I looked at the corpses of the first Nano-Ts, which were being picked over by compies, the small but deadly predators which always accompanied a kill, then deeper into the dark, where I detected no movement. “How do you know? I don’t hear anything ... just the compies.”
“I did hear them,” she said, and picked up a stick. “Two of them, at least, calling from different directions. They’re triangulating us. We have to go, Nick. We have to go right now.” She looked at Puck, her face half-painted in firelight. “I’m sorry.”
I looked at him too—at the patch of black and his closed eyes, at his paws which had been bloodied by the tree’s rough branches. “I—I can’t. I’m sorry. Because ... there’s something in there. Something I need to see. The eyes—Puck—there’s something they want to show me. Som
