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Bug Eyes

They pulled her to the shore and out of the water, hauling her to the flying s felt full of water and sh shaking her whole body

"Put her down!"

"Where the hell did she come from?"

"Give her some oh-two"

They flopped Tally onto her back on the ground, which was thick with the white foa-eyed mask, and Tally blinked

He was a pretty A new pretty, every bit as beautiful as Peris

The ht weakly for a s Her head grew light as she gratefully sucked it down

He pulled the mask off "Not too much You’ll hyper-ventilate"

She tried to speak but could only cough

"It’s getting bad," another figure said "Jenks wants to take her back up"

"Jenks can wait"

Tally cleared her throat "My board"

The lanced up "It’s headed over Hey! So to the chopper! What’s your nah

"Well, Tally, are you ready to move? The fire won’t wait"

She cleared her throat and coughed again "I guess so"

"Okay, come on" The man helped her up and pulled her toward the machine She found herself pushed inside, where the noise was -eyed masks A door slammed shut

The round "My board!"

"Relax, kid We got it" The wo pretty

Tally wondered if these were the people in the clue The "fire-bug eyes" Was she supposed to be looking forthe to h the cabin

"She’ll live, Jenks Make the usual detour, and work the fire a little on the way home"

Tally looked down as the ht followed the course of the river, and she saw the fires spreading across to the other shore, driven by the wind of its passage Occasionally, the craft would shoot out a gout of flame

She looked at the faces of the crew For new pretties, they seemed so determined, so focused on their task But their actions were ?" she said

"A little burning"

"I can see that Butwhy ?"

"To save the world, kid But hey, we’re real sorry about your getting in the way"

They called theers

The one who’d pulled her from the river was called Tonk They all spoke with an accent, and came from a city Tally had never heard of

"It’s not too far froers spend most of our time out in the wild The fire helicopters are based in the mountains"

"The firewhats ?"

"Helicopters That’s what you’re sitting in"

She looked around at the rattling machine, and shouted over the noise, "It’s so Rusty!"

"Yeah Vintage stuff, a few pieces of it are almost two hundred years old We copy the parts as they wear out"

"But why?"

"You can fly it anywhere, with or without afires

The Rusties sure kne to make a mess"

Tally shook her head "And you spread fires because"

He s a crushed but unburned flower fromipedium panthera, " he said

"Excuse me?"

"This flower used to be one of the rarest plants in the world A white tiger orchid In Rusty days, a single bulb orth more than a house"

"A house? But there’s zillions of the into its delicate ured a way to engineer the species to adapt to wider conditions She ate more easily"

"Why?"

"The usual To trade them for lots of stuff But she succeeded a little too well Look down"

Tally peered out theThe ained altitude and left the firestorm behind Beloere endless fields of white, interrupted only by a few barren patches "Looks like she did a good job So what? They’re nice"