in the pit go out except the seven statues around the gap. The blackness shrinks to fist-sized and winks out of existence.
“What happened, Lawrence?” Beau asks.
“I saw…”
“Don’t keep us in suspense.”
Unwilling to influence them, I ask, “Did anyone else see anything inside the black rectangle?”
“Just more blackness, but I thought seeing that was exciting enough,” Mom says.
I scan their faces; everyone agrees with my mother. They also haven’t moved since I ended the experiment.
“What did you see?” Beau asks me.
“I saw the back of a person, standing in another Warrior pit.”
I can’t say they didn’t believe me, because the last time I claimed I saw something that they couldn’t, I ended up being right. Yet there’s a general sense of disbelief.
“Was the person human?” Dad asks.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you turn off the lights?”
“Because he could have been one of Jarren’s looters.” And it was a knee-jerk reaction.
Silence.
“Let’s say that the blackness is a portal to another Warrior Pit,” Mom says.
“That’s a super huge leap, Ming.”
“I’m speculating. It would explain how the looters have been getting around without using a space ship.”
“Unless there’s no air in there. Or if it leads to an alternate dimension,” Dad says. “At this point we’ve no idea.”
“What was with the light show?” Elese asks.
“Could be an energy source,” Mom says.
“That’s ridiculous, we haven’t found anything inside the Warriors that would suggest they’re capable of doing…well, anything!” Dad shoves his gun back into the holder on his belt.
“There’s hearts inside the Warriors,” I say. Recalling the sequence of events, I try to pinpoint when the lights flared. “I think the HoLFs might have tried to get through and the Warriors stopped them, maybe even helped to create a safe passage.”
“Did you see ghosts?” Niall asks.
The ghosts in the factory seemed to keep the shadow-blobs away when we were attacked. “No, it was too bright, but I sensed the struggle.”
“This is all pure conjecture,” Dad says. “And once again, we’re no closer to any answers. We need to bring the astrophysicists here and let them figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Maybe we should open another intact pit and check if there are boot prints there,” Mom suggests.
“Not without Officer Radcliff’s permission,” Beau says. “I suspect I’m already in trouble for allowing this deviation from protocol.”
And I suspect we’re all going to be in trouble. From their queasy expressions, so do my parents. Perhaps we can blame gold fever.
“All right.” Mom returns the pulse gun and her flashlight to her belt. “We’ll proceed as normal in this pit and won’t do any more testing of the alien glyphs. Spencer, send word of the…glowing symbols to Dr. Carson and request that she and Dr. Zhang come out here. Ara, please turn the rest of these off before the techs return.”
“My team, as you were,” Beau orders.
Before Niall heads to the ladder, he gives me a significant look. It promises that we have much to discuss later and he’s not happy. I go around and turn off the Warriors. Now that the excitement is past, the ache in my arm comes to life and my knuckles sting.
“You okay?” Beau asks.
I roll my shoulder. “It’ll go away.”
“Did anything escape that portal?”
“No. The pit’s still safe.” More than safe. Protected. Huh. Another idea pops into my head. One of these is going to kill me if my colleagues don’t do it first. “If we relocate a bunch of these Warriors to our destroyed pits, they might keep the HoLFs at bay.”
Beau sighs. “There are so many things wrong with that sentence.” He rubs his face. “Okay, I’ll bite. If we did that, would you go into the pits and risk your life?”
Would I? I glance around at the imposing figures of the Warriors. “Yes, I would.”
“Good to know.”
I finish my etchings without causing another mind-blowing discovery. Beau goes topside and I resume my duties while thinking about the glowing glyphs and the portal—yes, it was a portal. I know what I saw. Would the Warriors in Pit 21 glow if the magician returned? Or do the glyphs only glow when opening a portal from this side? The person’s back was turned to the portal. If the lights in their pit turned on, you would think they would have spun to look to see who’s coming through. Unless they didn’t have time. Either way, I hope that person isn’t working for Jarren.
Elese calls down the thirty-minute warning, jarring me from my thoughts. Planet Yulin turns on its axis once every twenty-nine