‘Why did you do that?’ Maggie shoved Jupiter in the chest and he staggered back. ‘Leaping into the fight like a mad thing, screaming. And just when we were about to escape.’

Jupiter held his arms up to fend off Maggie’s next blow but it never came. Instead her look shot him daggers.

Dhak’s crew, and Berg’s mountain warriors, had retreated from the skyfort and instead worked to free their smaller vessel from the huge flagship. Once the grappling lines had been cut, the wind pushed them apart. And then kept pushing.

‘I had to Maggie. That soldier was about to attack,’ said Jupiter. ‘He would have stopped us sailing off anyways. Besides. Now I have a cool, long blade tarusha.’ He flourished it like he imagined a swash-buckling pirate would.

‘When will it get into your thick head that you’re just a boy,’ Maggie said. ’A boy stuck in an alien world. And the only thing you should be thinking about is getting back home.’

It’s all you talk about, Jupiter thought. ‘If we can,’ he said instead.

‘We have only three days to find this Naz’naska place Ajiro-san told us about. And we still have to work out how we can get back to Earth. Like those other nuvra did.’

‘It's three days and three nights. The moon rises almost an hour later each day so it will be early morning on the fourth day.’

‘Still not enough time,’ said Maggie.

A caterwauling cry went up around the skyship. ‘Drop grapples.’

Jupiter saw they had drifted away from the city and only mountains and snow remained to the west. The stink of burning swept over him on the wind as fires burned in places throughout Hutanqari. Skyships and battling gharumal still raged through the city.

‘Jupiter. What do we do?’

‘We’re away from the fighting. But it’s night now, and I have no idea where we need to go.’

‘Wasn’t that the reason we stuck with Berg for so long? He would show us the way.’

‘So saving him was a good idea now?’

‘We ask him then,’ said Maggie. ‘Get him to guide us. Doesn’t he owe us that? All the rebels do.’

‘If this wind continues, we can sail into the mountains tomorrow. Then get them to take us to the temple at Naz’naska.’

‘Where’s Breeze?’ said Maggie.

Jupiter turned. The outrigger still lay on the deck of Dhak’s skyship. But of Breeze, who would normally be at the kheel ready to take flight, he saw no sign. The officers and Berg stepped into his line of sight blocking his view.

‘Upariqami. We owe you a further gratitude,’ said Berg. ‘You saved me and my men. You brought us to the skyfort, and if not for you your turned-blade would not have turned in our favor.’

Tamm still gripped Zaj by the shoulders. Someone had hobbled her feet in case she decided to kick out and fight her rescuers.

‘There is a long way yet for us to travel,’ said Berg. ‘But you have started us upon the journey. I thank you.’ The old manisaur stepped up to Zaj and took her from Tamm. He nodded at the sejrat’sha — turned-blade. A complex flash rippled across both their auras.

‘Then take us to where we need to go,’ said Maggie. ’You know where Naz’naska is. Don’t you?’

‘Lower the gharumal and dhomqari,’ shouted Dhak. ‘There is still a battle to win. We must tow back into the wind if we are to do more fighting. And we will.’

‘Why are they sides fighting anyway?’ said Maggie. ‘And why here?’

‘It’s is a strategic location,’ said Tamm as he stepped up to them. ‘Hatunqari lies between the mountain clans and the Empire. But also the passes to the ice lands in the south.’

‘But why now?’

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‘The mountain klaeds mobilized to take the city, and the Empire rushed forces here. The mountain folk rose to join with Bergwash Bamrushi.’

‘How did they know this? We sailed faster than any news could have come of his escape from Black Spire. Faster even than events at Qhayuvaknam.’

‘I do not know,’ said Tamm. ‘But I believe that is why the Imperials tried to take him at Black Spire.’

‘They acted on just a rumor?’ said Maggie. ‘Then when they tried to take Berg, the Imperials made that rumor true.’

‘Zaj did it didn’t she?’ said Jupiter. ‘She set the rumors flying of this attack. Then, when she tried to escape the Imperial court in Naruham, blackbirders took her. So even if the rumor had no truth, it did the work.’

‘That is all very likely,’ said Berg as he joined them. Zaj now sat hobbled and tied near the skyship’s bridge. ‘It is the only way any of this makes any sense. Zaj will not speak. She has been turned, imprinted by the Aelqemist’s potion given her by the blackbirders who wished to enslave her.’

‘So it is true,’ said Dhak. ‘We all saw it, the Air Lord rescued by those foul blackguards.’

‘The whole Empire has been turned,’ said Berg. ‘The Aelqemist and her Air Lord have twisted everything.’

The lowing calls of gharumals came to them now, blown on the wind as the beasts dropped from the skyship to the ground below. Dhak had sent men to the ground with them.

‘Jupiter. It’s time to go,’ said Maggie as she pulled him away from the others.

‘How can we? With Breeze missing? And Tamm? Would he want to come with us, he belongs here too.’

‘We have no place here,’ said Maggie. ‘We can do nothing. Eoth is all too different, big and complicated.’

‘But we have helped, Berg said so. If not for us he would not have been warned of the Imperial navy’s attack. We would not have rescued him, and brought him south in time.’

‘But Zaj would not have been imprinted if not for us.’

‘Not our fault. We've made a difference, helped Gan steal the zharaqsa. And that crippled the fleet after we attacked the Zenska flightworks.’

‘Others might have done it. We cannot take on this whole world. It is not our battle to fight.’

‘That sounds like America before they entered World War Two. Where there is suffering…’

‘Except it is madness for you to take it all on Peter. You’re just Peter. We’re two kids from Christchurch.’

‘There’s one other thing,’ said Jupiter. ‘But no one talks about it.’

He turned away from her and looked into the sky. The bright band of the galaxy spread wide and bright from horizon to shaded mountains. The full moon would not rise for several hours yet. He searched out the brightest stars. Orion, and the Seven Sisters - Matariki. He turned to the Southern Cross and triangulated where the south pole lay from the Pointers. He knew where they had to fly.

‘The mantas,’ Jupiter said. ‘They torture and maim and kill the mantas in order to create their flight crystals.’

He pulled his greenstone jade niho taniwha pendant from around his neck. The blue zharaqsa crystal nestled against it almost as if they fitted together.

‘This stuff. It’s like the crystalized ooze from a weeping wound,' said Jupiter. 'No being should suffer so that their skyships can fly.’

‘Can you imagine them ever giving it up? A magic that powers their whole world. Give it up? Like if we had to give up electricity, or oil and coal? If you want to fight a battle there are plenty more at home. Why should you…’

‘How can you say that? They are Moby’s people? I nearly died saving two of them from the blackbirders. It has to stop.’

‘You promised. Take me to the temple at Naz’naska. Then do what you want.’ Maggie turned away. ‘I don’t care.’

Jupiter did not like it when he and Maggie argued.

And I do owe her. I promised. This is her only chance.

But he could not think of a way to get any of them to show him the way to Naz’naska, the temple and the hope of the way home. And not now when all they wanted to do was get back into the fight raging upwind of them.

The stink of it swept down upon them a constant reminder they had left the action. He understood that much about these alien people — they did things as a group, with a brave and tenacious loyalty that made them so very admirable.

Berg and Tamm now spoke as if no enmity had ever existed between them. They had forged a bond when they fought. Not an imprint, but something not far from it.

And he felt it too. Perhaps the tulanvarqa had made the same bonds with him. He felt it with Tamm, and Breeze. Even to Berg and the enigmatic Vishvasalana — Dhak.

He had never felt more alive than here on Eoth. He’d found a purpose, and become captain of the fastest sailing vessel on the planet.

The amazing flying Jupiter.

He laughed, but then remembered that Breeze had disappeared. Somehow they had left him on the Air Lord’s skyfort.

The Jupiter had lost something when its crew left her. No Breeze, Tamm in deep conversation with Berg about Zaj. Maggie sulking. He missed Pariqamtu, who had given up her place for Berg.

The Jupiter is not just a hull and sails. It is the crew that sail together.

His gut clenched. He did not want it all to end. And it had to. He had to get Maggie home like he promised.

‘Berg,’ Jupiter said. ‘Tamm. We’re leaving. We’ve done what we needed to do, and we have a way home. Back to Earth. Will you show us the way? To Naz’naska?’

Berg raised his aura to Jupiter and a ripple pulsed across it. Tamm’s aura took up the pattern as if they had one mind.

‘Gladly Vam’lama Upariqami,’ said Berg.

‘Without question Dhakara.’ Tamm nodded in the human manner.

Jupiter understood then. That loyalty and dedication worked both ways. These people had his back, he had just needed to ask.

‘Just one thing,’ said Berg. ‘We have to take Zaj with us.’

‘No problem,’ said Jupiter. ‘Maybe we can get her to spin the kheel for us.’

Tamm laughed, but Jupiter ached to know what had happened to Breeze.