Even as the haze disappeared, a guard was walking over. The light on his scanner was reassuringly green. At least I didn't have a tracker on me. The guard from my village frowned, knowing I had left with six people this morning.

"Can I port you to where my group is?" I asked the man with the scanner. "It's not near any towns or fields, but we think there's a tracker in some acorns, and we don't want to jeopardize the Guard Station."

I held my breath as I waited for a reply, hoping he'd agree to the half-truth.

He frowned. "I'll come, but only if you bounce me back here soon. You're not the only group to find trackers in food today, and this is the only scanner here."

I held out my hand to him, breaking another rule as I offered a silent promise. He grumbled but took my hand. I ported back to find my group exactly as I had left them. A red light appeared on the scanner, just as we had feared.

Hints of exhaustion tugged at the edges of my mind, and I leaned against the crystal while watching the guard follow the dot directly to the basket. A hunter dumped the basket's contents into a carry net he had laid out during my absence.

The guard crouched down to scan the acorns, but the red dot pointed to the side, to the hunter. As a precaution, the scanner was moved above the acorns, but only one red light was present, and it still indicated the tracker was not in the acorns.

Standing up, the guard followed the scanner to the confused-looking hunter. The red dot guided him directly to the basket. The guard took the woven grass basket and turned it around, eventually pinpointing a particular seam.

He dug out the tracker bead and held it up as proof. "Is this the only place you've been today?"

"Other than a quick stop at an occupied location, yes," I replied without elaborating where the basket had come from.

"Good. This can stay here." He promptly tossed the tracker away.

Crackling in the distant bushes had us all stepping closer to the crystal. Several hands rested on my shoulders in case we had to bounce. The last two gatherers in our group emerged with rather full carry nets. When they noticed the guard, they began jogging over.

I breathed a sigh of relief at knowing all of my companions were safe. I hadn't lost any. We began grabbing everything we had collected. The acorns were already in a carry net, so the hunter just had to close the drawstrings. The two latest arrivals gave the empty grass basket a strange look as we left it at the base of a tree. Thankfully, they were smart enough to avoid asking questions with a guard present. His scanner remained green.

The guard was already focused on me and didn't see a hunter casually step to the side to block his view of the empty basket being left behind.

"Once everyone is ready, I can port you back," I told him.

He crossed his arms and pointedly waited as everyone quickly gathered around.

Once I was certain everyone was connected, I said, "Guard Station."

The air hazed around us. Less than two minutes had passed since my last bounce, and I could feel the drain in energy. The haze cleared, and two hunters guided me to the pile of hides nearby. My legs weren't wobbly, but I needed a rest after three back-to-back ports.

"Tracker was in a basket this time," the guard said as he walked over to the others on shift. "Those lizards are sure trying to track us down."

"You said others came here with trackers in their food?" I asked.

"Three groups so far. The porters took the trackers out within two minutes."

Another guard grumbled, "We're hoping we took them away fast enough, but be ready to bounce whenever you come here."

My group began pelting them with questions. One tracker had been put into a rabbit a hunter had left unattended. Another was found in a basket of greens. The last one had been in a lemon someone had picked off a tree.

The tracker being wedged into the seams of "our" basket only emphasized the different tactics they were trying. My companions followed my lead and didn't mention that the basket and food had been left by a Saursune, which might get us banned from the Guard Station even though we were being cautious.

That sort of information was best saved for Grant. He could relay the information to the Oasis under the guise of it coming from another village. The discussion shifted to idle chit-chat about their families, and I drew my knees up and rested my chin on them.

~

As we sat in the porter's circle, I finished my tale. "—but it makes no sense. I reached the crystal before the Saursune left the basket there, so spooking me and hoping I'd take the food hadn't been its original plan."

"Just like the Saursune that pinned me to the ground today," Andre pointed out. "Why put five oranges in my backpack if there was no tracker? They're killers! Nikway Village lost three hunters today."

Grant suddenly grabbed one of the notebooks near him. As he rapidly flipped through the leather pages, the rest of us exchanged confused glances. His finger traced several pages as his jaw slowly dropped.

"Grant? What is it?" Belle asked, leaning forward in concern.

"The recent deaths... None of them have been porters. Not since the two from Black Swamp and Hinton Village five days ago. And it's been over two months since Nikway Village lost Freya." He looked up, his expression confused. "Despite all the encounters over the last few days, the deaths have all been hunters or gatherers who were raiding."

Belle tilted her head in consideration. "That could be because the porters rarely venture far from the crystal. We usually escape. When did they start pinning people?"

Grant flipped back a page. "Four days ago. They wiped out Veredyl Village, and they also pinned a couple of porters in various places the same day. A lot more were chased that day as well. The activity has increased steadily since then. At least eight porters were pinned today. Nine, if we count Natalie's encounter, and possibly more that hadn't been reported when I visited the Oasis."

Goosebumps prickled along my neck and arms. If the Saursune decided to kill porters instead of just knocking us down, they could cripple the villages within a week.

"What are they doing? And why?" Mitch asked, looking around for answers that no one had.

"I wish I knew," Grant said quietly. "Nowhere in the records could I or anyone at Oasis Springs find anything about them pinning people without putting trackers on them. And even when they did it to track us, they never let more than one or two escape. Nothing like they're doing now, where entire groups get away."

"Could there be different leaders bringing in new rules?" Mitch asked, scratching his head. "Do towns make their own rules? Or do they have a government like we used to?"

Grant shrugged. "I have no idea how they organize themselves."

"But we know they have very good communication systems in place," Jayce pointed out. "Look at how they set up traps in so many places on the same day. We've also never seen them fight one another, and they wouldn't be worrying about us if they weren't close allies."

Were all Saursunes the same? Until recently, it certainly seemed like it. They usually killed us if they caught us and occasionally chased us away. I'd lost friends and relatives to the Saursunes, and I had run for the crystals more often than I cared to remember.

Could the individuals be as varied as the people in our village? The villagers were a rather mixed lot, both in skills and temperament. Old Fred grumbled over every bowl of soup, claiming the greens he'd brought back in his youth had been sweeter and more plentiful. Yet Melinda, his own sister, was the nicest person you'd ever met and never said a bad thing about anyone or complained about anything.

The creaking of wood wheels distracted me from my thoughts. I stretched and limbered up as the water cart was pulled over to the crystal.

"That mountain creek we went to yesterday was really muddy. Where else can we go?" I asked Grant.

He flipped to a different section of his notes. "The jungle waters carry disease at this time of year. You can try Orange Flower again, but keep an eye open for any Saursunes. If possible, take another person to act as a sentry."

I nodded and went to see which hunter looked bored. They had keen senses, and their reaction time was second to none. If they lacked those traits, they either picked a different job or they didn't survive long.

As I walked toward the crystal, all it took was an inquiring glance at a group for all three to quickly volunteer to stand guard. They helped push the cart the rest of the way to the crystal.

The woman who usually filled the water cart stepped back. "My leg is bothering me today, so I'll let those with younger bones accompany you."

"I can haul water," a man in his thirties said, joining the teenager who usually helped the woman.

"I can help as well," another hunter volunteered.

"Five is all I can transport," I quickly said as a couple of others stood up.

They sat back down, some in disappointment, while others looked relieved. I knelt to grab the watercart handle and three held onto my shoulders while the others took hold of thecart.

I took a deep breath. "Orange Flower."

The port pulled at me and twinged in my chest. When our view cleared, birds sang in the trees as all six of us warily examined the area.

"It looks clear," a hunter finally said, grabbing a pail and jogging for the water, closely followed by his friend.

Three hunters remained with me as we stood watch. My eyes flickered across the bushes, particularly the shrub the Saursune had hidden behind previously. Nothing bigger than a bird moved during the time it took the three to fill the water cart jars to the brim.

I knelt down and braced myself, knowing I was going to feel a load this heavy after the previous warning signs. "Home."

Light shimmered through my veins as the greenery faded from sight. Discomfort bloomed in my chest and snaked through my muscles. The village cliffs were a welcome sight. Two hunters appeared beside me, and despite my mumbled protests, helped me over to the hides to rest.

As soon as I was sitting, they went to help push the heavy water cart down the path. I closed my eyes and rolled my shoulders, trying to ease the ache in my rib cage. To my pleasant surprise, the porting strain wasn't as bad as usual, although the exhaustion was worse. 

I gazed up at the blue sky between the towering cliffs; porting that much weight and five passengers should have bordered on being painful, not just uncomfortable. It was...odd. At least we hadn't seen any Saursunes this time. Their appearance had become an unfortunately frequent occurrence lately, ever since—

My mind froze, then finished that thought.

Ever since the Saursune had caught my ankle.

The sightings had skyrocketed the very next day, and that was also when they started pinning porters. How had I not realized this until now?

I furrowed my eyebrows, then realized the aliens had been killing those raiding their fields almost a week beforehand. I had assumed all the close calls were part of the cull and their attempts to put trackers on us, so the events hadn't lined up in an obvious fashion.

But why were they pinning us and just letting us go? I covered a yawn, definitely more tired than I should be after a day with just a handful of ports, just like the other two times I'd been caught by a Saursune.

I inhaled slowly as another epiphany whacked me upside the head. What if it wasn't the weapon that made me feel so tired, but something else the Saursunes were doing?

Three events stood out: when the Saursune had caught my ankle, the time I had been pinned, and the Saursune pretending to be a cat. Each encounter had left me more tired than porting a dozen times.

What if I hadn't imagined the light dancing through my veins on those occasions? The memory of the Saursune's scales under my hand was vivid, especially with how I had compared it to the crystals. I also recalled how exhausted the porter had been at the Guard Station after being pinned yesterday. The hunters and gatherers hadn't been any more tired than terror and adrenaline accounted for, but the porters were a different story.

The more I thought about it, the more I was certain they were somehow draining our energy. It took energy to port.

The first time I'd been caught, I'd needed to use the location name in order to port. The other two times had left me exhausted. Today wasn't as bad, but I could still feel it. As I tallied up how many ports I'd done, I noticed something very peculiar.

I grabbed a rock and used it to carve numbers into the dirt and note which days I'd encountered a Saursune. Furrowing my eyebrows, I wiped a hand over the tallies and rewrote them. The same pattern appeared.

The first time the Saursune had caught me, I needed a nap right after escaping and had only managed six ports the rest of the day. Two days later, I'd hit a new record of twenty-five ports. The day after, I'd been pinned by the juvenile in the jungle, and I had only managed to port eight times, including the water cart, although I hadn't needed a nap.

Today, I'd encountered the cat-like Saursune, ported twelve times if I counted the cart, and while I was quite tired, I wasn't utterly exhausted, and the porting strain hadn't been as bad as expected.

Whenever I came into contact with a Saursune, I was far more tired than I should be. And...and my porting abilities seemed to be increasing. Our porting abilities were like muscles that would strengthen when pushed to the limits. Many times in the past, I'd pushed myself while trying to help the village and had seen a very slight increase in how much I could port, but nothing even close to this startlingly obvious jump.

Could their actions be strengthening my porting abilities? Or had I been out in the sun too long? The numbers in the dirt pointed to a conclusion that confused and concerned me.

If I was wrong, we were still in the middle of a rather unusual cull. But if I was right... I chewed on my lip as I stared at the numbers. I'd have to keep track of how much I ported for the next while.

With how the Saursunes seemed to be lurking in areas with crystals, there was an unfortunately high chance I'd get cornered again. I definitely wasn't about to go looking for one of the aliens, and I'd certainly try running away if one appeared, but what if I was caught again?

I began forming a number of plans that depended on the situation, how the Saursune was behaving, and if anyone else was around.