After hanging out at the Guard Station for twenty minutes and catching up on gossip from other villages, I got to my feet.

"Are you sure you're ready to go?" a woman asked, watching in concern.

I tilted my head as if contemplating my energy levels. "I could manage two ports back-to-back if needed, so I should be good. After how this morning went, I'm heading to the plains. It's been over two years since we've seen a Saursune there."

"Good choice," she said, unaware of my unusually strong porting ability. It was a closely-guarded village secret. And unlike the locations of the crystals, the villagers didn't like sharing porters and had plenty of incentive to make sure no one else ever got wind of it.

With a goodbye wave, I touched the crystal and murmured the location name. Light danced through my veins, and soon, I was standing on an open plain as the wind blew the knee-high grasses in undulating waves.

Other than a handful of scattered scrawny shrubs, there was no shelter or hiding places, and the grass was too short to hide something as big as a Saursune. Wolves sometimes passed through this area, but it would be hard to sneak up on me, and that was the peace of mind I was looking for right now.

I began walking through the grasses as I peered at the various plants. This close to the crystal, most were inedible grasses, but some like the indestructible dandelion were already regrowing.

Several hours later, I stood up and shaded my eyes as I peered at the horizon. Some bison were coming over a hill and more kept meandering into sight. No one was sure if the Saursune raised bison like cattle or if they just hunted the wild herds, but whenever someone tried to hunt one of the massive mounds of meat, the overgrown lizards appeared shortly afterward.

With a carry net full of wilting plants, I jogged toward the distant crystal. I had wandered much farther than I liked, and the spires glittered in the sunlight like a beacon, casting refractions onto the grass.

I was out of breath by the time I finally reached it. When I glanced back, the bison hadn't moved far, but two upright figures stood along the top of the hill, watching me. Saursunes.

My heart hammered at the sight of the aliens. It was hard to make out details at this distance, but both had armbands, and one had a belt with a lot of objects on it. I couldn't tell if they were belt pouches, devices, or weapons. Probably all three.

One reached for its belt, and I immediately ported to the abandoned Sunrise Village. I sighed and wiped sweat off my forehead. Normally, I went months without seeing any sign of a Saursune, and they hadn't been seen at that location for years. My recent track record wasn't boding well.

The plants and tubers I collected wouldn't last long in the heat, so I ported back to the village. When the haze disappeared, familiar cliffs loomed over me.

"Just dropping these off," I told Grant, who was almost always near the main village crystal. "That other new crystal is a no-go. The lizards built a town nearby. I went to the plains, but some bison and a couple of Saursunes appeared, so I came back here."

"A town?" the middle-aged man asked in concern, flipping through the leather pages in his book to find his notes. His black hair had already gone halfway silver from the stress of his job and possibly from raising me.

With a sigh, I set my bundles down and retold my day's events, leaving nothing out.

When I finished, I asked, "Are others seeing more Saursunes, or am I just ending up in the wrong places at the wrong time?" The troubled look on his face made me suspect it wasn't just me, but his prolonged silence made me ask, "Grant? Are the Saursunes really pressing in?"

Instead of answering my question, he asked, "Can you take me to Oasis Springs and pick me up in two or three hours?"

"Okay?"

Now I was even more confused. Oasis Springs was a meeting place for many villages, although it was too exposed for anyone to consider building there. As soon as his hand was on my shoulder, I envisioned the small pool of water, palm trees, and cacti.

The haze rose and fell as the packed dirt under our feet was replaced with soft sand. A handful of people waved from the far end of the oasis. Someone dumped a pail of the salty oasis water into long, shallow pottery bowls. The sun would soon evaporate the water and leave the salty residue behind for use in cooking.

"Make sure you get all the good gossip," I told Grant.

"I will," Grant said. "Once you rest a bit, do you mind checking on the group by Orange Flower? You can help them until you come back for me."

I nodded. I didn't particularly feel like visiting with strangers, so I wandered up the sand dune—a task that was far harder than it looked—and stared across the vast expanse of sand and rock. I had no idea where this place was in relation to the other desert crystals. Most people didn't anymore.

Knowledge was constantly lost if a porter died or if a village was wiped out. That was partially why villages shared the locations of most crystals with at least one other village. Despite the desire to hog the resources in one spot for ourselves, we needed to work together to survive. Shaking my head, I plodded back and ported to the now-familiar Orange Flower crystal. Ariel jumped but took my appearance in stride.

"How are things going?" I asked her.

"Quiet. The hunters have caught plenty of fish and several rabbits." She gestured at the carry bags near her, although I could already smell the fish.

"Want me to take those back for you?" I offered.

"Please. The smell might lure in predators otherwise."

I grabbed the straps on the carry bags and reached for the crystal. The bags were on the ground, so they took a bit more energy to port with than if I had picked them up, but I really didn't want fish slime on my shirt.

When my sight cleared, several villagers were waiting nearby as per usual. The cats were absent, but I was sure they'd appear the moment they smelled the fish. I had faith in those furballs.

"This is from the hunting group I took out this morning," I told them as they took the carry bags from me.

A woman pushed a wagon with large clay jars closer. "That new spot has a river close by, right? Can you take me there to fill up the water cart?"

"Sure. The creek is only about thirty paces away," I told her. "Let's go."

I grabbed the wagon handle and made sure she was securely holding onto the side.

"Orange flower by the river."

The wagon dragged more than a single passenger, and with the woman holding onto the wagon and not directly onto me, it made her heavier.

When our sight cleared, the woman scuttled to the creek to fill a bucket, regarding each shrub as if it were about to come to life and attack her. I sat heavily on the moss near where Ariel was casting a fish net.

"You look like you've been bouncing a lot," she commented as she pulled in the empty net.

"At least this was the smaller water cart. I could use a ten-minute breather," I admitted. Five almost back-to-back ports, one of which with an empty wagon, left me feeling like a regular porter after a single jump with several passengers. I wasn't going to be hitting any new records today.

After resting, I got to my feet and grabbed a spare bucket off the cart to help the woman. There were a lot of jars, and she was filling them to the brim. Having a reputation for being able to port heavy loads sometimes stunk. I was definitely going to need a solid break and possibly even a nap after this.

Once all of the water jars were full, the woman held onto my shoulder, and I knelt by the small crystal. "Home."

Light shimmered through my veins like usual, but even with the location name, I felt the strain of dragging the water-filled wagon with me. It must have weighed as much as the ten people this morning, if not more.

An ache appeared deep in my chest as the cliffs finally hazed into focus. I dropped the wagon handle and plodded over to a fur-covered hide on the sand, where I flopped down and stretched out.

The discomfort in my chest and muscles made me want to squirm in an attempt to relieve it, but it wasn't really physical pain. More like I had used an "energy muscle" that was twinging from overexertion.

The strain of porting built up with every port we did throughout the day. Nothing a good night's sleep couldn't fix, but if we really overextended ourselves, we could pass out. That had happened to me more than a few times during my teenage porting days when I was trying so hard to help. Not only was fainting embarrassing, but the resulting lectures hadn't been fun.

I wasn't near my limits yet, but I had skirted that grey line often enough to know that an hour-long rest was prudent. I closed my eyes for a moment.

The clattering of a rock falling woke me, and I bolted upright, only relaxing when I realized I was still safe in the village. The small rock rolled into a pile of stones fifty paces from me.

"Sorry!" A voice called from above. "I didn't realize you were still here!"

I stifled my annoyance and stretched the knots out of my muscles as I called back, "Any idea how long I was sleeping?"

"About an hour," a nearby man replied as he mended a fishing net, keeping half an eye on the crystal in case someone returned.

I still had time before I had to fetch Grant. My little power nap had re-energized me, so I ported to the Orange Flower crystal.

Another rabbit and two carry nets of greens had appeared in my absence. Ariel was still at the closest section of the creek; even with six hunters in the area, the porter remained near the crystal in case a Saursune or large predator showed up.

Bows wouldn't stop things like tigers or bears, and I wasn't sure what kind of wildlife lurked in this area. The presence of rabbits meant there likely weren't tigers in this area, although I'd seen bears around the crystal a four-hour hike away.

No group wanted to be stranded if their porter was killed because they'd wandered too far from the crystal. A porter could always come back for people left behind, but if an entire group failed to return, there was a high probability of us walking into an ambush, so any check-in attempts were often postponed a day or so.

I picked up a spare net and went to help Ariel fish.