26

Well, you're not dead.

"Ah, my damn head! Son of a bitch!"

Neither is Alexius.

Blood, illuminated by a sputtering chemical fire, spreads down the sloping deck of the Specular toward you. It spills from the throat of Captain Kamateros. You reach for him but he's already dead, his eyes blank. This close, you can see how the Specular's mirrorlike deck is divided into regular hexagons; the captain's blood follows the channels in the metal.

Stralchus kneels in moss beside the broken craft, examining one of the scientists. He drops the man's head back to the turf; he's dead, too. Bodies are scattered everywhere, many of them mercifully hidden by a silver-gray fog that hangs over everything and scatters the light of the flames. Controllers, several of them catastrophically damaged, work patiently to unload equipment before the chemical fires claim everything.

Through the mist, you notice what appears to be several human figures on a low hill. None came from the Specular. You can almost make out the features of the nearest one: a woman in tattered-looking clothes, holding…a rifle? A walking stick? You can't be sure, but you see her watching Control with a look of profound alarm, bordering on horror.