Ahmad stared at her: Dex-shocked, but less vacant.
“Rives,” Rives said with a nod.
“Heesham.” He’d popped out of the Shack.
“Where you from?” I asked.
“The Sudan. But I live in Minnesota.” The boys sized each other up. Ahmad gave Heesham a run for his money. Taller and not as thick, with longer arms and legs, Ahmad looked like a first-round draft pick for the Timberwolves.
“Where were you when the gate hit?” I asked.
“Gate?” He frowned.
“The wall of moving air,” Charley offered. “The one that burned and knocked you out.”
Now Ahmad nodded. “Back in the Sudan. We were visiting relatives.”
I asked him about the days and the date, and learned Ahmad had landed on the north shore. He’d been here twenty-eight days. Straight up, I broke the news that the gates were his ticket home.
“Wait a second. You’re saying those gates, they take us back?”
“Yup. They’re theonlyway back.”
Ahmad threw back his head, laughing. “I’ve been running from those things for weeks. Thought they were bad, man. Evil, like the devil.”
No, that’s Nil, I thought.
“Sick spear,” Heesham offered.
And just like that, we got our fifth rookie in two weeks. It was a Nil record.
CHAPTER
47
CHARLEY
DAY 37, AFTER NOON
When I was ten, my parents took us to see the Blue Angels fly over Jacksonville. At the start of the show, six planes took flight, then one peeled off, leaving a gap in the formation. My dad told me the maneuver was to honor the Blue Angel pilot who’d died after his plane crashed the day before during a routine practice flight. He called it the missing-man formation.
That’s what I thought of when we paddled out to surf after Talla’s funeral and there was a gap in the lineup. That’s what I thought of when we sat to eat lunch and the space beside Rives was empty. Talla’s presence had always been powerful, and her absence was just as big. She was our missing man.
Not just missing, I had to keep reminding myself.Gone—forever. The most competitive survivor on Nil was dead.
Time had never felt more fragile.
With nothing to lose but minutes, I grabbed my rubbings and went to find Rives. I figured he could use a distraction, too.
I found Rives with Jason and Thad. The boys were sprawled on the black beanbag rocks where I’d first shared breakfast with Natalieand Sabine, whittling greenwood spears. Perfect, I thought. Exactly the three I wanted to see.
“Okay, y’all, I need your brains. Especially yours, Rives, because you’ve got fresh eyes.”
“At your service,” Rives said. He didn’t smile, but at least he’d answered.
Unwrapping the rubbings, I spread them out.
“Rives, you probably recognize this one”—I pointed to the Man in the Maze—“but I doubt you’ve seen this.” I pointed to my newest rubbing, the maze pinned by bisecting lines. “We found it near the southern lava flow. Thad calls it ‘Bull’s-eye.’”
