My eyes remained locked on the crystal as I impatiently waited for the porting strain to fade and then a bit longer for good measure. I wasn't going to win this bet by rushing—and the patience it forced me to use was possibly why Grant kept agreeing to such things. Now I was beginning to wonder who was really going to "win" this bet.

Shaking my head, I went to the crystal and thought of an abandoned village I hadn't visited for over half a year. The air hazed around me, then cleared to reveal piles of rock rubble along a dried-up riverbed that hadn't held water in well over a century. The rubble had once been houses, surrounded by dry red dirt as far as the eye could see.

This place held nothing worth coming here for, with one possible exception. Crystal shards. Once planted, it took several years for them to grow big enough to port to—roughly three years in damp soil or five in dry desert dust—although they took decades to reach their full, waist-high stature. Then, about every two to four years, the mature crystal would shed a single shard.

I crouched down and inspected the crystal. Nothing. Most villages, even abandoned ones, had at least two crystals, so I walked over to the other one and examined it.

A grin split across my face as I picked up a finger-long chunk of crystal lying on the dirt. I carefully wrapped the shard in a piece of soft leather and tucked it into my shirt.

Most porters didn't care about the abandoned villages, but Grant had asked the other porters to show me every one he knew of. He liked to plan decades in advance, and he knew we'd eventually need the shards and the areas they opened up. And what better way to safely preoccupy a teenager with a ton of porting power than to have them check all the crystals in deserted villages?

I visited these locations every few months, sometimes more if I saw a hairline crack forming on a crystal. Other villages also watched for shards, so we had to be quick in collecting them. They wouldn't grow if we broke them off early.

The next village was on a huge ledge halfway up a rather large cliff. Finding nothing, I sat for a few minutes to enjoy the view before going to the next place.

By the time I had checked eleven villages, I was feeling rather winded and tired, despite my increasingly long rests. The trip had been worth it though. I had two shards, which was startling since the crystals dropped them so infrequently. Other porters must not be checking some of these places.

I debated checking another village. Rule number one in survival said that one didn't port unless they knew, without a doubt, that they'd have enough energy to bounce the second they arrived.

I decided to quit while I was ahead, before I got sloppy. These villages were abandoned, but jackals or snakes occasionally moved in. I could always continue my search tomorrow afternoon. And I had won my bet with Grant. A longer rest before porting back was prudent. Falling face-first into the sand wasn't exactly an elegant way to win.

To keep boredom at bay, I wandered up a cliffside path and glanced into the small one-room caves as I went by. The unending dry heat had preserved most items, even decades later.

Most rooms were a mirror image of the ones back home. Dried grass mattresses which were missing any bedding that might have once been there, and there were gaps where small wooden chests would have sat on the floor. Empty rickety shelves adorned the storage areas.

Nothing of value was left. Even the old tattered doorway coverings had been taken. Thankfully, any bodies would have been buried by the first groups to risk returning, else the desert heat would have mummified them where they lay.

The layout of the rooms had so many similarities that I jogged down the path to the caves closest to the crystals. Two held bare racks for weapons, hunting supplies, and gathering tools. Two other rooms were completely empty.

The next room was much larger and deep enough that shadows shrouded half of it. I peered inside, my eyes straining against the darkness after being in the desert sun for several hours. I made out a large desk near the back, rickety with age, but its size and presence marked this as an important room.

Such an office would have belonged to someone like Grant, who organized a lot of people and had to keep track of a lot of records. I ducked inside and gingerly picked a piece of leather off the floor. It creaked, brittle with age. The words were slanted but legible, showing a record of how much the porters had brought back from a particular location.

There were hundreds of leather pages strewn across the floor. I picked each of them up and separated them. Places I knew about were set to one side, places I didn't know about, or that were too vague for me to be certain, were placed on my other side. I wished I knew what the recorder's numbering scheme was, because each crystal location was marked with a number as the primary identifier.

Our village used a location name, one that described the location. This place had attached a number to a name. Many spots on the shelves were empty; the valuable records long gone. The handful of books on the shelves were records of food and supplies brought back, nothing useful.

Simply knowing that a crystal existed didn't help me. I needed to know where it was. With an annoyed huff, I kicked a small stone to the side. It bounced off an unusually flat wall.

I blinked and walked closer to peer at the faded markings on the wall. My eyes widened as I realized they were diagrams. Several numbers stood out—the same ones I'd seen on the sheets. It was nearly impossible to read due to how the sun shone in the entrance and covered this wall in shadow. I needed more light.

I ran to a nearby storage room and broke a rickety shelf into kindling, piling it in the office along with some dried grass from a mattress, then used my firestarter to light a small fire. The firelight finally let me see the wall.

Circles held numbers, with lines drawn between them, noting distances and directions. Each circle was a crystal, and the lines showed where they'd planted shards nearby. Many clusters had no connections with other clusters, which made sense since if they had traded for the location, they'd have no idea where the others were around it.

Using pottery shards and some charcoal from the old cooking fires, I sketched out the drawings, occasionally pausing to feed the fire so it lit up the wall for me. The smoke tickled my throat as I hastily recorded the diagrams and searched through several books and pages that had listed numbers and what the immediate area around them looked like.

They hadn't listed the locations in relation to one another, which was why no one else had ever taken these. Why take a book that described a thirty-foot stretch of a creek and a rock formation? But, if I could figure out where their starting crystal was, I could—in theory—use the diagrams to locate the planted crystal.

At least twenty records were of shards they recently planted—crystals they never had a chance to return to. Ones that no one else should know about.

I scuffed out the remains of the fire with a rock and scattered dirt on top of the black soot to hide it. I didn't want someone else wondering why a fire had been lit and notice the wall. I packed up the useful books, pages, and pottery shards before jogging back to the crystal, eager to share my findings with Grant and the others.

I was so excited that porting back home didn't even seem to touch my energy levels. My grin faltered when I saw tear-reddened cheeks and gloomy expressions.

"What happened?" I asked the nearest person, a man who happened to be sitting near the crystal.

His dull eyes met mine. "Veredyl Village is gone."

My breath caught in my throat. "Gone? How? Are the villagers okay?"

There were three primary dangers in the desert. Massive sand storms, mega storms dumping enough water to flood an entire village, or Saursunes. Our village wasn't the only one with a sentry post nearby, and the first two dangers were often noticed in time for other villages to help evacuate the entire population. If caught by surprise, porters usually escaped with some people.

His words put my hopes to flight. "Two of their groups raided a corn field and got caught in an ambush. Three hunters were killed outright, but they let the rest run after pinning them in the dirt. A young porter panicked and ported straight home. The airships arrived within hours."

"Hours?" I asked in disbelief. They usually took days to show up! When he nodded tiredly, I covered my lips with a hand. "Oh no."

His sigh came heavy. "Regardless of the ifs, ands, or buts, the end result is that they had no warning. The porters barely had time to reach the crystals. The airships landed by the crystals less than a minute after being spotted."

My blood ran cold. The aliens knew we needed those crystals to port. Block off our crystalline escape routes, and we were effectively trapped in a handful of caves in the middle of the desert.

"How—how many got out?" I asked. Someone had to have escaped for the story to have spread so fast.

"All eight porters got out with about thirty villagers. The airships were already descending, and there wasn't time to bounce for a second trip. Over two hundred were left behind."

I squeezed my eyes shut as tears pricked the corners of my eye. Even though I didn't know anyone from that village very well, the loss hit too close to home. A village lost. Destroyed.

"Grant wanted to see you when you got back," the man added dully.

Taking a deep breath to try and settle my emotions, I headed to the porter's circle where he currently sat. All of my earlier joy had vanished. I sat on a hide near Grant, setting my treasures beside me.

"You heard the news?" Grant asked quietly.

"Yeah..."

"There's more. It's being kept quiet among the porters, but one of their porters got out almost ten minutes after the airships arrived."

It took me far longer to process his words than it should have. Saursunes weren't slow, and they knew they had to strike fast to keep the porters from whisking people to safety. If they landed by the crystals, they would have made sure no one got close enough to escape.

"She didn't say much, or so I heard at the Oasis," Grant continued, looking troubled. "Just that most were already dead, and she somehow managed to slip through dozens of Saursune fighters to get to a crystal. No trackers. She ported two children out, who pretty much said the same thing."

I sat there, too stunned for words. Me being chased through an orchard and "escaping" was one thing, but this had been a full-on attack after several groups were caught raiding.

Derek, who was sitting across from me, added, "The village they went to realized someone must have had a tracker and sent the porters to get scanned. Their scanning location had to bounce less than two hours after removing that tracker because the airships were already showing up."

"The village they fled to was smart enough to start evacuations and send someone to alert Oasis Springs," Grant said. "They should have had enough time to get everyone out."

Dread settled in my stomach. One village was gone, another homeless, and one of the scanning locations had fallen in mere hours. The Saursune had never moved this quickly before, so why now? I tried to speak, but the words lodged in my throat.

Grant flipped a page in his notes. "Two porters from other villages were also pinned by the Saursunes while foraging and got tracking beads removed at scanning stations—not the one we use, thankfully—but be ready to bounce in case ours gets compromised. I think anyone coming back should go to the Guard Station and get scanned, just in case."

"That will limit how far we can go in a day," Andre said quietly. "I won't be able to manage two round trips if I have to go there each time. Four ports is about my limit. I can't do six, not with passengers."

Grant sighed. "I know, but we can't risk the lives of everyone here. I need some time to mull it over, but my initial plan is for everyone to stop downplaying their abilities. If someone can only port four times, that's perfectly fine. They're doing their best. But if someone can port a dozen times, it's foolish not to take advantage of it in times like these."

I nodded, knowing he was talking about me and two others, and I doubted they could port twelve times if they had a full load of passengers.

"Nothing says we have to come back here," Merryl pointed out. "We can just go to the next location or to the Guard Station and then to the next location. That will also cut down on how many ports we do."

Andre considered it. "That's true. We could just port to a different location and keep working, assuming another village isn't already there. If someone is willing to port me and my group out, I could manage my normal number of trips."

"I can do it," I murmured. "Just ask."

"I can help too," Merryl added. "There isn't much danger if I'm just dropping people off and bouncing. I can take one or two groups out before I take my bunch to my usual spot."

"We'll have to work together," Grant said, glancing at each of us in turn. "Just don't push yourselves too hard. The first person to faint from overexertion is going to get an hour-long lecture."

We chuckled at that, although it certainly wasn't a bluff. I'd gotten that lecture a few times in my teenage years before I realized just how much porting aftereffects could stack up.

He turned to me. "So, what do you have there?"

"A new research project for you," I said, showing him the diagrams and books as I explained my idea.

He examined the stiff pages with interest. "The idea has merit. I'll ask the hunters and see which ones are willing to range that far out. Once they find a crystal, they can guide you or another porter there."

Derek flicked a pebble across the dirt. "I hope they find some. The pickings are getting slim. I had two groups appear where we were today. One said it was the fourth location they'd tried."

Usually, if someone arrived and found a group present, they went elsewhere. With over thirty villages that I knew of, each with roughly a dozen porters, it was surprising we weren't tripping over each other more often.

"I also found these." I pulled the two shards out of my shirt and handed them to Grant.

"Nice! I assume I lost that bet?" Grant asked as he took the valuable objects.

"Eleven," I replied smugly.

Merryl fought to hide her grin. "Eleven villages or eleven ports?"

"Villages."

Grant winced. "After the water wagon?"

My silent grin was his reply, not bothering to point out that the return trip made it twelve ports.

He sighed. "We definitely aren't making you work hard enough."

"We can rectify that tomorrow," Andre said, grinning at Grant having lost the bet and for having a solid excuse to ask me for help.

The discussion shifted to how much food we'd found today and how much more remained at each location. Grant took notes while the rest of us spoke in turn. A cat rubbed against my legs, purring and seeking attention without meowing in hunger. I pet Rocko's scruffy fur, and he redoubled his purring.

Between all of the groups, we must have brought back enough animals for the three cats and two dogs to have their fill of unwanted innards and gristle. There weren't any rodents in the desert, so our three male cats were all we could keep due to the problems of feeding our huggable companions. The dogs earned their keep while out hunting each day, but the cats had cleaned out any rodents and bite-sized bugs long ago.

By the time everyone finished talking and Grant summarized the day's totals, we regarded one another in worried silence. Even with food being rationed, we weren't bringing in as much as the village needed.

Too many villages were competing for the locations farthest from the farms. Land that had barely supported the four non-raiding villages couldn't produce enough to feed thousands more.

"I can try setting rabbit snares near crystals," I said into the silence. "I won't go more than thirty steps from the crystal."

"Unwise," Merryl immediately countered. "If the Saursunes find a rabbit in a snare, they know you'll be back soon. It would be far too easy for them to set up an ambush."

The others nodded in agreement. I reluctantly agreed that they were right. One rabbit wasn't worth the risk.

"I did a crystal location trade at the Oasis," Grant told me. "You can go early and show a porter from Briar Village the Aspen Ridge crystal, and they'll take you to a marsh location. After that, you can come back, show a few porters the new spot, then help port their groups out. Depending on how much energy you have after that, you can plant one of those shards."

I nodded. It was a good enough plan. I just hoped I wouldn't cross paths with any Saursunes. I might have dodged death on two occasions, but a village had just been wiped out, proof that they were on the hunt.

If I ran into them a third time, I might not be so lucky.