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But just as I’m about to speak, I see his face

He doesn’t look at aze as he drops into a crouch that wipes my ers fanning through his dark hair, lips pressed tightly together My eyes sweep across the telling droop of his shoulders as he crouches therefor me to read in the middle of this alien forest

I’m afraid to ask, but ?"

He doesn’t answer right away, pushing up froive a jerk of his head to indicate that I should get off the blanket and allow hithere aardly with ainst the chill, does he speak

"Yes We’re going to have to stop for a while so I can take care of it, but I want you closer so I can hear you if you shout I need you to just do as I say for once, all right, Lilac?"

When he gives orders, my first instinct is to blast hiance But now he’s so sad, so tired, that the thought barely flickers throughme, expressionless

I nod, and a tiny bit of the tension in his shoulders drops away

"Good I’ll find you a spot a little ways back fro your feet, or if you want you can help by gathering so his pack back onto his shoulders "There’s another downed escape pod over the next ridge"

I’m about to fall into step, ready to follow him, when his words halt me mid-stride "There’s a what?" The torrent of relief and hope is so tangible it nearly drives me to my knees I don’t have time to analyze the tiny stab of disappointe, private partnership--before words co out of me "How many people? Was it a first-class pod? Do you know anyone as inside? Is their rescue beacon working?"

He’s shaking his head and tightening his hands around the straps of his pack "No, no," he says, cutting across the flood of questions "There’s no one"

"Maybe we can catch up with the the he toward hi toward the ship like we are"

"No," he says again

"Well, you ignore theo find them"