“Then why aren’t you helping me?” Amber demanded. “If we all talked to him together, we could make him do something!”

“Oh, he’d do something, all right.” Crandall snorted and kicked a crate. “Look, Bierce, you’ve got balls, no one’s saying you don’t, but it’s obvious you didn’t do too well in school.”

“What, because I never heard of the Lord of the Pigs? Who the hell cares about that now?”

“Flies,” Crandall corrected. “And also because you suck at basic math. So let me help you with your homework, honey. The four of us, and maybe Yao, plus alien critters we know nothing about, minus guns, plus pointed sticks, equals somebody getting hurt. Guaranteed.”

“But we can’t just—”

“Shut up a sec, I’m not done. So far we’ve been really lucky and so far people have stayed pretty calm—that’s some more math, see if you can figure it out yourself—but when we come back from our first big hunt carrying some bloody, screaming mess that used to be you, people are going to freak and they might not stop.”

“Used to be me, huh?”

“And when it happens,” Eric said quietly, “Scott is going to be right there telling everybody how sharks can smell blood from ten miles away and who knows what could be out there tracking you down. You’ll be gone, Bierce.”

“He can’t throw me out,” she scoffed. “He can call himself Captain or Commander or King of the fucking Fly-People for all I care, but he can’t make me leave if I don’t want to.”

Crandall gave her a crooked, scornful smile. “There’s this other book they made us read in school called Animal Farm. Bet you never read that one either, huh?”

Amber rolled her eyes. “No. Is there a pig in it?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, there’s two. One’s a real smart pig who wants to help all the dumb sheep and dogs and chickens on the farm, you know, live a better life. The other one’s pretty much a talker. Guess which pig takes over and which one disappears?”

“What happened to the sheep?” asked Amber.

Crandall quit smiling.

“Come on, Bierce, we’re on your side,” said Eric, with a warning glance at Crandall. “All he’s saying is, Scott wouldn’t have to do anything to you but what he already does, and that’s talk.”

“Is that what you’re scared of?” Amber demanded. “That he’ll talk at you?”

“Not at us,” said Eric, with just a hint of disdain in his expression even though his tone remained even. “Against us.”

“I’m shaking.”

“You should be.”

“Basic math,” said Crandall again. “Even if you got the three of us to stand up for you—and I’ll tell you right now, I wouldn’t—and maybe Yao and, sure why not, that whiny little bitch of yours, he’ll get all the rest of them.”

“He’s got most of them already,” Dag commented. “Just because they’re Manifestors like him.”

“He’s out there every day and night telling people they don’t have to worry, this is all temporary and no one will ever get hurt. And what are you saying?” Eric asked, now blatantly contemptuous. “That we have to kill aliens to survive.”

“We do!” Amber exploded. “For God’s sake, I’m not sending anyone out after giant bugs or dinosaurs or those…those fucking black-banana-headed things! They’re deer! They eat grass! They’re tiny!”

“They’re almost as tall as we are, they have horns and tusks, and they fight each other constantly!” Eric shot back. “That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that makes it easy for him to talk people onto his side, because you act like this is no big deal and it fucking well is!”

She’d never heard him swear before and it rattled her. Amber looked at her spear, picking strips of bark away from the unfinished point, still angry but unsure how to argue.

“We need to figure things out. I admit that, Bierce. I agree. I’m on your damn side! But you have got to back off and let Scott come around in his own time!”

“We’ll talk to him,” said Dag. He put out his hand.

She looked at it, at her stick, then at him again. “What?”

Dag sighed and Eric said, “Give it up, Bierce. You’ll get it back, I promise.”

“No.”

“Okay,” said Crandall, smiling. “Give it up or I’ll knock you down and take it.”

Eric murmured something too low for Amber to catch.

“The hell I won’t, man. I show up with that thing in one hand and Bierce with a black eye in the other and that prancing little prick will probably give me a medal. Nothing personal, sweets, but then again, you are starting to piss me off.”

Dag looked at Amber again. He sighed and held his hand out further.

She gave him the stick. “This is wrong and you know it.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t change the way things are and you know it.” He put the stick on his shoulder like a rifle and walked away, heading for Scott’s tent.

Eric followed. Crandall stayed.

“You know what your problem is?” he asked, not without a careless sort of sympathy.

“Pretty sure I’m looking at it.”

“Ha ha, but only sort of. Your problem, Bierce, is that you expect us all to be survivalists just because we’ve survived something. The fact is, those people you’re pinning all our future hopes on are Manifestors. That means they were sheep before the ship crashed, so why the hell you think they’re not going to be sheep now is beyond me.”

“Because our lives are at stake, goddammit.” She kicked at the ground and glared at him. “And some of those sheep are supposed to be soldiers.”

“Soldiers?” He laughed at her. “Lady, I ain’t even old enough to drink. Nine weeks of basic training, twelve weeks of so-called deep space training, and I’m in the Fleet. You call that a soldier? I call it a forty thousand dollar check I’ll never get to cash.” He leaned out to look back toward camp, where more and more people were waking up, then settled back and just studied her for a while. “You gonna live?”

“Are any of us?”

“Little Miss Sunshine.” He glanced over his shoulder at the nearest stand of trees and looked at her again. “Want to fuck?”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t stutter. And you ain’t blushing, remember?” He ran an eye over her shirt-front in an interested way, but somehow without leering. “We probably got a few minutes before people really start to get underfoot. I’ll settle for a blowjob.”

“You’ll settle for jerking off.”

“Suit yourself, but this is opportunity knocking here. You ought to know that Scott’s already talking about taking you off the MREs completely.”

“What? He can’t do that!”

Crandall shrugged. “See, this is what happens when you don’t play ball nice. The biggest boy picks it up and goes home.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me.” Amber stood up and pushed past him while he smirked at her. “But you go right ahead and tell Scott I don’t need his rations. If that’s the way he wants to play it, I can make a spear without his stupid knife.”

“Sure you can.”

“And just for shits and giggles, let’s imagine that I actually come back with something, shall we? How many sheep do you think that’ll get me?” She swung around and glared at him. His smile was gone. “If he wants to line everybody up and make them choose sides, that’s what we’ll do. And while all you big boys are off playing with your balls, I’ll be having a barbeque with all my new friends. How does that sound?”

“Like a real nice fantasy, Bierce. You hold on to that. It’ll get you through some cold, rainy nights.”

“Amber?”

Crandall’s gaze shifted past her. He smiled. “Hey, Nicci.”

“Um, hi. Commander Scott wants me to start the fire and I can’t get it to stay lit.”

“I’ll be right there. Go on.”

Nicci turned around, but looked back when Crandall called her name. Smiling, he dipped into his back pocket and came out with a wrapped ration bar.

“Don’t even fucking think it!” Amber snarled, violently enough that Nicci fled.

Crandall grinned and tossed the ration to the crate beside her. “Give it to Babycakes if you want, no strings. But think about it.”