That morning Frill had locked Onion in the house again, leaving him with nothing to do but stare out the window at the dripping autumn forest. Frill, Onion thought, was always telling him he was special, he was tame, he was her orange-haired sweetheart. But these last few weeks had taught Onion the truth: she kept him in a cage exactly as she did her wolves and box turtles. His cage was just bigger than the rest.

Outside the window, rain fell steadily all morning. When the Muskies filed onto the driveway along the south side of the house, Onion sat bolt upright in surprise. They should not have been able to pass through Frill's fence.

Festooned with all their usual straps and bags, the Muskies spread across the driveway, swept aside fallen leaves and began to quarry Frill's pavement. Onion watched with intense curiosity. On trips into the wilderness Frill had often pointed out to him bands of Muskies hunting, or ruined Muskie dens from the days when, as Frill said, they had overrun the world. But it had always been from an unsatisfactory distance, and always when Onion was leashed and could not investigate on his own. Muskies were as shy of Big Ones as any other animals of the forest. This was the closest Onion had ever been to his own kind.

They were dirty and soaking wet. But they handled their metal tools very cleverly.

He rapped on the window. They did not notice. After a while they moved into the garden and began stripping off ears of corn. Onion banged harder, vibrating in frustration, but the Muskies just turned to the shelter where Frill cured her onions, to the heavy-laden apple trees. When they had filled their bags, they left as cautiously and purposefully as they had come, vanishing into the forest on the far side of the garden fence. It was by far the most interesting thing to happen since Frill had started leaving him at home.

Frill, though, was not at all pleased when she returned and saw the mess. She emerged through the wall of her purple tank and slowly extended several eye- and nosestalks, poking and peering and sniffing at the stretch of mud where her driveway had been. Only then did she step to the ground, and each row of her legs waved distastefully before fastening to the mud and pulling her forward. When she reached the house she swelled up into a perfect sphere and shook herself clean before rolling through the window.

Onion wanted to tell her what he had seen. But all he could do was fart, questioningly, turning his paltry smell-making parts to Frill the way Big Ones did when they talked.

Frill did not answer. Neither did she scoop him up in her usual delighted fashion. Instead she peered at Onion with dozens of eyestalks and asked him, deliberately, Muskies?

That was an easy word to recognize: a wisp of muskiness, pronounced with a swell and flutter of intensity that meant things that moved around of their own accord: musk-smelling creatures, Muskies.

He waved his upper legs at her, in imitation of her nosestalks. Yes yes.

She rolled swiftly toward her farspeaker. A brief conversation ensued. When she removed her nosestalks from the farspeaker sockets she tumbled past him again, through the window. She flattened herself and undulated along the overgrown perimeter of the grounds, yelling at the long-vanished Muskies.

She was still muttering when she returned inside. Get away!! Stay away!! Onion scrambled into his den and closed the door tight, but the skunk smell had already settled onto his skin. Frill was truly upset. She had never been so careless before.

It seemed a very long time before Frill poked a couple of eyestalks into his den. A nosestalk sniffed at his cheek. Onion, she murmured. The wisp of raw-onion smell floated onto him like a bit of down. Then a gentle cascade of odors: Oh, I am sorry, little Orange. Oh, such terrible things are happening these days. She began to groom him, wiping away the skunk smell, kissing his single eye-and-nosestalk with the scent he loved best, perfume of the lilacs that bloomed in the garden in springtime. He pressed into her enveloping warmth. Onion, she sang affectionately, Orange. Onion. Orange. His name.

Onion wanted to ask her why she was so upset about the Muskies. He wanted to tell her that, cooped up as he had been, he had begun to feel like the mountain lions who paced back and forth in her laboratory cages, their eyes full of rage and longing. He farted a couple of times to catch her attention. She responded by kissing him with a lilac-scented nose and jiggling him up and down. He couldn't really say anything to her. He was only an animal, so he would never be able to speak.

Just as Frill set his dinner on the floor, a silver-pink tank rolled up the road from town. Onion carried his plate to the window.

Frill opened the window and paused on the threshold. Expecting Diglegs, Onion managed to pick out of the cold air that leaked into the house. Who are?

From Home, said the newcomer. Sweetmouth Nest Guard.

Frill's eyestalks dipped in surprise. Home Nest?

We have been sent to. Missing Nest Guardians. It is believed their weapons have. Now your house. It is most.

We are in no, said Frill.

It is so believed. It is so decided.

Then Frill moved forward and the window closed behind her, and Onion could only watch while the newcomer and Frill trundled around the garden perimeter, talking, scanning, sniffing. Sweetmouth's velvet legs were a redder purple than Frill's, and her mouth was more puckered, and she was smaller. Her eye- and nosestalks twisted around very slowly and deliberately. When she followed Frill indoors, and her gaze fell upon Onion, they stopped moving altogether.

You keep it in your house? Sweetmouth said, with the precision of extreme distaste.

Oh, yes, Frill said. It's so soothing to gaze upon this little one.

This, Sweetmouth said, is a dangerous animal.

It's completely tame, said Frill. I've kept it for years. It's very clever. Sometimes I think it almost has.

We always knew the Muskies were, Sweetmouth said, quick and harsh now. Too clever for their own good. But wisdom? They proved long ago. You cannot trust.

This little one is no threat to, Frill said.

Sweetmouth's nosestalks bristled, pointing aggressively toward Frill. Onion held his breath. Big Ones thought it very bad to argue. I cannot understand your attachment, Sweetmouth said. Next you'll tell me you share food with.

Frill did not back down. After a moment she said, almost pleadingly, Let us talk about what we can agree on. Let us talk about how to keep the wild Muskies from my house.

There was another pause. Then Sweetmouth's nosestalks turned away slightly from their stiff outthrust position, without relaxing. Onion could not follow most of the tense and rapid conversation that followed. There was a word like blood, blood coming out, repeated many times. It was the thing the Nest Guardians from Home were going to do to the Muskies. Frill tried for a long time to persuade her not to do it. Their numbers are already below the target we, she said. The two veered dangerously close to argument again. Again Frill tried to bring them back to the subject of her broken fence. Better to live in town with your nestmates, Sweetmouth said.

Just then Sweetmouth noticed how close Onion had crept so he could smell more clearly. One eyestalk swiveled around to stare at him, then a dozen eyes, five or six noses.

Get it away, Sweetmouth said loudly, angrily.

It is just curious, said Frill. But she turned to Onion and said, Go to your den. Onion reluctantly obeyed.

He did not like this newcomer who argued with Frill. None of the Big Ones loved him as much as Frill, but they played with him, and sometimes they picked him up and stroked him, marveling at his brilliant orange hair. So wonderful, they would say, the color, so lovely, so moving.

Onion was not certain what Sweetmouth meant by the word that was almost blood coming out. It was always hard to catch the exact way words faded and swelled in intensity, the exact order in which the little marker-smells that meant nothing and everything clustered around the words. And it was always so hard to smell the fading ends of statements.

Onion remembered how blood had come out of his leg, copiously, when he had experimented with Frill's puzzling kitchenware. And blood had come out of Frill, cloudy purple and smelling just like the word, the time a crazed Muskie stabbed her with a sharp-pointed stick. Onion, leashed to the tank, had only been able to watch while Frill snapped the stick in two and drove away the creature with skunk-scented shouts.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. Only a few wisps of scent drifted into his den. After a long time he smelled the fragrance of winter squash spiced with raw onions, an extra-potent orange meal that Big Ones usually reserved for a Nest Conclave. He crawled from his den and made his way across the wide floor of Frill's translucent house. Yes, the two Big Ones were feeding each other finally, shiny with exudations, legs interweaving like a nest of garden snakes, nosestalks murmuring back and forth those strange sweet-scented words the Big Ones reserved for such occasions.

Onion climbed the ramp to the window and saw that the day still held one more surprise. A strange yellowish vapor now drifted through the forest beyond the garden, and three tanks were rolling swiftly through the trees. They were silver-pink, which meant they belonged to the Nest Guard. They must be searching for the Muskies who had stolen Frill's driveway.

When Onion woke, sunlight filled the house, and Frill and Sweetmouth were saying goodbye, their nosestalks bobbing and weaving affectionately. He crouched behind the door of his den until he was certain Sweetmouth had really left.

The Big Ones had had to feed each other all night to reach the proper loving-tenderness of nestmates. Onion could still smell the fragrance of their exudations, and silver crystals sparkled on the kitchen floor like snow.

After Frill had cleaned the floor with the velvet frills on her legs, she placed a treat on his plate, big slices of walnut and maple-sugar cake that must have been left over from last night's long meal. When he finished, she groomed him thoroughly and lovingly. He drifted into a contented doze.

Then he realized Frill had set him down and was already halfway to the window. He scurried after her, grabbed a leg and yanked.

Little one, it's too dangerous. The Nest Guard will be.

Onion banged on the window, farted desperately. He hated being alone all day, every day. But Frill picked him up and backed through the window, setting him down inside just before it turned solid again. She trundled muddily to her tank and in another moment was gone.

Onion pressed his eyestalk against the window, defeated. There was nothing to do in the house. He had grown to hate all the toys Frill had given him, the knotted hoops, the mazes, the stupid game that said a word when you matched up the right figure of a tank or house or tool. That game had long been much too simple and it just reminded him, mockingly, that he would never talk.

There had to be a way to open the window. There had to be!

Very few of Frill's things ignored him. Mostly Frill just told him not to touch something, and he obeyed. But the window encircling the house was different. For as long as he could remember, it had completely refused to acknowledge his touch.

After his accident with the kitchen apparatus, Frill had ordered the house not to let that cupboard open for him any more.

Onion crossed the purple floor to the stacks of cupboards surrounding the kitchen. Behind the kitchen was a flat, wide purple pillar that looked like a giant leg. Instead of a frill, though, the house's leg bore upon its surface a few dozen suckers of various colors made for Big-One leg tips thinned fine as grass.

Onion had never detected any smells written upon the pillar. At random, he stuck a piece of the frill at the end of his upper leg into one of the suckers. It sphinctered onto him and clung. He wiggled it. Nothing happened. He tried another one; the same. Most of the suckers were out of reach, so he hauled boxes of toys from his den and stacked them in front of the pillar. Then he set about trying the suckers methodically, one by one. Frill had given him puzzles as hard as this when she was testing him, and he had always solved them. You are so clever, little one.

But she would not be pleased by this.

It wasn't hard to discover the purple sucker that showed him the three-dimensional model of the house he had once glimpsed behind Frill's bulk. But it took a very long time to find the commands that kept the window from responding to his touch. Finally he managed to make the orange four-legged figure that represented him cling to the house walls. Onion raced to the real window, flung himself at it, hardly daring to hope--

The window dissolved away from his body. His momentum launched him into chilly sunlight, and he landed in the mud with a painful thump. After a few seconds, he looked up. The curving purple wall of the house looked as opaque and solid as it always did from the outside.

From the outside.

He stood and turned around. The sharp scent of mud filled his nose. A breeze ruffled the wings of the red-gold forest beyond Frill's garden. Overhead, a hawk floated in a cloudless sky.

He was outside!

The cold breeze whisked away his body heat. Frill would have dressed him before taking him out in this weather.

Onion wandered through Frill's vast garden. At the far end he reached out a leg carefully, half-expecting a nasty shock, but the fence was still broken. He climbed through the brush.

Near the fence, the forest reeked of skunk. Onion headed further in. Restless sunlight dappled his skin. He caught a low-hanging branch and swung on it for a while, then stopped to look at a lumpy mass beneath a young beech. On closer inspection the lump proved to be covered with something like hide. Onion squatted down and brushed away the orange leaves. And then he was on his feet, vibrating in distress; the lump was a Muskie, yellow scum and dried blood covering its single eyestalk, mouth frozen in a bloody and terrifying yawn.

Blood coming out.

Onion remembered the yellowish vapor drifting through the trees last night, the silver-pink tanks. Blood coming out. He began to shiver.

Something touched his shoulder then, as if he had backed into a branch. But he hadn't moved. Onion turned and saw that what touched him was the filthy, scabbed frill of a Muskie's upper leg. This Muskie was very much alive. So were the four others that stood in a clump behind it. Exhilaration that was not quite fear thrilled through him.

They were outfitted in typical Muskie fashion: covered in drab cloth or hide and hung all about with straps and sacks. They also had a few brightly-colored tools about them, including a boxy purple fence-opener like Frill's and a silver-pink tube they must have stolen from the Nest Guard. All the Muskies had straggly hair encircling their eye-and-nosestalks. They smelled as though they had not been groomed in a long time.

The Muskie touching Onion's shoulder opened its mouth and vibrated. Disconcerted, Onion took a step backward.

The Muskie vibrated some more, opening and closing its mouth. Onion knew that many wild animals communicated by vibrating. He stared at it, wondering what the creature could want.

Again the Muskie opened its mouth and vibrated. A cold worm of panic burrowed into the pit of Onion's stomach. There was something extremely familiar about those sounds. He felt, strangely, that he should be able to answer, that he could almost understand. He tried to back away, but the Muskie grabbed him. Onion pulled free, rubbing his upper leg. The Muskie was still vibrating at him, louder, urgent.

Then it was as if understanding rushed out of some unknown darkness inside him, transforming noise into words--

"Where are you from?" the Muskie had said. "Did you escape from the Grubs? Can you speak?"

Onion was astonished. The words were as plain as anything Frill had ever said to him. Until that moment he had been certain he remembered nothing of his long-ago days in the wild.

Again the Muskie vibrated at Onion. "How did you get here? Can you understand me? Can you talk?"

Onion wanted desperately to talk. But he couldn't make Muskie-speech. All he could do was fart, as if to say, That's the best answer I can give. I hear you but I can't answer.

"Leave it, Alfie," said another of the Muskies. "He's a retard. Or maybe the Grubs fucked with his brain. Let's get out of here."

"Do you ever think of anything besides yourself?" said the first Muskie. "This is a precious human child here."

The Muskies hadn't smelled his fart. Or perhaps they smelled it and didn't understand even that simple a communication. This time Onion farted loudly and long to make sure the wind did not blow away the smell, and he waved his upper legs. Hello hello.

As if in response, noise sputtered from the mouth of the second Muskie. But it turned away, saying, "Come on, Alfie!"

Disappointment flooded Onion. He was a Muskie, so he couldn't talk to Big Ones; but he couldn't even talk to other Muskies. He had no speech. He would never find anyone to understand him.

"Poor boy," said the first Muskie, "look at him shiver. The Grubs even took away his clothes. Frank, give him your spare coverall."

"Give away good clothes to a retard?" the other Muskie said.

"Frank," said the first Muskie. "That is an order. Give him the coverall."

For a long moment the two Muskies stared at each other, holding their eyestalks rigid. Onion wondered if they were going to fight. But finally the Frank-Muskie said, "Whoop-de-doo, a fucking order." And it turned its eyestalk away, and wriggled out of some of the straps criss-crossing its body. From a sack it pulled a much-wrinkled construction of brown cloth which it held out to Onion.

The cloth was scratchy and dirty, and reeked of animal musk and burnt wood. Onion struggled into it anyway. At least he was instantly much warmer.

Then the Alfie-Muskie said, "We'll take the boy with us. You two," it waved its upper leg at some of the other Muskies, "you carry Tony. Hop to it. We've been here too long already."

"Are you out of your mind?" Frank asked.

"We can't leave him with the Grubs."

"He's a retard," said Frank. "Let the Grubs feed him."

"He's a child," said the Alfie-Muskie. "His genes might be good even if his brain is gone."

"Oh, come on," said Frank, "you think Peter's going to breed him?"

"We've got to get out of here," Alfie said in a harsh, thin way. "Now!"

While Frank and Alfie were arguing, the other Muskies wrapped their dead fellow in a blanket and lifted the bundle onto a cloth fastened to two long poles. That Muskies argued all the time didn't surprise Onion; Frill had explained often enough about animal nature. But he had never been near so much raw and careless anger. It was worse than the argument between Sweetmouth and Frill, because the anger was so casual, it was obvious the Muskies fought every day.

Still, as soon as Onion thought of them departing, he felt a sharp pang of loss. They were his own kind. He wanted to visit their dens, see how they lived.

They hoisted the poles, one Muskie at each end. "Come on," one of them said to Onion.

Another pulse of excitement thrilled through him. Frill would never have allowed it.

They headed up the valley, stopping frequently to bend their eyestalks around in search of vibrations. Cold wind tossed the treetops, and orange leaves danced across the forest floor. Onion listened to the Muskies as they strode along, their words soft and sparse now.

"Let me spell you."

"Did you hear something?"

"Watch for Grubs."

Rich smells rose up as they tramped through the leaves: humus, moldering wood, uprooted mushrooms. Onion spied an antlered buck in the distance, who watched them nervously, head alert. Squirrels bounded from branch to branch.

Once they huddled in a stand of hemlocks while a silver-pink airboat raced overhead, whirring.

"That's a model I haven't seen before."

"Peter says a shuttle landed at South Port last week. The Grubs pulled a hangar over it before unloading, so they couldn't see what came off."

"More Grubs."

"New helicopters, at least."

"Jesus help us."

They hiked until the sun dropped behind the ridge and the sky turned purple. Finally they reached a concrete-walled ruin. Inside, Onion discovered other Muskies squatting around a fire. A heap of sacks lay in the corner, bulging with vegetables and chunks of Frill's pavement. So these were the Muskies he had seen yesterday.

"Success," Alfie said to the Muskies by the fire. Alfie's companions set down the stretcher beside the sacks of pavement.

"Oh, yeah," said Frank, "big fucking success. We brought back the body of a man who died because you're an asshole, Alfie."

Alfie took a deep breath. "I forgive you, Frank," Alfie said, "because I know you are grieving for Tony just as I am."

"Well, I don't forgive you," said Frank. "You as good as killed him."

Onion eyed the fire. Frill said that Muskies used it all the time, but the naked flames unnerved him. Still, he could feel heat pouring off. He edged closer very cautiously and sat.

One of the Muskies thrust a few ears of Frill's corn into the coals. Another handed Onion a shredded chunk of dried deer meat in a dirty bowl. Alfie casually hacked apart one of the onions and distributed the pieces. "Want some?" Alfie asked Onion.

Onion pulled his bowl back, startled; the Big Ones reserved onions for occasions requiring the most moving and powerful foods, and never had Frill allowed him so much as a taste. Frank grabbed the pungent slice and waved it in Onion's face. "Oh, look, the retard's scared of onions."

"Frank!" Alfie said. "Don't torment the boy!"

Frank dropped the slice in its own bowl and began to eat.

Onion finished his meat and then a share of singed corn. No one offered him more. He inched closer to the fire; sensation began to return to the ends of his lower legs. He wondered what Frill would think when she returned home to find him gone.

"Now, young man, I'm going to ask you some questions," said Alfie. The tall, thin Muskie held up the frill of its upper leg and folded most of the frill over. "How many fingers am I holding up? One? Two? Three? Can you show me? Do you know what I'm saying?"

It was a stupid test. Onion held up his upper leg, folding the frill down to mimic the Muskie's.

"Very good," said Alfie, "that was two fingers. How many fingers is this? Can you show me?" And then, when Onion unfolded part of his frill, "Good, good, three fingers. Now, do you know what add means?" Alfie showed Onion two on one frill and three on the other. "How many do you get if you add three and two?"

Of course, Onion thought, you could not expect Muskie tests to be as sophisticated as Frill's. Muskies were only animals. He unfolded his frill completely and wriggled it.

Alfie let out a gust of air. "He understands. He can add."

"He's a fucking genius," said Frank.

In early morning they set out through a bank of heavy fog. Then the fog burned away into another bright, cold, windy autumn day. The Muskies' den seemed to be far away, but Onion did not mind. He thought he could walk forever through the flying leaves, the scents that swelled and vanished on the wind. This was Frill's favorite season, too, when the forest turned red and orange, when it was filled with light, as she said.

At midday they stopped to eat. Alfie gave him more number tests.

"It's amazing," said Alfie. "He hasn't made a single mistake. What's your name? I know you can understand me. What's your name, young man?"

Onion wanted badly to respond, but he was trapped by his own tameness.

"My name's Alfonse, Alfonse Smith," Alfie said. "What's your name?"

He was not going to try farting again. Wild Muskies certainly couldn't understand smells. Even outside, in the cold wind, Muskie scents flooded over him; woodsmoke, body musk, hair oil, meaty breath. A Big One would never stand to have such a noisy chaos of smells emitting from her person.

"Can you talk?" Alfie asked. "What's your name?"

Onion knew it so well, the sharp, warm, pungent smell the Big Ones loved so much. But he did not know it in Muskie speech.

Then, unexpectedly, the sounds Frank had made last night echoed in his mind. Onions. He opened his mouth and vibrated the way Muskies did. "Aah," he heard.

The Muskies twisted their eyestalks to stare at Onion. "The poor boy," said Alfie. "What did they do to him?"

"Aah," Onion vibrated, trying out sounds. "Nn, yan. Un, yun."

"Now you've got him all worked up," said Frank.

"He's trying to talk," said Alfie.

Frank rose and adjusted some of the straps encircling its body. "He's just grunting. Let's get a move on."

"An, yun," Onion said. "Un-yun, anyun, unyun." He was sure those were the right sounds. But they didn't understand him.

They spent the night in another ruin. Alfie set to testing Onion some more, puzzles, stick mazes to trace his way out of, and then they played yes-and-no questions.

Onion was used to being tested. The Big Ones tested him all the time, debating. Frill would say, The little one is almost wise. When you tame Muskies, they are almost wise.

Sixtynose would say, Wisdom is more than knowing tricks. It is more than imitating how a person acts. It is understanding.

Alfie seemed only to want to know if Onion was clever. Onion knew he was clever. But Sixtynose was right. He did not understand anything important: how to talk, why an animal like himself longed to be a person, why the color orange filled Big Ones to overflowing with love and awe. The color of light, they said.

He was ravenous; they never gave him enough food. And he had never been so sore and tired in his life. A strange thing started happening. One moment he would be walking in rustling light, beneath trees that cast orange wings endlessly at the blue sky. Then a fog of despair would roll over him, enveloping him in a dream where he was fearfully walking, walking, no place to stop. Are they following us? Will they find us?

And then he would shake himself and the dream would dissolve; he would find himself happy again. He was learning about his own kind. He was in the wilderness, free, no leash, no walls, no window. The sun still danced and spun over his head through leaves that were as translucent as shell, bright as fire.

On the third day they began to traverse up the side of one of the mountains. Maple and beech gave way to pine, and still they climbed endlessly, into scrubby brush and granite and wind. The summit reached higher than Onion had ever been. The wind grew bitterly cold. Finally they climbed over the top, and the world sank away from their feet. Onion stopped in his tracks.

The mountains stretched out in all directions, fold after orange fold, to a horizon that promised more mountains beyond it unrolling into infinity. Light seemed to pulse out of earth and sky. Even the Muskies' faces seemed filled with it, as fine and delicate as leaves. He felt the wind trying to rip him loose and fling him to the horizon. Filled with light.

This was his home, here, in the mountains, with his own kind. Now he knew the real reason Frill refused to take him into the wilderness unleashed. She knew he would never want to come back. He heard himself vibrating with joy. He felt a touch upon his shoulder, and turned. Alfie's hair-covered mouth curved upward at each end.

Then the mouth straightened, and Alfie said, "Look," and pointed. Miles away, a tiny airboat crept along a ridge top.

"Let's get moving!" Alfie called.

Ice-cold water and the odor of dank earth poured from a narrow opening in the mountainside. One by one the Muskies crouched down and squeezed into darkness.

Alfie produced a lightstick stolen from the Big Ones, and they waded onward. Onion glimpsed rusty girders, side galleries fading into darkness. Eventually they splashed out of the stream. Light began to diffuse into the tunnels. They passed a Muskie sentry, with whom Alfie exchanged a few words. Then they rounded a corner into a concrete-floored den so large that it dwarfed the fifty or so Muskies, the most Onion had ever seen in one place, who huddled around half a dozen campfires. Even so vast a space reeked of smoke, ungroomed animals, and burned meat.

The Muskies in the den began to make noise and surge toward Alfie and his band. Everyone gabbled back and forth so swiftly and in such numbers that Onion could not follow. He heard how did, Grubs, Tony, gas, until Alfie lifted its frill and shouted, "People!" The crowd fell more or less silent. "They didn't touch him," said Alfie. "We got the body in time."

"Gas," said a small, delicately built Muskie that stood nearby. "What a horrible way to die."

This Muskie caught Onion's attention. It looked young, and was apparently what Frill would call an egg-maker; it bore hair only upon the upper part of its eyestalk. Exudations leaked from its eyes and ran down in two glittering tracks, but it looked as stiff with anger as Onion had ever seen Frank or Alfie.

"He died in glory, Sara," said Alfie, laying a frill on the small Muskie's shoulder. "He died defending us from the Beast. He's safe in Jesus' arms now."

The small Muskie pushed Alfie's hand away violently. "You damned Crusaders! Everything you touch turns bloody! He shouldn't have died at all!"

"Sara, don't blame Alfie," said another Muskie, who had white hair and sagging skin netted with coarse lines. "The Grubs killed Tony."

"Don't blame Alfie?" Frank said. "She should blame Alfie! He fucked up! We were just supposed to get those power cells, in and out. But he has the brilliant idea to go back to attack the Grubs. Of course the Grubs were waiting!"

"We must strike at the Beast any way we can," said Alfie.

"The Grubs have been all stirred up since Alfie's stunt last month," Frank said. "And now they're hunting Crusaders again. All the way back we saw helicopters, searching. If Alfie thinks they won't be able to find us, he isn't playing with any more cards than this retard he brought with us."

Alfie had been growing more and more rigid, and now it said, "Don't you care that we're fighting a war here? What can be more important than killing the Beast?"

"Surviving," said Frank. "Surviving."

"That's enough, gentlemen," said the white-haired Muskie.

Frank and Alfie stared at each other, breathing hard. Onion could feel the unspoken anger choking the air, from them, from Sara, from the restless, muttering crowd. Frill was right; wild Muskies had no wisdom at all. They were always angry. If the Big Ones tamed them, as Frill had tamed Onion, they would have much nicer lives.

But Frill said only young animals could be tamed. Onion wondered if the Muskie called Sara, who was still leaking exudations, was sufficiently young.

"Why don't you tell me who this stranger is?" asked the white-haired Muskie.

Alfie's eyestalk twisted toward Onion. "This is a child we rescued from the Grubs."

"He's some kind of retard," Frank said.

"He understands what you say to him," said Alfie. "He's very bright. I think he has been traumatized by the Grubs and can no longer speak. Or perhaps there has been some brain damage."

The white-haired Muskie stepped up to Onion. "Do you understand me, kid?"

Onion bent his eyestalk backward and forward as they had shown him. Yes.

"What's your name? Can you tell me your name?"

"Yun, yan," said Onion. "Unyan."

"All he can say are nonsense syllables," said Alfie.

The Muskie den was lit by a row of empty-eyed openings that ran along one side of the room. Onion crossed the floor and leaned out into the wind. The huge den was part of a cliffhouse attached to the bony shoulder of a mountain. Below, Muskie gardens lay in patches across a floodplain. The long mountain ridge curved a few miles away, boxing in the valley and hiding it from any who did not have eyes in the air.

Now Muskies appeared at the foot of the cliffhouse and spread along the streamside. Some of them began to dig a hole in the ground.

"Friend," called Alfie. "Why don't you come with us?"

Onion followed Alfie and Peter to a concrete stairway that led down to afternoon sunlight. The Sara-Muskie sat on the grass, all four legs wrapped tight, not far from the Muskies digging the hole. It watched as Frank and several others laid out chunks of Frill's black translucent pavement along the stream bank.

Peter hunkered down and put a frill on Sara's shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Sara looked away. "I'll be OK." Its voice sounded clogged and raw, as if it hurt to speak.

For a few moments they were silent. Then Peter said to Alfie, "Why don't you show me what your foundling can do?"

Alfie gestured to Onion to sit. And then Alfie began again with the tests. Sara watched them silently. Once in a while it wiped exudations from its nose.

"Un, yun," Onion said, as he added and subtracted and solved Alfie's tedious riddles. "Un, yun, un-yun, unyun." He didn't know what was wrong with his sounds.

The Muskies working on the hole dug deeper and deeper until only their eyestalks poked above the ground. Alfie moved on to yes-and-no, different questions this time. "Where do you come from? Do you know where your people are?"

Onion twisted his eyestalk, no: he didn't know where Frill was right now, in the laboratory or out in the wilderness, taking care of the forest; and Sixtynose, Frill's favorite nestmate, had disappeared weeks ago. "Al," he tried. "Pee, fee. Fee. Yoo, yer, nnn. Ame." But the Muskies didn't understand those sounds, either.

Sara stirred finally, sniffling. "He's trying to say something."

"He's trying, but he can't," said Alfie. "It pains me to see it."

"Sare!" Onion shouted, frustrated almost beyond endurance. "Yer nn, ame!"

She stared at him. Then, "Sara," she said. "My name is Sara."

Onion's pulse seemed to stop for a moment. "My, name," he said, "is Onion."

There was a long silence. Sara and Alfie and Peter looked at him. "Unyun?" Sara asked, wiping her nose again. "What kind of name is that? Where do you come from?"

This time Onion heard the sounds in his mind even though no one had said them before. Big Ones. It was like the memory of a dream coming back to him, where all words had sounds and his mouth was used to shaping them.

"Buh," he said. "Big. W--, w--, wuns."

"Big Ones?" asked Sara. She moved closer, so close that Onion could have touched her.

"Big Ones, bee. Kuz," Onion said. "Because of my." The word eluded him, so he grabbed the hair on top of his eyestalk and showed them.

"Hair?" she asked. "Unyun means hair?"

"Ss-mell," Onion said. "Onion smell. The, the smell is, like the, the. The color. Orange."

"The color orange smells like an onion?" Peter said, slowly.

Onion twisted his eyestalk no. "Onion smells orange. It, has, aah, an orange smell."

"Peter," said Sara, clapping a frill over her mouth, "he means the Grubs. The Grubs gave him that name. He can talk to them!"

"Can. Nt," said Onion. "Talk to. Big Ones. Only, listen."

There was another silence. "Lord have mercy," said Alfie, finally. "How long did they keep him prisoner?"

But Peter stuck out the frill of his upper leg toward Onion. "Well, Orange," he said, "welcome back to the human race. My name is Peter Milano."

The sound-word came to Onion, hand. He was not sure what the gesture meant. Big Ones touched noses when they exchanged names.

"You know my name." Sara reached out and took Onion's frill, his hand, in her own.

It was the first time he had felt the bare flesh of a Muskie. The smoothness and firmness of Sara's hand was very different from the yielding velvet of a Big One. A tingling ran up Onion's upper leg, his arm, and down the length of his body. Sara had a smell, too, but only a faint, pleasing one; she was better groomed than the unkempt band that had brought him here.

Then Onion thought, she.

She and he.

Muskies, he realized, had words for the formless notions that had always existed in his head. Big Ones did not. He had always been himself. Up till now only Big Ones had been she: vast, warm, delighted, attentive, the source of boundless comfort. Now he saw that she was something else as well: something as small and needy as himself, something angry as an animal, beautiful as the odor of lilacs.

When the digging Muskies were satisfied with their hole, the entire band gathered around it. Several Muskies lowered the bundled corpse and Alfie made a long speech about dust and judgment. Afterwards, Alfie tried to talk to Sara, but she turned from him without a word.

Everyone went back inside. Peter, mouth twisting slightly, told Sara to take Onion away and fetch him some dry clothes.

Sara led him up a flight of stairs and down a corridor to a small den lit by the sunset. She did not speak to him, turned away even as he stripped off the nasty wet clothes and groomed himself as best he could with the rags she handed him. Frill would be upset at how dirty he had gotten.

But when he had put on the new clothes, dry and warm but just as smelly and scratchy, she turned back. They looked at each other in silence for a long moment. For as long as he could remember, Onion had thought of himself as a kind of Big One, only deficient. Muskies had seemed so strange. But in the last few days the memory of a dream had been coming back to him. In the dream Muskies were ordinary, their sounds and smells comforting. In the dream he was just like them, ordinary. He was not after all deficient. He was what he was meant to be.

"How old are you?" Sara asked him, finally. "I'm sixteen. You look my age. But I don't know. I've hardly ever seen any boys."

"Boys?" Onion said. He understood that the word included him.

"There was Tony. But he was much older than me, a man really--" She stopped suddenly, and liquid began to leak from her eyes again. A large vibration of distress shook her. "He, Tony, I didn't like him, really. We weren't close. But we, we--"

Onion did what Frill would have done to comfort her, what he realized he had wanted to do from the beginning. He reached out and pulled Sara against him, and stroked her face, her long hair, her small and delicate hands. He wished he knew how to make the smell of lilacs.

After a few moments Sara wiped her eyes and pushed away. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

She led him toward the smell of food, back to the large den with the campfires. There was venison with roast apples and potatoes, and corn in a thick porridge. Sara piled it all onto a plate, and then she handed Onion a strange metal Muskie tool that looked a bit like a miniature arm, a straight piece ending in four little fingers. Onion turned it over.

"You've never seen a fork before?" Sara took it back from him, stabbed a piece of venison, and lifted it toward his mouth.

Onion's heart seemed to stop beating. His mouth must have dropped open, because the next thing he knew, the hot chunk of meat sat squarely upon his tongue. "Like that," Sara said.

When Big Ones fed each other, they never used tools. And they sat with flesh pressed together, mouths almost touching, legs and eyes and nosestalks twining sinuously. When Onion had swallowed he put his hand on the fork, gently, in case he had misunderstood. Sara let him have it. Hands shaking, he stabbed at another piece of venison and lifted it to her mouth.

The corners of her mouth curved upward just a little. "No, silly," she said. "I was just showing you how to use it." But she opened her mouth and, white teeth catching the firelight, tongue and lips working delicately, she took the venison from him.

A wave of joy flooded through Onion, swelling in his throat and stinging his eyes. He had been so lonely in Frill's house. Now he, too, had a nestmate.

"Why are you crying?" Sara asked.

"I," Onion began. "I'm." Another exquisite wave crested and broke. Now he could answer such questions; he had remembered how to talk. He had climbed through the window. He was part of the world. "I'm here," he said, tears trickling down his face.

After they had eaten, Peter called them to his campfire. Peter sat in a construction, a chair, carved out of a substance Onion had never seen before, rose-colored spongy stuff that was firm but yielding to the touch.

"I've been thinking, kid," said Peter, "since I first saw you. There was a girl from a band that used to camp down along the Delaware. She had your look. Same coloring--carroty hair. Green eyes. She was one of the resistant ones. She had a baby, must have been about fifteen, sixteen years ago. I guess I know just about every child born in the Delaware and Susquehanna headwaters in the last fifty years--the Lord knows, there haven't been many. Which river do you come from?"

"I don't know," said Onion. Frill had taken him to a big river several times. Once they had traveled out upon its expanse with a pair of Big Ones who were taking care of the water, and downriver, hazy with distance, Onion had seen what must be the biggest cliffhouses on the face of the earth, tall as mountains.

"Do you remember your mother, kid? Do you remember her name?"

"I don't know," Onion said. The word mother sounded strange to his ears, and then, all at once, familiar.

"Her people were Crusaders. I heard she and her kid were caught in the massacre after the big raid on South Port--what was it, ten, eleven years ago now? But I see that wasn't true." Peter reached down and patted Onion on the shoulder. "You survived, at least. You have good genes, Orange. Resistant, you know what that means? Lucky for all of us Alfie found you. Lucky you have a pretty good dose of intelligence. You and Sara, you stick together. You two are our future, do you understand?"

"Sure," Onion said. He hadn't the faintest idea what Peter was talking about. He glanced at Sara; she was looking down at her hands. This talk about Big Ones killing Muskies upset him. Frill never killed any Muskies; she just shouted at them.

"Tell me," said Peter, "Do you know why they kept you prisoner, kid? Instead of killing you with the rest?"

"I'm not a, I wasn't," Onion began, and then stopped. He had indeed been a kind of prisoner, in a cage built of Frill's whims. But the Muskies kept making it sound cruel. "They--I--" He struggled for a moment with the word frill, and gave up. "She takes, took care of me. My, my Big One I lived with. She just wouldn't let me go out."

"My?" Peter's face twisted, and his voice turned harsh and full of anger. "Don't say my. The Grubs are not your anything except your mortal enemy." The old Muskie rose to his feet again. "Let me show you something."

He disappeared into the smoky gloom; a moment later he returned holding a box. Inside were loose, brittle sheets with colored images on them. Peter handled the pages very carefully. It took Onion a moment to realize the images were Muskies. Muskies brightly clothed and beautifully groomed. Muskies driving sleek, four-wheeled vehicles that looked swift as the wind. Muskies entering and leaving cliffhouses, only these weren't ruins, they were cloaked in shimmering glass. Muskies playing with toys amid vast open green spaces, not a tree or other creature in sight.

"This was our world, kid," said Peter fiercely, "before the Grubs came. Don't ever forget it." He leaned close to Onion. "Don't ever, don't ever forget they killed your mother."

That word again, mother; Onion didn't know whom or what Peter meant. But the word pulled up something from deep inside him, a memory of a dream, anguish, love, longing. A dream of comfort, of a vast and omniscient she, a beautiful song holding him as close as two strong arms. Mother was something like Frill, only older and deeper. Between him and mother was a cold blank space that he did not know how to cross. Yet on the other side of that space--

Safe in the arms of Jesus, she sang...

A dream; it was cold, they were walking, walking. Are they following us? Will they find us? She hushed him.

Onion pushed at Peter's chair as though to push away the word mother, only to realize that Peter had left to put away his box. The chair, light as air, skittered across the floor.

"So you like my chair, do you?" Peter laughed as he scooted it back to the fireside. "I bet you've never seen the insides of a Grub before, kid. They don't have bones like you or me. You just skin 'em and leave 'em in the weather long enough, and they shrink right up. This is what's left. I just carved it a bit with a pocket knife."

"Skin them?" Onion said, staring at the chair. The bitter smell of Muskie anger billowed over him. Skin them?

Blood coming out.

He saw Frill again as on that day years ago, the crude spear sticking in her side, the crazed Muskie shouting, Frill's blood coming out onto the leaves...

And then, all at once, he understood what Frank and Alfie had been talking about. The Grubs have been all stirred up since Alfie's stunt last month.

What can be more important than killing the Beast?

Missing Nest Guardians, Sweetmouth had said. And who could she have meant but Sixtynose, gone for many days now?

Alfie had killed Sixtynose, Frill's beloved friend. Sixtynose, who had bounced Onion and tugged on his hair with velvet legs, who had played Spice with him more times than he could remember...

The stench of woodsmoke and poorly groomed Muskies was suddenly nauseating. Onion climbed to his feet, stumbled across the room to the stairway, and ran down it, throwing open the door into clean, frosty air. He closed his eyes.

Blood coming out.

A footstep sounded behind him. A hand touched his shoulder. He turned to look. Sara's hand moved to his cheek, a feather's touch. The tide of nausea receded.

"You don't like to hurt things, not even Grubs," Sara said. "Tony liked to hurt things. I hate the Grubs for killing Tony. But if I killed them wouldn't I be just like him? I just wish they'd go away and leave us alone." She started to cry again.

Onion put his arms around her, and buried his face in her hair. They stood there together for a long time while she sobbed into his shoulder. Her warmth spread along his entire body.

Finally Sara wiped away her tears. "Let's go," she whispered.

She led him by the hand through the lightless maze of corridors and stairs, to the room where she had taken him earlier. Under the scratchy, smoke-infested covers of her bed, she undressed him.

"I'm glad Alfie found you," she said. "I'm so glad you've come to live with us."

What she did then was almost like being groomed by Frill, except that it was stranger, better, sweeter. It was the sweetest thing that had ever happened to him. It filled him with anguish, and exhilaration almost like fear, and astounded delight. He felt torn loose, the way the autumn wind tears away a leaf and throws it to the sky. Each gust carried him farther and farther, spinning him high over granite-boned mountains aflame with autumn, over cold river valleys, lakes and bogs, mountain after folded mountain, bearing him beyond the horizon to his long-lost home.

Thunder exploded into Onion's dreams. "Orange," Peter was shouting. "The Grubs are here!" He pulled Onion out of bed, and thrust a musty-smelling snout over Onion's face, strapped it on. "Grab your clothes and come on!" Peter held a lightstick, but he was not wearing a snout.

The next thing Onion knew he was running through a maze of corridors with Sara and Peter and several other Muskies. His breath sounded hollowly inside the snout. They crossed the big concrete room where the campfires were now extinguished. Huge slabs had fallen from the ceiling, and Onion caught glimpses of dead Muskies, rubble, dark pools of blood.

Alfie appeared. "Gas," he shouted. "Back, go back!"

More Muskies, more running through darkened corridors and up and down endless flights of stairs. Thunder rumbled through the mountain, and the concrete shifted under their feet. Then they were outside, in bitter cold. Airboats whirred high overhead. Hard white ellipses of light slid across valley and mountainside.

Whump. Whump. Yellowish vapor puffed from the mountainside. Cones of brightly lit smoke stretched upward to the airboats. "Come on!" Peter screamed at him. "Don't stop!"

A spot of brilliant light swam through the forest toward Onion, and he instinctively dodged behind a tree. The light fell upon the body of a woman who lay crumpled in the leaves. Onion took her arm. But her arm was limp, her body heavy, and as he pulled, her body rolled onto its back and he saw dark blood spilling into the leaves.

Blood coming out.

Peter grabbed Onion and knocked him flat; a pair of vibrations punched him in the ears. Burning shards rained from the sky. The ellipse of light tilted, and then an airboat smashed into the mountainside not a hundred yards away, bursting into flame. Big Ones tumbled out, screaming. Those were new smells, the stink of agony and burning velvet--

More explosions. Muskies scrambled among the Big Ones, hacking weapons from their flailing legs. "Let's go!" Peter said, pulling Onion to his feet. They stumbled away through the trees, while behind them airboats continued to wade with feet of light through a sea of yellowish smoke, and the mountainside thundered, crumbling into rubble.

They were walking, walking, no place to stop. The dark forest slanted on forever.

Later they stopped in a ruined Muskie den. The concrete floor leached all warmth out of Onion. He sat beside Sara with his arms wrapped around his knees, wishing he could slip into the lake of sleep and bury himself in the mud like a frog in winter. But he kept seeing Muskies in pools of blood, Big Ones writhing in flames...

He dreamed a little, once. It was morning, and he discovered how to escape from Frill's house. In the forest he once more came upon the Muskie corpse, only this time the corpse was his mother's. Onion had forgotten her face until now, but in the dream he knew that she was the most important thing in the world. Her blood was bright and fresh, and it flooded from her mouth, pouring over her orange hair and the sunlit orange leaves, spreading across the floor of the entire world. She was the most important thing in the world, and she was dead. There was nothing Onion could do except stand there crying.

The road wound along the side of the mountain. A cold wind shook the scanty leaves over their heads. Frank's party returned from scouting the road ahead and at last Peter called a rest. The Muskies collapsed at the side of the road.

Peter appeared beside Onion, grim-faced. "Come on, kid. No, Sara, you stay here."

Onion followed him down the hill to an outcropping of rock, where some of the men stood around a cloth-covered lump. "Take a good look, kid," said Peter. "Take a look at what your Grubs get up to."

Onion looked, reluctantly but carefully. He thought the human had been dead for a while. At some point a Big One's tank had rolled over the body, crushing the legs, and the face and chest were missing large chunks of flesh.

"Your Grubs were feeding here," said Peter.

That was one of the stupidest things Onion had ever heard. "Grubs didn't eat him," he said. "They don't eat humans."

"We've all seen it," said Peter.

"But," Onion said, "they just eat, plants. And they can't make, make, marks like that. They don't have, teeth. It looks like--" The pictures were clear in his mind, wolf, coyote, feral dog, but he couldn't remember the sound-words.

"I've seen them," Frank said, his face twisting. "They pull off strips of flesh, tear out the organs, and cram it into their mouths--"

"No," Onion said. "They take, um, bits to look at later, they watch if, if wild animals are healthy--"

"I've seen it!" Frank shouted.

"They killed your mother," Peter said hoarsely. For some reason he started crying. "They might even have eaten your mother."

"But," Onion said. It was no use. They didn't understand him.

Suddenly he saw his mother, whose face he had forgotten, bleeding into the leaves. An all-engulfing grief welled up from the darkness inside him. He looked away from Peter.

"The Big Ones," Onion said, trying to swallow the lump in his throat, "the Big Ones who, who take care of the forest don't want to hurt the, the humans. But they can't argue with the Big Ones who, protect the home, the, the nest. Big Ones don't argue. My Big One never hurt any humans. She just scares them away. But she can't argue. Protecting the other Big Ones is not her, it's not what she does. So once the humans hurt a Big One, she can't say."

Peter did not answer for a long moment. Finally he wiped his eyes, and said, "Listen to me, kid. You've been with the Grubs a long time. You've never been told the truth. But let me tell you. I was there. There aren't many of us left who are old enough to remember what it was like, and we won't be around much longer, so you have to remember carefully. This was our world. They destroyed it all. They destroyed the human race."

"But--" Onion tried to say.

"They gave us plagues," Peter said. "They turned whole continents into wasteland. Billions died--"

"But," Onion said, "it was the, the humans who turned the world into wasteland. There were too many. They had no wisdom."

Peter continued as though Onion hadn't spoken. "People thought it was the end of time, it was God's punishment, but it was just Grubs stealing our world. They only showed themselves after we had become so weak we couldn't fight back. When we're completely gone, they'll fill up the earth with Grubs. We can't let that happen, do you understand? We can't let them have our world!"

"But," Onion said, "They're not trying to destroy the humans. It was the, the other, the other way. They were trying to, to save humans. The Big Ones came here to take care of the world. My Big One said--"

Onion felt the Muskie sound-words slipping from his grasp; he had never quite understood Frill, anyway, when she tried to explain to him, this is the most important thing, this is the world's soul, this is the color of light. "My Big One told me that every world has, has, a, a, something, the most beautiful thing there is--"

"This is our world," said Peter, "and they took it."

"The most important thing," Onion said. "But this world was being killed. It was the, the saddest thing the Big Ones had ever seen. The Big Ones who say what is important, they said it had to be stopped. The Big Ones aren't trying to destroy the, the humans; they're just trying to bring back, bring back the, the most important thing--"

Peter laughed at Onion. "They've brainwashed you, kid," he said. "They're treating us like animals."

"But," said Onion, "we are animals, aren't we?"

"Jesus," said Peter. "Was your mother an animal? Do you think Sara deserves to die like an animal? Hunted down and slaughtered and eaten?"

Onion looked back to where Sara sat beside the road, grimy, smelly and exhausted, and imagined what it would be like if she had been killed last night, if she now lay bleeding into the fallen leaves. Horror and grief coursed through him at the mere thought. Peter was wrong. He was an animal, and no longer a tame one. He would do anything, maybe even hurt a Big One, if it would save Sara.

"Hey," Frank said. Onion turned to look.

Tiny at this distance, a single purple tank wound steadily toward them, tracking over stones and fallen trees, wheeling through streams, climbing ever upward.

"Get everyone ready to move out fast," said Peter.

Muskies clambered wearily to their feet. Then Alfie and his scouts came running down the road from the ridgetop. "Helicopters approaching from the south and east," Alfie panted. "Recommend we head down the valley, try to reach the river. We might be able to lose them if we can make it to water--"

Peter pointed to the lone purple tank heading up the mountainside.

"We can take out a single tank," said Alfie.

The tank rolled along. The Muskies kept glancing at the ridge top behind them. Then the tank stopped for no apparent reason. The ramp dropped down. A Big One rolled through the side of the tank and began trundling in their direction.

"Holy Jesus," said Alfie, "it doesn't know we're here." He pulled the silver-pink tube from his belt.

"No," said Peter, "wait till it gets close enough to use a grenade."

The Big One's nosestalks twisted this way and that, as though smelling intently, or calling in all directions. "Goddamn, they're ugly," said Frank. "Glad I didn't eat anything this morning."

Ugly. Onion tried to see that sagging many-legged velvet ball from the Muskies' point of view, a horrible misshapen monster, a cold-blooded destroyer of uncountable Saras and Tonys, of uncountable mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, lovers.

He couldn't do it. All he could think of was the smell of lilacs, and Frill murmuring to him, stroking his hair.

But there was something implacable about the Big Ones. The way Frill had always kept him caged and leashed, even though he was completely tame. There was something merciless, kind but merciless, about the Big Ones' treatment of animals.

The sun came out from behind a cloud. The wind threw up a squall of brilliant leaves. Onion remembered what he had seen from the mountain top, the whole world filled with wind and light, all singing out to him of his own wildness. All calling him home. The color of light. The most important thing.

And he remembered Sara's hand on his cheek as she fed him. He remembered her arms and legs twining around him, exhilaration and passion seizing him.

Never forget they killed your mother.

The most important thing.

Alfie pulled out a silver-pink egg, and rose to his knees. The Big One trundled closer, nosestalks twisting this way and that, shouting to the wind. She climbed over a knuckle of granite, waded through a stand of laurel. Wind spiraled up the valley, bearing a faint, unseasonal smell, a pungent warm smell. The scent of raw onion.

It was, it was Frill.

She was calling to him. She hoped or guessed or knew that he was right here, with this band of Muskies.

Onion, come home.

Alfie twisted the knob at one end of the grenade, and cocked his arm. "No," said Onion, and he threw himself onto Alfie.

The grenade slipped from Alfie's hand and bounced down the steep slope. The Muskies pressed their faces into the leaves. An explosion tore a hole in the ground, showering them with rocks and mud.

Peter yanked Onion around and slapped him hard. "Do you want us all to die?"

Frill had begun to back down the hillside, but Onion could still smell his name repeated over and over. Onion. Orange. Little one, come home. Come home.

Alfie raised the silvery-pink tube and twisted its base. The tube made a popping sound and recoiled. Blood sprayed into the air from Frill's upper side. Several of her legs vanished. Shouting with anguish, Onion struggled in Peter's grip. There was another pop, and more of Frill's legs and eyes and nosestalks disappeared. He could see blood now, blood coming out, spattering against the trees, pulsing onto the forest floor. Frill was still backing down the slope, but she was crippled now, and could neither roll nor flatten and undulate, and she was too big to take cover in the leafless forest.

Another pop from Alfie's tube. Onion wrenched free of Peter and jumped on Alfie again, stamped his foot hard on Alfie's back and yanked away the tube. Then he was racing down the slope. Yelling in pain, Alfie leapt after him, but tripped and crashed to the ground. Onion heard Peter's voice calling, and then Sara's wail. "Orange! Orange!"

Frill at last reached the shelter of the tank, and began to drag herself up the ramp, but she couldn't haul the trailing pieces of herself inside. Onion heaved them in for her, covering himself with blood and leaves and bits of her spongy flesh. Frill managed to grip the controls with her good legs, and then they were accelerating down the mountain, away from the Muskies.

An explosion vibrated through the floor. Onion glanced back through the tank wall. Two silver-pink tanks belonging to the Nest Guard whirled down the road toward the Muskies, but already the first tank smoked and wobbled unevenly.

He did not look back after that, and tried not to think of Sara.

Frill's nestmates patched her up tenderly and planted buds to replace her missing extremities. You should not have risked your life for an animal, they said, you foolish person, you strange person.

But they also fussed over Onion, pulling off his filthy clothes, medicating all the scratches and bruises he had acquired. You should be ashamed, little one. You nearly got your beloved mistress killed.

Don't tell, Frill whispered. Don't tell the Nest Guard what. They will take Onion. Don't tell.

Hush, love, nestmate, sweet one. We will tell only if we have to.

They took the two of them home. Frill settled into the kitchen, drowsy from healing drugs. Onion followed her into the round purple house, so strange, so familiar, so hated and loved. The window closed behind him.

He wanted to do something for Frill. He wondered if he could cook for her, if he could work her kitchen implements without slicing himself to the bone this time. He wondered how long it would take her to grow new legs. She was so terribly disfigured.

You are so brave, little Orange, murmured Frill. Are you all right? Did the wild beasts hurt you?

But she did not say, How wise you were to save my life. She did not say, You acted like a person. We will have to find a way for you to talk.

Come here, little Onion, said Frill.

Onion walked over to her and leaned into her velvety warmth, which smelled more of healing salve at the moment than of lilacs. You need a week of grooming, she said, caressing him with a good leg. Are you all right? Are you hungry? She reached out and flicked open the cupboard. Go on, little one, you look starved.

Onion pulled out the whole vast pan of nut bread, and set it on the floor beside Frill's delicate whorl of a mouth. "Here," he said, though he knew she could not understand. And he broke off a handful and held it to her lips.

She bent several eyestalks to look at him. No, little one, she murmured. I know you are tame, and want to be just like a person, but you're an animal. That's all you can ever be.

Onion put down the hunk of bread, and crossed the floor to the window. Nothing happened when he placed his hand on it.

I told them to change the, Frill called drowsily from the kitchen. I was so careless, your. You're too clever for your own good.

The leaves had mostly fallen now, carpeting the muddy patch in Frill's driveway in orange and gold. Wind carried the last few into the sky. "I have to find Sara," Onion said desperately. "I have to go find them." In a burst of rage he pounded on the window until his hands began to bleed.

And then the rage drained away, leaving only exhaustion. He sat down heavily.

Neither his cleverness nor his rage would save Sara. If he wanted to help her, he would have to learn to be wise.

The sky darkened to indigo, and then black. Frill slumbered, eyes and nosestalks drooping. At last sleep overtook Onion, too, and he dreamed he was flying with the leaves through a starry night. He soared over the bones of the world, fold after fold of stark granite stretching to the horizon in all directions, but he did not know which way was home.