brain. We can't see it, really. This scanner doesn't zoom in enough to show us any detail."

We stand in silence.

Coral looks at me. "Remember how we found the weakness in the Worm? How we used the mica to peer into the design?"

"Yes," I say, "but this isn't some big machine. This thing is tiny. We can't even see it without the scanner."

"Did the Grand Scientist ever tell you how small mica are?" Coral asks.

"Super small," I say. "Microscopic."

"Right. We learn in making school that mica are so tiny, they can be used to make things that are invisible to the naked eye. That's because they build with molecules and atoms, even particles. To them, something that's twenty feet tall isn't different from something a micron in length. It's all work they do one molecule at a time."

"So we should be able to find a weakness in the implant the same way we did with the Worm."

"Yes. Only I don't mean us. I mean you. It took me forever to connect to the Worm."

"But it's lodged in Peek's brain. What if I make a mistake and hurt him? It's too risky."

"You have to try," she insists. "It's not just for Peek. It's for Zin, and all the others. Freeing the makers is the point of coming here. Otherwise, we might as well pick up that stick and paint our own foreheads with silver eyes, because we have lost."

I pull out my mica pen and the orblet. "Okay. But we do it together. I need your help."

"I don't see what I can do."

"Guide me. You have all the knowledge about making that I never learned. Now, where do I put the orblet? I don't want to hurt him."

"It's best if it touches." She takes the orblet and holds it against the dot on Peek's forehead. "Just don't make anything," she says. "I don't need to tell you, Peek and I will both get hurt if you do. For now, you're just connecting with the mica and looking at the device."

I nod. "Got it. Burning you. Brain-damaging Peek. At least there's nothing that could go wrong here."

"Like you said before. Forget that. Forget everything and connect to the orblet."

My hand shakes, but Coral's voice calms me and helps me focus. I close my eyes and right away have an image of a bizarre spider with hundreds of long, dangly legs, which themselves branch off into other legs. "I think I have it."

"You're connected?"

"Yes. I see a red dot with little squiggles coming down from it. Like a spider. Lots of legs. They're moving. It's creepy."

"How many legs does it have?" Coral asks.

I zoom in closer to find thousands of squiggles. The sphere I took to be the spider's body isn't round. It's more like a mound, or a half-moon, and the squiggles are more like tentacles than legs, hollow ones, filled with light. Something about it is familiar.

"It's not really a spider. It reminds me of something else. A jellyfish."

"I don't know what that is," Coral says. "An earthen sea creature, I think."

Just then, an eye in the jellyfish's back opens, staring straight at me. It almost startles me out of the vision.

My mind reels back to Earth, Mom and Ted, my report card. I see my drawing book, open on the kitchen table. There it is. The one-eyed jellyfish with the lighted tentacles. The drawing that made me think I lost my mind.

"I know what it is!"

"What?" Coral asks.

"I mean, I don't know what it is, but I've seen it before. I drew it the day I came to Meer."

"That means you've connected to it before. That should make this easier. Look for a weakness. Anything that might help."

I focus more closely on the jellyfish than on any vision I've drawn. I follow the tentacles, but they're too messy, take too many paths. I zero in on the jellyfish itself, its glaring eye. I go down, to a braided cord hanging from the body. The tentacles anchor to this cord.

"I might have something. The tentacles come from a cord attached to the body."

"That's good," Coral says. "Bako? Is it something?"

I open my eyes as Bako uses the scanner to zoom in on the implant. "This thing doesn't go in that close."

"Based on your description," Coral says, "maybe the body sends signals down the cord to the tentacles, which in turn send them to the victim's brain. If that's it, cutting the cord may free him."

"She could be right," Bako says. "He'll still have microscopic tentacles in his brains, but maybe he'll be himself again. Once this is over, our neurosurgeons should be able to extract the foreign matter from his brains without harming him."

"How do I cut it?" I ask.

"You can't," Coral answers. "Even if you could build a tiny pair of cutters, who would use them? We would have to build a microscopic intelligent machine to do the cutting. But could we be sure it would do the job properly? It's impossible."

I see how hopeless it is, but some deep, stubborn part of me won't give up. I close my eyes, tuning into the mica pen and orb again. I stare at the jellyfish and another image emerges. It's a group of mica. They fly around like birds playing. Then they form a line.

The mica are trying to tell me something. I don't want to say it out loud. I breathe.

"Nate?" Coral asks. "The orb is glowing brighter. What are you doing? You can't make! You'll burn us!"

As I focus, a curtain parts in my mind. I sense one of the mica in the pen tip clearly, as though it's standing next to me, or is a part of me, even. We are one thing, and yet it is itself and I'm me. I know and feel things that only the mica knows and feels.

It's the first time I fully understand that they are living organisms. They are not sparkly comet dust. They are creatures with feelings and thoughts and bodies. Their feelings and thoughts are completely different from mine. In connecting to them, I access an entirely different world.

Hello, I hear. It's a voice nestled in my ear, clear and present.

"Hi," I say.

"Nate?" Coral asks. "Who are you talking to?"

Chapter 21

# We Need You

No need to use your mouth, it says. The voice is rich, the sound a pleasant vibration. It will only confuse your friends.

Oh. This time, I think the word.

You broke through, the voice says. It has been a long time since someone broke through.

Broke through what? I ask.

The barrier between your mind and ours. You have joined with us. You see what we see, feel what we feel, know what we know.

You are the mica, right?

You are mica too, now.

I need to help my friend. His mind is trapped.

Yes, the voice says.

Can you help? I ask when it doesn't say more.

No.

No?

Mica don't help. Mica don't do. Not on their own. Mica know. Mica receive. Mica respond. You must direct mica, then we help, then we do.

But I don't know how to direct you. The mind-control device is too small. I don't know what to ask you to make.

Always make, it says, almost scornfully. Why always make? Anything is possible.

What else can you do?

Know what mica know, and you will have the answer.

I take this to mean asking questions isn't getting me anywhere. I fall silent and breathe, relaxing into the experience of the mica. The mica gives itself over to my thoughts and I'm sucked deep into its reality. What it knows is so strange and beautiful I can't describe it. Layers upon layers of images, flowing in and out of each other. The images are made of dots of light, and I can look at the dots or the whole, going back and forth between them. When I move toward a point of light, it becomes another image, also made of dots. It's an endless game. The mica in the pen connects to the mica in the orblet by vibrations carrying images.

I pause to look at the mica themselves. They have long bodies with a single ring-shaped wing around them that pulsates to make them fly. It never occurred to me that they would have a wing, but it makes sense. They fly while making.

As I pass between mica, heat comes from them in waves. Wishnal said their glow is an exchange of energy.

How hot do you get? I ask.

Anything is possible. Any heat is possible.

Hot enough to cut something?

There's no response. I already know the answer is yes.

Having crossed into the mica network, it's effortless to send them into action. I send a hundred mica soaring out of the orblet toward Peek's head. When I do so, my awareness expands into all of them at once. I'm disoriented, seeing the world through so many eyes.

Don't get caught up in all our viewpoints, the voice says. We need your direction, but you do not need to control us. Simply give us your will and let us work.

I take a breath and focus on a single mica, the leader in the flight. The rest follow at the edges of my awareness. I direct the group to the red dot on Peek's head, down to the braided cord linking the jellyfish to the tentacles. We—the mica—stop near the strand and arrange in a line.

I don't know how to do the next part, I say.

We do, the mica answers. But we need you. We have wisdom gained from eons of existence. We have intelligence and knowledge. We have strength. But we have no will. We need yours.

It's terrifying that all of this rests on my shoulders. What if I don't will them the right way? What if I damage Peek's brain?

We need you, it repeats. Focus.

The pressure builds until I realize the more I try, the less focused I am. I need to let go. I need to breathe and relax and forget everything. When I calm down enough to do so, everything falls away. Not just my worries. I don't even know who I am, let alone where I am. It's all just light and the sensation of space, with a single, vivid image of the mica line heating up and passing through the tentacle cord.

"Nate? Coral?" It's Peek's voice.

"Peek!" Coral cries. "You're back! Nate, it worked! Whatever you did, it worked! Can you do Instructor Zin now? I'm putting the orblet on his forehead."

Coral's voice is jarring. I fall back into myself, which is like crashing to the floor after a dream of flying. I'm aware Peek is free. Relief washes over me and pride surges inside me. In moments, I've lost touch with the mica.

It's okay, the voice says. There's no rush.

I take a deep breath, then another.

I'm not sure how I did it, I admit. It was a fluke. I don't think I can get it back.

There's nothing to get, it answers. What you experienced, the nothingness, is your nature. Just be what you are.

A maker? I ask.

Call it maker. Call it nothing.

The mica's voice knocks away my anxiety and self-doubt. It's like I'm stumbling backward off a cliff, and all I have to do is not grab the edge—just let myself fall. The fear is intense, but I don't hold on.

I fall into the vastness. Soon enough the mica are there, heating up and knifing through the braided cord in Instructor Zin's head.

Coral's jubilant voice pulls me away again. I open my eyes to find Peek getting off the table and Bako helping unwind Instructor Zin from ripcord.

Coral looks at me in a funny way. "How did you do that?" she asks. "The orb didn't heat up—it just glowed."

"I can't explain it," I answer, which is the truth. "The mica spoke to me. Then they cut the strands. I asked them to, I think."

Coral looks confused. "You made microscopic cutters and somehow were able to use them?"

I shake my head. "I didn't make anything. The mica cut the strand by heating their bodies."

Coral's eyes have widened past confusion to fear. "What do you mean? You must be mistaken."

Zin groans as Bako helps him up. "Aktaka!" he cries like a maniac. "Akta bikta oio ooi pika piktaka!"

"Zin," Bako says. "Zin!" He grabs his shoulders.

"Bako?" Zin says, his face softening. He turns to the furry creature towering over him. "Henry?"

Henry shows his big teeth.

"Piktoo tak tak grika grak?"

"You don't need to speak Gratch anymore, friend," Bako says. "The spell is lifted. Thanks to our Earth friend." He gestures to me. "Meet Nate Smith."

Zin looks at me, stunned, then lifts me in a hug. "Nate Smith! It's you! Your father will be overjoyed!"

"You know Dad?"

Zin nods, his dark eyes glinting with tears, which run down his face. "Don't mind me. I'm thurmite. We cry as often as we breathe. Yes, I know your dad. He guest lectures at the Meerish Making Academy. And you, Nate, are the most precious thing in the universe to him. He talked about you all the time. He showed anyone who would look his drawings of you."

I tear up too.

"It's okay. Thurmites have an emotional effect on other species." Zin sets me down. "It's like I already know you."

Coral dabs my tears with the sleeve of her robe.

"Coral!" Zin hugs her, his tears starting again. "My favorite student! Your mother will be thrilled."

Coral smiles, green-tinted tears now dripping down her cheeks. "Mom's okay?" she asks.

"Yes, she's okay. We're all okay. Just brainwashed."

He sets her down and turns. "Come here, you rascal!" He scoops up Peek.

"It's a miracle you freed us," Zin says to me. "I don't understand how you did it. The mica spoke to you, you say?"

I nod.

"I have never in all my years as a making instructor heard of mica saying a word. I didn't realize they can speak."

"I wish the Grand Scientist were here," Coral says. "He would know what it means."

Zin shakes his head. "I'm not so sure. Wishnal and I went through making school together. If he knew of such a thing, he would have told me."

"You can study Nate later," Bako interjects. "Right now, we need to get moving."

"The curiosity of the scientific mind is difficult to turn off," Zin counters. "But Bako is right. We must go. What's the plan?"

"To rescue the others," Coral says.

"Clearly. But how?"

"You can start by telling us where they are," Bako says.

Zin's shoulders crumple.

"Is it that bad?"

"Are they hurt?" Coral asks.

"It's not that. It's what he forces us to do. As we speak, the others are in the cavern preparing to make a terrible machine."

"Another Worm," Coral utters. "That's what they're making, isn't it?"

"Worm?" Zin asks. "Ah, I can see why you call it that. Vishus calls them Planet Wobblers. You know about the other two?"

"One hit Vot. The other Meer."

"I never knew the targets. Tell me you stopped them! They are made to generate extinction events."

"We saved Meer," Bako says. "But Vot..." He shakes his head.

The tears well in Zin's eyes again. He looks at Peek. "I'm so sorry, child. I'm so sorry." Zin's tears even affect the ever-stoic Peek. A single tear creeps down his blue face and the line of his mouth quivers.

"They will start making soon," Zin says. "They're waiting on more mica. The stocks were drained on the last Worms. I overhead the gratches. Today, they got a large harvest. Enough mica to produce three Worms."

"The comet!" I say. "The one Whiff and Biff harvested from. We were chased away by gratchean ships."

"That must be where they got it," Zin says.

"Can you lead us to the making area?" Bako asks.

Zin nods. "But everyone needs a mark." He points to the eye on his forehead then picks up the jar of silver goo. Since the stick was blown up by Bako, he sticks in a finger. "Without the red implant, this is just a mark. The eye will make the beasts ignore you."

"I don't need it," Bako says when Zin tries to finger paint on him. "I'm staying in the suit."

"Right. As you saw, I've been fetching new arrivals and prepping them. There will be no need for you to lead us. You walk behind us and act like you happen to be going in the same direction. The gratches will think I'm taking new recruits to the making cavern."

Zin smears a silver eye on Coral's forehead, then on mine. The goop is cold and sticky. Henry lowers his head, and Zin draws an eye on the fur of his ledge-like forehead.

"And that's the last time this goop will ever make another evil mark," Zin says, drawing Bako's blaster from its holster and firing. The jar explodes. He fires another shot at the jar of mind implants, which bursts into flame, black smoke rising as the red grains melt on the countertop.

He hands the blaster back to Bako. "Now, we go. Remember, you are robots that do what they are told. The slightest hint of a personality will tip them off that something is wrong."

We follow Zin into the corridor, and Bako pops out a few moments later. Zin leads us through a jagged tunnel, deep into the mountain. The first time a gratch passes, I stare at the back of Peek's head and try to be a zombie. The beast doesn't even glance at us. We meet more gratches, which also don't notice us.

We walk in single file for ten minutes, not talking or daring to glance sideways. The dark passageway ends in a cavern so massive, I can't see the top or any walls, just darkness where the lighting ends. It reminds me of the factory back in Petal City, but the lighting here has an eerie, reddish tint. Fifty feet ahead is a row of making pods that goes off in either direction in a long curve. It's the outer row of at least ten others. Inside each pod crouches a maker, staring at the smooth black rock floor.

"Atch!" a gratch shouts at Zin. "Atch!"

Zin goes where he's directed, away from the making pods. The gratch snarls at us as we follow.

Each of the hundreds of making pods holds a crouching alien. Many are meerish, I recognize some votians, there's another like Zin, and the rest I've never seen before. A voice booms from a loudspeaker.

"Itch ka titcha! Trakka trak!"

A moment later, three glowing balls plummet like meteors from the darkness high in the cavern. They land in front of the makers, bounce, roll, and spin. What I at first thought were fireballs I now understand to be huge mica orbs, each as tall as me. The loudspeaker booms again and the makers spring into action. Like robots, they raise stone shards with glinting points and scratch at the smooth rock.

Chapter 22

# The Third Planet Wobbler

As the makers scratch images of the Worm into the floor with their crude mica pens, the orbs come to life. Clouds of mica pour into the air, sparking, sending out waves of electric light, making explosions. I duck when a bolt of electricity zings overhead. The heat is unbearable and my hair stands on end. I realize there's no making dome. The makers are protected in their pods, but bystanders aren't. The mica cloud is a few hundred feet long and keeps spreading.

"Nate!" I hear. Bako is at my side, pulling my shoulder.

I realize the others have gone ahead. I follow him to a rock outcropping, in whose shelter the others hide, mesmerized by the display. In the flashing lights, I see that the outcropping is a tower with a lone figure on top, waving his hands at the makers.

Thunder claps, explosions, smoke. All the normal making sights and sounds fill the cavern, except bigger and louder than usual. It's like being in an electrical storm, an erupting volcano, and a war zone. It's dark behind the tower. Two gratches lean against the wall nearby, hypnotized by the show. Bako stands guard, blaster drawn.

"Who's up there?" I ask.

Zin motions for everyone to lean in. "On the tower? It's Vishus, feeding the makers his twisted ideas. They can't help but make what he wants. That's the real power of the mind implants. They give him control over our visions and our making power."

I seethe with anger. The idea of Vishus controlling so many makers sickens me. And one of them is Dad.

Something inside me snaps.

"Shoot him!" I shout. "Now!"

When Bako doesn't act, I grab his blaster, aim up, and fire. The shot bounces off some kind of barrier—a making pod, no doubt. The figure doesn't even notice with the lightning and sparks.

Bako yanks the blaster away.

"We'll stop him," Bako cries. "But you're going to get yourself killed!"

"One step at a time," Zin cautions, more calmly than Bako. "Behind us—do you see them?"

In the shadow of the tower lies a pile of people—meerish, and other aliens. It's hard to make them out.

"Makers," Zin says. "Exhausted. They were probably on ripcord- or ship-making duty. Vishus works his makers to the point of passing out. They will be allowed to rest for a few hours, then forced to make again."

"We should wake them," I say. "Tell them we're here to save them."

"They'll attack us," Coral answers.

"She's right," Zin confirms. "You have to deactivate their mind implants before we wake them."

I squint at the pile. There are at least ten, all jumbled up. Some rest, I think.

"Can you do it?" Coral asks.

"I'll try."

I crawl to a maker who looks meerish and set the orblet by her head. The making racket and my anger make it impossible to focus.

"Stop, breathe, focus," Coral says. She has followed me. "There's no rush. We're hidden."

I nod, keeping my eyes closed.

I breathe in, out, in, out. Long, deep breaths. Everything goes blank, the noise of the cavern fading.

You're back, the mica says.

I need your help again.

Mica don't help.

I know. It's just—there are a lot of makers to free this time.

Anything is possible. The less you know, the closer you will come to infinite possibilities.

At first I struggle. The less I know? It doesn't make sense. I need to know how to rescue all these makers. It occurs to me that maybe that's what it means. The impossibility of the task at hand is one of the things I know, and it's stressing me out. So I need to unknow it.

I breathe, letting go of saving these makers, of our mission to save planets, of the idea of saving Dad, of any idea of myself. I'm nothing. I'm falling then rising through darkness into the vision-reality of the mica. I merge with the mica in my pen, then broaden my awareness to the orb. Next, I do what I knew to be impossible. Using my will, I summon ten mica to each call on ninety-nine. The result is ten strings of a hundred mica. I direct these to the heads of the makers, heat up the chains, and send them slicing through the main cord.

Something goes off-kilter. It's like I've been tightrope walking between two buildings and just noticed how high I am. I lose balance and clamp up. I can't find my way back to the mica or to myself. There's flashing, shooting pain in my head, inky darkness between the flashes. It's like being caught in a looping nightmare.

Some part of me remains conscious. At the edges of the nightmare is something stable, something light and good. I feel my way toward it, focusing on that thread of calm, letting it guide me back.

I open my eyes to find myself lying on the stone floor with aliens staring at me. It's the makers I freed. The meerish woman I crouched next to cradles my head.

"Nate?" she whispers. "We lost you for a minute. Are you okay?"

I nod.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I answer. "How do you know my name?"

"Coral told me." She looks at Coral.

"This is my mom," Coral says. "You saved her."

They look alike. "Hi..."

"Rena," she answers.

"Rena."

"How did you free us?" a maker with glow-in-the-dark spots asks.

"I talked to, uh, the mica. They— It's hard to explain."

"But if you show us how," the maker persists, "we can help the others."

I open my mouth but stop short of answering.

"There's a strand that connects the mind implant to your brain," Coral jumps in. "Nate cut this strand. How he did it is a mystery."

"What did you make, child?" the spotted alien asks. Her spots change from light green to pink. "Share the drawing with us and we will connect with the form."

"There is no drawing," I say, more sharply than I mean to. "I didn't make anything. I sent the mica to cut the strands. And they did."

Her spots swirl red.

"He's confused," a maker with gray fur and a flat beak interjects. "Give him time to gather his thoughts."

"I'm not confused," I say. "The mica cut the strand by heating their bodies. That's what freed you."

"But, how is that possible?" the spotted maker asks. "I have never heard of mica doing anything like this."

I shrug. "You're free, aren't you? So it worked."

They stare at me, stunned, fearful.

"It doesn't matter how he freed us," the beaked maker says. "We need to make a device to extract the implant from the others. We can't expect the child to do it all himself."

Coral shakes her head. "It's too dangerous. The strands linking to the brain are microscopic filaments. Even if we can envision a device, it would be too small for most makers to manage. And would you want to try it out on your friends? What if it damages the brain?"

"Then how do we free the others?" the spotted maker asks. "The boy doesn't look like he can do any more."

"I'll pace myself," I say. "Do them one at a time if I have to."

Just then, a thundering horn rattles the air.

"The Planet Wobbler is done," Rena gasps.

"It's our chance," Zin urges. "The makers will move to a holding room for the launch."

"If all the makers will be in the same place," Coral says, "Nate can start changing them."

The horn sounds again, vibrating the floor.

"We should join the exit," Rena says.

"Wait!" Coral blurts. "If Nate changes the makers one at a time, the brainwashed ones will attack the freed ones. It won't work."

"We'll figure it out," Zin says.

Peeking out from behind the tower, we see making pods retracting and makers leaving the area. In the background is a long, dark shadow. The Worm.

A few gratches stand here and there, lazily watching the makers. One gratch kicks a maker, seemingly just for fun.

My heart swells. I recognize this unlucky person. "Dad!" I shout, bursting from the group, weaving between makers toward him.

Heat whizzes past my face. A blaster shot just missed my cheek. A moment later, sparks explode from a gratch and he crashes to the floor. I turn to see Bako lowering his blaster. When I turn back around, it's to find another gratch in my face. It lifts and shakes me, blathering like a crazed animal, its saber-like teeth inches from my eyes.

Before I react, I'm knocked to the ground as Henry smashes the gratch in the head and hurls it across the floor. It slides toward a maker bumbling along as if nothing happened. It's Dad. When the gratch hits his legs, Dad looks our way, takes its blaster, and points it at Henry.

"Dad!" I shout.

He aims at me and fires, missing so badly, it hits the tower twenty feet up. It misses, but it's like a slap in the face.

Henry clicks his tongue, catching Dad's attention. He fires, again missing. It's a good thing Dad is a hopeless shot. Unfazed, Henry dangles his satchel and swings it back and forth. Dad's head moves with the satchel, so absorbed that his blaster-holding arm drops. Henry slips his free hand into the satchel and pulls out the endless handkerchief. Dad can't look away.

Next, Henry takes out a deck of cards and launches into a dazzling show. He shuffles the deck, spreads the cards, flips one through the air and catches it, splits the deck and shuffles one-handed in both hands, then fires the cards in a rainbow. Dad watches Henry's card tricks in blank awe.

"Go on," Coral whispers. "It's your chance."

I pull out my mica pen and orblet. My heart pounds. In seconds, Dad will be free.

I raise the pen.

I don't get to finish. A small craft swoops down from the air, hovering over Dad as a clear sphere, like a making pod but fully round, grows out of it, encasing Dad. Then the craft whizzes away, carrying the bubble holding Dad away.

"They've got him!"

I watch, devastated, as the craft whisks him up and away.

Henry tosses his cards, rushes to me, flings me on his back, and leaps into the air, clinging to the wall of the tower Vishus stands on top of. I cling to his fur as he climbs, covering fifty feet in seconds.

Without warning, Henry pushes away from the tower. My stomach flies into my throat as we soar. I can't see what he will possibly land on, until he wraps his arms around the sphere holding Dad.

The craft dips under our weight, adjusts, and keeps climbing. Henry's arms just reach around the sphere, which bends in the middle. Dad sticks the gun against the wall, pushing the nozzle up against Henry's nose.

"No!" I scream as he pulls the trigger.

Chapter 23

# Vishus

There's an explosion and the sphere fills with smoke. It takes me a second to realize Henry is okay. The smoke dissipates to reveal Dad against the curved wall, his eyes wide. The sphere reflected Dad's shot into the blaster, blowing up the end, which is frayed.

"Dad! Are you okay?"

He's dazed, but breathing.

The craft has carried us to the top of Vishus's tower. Suddenly, the sphere turns to jelly, depositing us all in a heap. Looking up, we find ourselves at the feet of a creature that could be a gratch, except the face is smooth and refined. The eyes don't bulge crazily—they are slender, and appear intelligent. The nose isn't just two holes—it has a shape. Vishus wears a metallic headdress with a shard sticking up from the forehead like an antenna. An eye is engraved in red at the base of the antenna. It gives me a familiar creepy sensation, and I realize it's the same lidless eye on the jellyfish implants.

"Aww, is Nate upset he couldn't save his daddy?" Vishus sneers.

With a snarl, Henry lunges. Vishus flings out a whip, which wraps around Henry's arm and sends him a jolt of blue electricity. Gritting his teeth, Henry pulls Vishus toward him like a fisherman reeling in a catch. Frantic, Vishus jiggles a knob on the whip's handle. The whip gets twice as bright. Smoke rises from Henry's arm and he drops to his knees, then flops forward, shuddering.

"Henry!" I cry, shaking him. I turn on Vishus. I've given Ted some nasty looks, but those were childish anger. For the first time, I know hatred.

I charge, but don't go two steps. I flail as I'm lifted, looking up to find Dad staring down at me.

"Don't bother fighting," Vishus says. "He will just hold you tighter."

I go limp.

"You won't win," I seethe.

"Since you say so, maybe I should give up." Vishus smiles in a sickening way that shows off sharp, uneven teeth. "If you are referring to your little band of friends, don't worry, they will be rounded up shortly."

I sneer back.

"You have no doubt heard terrible things about me. Let me assure you, all of them are true. The things you haven't heard are worse. It's quite something. Famed maker Philip Smith protecting me from his own son. I'm sure he never expected it would come to this. For all his genius as a neurologist and skill as a maker, your dad is not very bright."

As he talks, I creep my hand into my pocket, slipping out the mica pen.

"Philip!" Vishus barks.

Dad grabs the pen.

"And the other thing," Vishus orders.

Dad reaches into my pocket and pulls out the orblet. Squeezing my arm, he hands both to Vishus.

"Ah, mica." He holds up the glowing orblet. "Such a rare species. Did you know there are only thirty-seven known mica-growing comets in the entire universe? That might sound like a lot, but it's not. This orblet hardly has any mica at all, and yet it's so precious."

"What's your point?"

He grins, savoring my frustration. "My point? Only that my possession of this orblet is a devastating loss to the Grand Scientist. Every time I gain mica, it is a devastating loss to him. Soon, I will have all the mica. I already have most of his makers. And that is all thanks to good old Dad here."

"He can't help it. You control his mind!"

"But how?" he asks. "I'm no maker. I tried, but alas I didn't have the talent. I didn't make the mind-control implants, or this antenna to broadcast my visions." He taps the shard. "Someone had to make the first implant. And this is not your run-of-the-mill mind-control device. To co-opt a being's making power takes a device too ingenious for most makers to even conceive of."

"What are you saying?"

"You know what I'm saying, child. Your beloved daddy, the brilliant neurologist, made the first device."

"You're lying. Dad would never help you."

"Protesting doesn't change the truth."

"Then you did something horrible to him," I mutter.

"Yes, but he resisted the normal tortures. When he broke, it was surprisingly easy. I just had to understand my opponent. One day, I had a brainwave. He doesn't care about himself. It's his family he cares about. I sent my stealthiest soldier to plant a simple mind control device in a rather large and angry human named Ted, who worked at a construction site in a city called Greenview. This soldier also put a device on a woman named Christine Smith who worked at a bank nearby."

"Mom," I breathe.

"Nothing as complicated as the jellyfish. It's a common device that works on most species, including humans—those that aren't makers. It blocks positive thoughts and emotions, emphasizes fear and anger. And it allows me to plant ideas in their minds—ideas they act on, believing them to be their own. I controlled it all from here." He points to a screen on a console a few feet away. It shows Mom and Ted at the kitchen table, eating meatloaf. The camera jerks around and emits a high-pitched buzzing sound, like a fly on steroids.

I gasp, realizing what's going on. "That fly. It's your spy!"

Vishus chuckles. "You're sharper than your dad. I soon had them dating. Then I had Ted move in. The most delicious part was giving updates to your dad. I explained that at any moment I could make Ted hurt Christine, or you, or both. He broke that instant, agreeing to make a device to gain control of a maker's power. The jellyfish implant. He insisted it would only work on him. Pathetic. He must have understood I knew otherwise. He would do anything to protect your mom and you. He couldn't sacrifice you, not for all the makers on Meer. He was weak. And he didn't protect you. Here you are, in grave danger, and your mom is no safer."

Rage overwhelms me. I yank free of Dad and rush at Vishus. He flicks his wrist, lashing the whip around my legs, sending me to the floor.

He clucks his tongue. "Tut, tut, Nate. You're just like your father in so many ways. You don't get it. You have no power here. I'm in control."

I start unwinding the whip.

"Oh bother," he says, pressing the whip handle, firing up the electricity.

A painful vibration jolts my legs, knocking me flat on the stone.

"Do you get it yet, Nate? I'm in control."

He slips the orblet and pen into his pocket and shuffles over to the console. "Now, I had something important to do. What was it?" He moves his finger over the console, holding it above a red button. "That's right, I was going to press this, launching the third Planet Wobbler."

"Where?" I demand.

"You must know. The Grand Scientist would have figured it out. Vot, Meer...Earth. Three life-bearing planets all in a row."

My heart sinks. "Even if you get Earth, we saved Meer."

"You think you're clever, frying the main circuit of my Planet Wobbler? That is easily fixed by the maintenance team I sent thirty minutes ago. Once repaired, the machine will finish the job."

"Please! You have the makers. You have the mica. Why do you have to destroy all that innocent life?"

"I have reasons."

"What reasons?"

He hisses. "I need the planets without living things. All that life isn't so innocent. Creatures want to survive, be free. All that life is too complicated to control. It would rise up against me. The only way to truly build an empire is to start it fresh. I will use my makers to re-envision my planets the way I want them."

I bow my head under the vastness of his treachery.

He dangles his finger over the button, then pulls back. "No, wait," he says, his lip curling, as though a perverse idea has occurred to him. "It would be more satisfying if you did it. Philip!"

Dad bends over and pushes me down.

"Dad, stop! It's me!"

Vishus comes toward me, extending a clawed finger.

"It won't hurt," he assures.

His finger is above my chin with a small red dot on the tip, which he presses into my forehead. He lifts a stick from a jar of silver goop on the console and holds it over me. I struggle as the goop drips toward my forehead, but Dad holds my head.

When the goop hits, everything goes dark.

I'm not unconscious. The world is there, outside me, but I sense it through a pinhole of light. Out of the darkness, a vast, lidless eye stares at me. It's the jellyfish eye. I know then that the eye is the link between Vishus and the mind-control implants. It's Vishus's eye, peering into my mind, feeding me his dark will.

Vishus stares down at me, grinning as Dad unwinds the whip from my legs. I stand, but not because I choose to. I just do. It's frightening to be aware of what I'm doing, but not in control of it.

Vishus barks an order. I follow him and Dad to Henry, who is still unconscious. I want to look longer, but my eyes pass over him. It's like seeing through a video camera someone else controls.

My neck jerks up when my ears hear Dad say: "Here."

His voice reaches me through a long tunnel, echoey and distorted.

He hands me a blaster, which I take. He aims his blaster at Henry's head. I do the same.

I don't want to do this, but my thoughts are trapped, and my body won't follow my will. Trying to change my movements is like running into a wall over and over again, getting thrown down every time.

Henry groans and looks up. His clear brown eyes stare at me as I train the blaster on him. He lifts his hand, which has a card in it. Bending his mouth and eyes into an expression of surprise, he fans the card into five cards. The part of me that is buried in the darkness knows this is just a card trick. But the brainwashed part of me is mesmerized. So is Dad. Henry shuffles the cards back and forth, grinning.

"Shoot him!" Vishus commands.

My body jerks like a puppet, but Henry flashes the cards again, holding me transfixed.

"If you won't do it, I will," Vishus snarls, shoving me aside and grabbing my blaster, fumbling it in his fury.

Something snaps when he hits me. In that moment, I realize my body and will aren't the same thing. My will is still here. I can still use it. It has been separated from communicating with my body by the ring of darkness. No matter how hard I try, I can't make my body move. But there's something else I can do with my will.

It's quicker than the time it takes Vishus to pick up the blaster. It doesn't matter that I'm not holding the mica pen. The mica are close enough, in the orblet in Vishus's pocket. I call them, joining with them, hurling them into my head and cutting myself free of the mind-control device.

The instant the mica cut the strand, the darkness is blown away by light and my body hears the message: Get him! I leap, smashing into Vishus's side. His blaster shot hits the floor near Henry, who rolls away. Dad takes two shots that scream over Henry like lost bottle rockets.

"Back!" Vishus shouts, pointing the blaster at Henry, who has leapt up. "Back!"

I look at the blaster I hold.

"Don't try it," Vishus mutters.

Dad comes up behind me and takes my weapon.

"How you disabled the mind-control device, I don't know. It has something to do with that drawing. Yes, I saw it. You drew my visioning implant at your kitchen table. I admit it surprised me, but I already knew your Dad's friends were meddling. They sent mica to test you. They must have. You were drawing meerish machines for months. I guess the mica showed you my device too. I tried to save you from all that. I planted the idea of taking away your drawing supplies, to save you from the drawings. Too bad for you, the Grand Scientist had a plan to get you involved. So much for that! Here you are, and when I get you back under control, I will find out how you disable the implants. For now, you will pay for your insolence." He pushes a blue button on the console.

Moments later, the craft that carried us to the top of the tower putters down from the darkness.

"Him," Vishus says, pointing to Dad.

The craft positions itself over Dad, squeezes out a liquid sphere, which encases him, hardens, and lifts him away.

"The Planet Wobbler has a comfy little cabin in the tail end," he says. "Well, not so comfy. It's more of a storage drawer," he sniggers.

I realize with horror that the craft has swept Dad across the cavern to the Worm's tail, where it unloads him. Dad spins a wheel-lock and disappears into a hatch.

Vishus hits the red button and there is an incredible burst of sound as the thrusters come to life, filling the cavern with an eerie red light. The tower shakes as the Worm inches forward, picking up speed.

I take a chance, diving for Vishus's leg. Startled, he shoots, but Henry leaps out of the way. I yank off his sandal and grab his calloused, knotty, stinking foot and pinch his baby toe, like Coral did to the gratch in the marking room.

"Eeaaagh!" he squeals, dropping the blaster, which I snatch up.

"Don't move!" I shout, standing.

"You insufferable brat!" he spits. "The gartaka toe hold is a dirty trick, used by cowards. You will pay for it."

"Call the Worm back!" I order, shoving the blaster forward. "Call it back!"

He chuckles and hisses. "The Worm, as you call it, can't be called back. Bye-bye, Earth! Bye-bye, Daddy! Oh, and Mommy too!"

Chapter 24

# Nate's Power

Roaring, Henry lifts Vishus over his head and walks him to the edge of the tower.

"Put him down," I say.

Grumbling, Henry drops him at his feet.

Vishus curls into a ball. "Don't hurt me, you horrible beast!"

"He deserves it," I say, "but what if we need him? Plus, it wouldn't be right. Sit up," I say to Vishus.

"No!" Vishus refuses, curling tighter.

"Henry?"

Gripping the antenna of Vishus's headdress with his toes, Henry props the alien up, then binds him with his own whip.

"On your feet!" I'm not used to shouting, but Vishus has triggered something fierce in me.

Vishus does nothing, so Henry hoists him onto his shoulder.

"What are you going to do to me?" Vishus moans. "Prison? Torture? Death?"

"Call off the attack on Petal City," I say. "And the team you sent to fix the Worm on Meer."

When Vishus sneers, Henry hangs him over the edge.

"Call them off!" I order.

Henry takes Vishus's pinky toe between his finger and thumb and wiggles it.

"Waaa!" Vishus shrieks. "Torture! Atch fitch witutcha!" he shouts into a device on his wrist. "Atch fitch witutcha!"

Someone answers through a speaker in the console, sounding distressed.

"Itchta fitch witutcha chak!" Vishus shouts back.

"Chee," the voice says and the line goes dead.

We hear blaster shots and yelling from the cavern floor. Looking over the edge, we see Coral, Bako, Rena, Zin, and the freed makers taking cover behind the tower from a line of gratches firing ripcord and blasters.

"Make them stand down," I order.

Vishus yells into his wrist again. This time, his voice booms over the loudspeaker. The attacking gratches look up in surprise, lowering their weapons.

"Look!" Coral cries from below. "It's Nate and Henry! They're okay!"

I wave.

"Tell them to throw their weapons away," I say.

Henry pokes the toe. Vishus cringes and shouts in Gratch. The gratches toss their blasters and ripcord.

"Now, how do we get down?" I ask.

Vishus directs me to a button in the console, which I press to open a trapdoor in the floor. We walk down a winding stone staircase, Henry squeezing through holding Vishus in front of him.

At the bottom, we find the gratches writhing on the ground like worms, cinched up in their ripcord by Bako and the makers.

"Nate!" Coral runs to me and wraps me in a hug.

I hug her back, closing my eyes.

"We need to move," I say. "Wishnal was right. The Worm is headed for Earth."

Coral scowls. "Make him call it back."

Vishus chuckles. "It's already there! There's no stopping it."

"He's right," Rena confirms. "It travels at warp speed. It will have started burrowing by now."

"Then we have to chase it," I say.

"We need a ship," Bako says. "A big one."

Running, we cross the cavern to the massive holding cell crammed with makers, staring at us like zombies. I notice that quite a few are children—from the making school I guess. Four gratches stand with them, their weapons pointed at us through the bars.

"Vishus," I mutter.

He turns his head away. "No."

"Are you really going to make us threaten your toe every time? We have you. There's no escape."

Vishus grumbles, then orders the guards to lower their weapons and open the cell. The gratches flash their teeth but do as they're told.

"Tell them to come with us," Bako says.

"Capture!" Vishus snarls instead. "Capture ishtala!"

The makers pour out the cell door, grabbing Rena, Zin, Coral, Bako, and anyone else they lay hands on. They're a swarm, pushing and pulling from all sides. The crowd is so thick that once they capture their targets, they can't do much but hold them. Everyone on our side doesn't fight back. These are their friends. The swarming makers reach Henry, swallowing his lower half in scrabbling hands. Henry holds Vishus over his head, keeping them from pulling him down.

I'm behind Henry, the makers ignoring me as they focus on getting Vishus. Bako starts prying makers away, but in trying not to be rough, he just ends up tangled in the web of bodies. I'm pushed further away as more makers surround Henry.

"The headdress!" I shout. "Throw it to me!"

Henry glances at me, then balances Vishus on a shoulder and with his free hand plucks the antenna-like headdress off his captive's head and flings it over the swarm to me. I catch it and immediately find myself in a tug-of-war with a four-armed maker.

All of his hands grip the antenna and I cling to the band.

"Gatchaka!" Vishus yells, stirring them into a greater frenzy.

The bulging crowd pushes my four-armed opponent from behind, sending him forward and me backward. I see a chance and without thinking duck down and slip my head into the band.

My mind fills with red flame. A storm of darkness and red. I see them all. Each maker's mind as long red tunnels leading to rooms I can enter at will. I am the eye of the jellyfish, peering into their minds.

"Stop!" I shout. "Stop right now!" My command is a burst of flame, racing down the tunnels, filling the rooms.

I realize my eyes have been scrunched shut since I got into the headdress. I open them to find the swarm standing still, as if frozen by a time-stopping device. The four-armed alien now seems to hold the headdress in place for me.

"Agh!" Vishus groans. "How dare you wear it! It's mine!"

"You be quiet!" I snap, standing as the alien lets go. I turn to the wider crowd. "Let go of us, and just—just be cool, okay?"

The makers release whatever they might be holding and drop their arms, relaxing.

"Okay!" I announce. "That's it! You're all free! Be normal again!"

The makers stare at me with eager attention but otherwise keep being zombies.

"Good try," Coral says, squeezing through the crowd to reach me. "I don't think it worked. The implant has to be deactivated to make them normal again."

"Well," I say, "I guess we should go, then. I'll use this thing to get the makers to follow, since we can't trust Vishus."

"Wait!" Rena calls from the doorway into the holding cell. "Get them to bring the orbs."

"What orbs?" Vishus cracks. Henry has tucked him under his arm again.

"The ones in the chests at the back of the holding cell," she answers. "We might have followed your orders, but we were conscious of everything. We know where the orbs are, and we know everything you've done here."

"Bah!" Vishus says.

"You heard her," I call out. "Let's get those orbs and get moving." My words are red flame, stirring the makers to action.

The makers collect the chests and we set off, our rescue party and the small group of freed makers leading the train of almost four hundred brainwashed makers through the twisting tunnel and out onto the desolate airfield. Each time I send out an order, I cringe. The jellyfish eye turns my mind into a dark, unpleasant reality. With each burst of flame, the red seems to hang around a bit longer, to stain my mind a bit more.

Furious gratches watch us pass with threatening glares until we board a gratchean troop transporter parked near the Claw.

Rena, Zin, and a few others head for the bridge as I strain through the flame-burst that is my last order, sending the brainwashed makers into a huge room full of metal seats. I remove the headdress, feeling instantly lighter as the red vanishes, along with the corridors and doorways.

I watch through a slash-shaped viewing window as gratchean ships land in the airfield, I assume returning from Meer. The gratches exit their ships and watch us menacingly. Henry and Bako stand outside, brandishing Vishus like a shield. Some gratches raise their weapons, but Vishus screams at them. They roar, gnash, spit, and stomp, but set their weapons down.

Henry and Bako are the last to board. They step on the ramp, which lifts them into the ship's belly, and we take off. We hurtle away from the asteroid, weaving through clusters of incoming gratchean ships.

Henry tosses Vishus down. As he is still bound in his whip, he lands on his face.

"You're coming with me," Bako says, grabbing his skinny arm. In the full light of the ship, I realize Vishus's mind-control headdress made him seem taller than he is.

"I guess you will be bringing me to special quarters," Vishus mutters.

"If by special quarters you mean the brig, then yes," Bako answers dryly. "To make sure you have a safe flight. Oh, and you won't need this anymore." He snatches the headdress from my hand, bending the antenna until the tip is smushed against the engraved eye. He throws the bent mess aside and stomps it with his gratchean boot until it's flat as a pancake.

Vishus cringes with each stomp.

Bako turns to me. "Are you going to be okay?" he asks, nodding to the room of makers.

I glance at Henry, then Coral. "Yes."

Bako nods and leads Vishus away.

Zin's voice comes over the ship's speakers. "We'll be warping in one minute. Or as our friend Stik says, transplanting. Please strap in."

"We better get seated," Coral urges. "Warp speed doesn't go well if you're standing."

We follow Henry into the room, where the makers silently strap themselves into chairs. We find empty seats along the side. Henry secures himself by tying two straps together.

Just as I figure out my straps, Zin's voice counts down from ten. Then we stick to our seats. I black out.

I wake to Henry shaking my shoulder.

"'ow 'ong 'us I ou'?" I ask.

"Thirty-two seconds," Peek says. He sits across from us.

"I counted too," Coral says.

"We will enter Earth's atmosphere in two minutes," Zin's voice informs us. "Prepare for turbulence."

Through a huge viewing window across the room, we watch the luminous blue sphere of Earth get closer. A sense of warmth washes over me. Home.

I undo my straps and stand, looking at rows of catatonic makers.

"Well, I guess I should do something about this," I say.

"Nate?" Coral asks as I take out my mica pen and orblet. "Are you well enough to do this?"

I hold the orblet close to the silver mark on the forehead of a short, old meerish maker with messy hair. Coral and everything else falls away as I close my eyes and connect to the mica.

When I open my eyes, the maker is staring at me with gratitude. I recognize her.

"Grildina?" Coral says, rushing forward

"Yes, child, it's me," Grildina answers, hugging her. "I'm okay. Thanks to the Earthling."

I have to keep going. I smile and go on to the next maker.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" Coral asks.

"I have to try."

Zin's voice rings out again: "Entering Earth's atmosphere in five, four, three, two, one!"

I glance out the viewing window as we knife through clouds. The ship shakes and I lose my footing. Coral holds me up.

"Thanks," I say.

"We have located the Worm in a large desert," Zin's voice says as the descent evens off. "We should reach the target in ten minutes."

I set to work, freeing the next five makers, one at a time. I realize it's taking too long.

Coral sees me hesitate.

"It's okay," she says. "Just do the best you can."

I breathe deeply. In seconds I free the seventh maker, and with Coral at my side, I plow through another ten. I'm lightheaded. I glance at the rest of the room, my stomach churning. There are so many left.

When I step toward the next row, my leg wobbles.

"Maybe you should take a break," she whispers.

In that moment, I plunge into a nervous feeling I know too well. The feeling of not knowing where Dad went. Of having Ted in the house. Of losing Mom's support. Of losing my sanity to visions. Of drawing but never knowing why or if my work is worthwhile.

"I can't do it," I say.

"Sit," Coral says, guiding me into a chair.

"I can't free them all."

"It's okay," Coral assures me. "You did your best."

"Yes," Grildina says. "It was more than anyone else could do."

The orblet pulses light to my hand. My head pulses too, like it's filled with static. "What is it?" I demand, holding my temples, which feel like they are going to burst open. "What more do you want from me?"

Mica want nothing, the voice replies.

"Then leave me alone!" I shout.

Mica speak because you will it. Mica will nothing.

"I don't will it!"

Do you hear mica's voice? You will it so.

A pain, like someone jamming a needle into my forehead, bowls me over. "Then I will you to shut up."

This pain is not from mica. It is you getting in the way. All these makers need saving. Why isn't it possible?

Because there are too many, I say, switching to thoughts. Because I'm weak. Because I give up.

Know what mica know. Anything is possible. You just need to break through.

Break through?

The next barrier.

I know the barrier the mica is talking about. It's this awful heaviness in my gut, this sense that I'm no good.

"Nate?" Coral asks. "I don't know what's happening or who you're talking to but I'm here. We're all here."

I look up to find Coral, Grildina, and Henry staring at me with frightened, caring eyes.

Henry reaches out, touching my shoulder, cooing.

"It's bogus," I say.

"What is?" Coral asks.

"Me! My fears! I don't have to be that person anymore!" The words wash my anxiety away. "Anything is possible!" I feel lighter as I let go of all the reasons to give up. I close my eyes, falling into a deep, silent, empty place. A sense of well-being washes over me.

You have no idea the power available to you, the mica says, the words hitting my mind like a spark.

A rush of energy crashes over me. I'm on the verge of passing out, like I did in the cavern. But I don't fight it. I don't give up, either. I keep going by surrendering to forces I don't understand. Forces that move planets, and bring them to life, and kill them.

Energy surges through me. My sense of who I am vanishes. I merge with the mica in the orblet, becoming all one billion of them. We are one flowing energy. For the first time, I understand. The mica have no will. I feel my energy fill the emptiness in them.

We unleash ourselves on the room. With so many working as one, the job takes seconds. I see piercing lights and hundreds of images, each one crystal clear, eternally present. For an instant, I know pure, boundless freedom.

I'm suddenly aware of my body. Coral is there, holding me up. I tingle all over, and a blissful sensation travels up my spine.

I take Coral's hand. "It's going to be okay," I gasp. "We're going to stop the Worm."

Coral stares at me with something between wonder and terror. I know she felt the energy.

I look around to find almost four hundred makers staring at me as stunned as Coral.

"What was that?" a maker with a slender face and half-moon eyes asks. "It filled the room. Everyone felt it. It came from you."

"It was the mica," I answer. "Or maybe something else. I'm not sure."

They stare, not understanding a word.

Chapter 25

# The Mica Network

Zin's voice crackles over the loudspeaker, startling the room out of its tense silence. "Target ahead. Prepare to dive!"

Out the viewing windows, blurred rows of sand dunes streak by below a radiant blue sky. Ahead, the air is clouded by a sandstorm. Then I notice a gaping black hole that looks like it was punched into the ground by a giant fist. It's not a sandstorm. It's the Worm's exhaust billowing out of its burrow.

Coral and I strap into the nearest seats as the ship skims the higher dunes. At the entrance to the burrow, we arc down, plunging into darkness. We hear the rumble of the Worm up ahead. It hasn't made it as far as the last one. Coral tells me we only dive a few hundred kilometers before the ship slows. In the spotlights, we make out the vast, xenite surface of the Worm's tail. In the center is the two-hundred-meter-wide exhaust hole from which the dust storm flows. The ship lands near the edge of the tail, about a hundred meters from the exhaust hole.

Coral stands on her chair and addresses the room.

"Ha-fesha! Hello, everyone!"

There's an enthusiastic murmur.

"Your orbs, pens, and drawing pads are there." She gestures to the stack of chests the makers carried from the asteroid. "Please take what you need."

The makers begin passing out making supplies. Soon, Rena, Zin, and Bako arrive.

"You look exhausted," Rena says. "Are you okay?"

I nod, smiling.

She glances at the freed makers.

"I don't understand how you did this, but it's wonderful." It seems like she wants to say a lot more.

"I'm sure you understand the difficulty of our task," Coral says from her chair. Rena watches her daughter with surprise. "We must disable the Worm—what you call the Planet Wobbler—which there is no way of doing from the outside. We saved Meer by making a ship to drill through the second Worm's xenite armor. We have time. The Worm will take a couple hours to reach Earth's core. Once we're through the armor we can make water, like we did, to fry the main circuit."

"Meer is okay?" a maker with googly eyes, a frizzy shock of hair, and strange face tattoos asks.

"Yes," Coral answers. "And thankfully we caught the Worm shortly after its entry into Earth's crust."

"If I may," Instructor Zin says. "Things are more dire than you may think. We have twenty minutes to stop the Planet Wobbler. The ship's scanners show a pocket of molten lava fifteen kilometers thick directly below us. When the Worm reaches it, we will have to abandon our mission. The lava won't harm the Worm, but it will dissolve this ship, and us with it."

"Twenty minutes?" a lanky maker interjects. "Then it's impossible! Even if we could make a drill large and powerful enough to get through the armor, it wouldn't do any good. We made all three Planet Wobblers. We know the designs inside out. In the third generation, all the flaws and vulnerabilities of the first two have been fixed. Frankly, it cannot be stopped. Your planet is doomed."

My face turns red. "Impossible?" I say. "If you knew the mica, really knew them, you would know there's no such thing as impossible."

Coral speaks up: "Look what Nate did here! He freed you all. We have to believe in him and the mica."

The makers murmur agreement.

"She's right!" Rena says. "We can't give up without even trying."

Coral nods to her mom. "Now, I say we find a way to short the main circuit like last time."

Rena shakes her head. "Sorry, love, but Vishus protected the brain with a waterproof membrane."

"How did he know?" Coral asks. "That only happened earlier today."

"It transmits status updates," Rena answers. "The last update before failure showed the electrical short."

"That can't be the only weakness in the design," Coral insists. "We won't know until we get out our orbs. But we can't quit. Not now and not ever!"

Coral's words spark an exodus onto the Worm's tail. Everyone spreads out over the slightly curved surface of the tail in the cold light of the ship's spotlights and sets their orbs on the black xenite, creating a field of golden beacons.

I didn't think to grab a full-sized orb, so I set down my orblet. Coral didn't even take an orb.

"I'll be back in a second!" she says, turning to go back for one.

I grab her arm. "Stay."

She looks at me questioningly.

"Please?" I set her hand on my shoulder.

She nods and stands with me.

Everyone has their eyes closed and holds out their mica pens—the meerish ones that the gratches confiscated, not the gratchean sticks they were forced to use to make the Worms. Ever watchful, Henry and Bako stand behind us.

"Do you have the energy to join them?" Coral asks.

"I'll find it," I say. I hold out my pen and close my eyes.

I tune into the mica in my pen, then branch out to the orblet. Instead of the normal calm, I'm struck by waves of chaos.

Coral leans into me. "It's okay," she says, noticing my tension.

What's going on? I ask.

Fear, the mica says. Confusion.

Are the mica afraid?

Mica don't fear. The makers are afraid. Grasping. Lost. And so mica are the same.

My impulse is to fight the chaos, force order on it, but I know that won't work. I let go, relaxing. A part of me resists. When I connect with the mica in the other orbs, I will experience everything they do. The fear projected onto them by the makers will be my fear too. But there's no other choice.

I let go and merge with the other orbs, plunging into the darkness and chaos. I embrace the darkness, diving deeper. Wild energy surges inside me even as the darkness gnaws at the edges of my mind. I see what's going on. These aren't the mica I'm used to. Even within a single orb, they aren't connecting with each other. The makers are lost, trying so hard but failing to do anything. Every maker is searching the Worm's design, trying to figure out the one weakness that will stop it. But each maker works alone. The system isn't coming together.

The energy flows out of me, racing through trillions of mica, overflowing into the makers themselves.

I do nothing but watch. At the edges, there's tingling in my body again, and I'm sure Coral feels it too.

When the energy has reached every mica in every orb and pen, and every maker, there's a burst of light. I've been getting used to the experience of merging with many mica at once. This is that experience times a billion. The explosion utterly destroys me. I'm everywhere at once. Thoughts, images, sensations. They come and go. They hum and chirp and vibrate around me, in me, through me, and me in and through them.

I don't just feel the mica. I feel the makers too.

We're a network of mica and minds—human, meerish, votian—whatever alien species.

So many minds without hope. Ideas without brilliance. Shots in the dark.

But there's a cluster of light. Three makers with ideas traveling toward each other. The network has allowed them to connect. Each maker provides a piece. One is the lanky maker from earlier who wanted to give up. Two are makers I don't recognize. I send my energy there, add it to the mix. The thoughts grow together, fuse in a throbbing shape, like an abstract sculpture.

The vaporizing cannon. The exhaust.

The words are crystal clear, travel to everyone at once.

Could we clog it? It's the lanky maker.

Rena's voice enters the mix, fusing another squiggly worm of light to the sculpture. We should try.

How? the lanky maker asks.

The vaporized matter is superheated, a voice says. It's another maker I don't know.

Yes, the heat must escape, another agrees.

Or the cannon will overheat, Rena says.

But how do we clog it? the lanky maker asks.

A huge stone, a suggestion rings out.

It will liquefy in the heat, answers another.

A xenite plug, another maker suggests.

It would work, Rena says.

It would, if we could make it stick, the lanky maker says. But the pressure would blow it free. We don't have time for trial and error.

Making dome, a new voice says. It takes me a moment to realize it's Coral. She doesn't have an orb but is connected to the network through me.

Making dome. The words echo through the network. Making dome. Making dome.

"Toss your orbs near the exhaust!" Rena cries out loud.

There's a flurry of activity. Makers come out of their trances to pick up their orbs and throw them toward the exhaust in the center of the tail.

They set to work on their drawing pads, trying to create a big enough making dome to clog the exhaust. It's getting chaotic again. Most of the mica float above their orbs in little distinct clouds.

It's not working. The mica respond in random clusters to different makers. There are hundreds of different wills at work, all of them making bits of the dome separately. It seems the pieces will never join up. They're like rags being flung at a giant's foot.

I focus, sending my concentration to the makers, bringing us all together into one system.

It happens quickly. The wills of all the makers come together. With trillions of mica working together, it doesn't take long. The making dome grows over the exhaust. Soon, the vapor trail stops.

We watch expectantly as the dome fills with red vapor, until it's a fiery eyeball. The pressure builds inside the dome, causing the walls to bulge like an overfilled balloon. The red builds until it pours back down the exhaust tube toward the Worm's head. The Worm shakes under our feet. For a moment, I'm sure the tube is going to explode, taking us with it. Instead, a tremendous groan echoes up the Worm's body. The machine shakes, knocking many of us to the ground and causing the ship to skid on its landing gear.

Then all falls silent.

Chapter 26

# Dad

Everyone is staring at me.

"How did you do that?" Rena asks. She's amazed, maybe afraid.

"It doesn't matter how," I say. "We have to find Dad!"

I rush to the edge of the tail and look over. Red lava boils and sloshes about twenty feet down. We barely stopped it in time.

"There's a hatch," I say. "It's somewhere just over the edge."

The makers spread out. With nearly four hundred of us, it doesn't take long to get word that the hatch is on the other side of the tail. Henry lifts me and Coral onto his shoulders and lopes over. We find three makers leaning over the edge, struggling to reach the hatch. They come up in a cloud of lava steam, sweating. Henry sets us down, then dangles over the edge, grunting as he turns the wheel-lock. There's a chink and he swings the door open. He reaches in and pulls Dad out.

Dad flails and hits Henry, who swings them both upright and sets Dad down. My impulse is to hug him, but he tries to hit me. Henry picks him back up.

"Oh yeah," I say. "He's still brainwashed." I get out my orblet and pen and free him.

"You can put me down now!" Dad grumbles, his voice muffled by Henry's furry arm. "Henry!"

Henry looks for my nod, then sets Dad on his feet.

Dad spits fur out of his mouth, then stares at me, the slightest grin forming on his lips. "Nate," he says. "You're here. I can't believe you're here."

I throw my arms around him.

"You came to get me," he says, his voice full of emotion and disbeleif.

I'm too overcome to answer.

As I hold him, my body relaxes so deeply that for a moment I'm transported back home, to a time before any of this happened, before Dad left, before he and Mom separated, a time when all I cared about was drawing something that Dad would like.

"I'm glad to see you," I finally muster.

When I see the wetness in Dad's eyes I realize mine are wet too.

"We have a lot to talk about," he says. "I have a lot of explaining."

"Mr. Smith!" Coral says, unable to hold back from the reunion any longer.

"Coral!" Dad says, then he looks up. "Rena!" She has arrived from the other side of the tail. The three hug like old and dear friends.

"Your son saved the day," Rena says.

"Nate?"

"He freed us from the mind control. Then he brought us together to stop the Planet Wobbler."

"I didn't do anything," I say, waving off her praise. "We should thank the mica."

"He's being modest," Coral says. "Without him, Meer would be lost, and Earth too."

Dad stares at me with a mixture of pride and confusion. Seeing that I'm overwhelmed, he says, "We'll talk about it later."

Makers come up to me. Some smile. Others thank me. Some gawk.

Everyone talks, claps, cheers, hugs. One alien leaps twenty feet into the air on springy legs that remind me of a grasshopper and flips five times.

It's hard to believe it's over. It's like we've all been holding our breath. Most of the makers, Dad included, have been imprisoned for a long time. Now everyone can breathe easy and be themselves.

Eventually, we make our way to the ship and begin our flight up the burrow. I sit in the control room next to Dad, staring at the darkness, when it hits me that I feel like we left someone behind.

"The orbs," I say. "They're still down there."

Dad looks at me. "It's too hot in the making dome to get them. A team will be back."

"We can't abandon the mica," I say. "They did an amazing job for us."

Dad glances at Rena. "That is true," he says. "They did help us."

I get the sense Dad and Rena aren't used to thinking of mica as helpers. I wouldn't have thought that either until they spoke to me.

After a while, we emerge into the blinding desert sun. Hovering over it, the burrow spreads out below us like a crater made by a meteor.

As we skim over the sand, we notice a tree perched on a dune.

A tree? I think. There shouldn't be a tree in the desert.

We make out an upright meerish man beside a smaller, bearded meerish man on a chair, his head bandaged. Two white fluffy things sit in his lap. Beside them stands a smaller tree.

"It's Dad and Wishnal," Coral cries, at which point I recognize the meerish man as the general and the bearded one as the Grand Scientist, with Whiff and Biff on his lap. The Transplanter is behind them, Stik at their side.

Zin lands the transport ship, and Coral and I burst out and scramble up the dune, followed by Rena, Dad, Henry, and Bako.

Coral and Rena run straight into the general's arms, while Dad and I greet Wishnal. Whiff and Biff leap onto Dad, who rubs their fur as they slobber on his face.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Fine," Wishnal says. "A gratch didn't like the general rescuing me, so he thumped me on the head."

"You saved him?" Coral asks her dad. "I knew you would."

Our conversation is cut short when Henry lifts Wishnal, chair and all, and smothers him in a hug, whining like a puppy.

"It's good to see you too, old friend," Wishnal's muffled voice says.

"Nate of Earth," Stik says, stepping forward. "I see your mission was a success."

"Stik!" Dad cries. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"We knew you must have got Vishus when the gratches retreated from Petal City," Wishnal, freed of Henry's adoration, says.

"Ah, Vishus," Bako remarks. "He's locked in the brig. I wrapped him in so much ripcord, he can't move."

"Good," Wishnal says. "We will bring him to the meerish courts. He won't see the light of day again if I have anything to say about it."

"The gratches seem to have figured out that Vishus is not returning," Coral's dad informs us. "The asteroid is retreating. We will be tracking it closely."

Wishnal looks at Coral and me. "I am so proud of you. You didn't stop. You kept going."

"We had help," Coral says, shyly.

"A lot of help," I agree.

Wishnal shows his bucktoothed grin. "I'd like to hear all about it. Later. As wonderful as this reunion is, it's time we got everyone home. General, if you can get the transport ship back to Meer, I will travel with Philip and Nate."

"Of course, Your Grandness," Coral's dad says.

Bako hugs Dad. "See you soon, old friend," he says. He has taken off his gratchean armor, leaving it in the sand, and wears his gray meerish robe. Then he hugs me.

"You're a really good guardian," I say as he pulls away. "And medic."

"And you are a pretty good maker. Work on that size thing, though."

I chuckle.

Rena hugs me next. "You have impressed me, Nate. Someday, I hope to learn a few things from you."

I blush.

When she moves, Coral is there. "I guess this is goodbye," she says.

My face goes red.

"Yep," I mumble, opening my arms.

"Bye, Nate," she says into my ear as we hug.

"Bye," I whisper.

Her mom takes one of her hands and her dad takes the other and they walk down the dune toward the transporter, which shines like a mirror in the sun.

"Wait!" I call.

Coral pulls free of her parents and turns.

"Will I see you again?"

Her face brightens. "I hope so!"

"Me too!"

A wonderful glow washes over me as she walks away.

I turn to find Dad and Wishnal exchanging a look, smiling warmly.

"Well, are we going or not?" I ask, walking toward the Transplanter.

Stik speaks a Meerish phrase and the Transplanter's branches curve into the pod formation for flying. We climb aboard, and Stik inserts his limbs into the controls as stump seats grow up out of the floor. Whiff and Biff sit on me.

"C'mere, you furballs!" I growl.

Wishnal chuckles. "Silly wibits," he says as they leap all over me.

"Wibits?" I ask as they bounce off me and up the Transplanter wall.

He nods. "Found in the far reaches of the meerish jungle."

"Up we go," Stik announces. "We'll be taking this one slow."

A moment after the ship coasts off the dune, Whiff and Biff tumble down the wall into my lap, grinning with their black mouths, wagging their tongues. They balance between them a leather-bound book with a big N embossed on the cover.

"The drawing binder," Dad says with surprise, glancing at Wishnal, then taking it from the furballs. "I was going to give this to you when I got back."

"From Florida?"

"Well, I couldn't exactly tell you I was going to harvest mica on Hish."

He opens the book.

I barely breathe as he turns the pages, his eyes lingering on each drawing. A few times, he gasps.

He looks at me, his eyes wet. "I'm speechless," he says. "You drew these?"

I nod, muttering: "They're not very good."

"Good? They're breathtaking. The lines, the shading, the intricacy. I always saw potential in your work, but these—they're art."

"Art? But, I thought you said I should quit."

He looks pained. "I never should have said that, Nate. I was upset about losing your mom. She always said my doodling got in the way. When I said what I said, I was in a perverse way trying to protect you. I saw where my drawings had led me—to losing your Mom—and I didn't want your drawing to do the same to you. I don't think you should quit. I really don't. Trapped in my own mind for six months, I went over and over how stupid those words were. Can you forgive me?"

My eyes widen. "Yes," I say. "It was tough after you left, and, if I'm honest, what you said hurt. A lot. But I don't blame you."

Dad smiles gratefully.

I look down. "That binder started this whole space adventure," I muse, mainly to change the subject.

Dad looks intrigued.

"These two broke into my room and stole it off my desk," I say, mussing Whiff and Biff's fur.

"On orders from me," Wishnal chuckles. "We needed makers," he explains when Dad gives him an unimpressed look. "I know you didn't want Nate exposed to making. I struggled over it. But we were down to only four makers, with the Worm on its way. I didn't know what else to do. I'm so sorry I brought him into all this."

"After seeing what he has accomplished," Dad says, "I have no doubt you did the right thing."

"Yes," Wishnal says. "I want to hear all about Nate's accomplishments. What new devices did you make? How did you free the makers?"

I glance at Dad.

"Well," I begin, "this is going to sound weird, but I spoke to the mica."

"You found your way, then. You're more comfortable now, drawing and such?"

"That's not what I mean." I tell him about using the mica to cut the mind implants, and about becoming one with the mica too.

Wishnal and Dad are silent. They seem upset or disturbed. Wishnal speaks softly. "We have a lot to learn from you, Nate."

I shake my head. "It's the other way around. I can talk to the mica, yeah, but when I made xenite cutters, they were tiny. I still don't have size down. I was lucky Henry could use them at all."

"In time," Wishnal says. "In time."

We zoom over the Atlantic Ocean in silence. At one point, the sky goes dark. It's night in North America. Stik points out the lights of the shoreline ahead.

Dad breaks out laughing. "What are we going to do about these?" He points to the silver eye on his forehead.

I rub my fingers over my forehead, finding the little dot in the middle.

"We can't go home like this."

"Bako said the neurosurgeons on Meer will be able to extract the devices," I say.

"Until then," Dad remarks, "we'll have to improvise."

Stik calls to Whiff and Biff in Meerish. They rush off, returning with damp cloths that smell like alcohol. We use them to wipe the silver off our foreheads.

"What about the dot?" I ask.

"Stik," Dad says. "Will you stop there?" He points to a big, neon pink PHARMACY sign approaching fast.

Stik yanks his arm and the ship stops, flinging us forward on our stumps.

"Sorry. Philip, you could have given more warning."

Stik guides the ship into a field across the street.

"We should be fine," Stik says. "There's no one around."

The street between us and the pharmacy is empty. This is a small town somewhere in rural Nova Scotia.

Dad digs around in his pocket, pulling out a ten-dollar bill. "I thought I still had this! Yes," he says wryly, "I've been wearing the same pants for six months. I'll just be one minute." He rushes out the hatch, across the street, and into the pharmacy. He returns a few minutes later holding a plastic squeeze bottle.

"It'll have to do," he says, removing the cap and squeezing a glob of stuff onto his finger. He bends over and smears it on the center of my forehead, then does the same to himself. It's the same color as our skin and makes the red dot disappear.

"Cover-up," he says. "It's for pimples, but it seems to work for mind-control devices too."

We chuckle as Stik guides the ship into the sky.

Chapter 27

# Home

We don't speak until our subdivision comes into view. Stik slows the ship and hovers above Mom's driveway.

"We're here," Dad says. "From my pharmacy receipt, it's about ten-thirty. Your mom may be awake."

"I can't wait to introduce you all to her," I say.

No one answers.

"Um," Dad fumbles, "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Kidding!" I crack. "She would freak out."

Dad sighs relief. "Right. You haven't lost your sense of humor."

"Well, Philip," Wishnal says, "we part after too short a time. We have a lot of catching up to do."

"We certainly do," Dad agrees, embracing Wishnal.

"Bye, you two," I say, petting Whiff and Biff.

They make crackly purrs.

When I turn to Henry, we stare at each other before he lifts me into the air. I feel a bit like a baby as he bounces me. His gentle eyes say more than any spoken goodbye could. Then he wraps me in a hug.

"I'll miss you too," I mutter into his fur.

Henry releases me, then grabs Dad. I slide over to Wishnal.

"I will see you again soon," he says, his buckteeth showing. With the bandaged head, he looks older and frailer than when we first met.

"Very soon," I say, pointing to the middle of my forehead. "I hope."

"Right. We'll be back to get you. Once we've figured it out."

Stik swings down from the ceiling, extending an arm to me and another to Dad. We shake his spindly hands.

"Tell me, Nate of Earth—are you sad to go?"

I smile, thinking of my first ride in the Transplanter.

"I am. But I'm also kind of glad to be home."

He laughs heartily. "I knew it!" he declares. "They all start with shouting and whining, but they end up wanting to stay on."

Dad chuckles. "I was the same way."

"Okay, Stik. You were right," I admit.

We walk down the ramp and watch from the driveway as the ship's porthole closes and the tree rises silently, its blue thrusters shrinking until they blink out. In moments, there's no trace the Transplanter was here.

We saunter up the driveway to the side door. I grab the doorknob, but Dad touches my arm.

"Can I have a second?" He takes a deep breath.

"Nervous?"

He shakes his head, but I don't believe him.

"Mom will forgive you. There's no way she won't."

"I'm not sure," he says. "Can she understand what happened? Will she ever forgive me for disappearing? For your mom, I was gone a lot longer than six months. I've been a bad husband for years."

"Then make it up to her," I say.

"You think I can?"

I shrug. "She's pretty mad at you. But if you keep trying, who knows. Of course, now there's Ted. But that was brainwashing. She'll dump him."

"About that," Dad says. "The device Vishus used on your mom and Ted is a lot simpler than the jellyfish. It's not an implant—just a sticker behind the ear."

"I guess whoever goes in for the hug first will get it," I say.

Dad nods. "You should know it could take time for them to understand that their feelings for each other aren't real."

He waits another moment. "Okay, I'm ready."

I turn the knob and push the door open.

"Mom? I'm home!"

"Nate?" she says, walking out of the kitchen, the fly on her forehead. She scowls at me, arms folded. "Well, would you look what the cat dragged in. Decided to come back, huh? Maybe we don't want you."

I rush to her and wrap my arms around her, fishing behind her ears. "You don't mean that," I say.

"What are you doing?" She grabs my left hand, wrestling it down as the fly takes to the air and rams my eye and ear.

Gritting through the resistance, I feel the small round device behind her left ear with my right hand and dig in a fingernail to get the edge.

"What's going on here?" Ted says, stumping out into the hallway.

He reaches out to grab me but at that moment Dad rushes in.

"Don't touch my son!"

He's a few inches shorter than Ted and not nearly as bulky with muscles, but he wraps the brute in a bear hug and forces him back.

"Philip?" Mom gasps.

She stops fighting for a moment and I rip the device off.

"Ouch!" she cries, staring at me with shock.

Then Ted squeals. "What the heck, man? Are you pinching?"

Dad got Ted's device too.

The fly comes at me. I swat it against the wall. It comes again but Dad slams it back with his palm and crushes it into the wall. So much for Vishus's spy.

Mom's stare has softened. "Nate?" Her eyes, which for so long have seemed dead, spark to life and fill with tears. She wraps me in a rib-crushing hug. "Where have you been for the past three days?"

She lets go and stares past me.

"Philip?" she whispers.

Ted stands dumbfounded, watching Dad and Mom embrace, both of them weeping.

"Where were you, kid?" he asks.

"Finding Dad," I answer.

He looks at Dad. "The pincher," Ted says.

"Sorry about that," Dad says, wiping his eyes and extending a hand. "I'm Philip. Thank you for taking care of my family."

Ted looks confused as they shake hands. "I—well, you know, it's—"

"It's okay," Dad says. "No need to explain. Now, I should get going."

"Where?" Mom asks. "They rented your apartment to someone else and got rid of your stuff."

"Oh. Well, I'll go to a hotel."

"Stay," Mom blurts. "Sleep in the guest room. And don't say no. You'll need time to work things out."

Ted looks flabbergasted, but instead of getting angry, he says: "Yeah. Stay. You look tired."

For the first time since I've known him, Ted is being decent. I wonder if the mind control made him a jerk and now I'm seeing the real Ted.

When Mom sets Dad up in the guest room, he falls asleep right away. I'm too jittery to sleep, so I stay up with Mom. She hugs me about ten times and cooks grilled cheese sandwiches. She doesn't ask where I've been or where I found Dad, or where I got the big green drawing binder. I know there will be questions tomorrow. But now she's just happy to have us back.

When I go to my room, I sit on my bed with my leather drawing binder, turning pages, surprised to like what I see. I don't know about it being art, but the drawings keep my interest, and the technique is pretty good.

I pull the velvety bag from my pocket and drop the orblet into my hand. I'm tired but don't want to sleep yet.

I have an idea.

I move the metal wastebasket into the middle of the room and set the orblet inside. I open a drawing pad and, taking my time, draw with the mica pen. I make sure to draw actual lines on the page. I spent a long time working on this at the library, so I know the design by heart. The wastebasket fizzles and sparks, then falls silent. I go to it, reaching through hazy smoke to pick up my creation: a Luke Skywalker action figure. Taking my time worked. It's just the size I meant it to be, and it looks way more realistic than the 3D-printed one.

I set it in the empty spot on my shelf and lie down with the orblet, watching the dancing gold lights form lines to my fingers.

Dear Reader,

You just finished reading an independently published work of fiction. THANK YOU!

As a reader, you have a lot of power over the fate of an independent book like this. Bet you didn't know that!

If you enjoyed this book, please consider using your power by posting a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or elsewhere, and spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, or through other means, both online and offline!

Are you an educator? Contact the author to find out about Skype classroom visits, including discounted books for your class.

Enjoy art? Take a Maker Challenge! Visit the author's website at www.dfandersonauthor.com to find out more.

Join the author's mailing list to receive advance chapters of The Maker 2 when it is ready.

Join D. F. Anderson's newsletter to be automatically entered into his monthly print book givewaway and learn about his upcoming book releases!

Thank you for supporting an independent author!

# Acknowledgments

Thank you, Mom, for being the first person to read this book, twice, before anyone else did. Thank you, Jandy, for your in-depth comments on character, which helped immensely.

A big thank-you to my insightful editor Jill Saginario (Pickle Ink Editorial and Quarto Book Group). Your input came at a moment when I could no longer see the way forward, and it vastly improved the manuscript.

Thank you, Julia Kay Pierce and Cheryl Peper, two complete strangers I met through an online writing workshop who kindly offered to read the manuscript in its early stages and provided valuable feedback.

Thank you to Crystal and Cheryl at Pikko's House Editorial for an initial proofread of the manuscript and to Tricia Callahan for bringing it home with a final and incredibly thorough proofread of the print-ready file.

A big thank-you to Rachel Lawston for your beautiful cover and interior designs.

Last, but most definitely not least, thank you Genesta and Isla for being my bedrock and filling my life with joy.

# About the Author

D. F. Anderson grew up in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and holds a master's degree in English literature from the University of British Columbia. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and daughter.

## Contents

  1. One-Eyed Jellyfish
  2. Thieves in the Night
  3. The Transplanter
  4. A Small Harvest
  5. Petal City
  6. The Grand Scientist of Meer
  7. The Workshop
  8. Making
  9. Philip
  10. The Factory
  11. Guardian
  12. The Needle
  13. Escape
  14. The Burrow
  15. The Circuit
  16. Ship Alongside
  17. The Plan
  18. Instructor Zin
  19. A Different Kind of Prisoner
  20. We Need You
  21. The Third Planet Wobbler
  22. Vishus
  23. Nate's Power
  24. The Mica Network
  25. Dad
  26. Home
  27. Acknowledgments
  28. About the Author

## Landmarks

  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents

