Evil Star

was as if the whole world had been tipped onto its side.
    Atoc and the two Indians were already awake, putting together a breakfast of bread and cheese. They had lit a small bonfire with a kettle hanging over it, but the water had not yet boiled.
    Atoc walked over to him. "Did you sleep all right, Matteo?" he asked. Like Pedro, he was using the Spanish version of his name.
    "We take food soon... ."
    "Thank you."
    In the daylight, Atoc looked younger and less threaten-ing than he had in the shadows of Cuzco. He also looked even more like the man he had known so briefly as Micos. He had to know.
    "There's something I want to ask you," Matt began ner-vously.
    "I will tell you what I can."
    "When I was in Lima, I met someone who was very much like you.
    And he was there again in lea."
    "Micos."

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    “Yes." Matt wasn't sure how to continue. “Your brother?"
    “Yes. Do you know where he is?"
    "I'm sorry, Atoc. I'm afraid he's dead."
    Atoc nodded slowly as if this was what he had expected to hear. But his dark, brown eyes filled with grief and he stood, completely silent, as Matt told him what had hap-pened at the hacienda.
    "I'm so sorry that he died because of us," Matt said.
    "But I am glad that if he had to die, it was for you," Atoc replied. He took a deep breath. "Micos was my younger brother. There were two years between us. Micos in our lan-guage is monkey. He was the funny one, always in trouble. Atoc is fox. I was the one who was meant to be clever. And yet when we were playing once, when I was eight years old, I threw a stone at him and I almost took out his eye.
    He had a scar . . .just here." Atoc raised a finger and drew a crescent moon next to his eye. "My father took his belt to me for that.
    But Micos forgave me.
    "He wanted to help you, Matteo, because he believed in you. You are one of the five. He will not be sad that he died if he knew that you were safe. So it would be wrong for me to be sad, too. There will be more deaths. Many more. We must grow used to it."
    He turned his head and looked into the distance, his eyes focused on something far away.
    "Now I shall walk alone for a few minutes," he said. "But when I return, we shall forget what has been said and we will not speak of it again."
    He walked away into the undergrowth.
    "Matteo . . . !" Pedro had woken up and was calling to him from the Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star tent.
    Behind them, a trickle of white smoke from the bonfire rose uncertainly up into the morning sky.

    ************************************
    After breakfast, the two Indians put out the bonfire and packed up the tents. They had already tied down the heli-copter and covered it with a green tarpaulin, camouflaging it in case anyone happened to fly overhead. Matt could see that these people thought of everything . .. although he still wasn't sure who they actually were.
    Atoc had eaten with them. Whatever grief he might be feeling, he didn't show it. "We leave now," he said and sig-naled to one of the Indians who came forward, carrying two new pairs of sneakers.
    “You cannot walk in those shoes."
    Matt gratefully removed the rubber tire sandals he had been wearing since Lima. Somehow he wasn't surprised that the new sneakers fit him perfectly. All of this had been planned. As he pulled them on, he noticed Pedro holding his own pair with a look of complete awe.
    It occurred to him that the Peruvian boy had probably never owned a new piece of clothing in his life.
    When they were both ready, Atoc reached into his pon-cho and produced a handful of dark green leaves and what looked like two small pebbles. “You put this in mouth," he explained, first in English and then, for Pedro, in Spanish. He wrapped the pebble in the leaves, forming a small bun-dle. "The leaves are coca" he went on. "The stone we call llibta. The two mix with saliva in mouth and give you strength."
    Matt did as he was told. The coca leaves tasted disgust-ing and he Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star couldn't imagine how they would work, but there didn't seem any point arguing.
    They set off. The two Indians went first. Matt followed, with Pedro just behind him, tripping several times as he got used to the new footwear. Atoc went last. Matt had rather hoped that they would be heading downhill, but it seemed that their path was going to be up all the way. The jungle wasn't as impenetrable as it had seemed.
    Someone, a long time