“Kidnapped by aliens?” Eleanor waited to see if the others would laugh in the darkness, but Rich didn't seem to be joking.

He said, “I can prove to you that this isn't the Earth. Light your lamp.”

Eleanor set Zeek's bag by her feet, and lit the kerosene lamp.

The light revealed a tall, spidery, robotic metal thing, holding perfectly still. Eleanor watched it nervously. “Is that an alien?”

The girl laughed, shaking her blanket cloak.

Rich said, “No, that's not what I'm showing you. Look at the ground. If this were the original Earth, we'd be in a cave, right? And have you ever seen a flat cave floor?”

Eleanor didn't remember seeing any cave floors at all, but she dutifully looked down. The stone underfoot was perfectly flat, like a building floor, dotted with newspapers and other wind-blown trash. There were no grass plants, no weeds, nothing green.

“See?” said Rich.

“I suppose,” said Eleanor, although she wasn't convinced that the floor's flatness was meaningful. “But what is that spidery thing?”

Rich moved closer to her and whispered, “It's one of Jeanne's inventions. She was the Sergeant's wife, until she was taken away by the King's tax collectors. The Sergeant is still sad about losing her, so it's better not to talk about it.”

Eleanor was horrified. “Do you pay your taxes here with people?”

“Ssh. No, not usually. The tax collectors usually take Green Coal, or mechanical parts, or mushrooms. We have a lot of mushrooms here. But the King has a secret project, and he required all the mechanics and inventors to join him, whether they wanted to or not.”

“Oh.” Eleanor thought about the wrenches in Zeek's bag, and decided to change the subject. “So this alien kidnapping. I've heard rumors about it before, but how could such a thing be possible. Wouldn't we have noticed?”

Rich waved toward a tall structure ahead, and Eleanor picked up Zeek's bag and they continued walking. The dog had stopped barking. “I think we were all moved here while unconscious. Before the alleged War started, there was a sleep weapon attack, in the night. You're old enough to remember that.”

“I remember people talking about it. I was asleep in bed when it happened, but my wife said her whole crew fell asleep that night. They thought their rum was poisoned.”

“I've asked a lot of people, and I've never met anybody who stayed awake that night. And suddenly the lakes and the river were shallow, and we had rumors of the War to stop all traveling, and a few weeks later, the Greenies appeared. I think that whoever controls the Green Men kidnapped our whole country that night.”

“Who do you think controls them?”

“Aliens. Powerful ones, but we know nothing about them, or what they want. Or how long we'll be here.”

The woman said, “Quiet now. People are sleeping in Tallhouse.”

They walked toward the building ahead. Eleanor had thought at first that it was an ordinary house, but by the glow from her lamp she could see that it was one of the scaffolding towers that people had built walls around. They had dragged some of the airships around the base, and the tower itself had wooden walls attached to it, reaching up six stories.

In front of an airship, a large middle-aged man had removed his cloak, and was playing tug-of-war with a young sheepdog. “Ma'am, turn off that light and go inside,” he said softly. “Get some sleep.”

Eleanor extinguished the lamp and followed the blanket-cloaked people through a doorway covered by a hanging carpet. The room inside was full of sleeping men on cushions or piles of blankets, lit by a smoldering fire in an airship furnace.

The back corner of the room had a ladder in it, which the group climbed to a hole opening in the floor of the second story. There, in a crowded storeroom, they took off their cloaks. Rich was older and thinner than Eleanor had expected. The girl was almost Charlie's age, and had curly red hair. The woman was missing a tooth, and had streaks of gray in her black hair.

They added everything which they had taken from Eleanor's airship to tables and crates and shelves, and hung their smelly cloaks on pegs on the wall.

Rich pointed to Zeek's bag, and said "Empty that onto the table."

Eleanor felt nervous and tense, and said, "Let me keep it one more night. It's all I have left from home. Just some mementos from my poor departed uncle." She acted like she was about to cry.

Rich looked unhappy, and said, "I'm sorry about your uncle. I thought you might be in mourning, with that dress."

"Yes," said Eleanor. "I am. He was a good man, and I miss him so much, and-"

The woman interupted her. "Later. We're going back to bed. You can sleep up in Jeanne's room. Good night."

Rich said, "It's the top floor. Perse can show you." He followed the woman down the ladder and out of sight.

The girl smiled, and said, "I'm Perse. It's short for Persephone."

"The mythical Queen of the Underworld?"

"Yeah. Because I was born here. What's your name?"

"Eleanor."

"Hmm. Follow me."

Eleanor followed the girl up three levels, wishing that she had worn better ladder-climbing shoes.

The top floor was dark, so Eleanor lit her lamp to look around. The room was full of tables with tools and gadgets and inventions and plans. A broken blackboard leaned in one corner, with a bowl of chalk beside it.

Another corner of the room held a mattress and a box of clothes.

Perse said, "You can take whatever you need. Jeanne probably won't be back."

"So can I ask about King Blodger now? We are safely home, right?"

"Yeah, pretty safe." Perse sat on a table. "I've never seen him. Ma and Pa always send me inside when the tax collectors come. They're big guys with spears and knives and clubs with nails in them. They're pretty scary, but they talk about the King like he's a good man."

"What do they say?"

"They say he's going to break holes in the sky, so better stuff comes down, and we can get more water. I think that's why he wanted Jeanne. To build a sky-smashing machine, to help us."

Eleanor pictured more pits opening, swallowing buildings and people, and she felt chilled. "And you think this is good?"

"I'm always thirsty. More water would be good for everyone."

Eleanor thought for a bit, about Charlie and his code. She doubted that she could signal him tomorrow, if she was busy meeting Arthur and everyone else. She decided to trust Perse with it. "I think I know a better way to get you some water."

"Really? How?"

Eleanor explained Charlie's code of flashes and pauses, and copied it from her paper onto the blackboard. "Signal him that you want a dozen barrels of water parachuted down, and that Minnie and I are safe. You'll have to go through the message a few times, when you think it's midday here, so he gets it all."

Perse nodded. "I can do that. I'll take poles and hold a blanket over the fire. And will he really send us water?"

"Not right away. But he'll get it if he can. And just for trying to signal him, I'll give you some chocolates."

"What are chocolates?"

Eleanor opened Zeek's bag, holding it so Perse couldn't see what was inside, and took out some chocolates.

Perse tried one, and tried another, and said, "Charlie should send more chocolates, too."

*

After Perse grew tired of talking and went down a level to sleep, Eleanor looked through Jeanne's box of clothing for a nightgown. She didn't find one, but she changed into a plain gray dress and found some sturdier boots that almost fit her. She put on three pairs of striped socks, which made the boots fit comfortably. She left her mourning dress on a table and wore her coat, because the room was cold.

She turned off the lamp and stretched out on the bed. She lay awake for a long time, worrying about Minnie and Scurvy Zeek and Captain Blodger and his sky-smashing machine.

She thought it would be rude to just get up and leave in the night, so she kept trying to sleep, but she really didn't want to meet old Arthur in the morning, and argue with the Sergeant about leaving, and answer questions about Zeek's bag. Thinking of Zeek, she recalled him saying that she wasn't fierce enough to be Minnie's wife. She thought, Oh heavens. I'm a pirate captain's wife. I'm quite fierce enough to be rude to barely civilized strangers.

She silently got up, and wrote on the blackboard under Charlie's code, 'Couldn't sleep. Went to find Minnie. Thanks.'

She left half the chocolates for Perse, and took Zeek's bag and her lamp, and climbed silently down the ladder. She heard soft snoring as she passed each level, but nobody woke up.

She walked past the sleeping men, and carefully pushed aside the carpet. Outside, the dog stood looking at her.

She looked at it, thinking, please don't bark. She remembered the soup in her bag, and pulled out a can.

The dog walked up to her, and looked at her with soulful eyes, not exactly begging but just looking hungry and available.

She glanced around for a dog dish, but didn't see one, so she opened the soup can and poured half of it onto the windswept ground.

The dog licked it up, completely focused on the soup.

Eleanor looked around and saw the Pit opening as a bright spot far overhead. She used it to decide which direction was east, and set out eastward to find Minnie.

Soon she bumped into the fence, and felt along it in the darkness until she reached the gate. She unlatched it by feel, and opened it.

Something brushed against her leg and she gasped, but didn't scream. She thought of monsters in the dark, but then smelled unbathed dog.

She whispered, "Get back inside."

The dog didn't return.

She waited a few minutes, but then decided the people could find their dog in the morning. She latched the gate and headed east, circling around the trash pile under the Pit, and staying out of the light of the bonfire.

When she had walked for about an hour, and the bonfire was a tiny bright spot far behind her, she stopped and lit the lamp.

Ahead of her, the sheepdog stood, watching her.

"Go home," she said aloud.

The dog turned away, sniffed the ground, and continued to head east through the flat, deserted wasteland. Eleanor followed the dog.