Twenty-One

Jessyn, Garral, and two Carryx soldiers retrieve a weapon device from a crashed alien ship in the wilderness. Jessyn receives instructions to hide the device near the human settlement and detonate it when combat begins, then shoots herself to create a cover story before nearly dying from blood loss.

Jessyn and Garral trek with Corvall (a black soldier with a prosthetic leg) and Omco to a crashed ship wreckage located south and west of the killed city. Along the way, Jessyn and Garral coordinate their cover story: they were investigating signs of habitation when attacked by Corvall, and Garral was killed while Jessyn escaped. At the crash site, Corvall discovers a deceased comrade in one of three remaining pods and retrieves small items from the empty ones. Corvall gives Jessyn a heavy ceramic cylinder containing microscopic machines programmed to disable Carryx ships and weapons—she need only open it when combat begins, ideally inside or near a ship. Garral explains the plan: Jessyn must hide the cylinder and a small black gun at her research site in the pear orchard before returning to the settlement. Corvall will wait until just before sundown, then lead pursuers away from the children and Omco. Before Jessyn departs, Garral runs after her and they embrace and kiss. As Jessyn walks back through an approaching storm, she reaches the pear orchard and retrieves her equipment. To strengthen her cover story, she decides a wound would make her escape more believable. She shoots herself in the left side with the gun Corvall gave her, intending a non-lethal injury. The wound is far more severe than anticipated—she nearly loses consciousness while crawling through rain and mud. A True Person of Hannic appears, then the scene shifts and she finds herself under medical care with Holom Coombs present. A Sinen overseer interrogates her, and Jessyn, delirious and weakened, tells a fragmented story about a black monster killing Garral.