Reached

the last second, I pull the ship back up.
    I feel Indie looking at me. I’ve never done this before in the months we’ve been running in supplies.
    “Landing wasn’t right,” I say into the speakers. It happens. It will go down on my record as an error. But I have to see the Hill again, closer.
    We come up in the opposite direction and head for the Hill, dropping lower than I should so I can get a good look.
    “Is something wrong?” one of the fighters asks over the speaker.
    “No,” I say. “I’m bringing it in.”
    I’ve seen what I needed to see. The ground is bare. It’s been completely bulldozed. Burned. Butchered. It’s like the Hill never knew trees. Parts of the Hill have sloughed downward, no longer anchored by the roots of living things.
    The little piece of green silk from Cassia’s dress is no longer tied to a tree on the top of the Hill, wearing out into white with wind and rain and sun. Our buried scraps of poems have been exhumed and reburied and pushed farther under.
    They’ve killed the Hill.

    I land the ship. Behind me, I hear Caleb open the hold and start dragging out the cases. I sit and stare straight ahead.
    I want to be back there, on the Hill, with Cassia. I want it so much I think it might destroy me. All these months have passed and we’re still apart. I put my head in my hands.
    “Ky?” Indie asks. “Are you all right?” She puts her hand on my shoulder for a second. Then she lets go and, without looking at me, goes down to help Caleb.
    I’m grateful to her for both the touch and the solitude, but neither lasts long.
    “Ky?” Indie calls out. “Come see this.”
    “What?” I ask, climbing down into the hold. Indie points at a spot near the floor, concealed earlier by the cases. Someone has scratched into the metal of the ship and carved images into the walls. It reminds me of the pictures back in the Carving.
    “They’re drinking the sky,” Indie says.
    She’s right. It’s not rain that the picture shows, not like one I drew once back in the Borough. It’s different—broken pieces of sky falling to the ground and people picking them up and tipping water out of them.
    “It makes me thirsty,” Indie says.
    “Look,” I say, pointing to the figure coming down from the sky. “Who do you think this is?”
    “The Pilot, of course,” she says.
    “Did you draw these?” I ask Caleb, who’s appeared at the top of the hold, ready for more cargo.
    “Draw what?” he asks.
    “The pictures carved into the side of the ship.”
    “No,” he says. “It must have been one of the other runners. I’d never vandalize the Rising’s property.”
    I hand up another case.
    We finish our delivery and head for the ship. As we walk, Indie falls back. I turn around to see her talking to Caleb. He shakes his head. Indie steps closer to him. She’s lifted her chin and I know exactly what her eyes must look like.
    She’s challenging him about something.
    Caleb shakes his head again. His posture looks tense.
    “Tell me,” I hear Indie saying. “
Now
. We should know.”
    “No,” he says. “You’re not even the pilot on this flight. Leave it alone.”
    “Ky’s flying,” she says. “He had to come all the way here, back to his home Province. Do you know how hard that must be? What if you had to go back to Keya, or wherever it is that you’re from? He should at least know what we’re doing.”
    “We’re bringing in supplies,” he says.
    “That’s not all we’re doing,” she says.
    He steps around her. “If the Pilot wanted you to know,” he says over his shoulder, “you would.”
    “You know you’re nothing more than a runner, even to the Pilot,” Indie says. “He doesn’t think of you as his.”
    Caleb takes a step back and I see hatred on his face for Indie.
    Because she’s right. She knows what Caleb hopes for. It’s the dream of every parentless, orphaned worker of the Rising—to make the Pilot so proud that he’d claim them as his own kin. It’s Indie’s dream too.

    Indie finds me later out in the field near the camp. She sits down and takes a deep breath. At first I think she’s going to try to make me feel better by talking about things that don’t matter, but Indie has never been very good at that.
    “We could try it,” she says. “We could make a run for Central if you want.”
    “It’s not an option,” I say. “The fighters would shoot us down.”
    “You’d try it if it weren’t for me,” Indie says.
    “Yes,” I