“And you should be warned,” Master Ira says, “that voroxide is fueled by fire. That’s one of the main reasons Doc Min chose an eruption as its catalyst.”
Avi spreads her hands. “I could Extra Super Big explode it?”
“And risk another black hole?” Vera gives a short laugh. “No.”
“I could…” Avi’s voice takes on the tone of someone who is now completely stabbing in the dark “… push the collector into the volcano’s magma?”
“That may work,” Master Ira says. (Avi gives another madwoman smile.) “The lava would absorb the voroxide before it leaks into the air. But you’d need to do it at the height of Mount Kilmon’s eruption when the lava pools are at their deepest. The odds of making it out alive would be zero.”
An actual suicide mission, Jester emphasizes.
“So that’s it,” I say numbly. “Game over. I’d tell you all to go home, but we can’t even do that.”
Ran Doc Min has us cornered, Jester agrees, briefly lifting his visor to rub his eyes.He’s probably had his whole takeover plotted from the beginning.
“He knew to start small,” Avi says. “Back in his early days, he made sure his predictions were easy to pull off. He foretold that forest fire on Planet Llyria, remember?”
“Which he probably started himself,” Toph adds.
“Then there was that broken dam on Planet Marus.”
“And the swarm of crop-eating beetles on Planet Eridonus.”
“As each ‘prediction’ came true,” Avi continues, using air quotes aroundprediction, “Doc Min’s following grew. With more followers came more donors, like the Vinicchis, and more money, and more power to pull off bigger and bigger hoaxes.”
“And to recruit more powerful allies,” Master Ira agrees. “Trey Morton is the mastermind behind not only the voroxide’s invention, but the neutralizer, too. It’s a stroke of terrible genius, and it won’t be easily replicated. Trey spent over two years developing that gas-neutralizer combo. That’s months of trials, hundreds of tests…”
“Does that mean Lament was right about the cave raptors?” I ask. “Morton needed to test his new weapon before putting it into practice, so the raptors were an experiment?”
“They were,” the Master confirms. Toph whistles. “That there’s some real evil.”
“That’s probably how that raptor ended up on Skyhub,” Vera says. “It unknowingly hitched a ride with Morton on his way back.”
“But…,” the other Youvu Hum starts, then hesitates. “But what about Bast, then? He wasn’t on either Venthros or Purvuva when Moon Dancer flew through that cloud of voroxide in space, nor were they anywhere near The Parallax. So how did he get tied up in all this?”
“It was likely a mistake,” Toph suggests. “Some of the voroxide could have escaped into space, and Bast was unlucky enough to inhale it.”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Lament says quietly from his spot off to the side, slightly apart from the rest of the group.
Everyone’s eyes jump to him. Vera frowns. “It… wasn’t?”
“No.”
I try to read Lament’s face for clues, but I’ve got no idea what he’s talking about. “Care to explain?”
“It’s like Jester said. Ran Doc Min had this whole takeover plotted from the beginning. Our lives have been in his hands for years.”
“Mylife, maybe,” I say. “I’m the lucky child sacrifice, remember? But not yours.”
“You sure about that?” Lament lifts his brows, his most sardonic gesture. “You don’t see it?”
“What am I supposed—?” And like that, it snaps into place. “Oh.” I drop back a step. Like, physically recoil, as if I’ve been punched. “But… no. That’s not—it can’t—”
“What?” Vera has turned so pale she looks almost angry. “What are we realizing?”
My throat tightens. “Lament thinks Bast’s death was contrived by the Determinists.”
“Contrived?” the Youvu Hums repeat in unison. “As in, Ran Doc Minmurderedhim?”
