I closed my eyes.

“Only why would you care?” Jeb asked, expecting no answer, just musing. “So, this is how I see it: either you’re a really good actress-like a super-Seeker, some new breed, sneakier than the first-with some kind of a plan I can’t figure out, or you’re not acting. The first seems like a pretty complicated explanation for your behavior, then and now, and I don’t buy it.

“But if you’re not acting…”

He paused for a moment.

“Spent a lot of time watching your kind. I was always waiting for them to change, you know, when they didn’t have to act like us anymore, because there was no one to act for. I kept on watching and waiting, but they just kept on actin’ like humans. Staying with their bodies’ families, going out for picnics in good weather, plantin’ flowers and paintin’ pictures and all the rest of it. I’ve been wondering if you all aren’t turning sort of human. If we don’t have some real influence, in the end.”

He waited, giving me a chance to respond. I didn’t.

“Saw something a few years ago that stuck with me. Old man and woman, well, the bodies of an old man and an old woman. Been together so long that the skin on their fingers grew in ridges around their wedding rings. They were holding hands, and he kissed her on her cheek, and she blushed under all those wrinkles. Occurred to me that you have all the same feelings we have, because you’re really us, not just hands in a puppet.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “We have all the same feelings. Human feelings. Hope, and pain, and love.”

“So, if you aren’t acting… well, then I’d swear to it that you loved them both. You do. Wanda, not just Mel’s body.”

I put my head down on my arms. The gesture was tantamount to an admission, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t hold it up anymore.

“So that’s you. But I wonder about my niece, too. What it was like for her, what it would be like for me. When they put somebody inside your head, are you just… gone? Erased? Like being dead? Or is it like being asleep? Are you aware of the outside control? Is it aware of you? Are you trapped there, screaming inside?”

I sat very still, trying to keep my face smooth.

“Plainly, your memories and behaviors, all that is left behind. But your consciousness… Seems like some people wouldn’t go down without a fight. Hell, I know I would try to stay-never been one to take no for an answer, anyone will tell you that. I’m a fighter. All of us who are left are fighters. And, you know, I woulda pegged Mel for a fighter, too.”

He didn’t move his eyes from the ceiling, but I looked at the floor-stared at it, memorizing the patterns in the purple gray dust.

“Yeah, I’ve wondered about that a lot.”

I could feel his eyes on me now, though my head was still down. I didn’t move, except to breathe slowly in and out. It took a great deal of effort to keep that slow rhythm smooth. I had to swallow; the blood was still flowing in my mouth.

Why did we ever think he was crazy? Mel wondered. He sees everything. He’s a genius.

He’s both.

Well, maybe this means we don’t have to keep quiet anymore. He knows. She was hopeful. She’d been very quiet lately, absent almost half the time. It wasn’t as easy for her to concentrate when she was relatively happy. She’d won her big fight. She’d gotten us here. Her secrets were no longer in jeopardy; Jared and Jamie could never be betrayed by her memories.

With the fight taken out of her, it was harder for her to find the will to speak, even to me. I could see how the idea of discovery-of having the other humans recognize her existence-invigorated her.

Jeb knows, yes. Does that really change anything?

She thought about the way the other humans looked at Jeb. Right. She sighed. But I think Jamie… well, he doesn’t know or guess, but I think he feels the truth.

You might be right. I guess we’ll see if that does him or us any good, in the end.

Jeb could only manage to keep quiet for a few seconds, and then he was off again, interrupting us. “Pretty interesting stuff. Not as much bang! bang! as the movies I used to like. But still pretty interesting. I’d like to hear more about those spider thingies. I’m real curious… real curious, for sure.”

I took a deep breath and raised my head. “What do you want to know?”

He smiled at me warmly, his eyes crinkling into half moons. “Three brains, right?”

I nodded.

“How many eyes?”

“Twelve-one at each juncture of the leg and the body. We didn’t have lids, just a lot of fibers-like steel wool eyelashes-to protect them.”

He nodded, his eyes bright. “Were they furry, like tarantulas?”

“No. Sort of… armored-scaled, like a reptile or a fish.”

I slouched against the wall, settling myself in for a long conversation.

Jeb didn’t disappoint on that count. I lost track of how many questions he asked me. He wanted details-the Spiders’ looks, their behaviors, and how they’d handled Earth. He didn’t flinch away from the invasion details; on the contrary, he almost seemed to enjoy that part more than the rest. His questions came fast on the heels of my answers, and his grins were frequent. When he was satisfied about the Spiders, hours later, he wanted to know more about the Flowers.

“You didn’t half explain that one,” he reminded me.

So I told him about that most beautiful and placid of planets. Almost every time I stopped to breathe, he interrupted me with a new question. He liked to guess the answers before I could speak and didn’t seem to mind getting them wrong in the least.

“So did ya eat flies, like a Venus flytrap? I’ll bet you did-or maybe something bigger, like a bird-like a pterodactyl!”

“No, we used sunlight for food, like most plants here.”

“Well, that’s not as much fun as my idea.”

Sometimes I found myself laughing with him.

We were just moving on to the Dragons when Jamie showed up with dinner for three.

“Hi, Wanderer,” he said, a little embarrassed.

“Hi, Jamie,” I answered, a little shy, not sure if he would regret the closeness we’d shared. I was, after all, the bad guy.

But he sat down right next to me, between me and Jeb, crossing his legs and setting the food tray in the middle of our little conclave. I was starving, and parched from all the talking. I took a bowl of soup and downed it in a few gulps.

“Shoulda known you were just being polite in the mess hall today. Gotta speak up when you’re hungry, Wanda. I’m no mind reader.”

I didn’t agree with that last part, but I was too busy chewing a mouthful of bread to answer.

“Wanda?” Jamie asked.

I nodded, letting him know that I didn’t mind.

“Kinda suits her, doncha think?” Jeb was so proud of himself, I was surprised he didn’t pat himself on the back, just for effect.

“Kinda, I guess,” Jamie said. “Were you guys talking about dragons?”

“Yeah,” Jeb told him enthusiastically, “but not the lizardy kind. They’re all made up of jelly. They can fly, though… sort of. The air’s thicker, sort of jelly, too. So it’s almost like swimming. And they can breathe acid-that’s about as good as fire, wouldn’t you say?”

I let Jeb fill Jamie in on the details while I ate more than my share of food and drained a water bottle. When my mouth was free, Jeb started in with the questions again.

“Now, this acid…”

Jamie didn’t ask questions the way Jeb did, and I was more careful about what I said with him there. However, this time Jeb never asked anything that might lead to a touchy subject, whether by coincidence or design, so my caution wasn’t necessary.

The light slowly faded until the hallway was black. Then it was silver, a tiny, dim reflection from the moon that was just enough, as my eyes adjusted, to see the man and the boy beside me.

Jamie edged closer to me as the night wore on. I didn’t realize that I was combing my fingers through his hair as I talked until I noticed Jeb staring at my hand.