The sky cracked open on the day Gob planted his last seed. He was a small letter e with no eyes, and he found his way by the light that poured from his open mouth. He aimed that light at the bare dirt and felt the seed drop in. His parents had taught him this trick, the way they taught him to make sparkle. Fluroess and Potbelly waited for him somewhere past the hills. He meant to reach them before the dark ate the world. Then a shadow slid over the dirt. Gob tilted his mouth up. His light climbed a smooth metal belly. A flying saucer hung above him, silver and round, its rim lights blinking red and blue. A glass dome sat on top, and behind the glass something watched. Gob froze. The seed lay half-buried at his feet. "I have nowhere to hide," he said. His light shook. A hatch opened. Not from the saucer, but from the ground behind him. Snow burst up in a wall. A giant snowball rolled toward Gob, fast, a scowl carved across its face. It did not slow. Gob threw his light wide and saw no gap, no door, only white coming. The snowball hit. But it did not crush him. It scooped him up and kept rolling, away from the saucer. Cold packed around Gob's small body. Through a thin seam he saw the saucer chase, its lights spinning. "You searched for someone," Gob said into the ice. "Was it me?" The snowball grunted. It rolled harder. Then it stopped at a low ridge and split open, spilling Gob out. It shoved him toward a shape in the dark. Gob pointed his light and lit a striped figure. A round peppermint head sat where a face should be. The figure wore a red coat with torn cuffs. A tiny teapot swung from its belt. It reached for Gob with a white glove. Gob understood too late. The snowball had not saved him. It had delivered him. "No," Gob said, and made his light flare bright as he could. The flare stung the striped figure. It flinched. Gob turned to run, but the saucer dropped low and blocked the ridge. Its light pinned him. The peppermint figure closed one glove on Gob's arm and lifted him off the ground. Gob kicked. His light swung across the sky and caught something worse. A second craft. Beyond it, a third. The whole horizon glowed with rims and domes, a fleet drifting down over the hills. The hills where Fluroess and Potbelly waited. The striped figure carried Gob toward the saucer's open hatch. Gob stopped kicking. He aimed his light past his captor, at the fleet, and counted the ships between him and his parents. Dozens. The invasion had begun, and it stood between Gob and the only two he needed to reach.

The saucer's hatch swallowed Gob whole. Inside, the peppermint figure set him on a bench and turned to a wall of levers. Gob shut his mouth and killed his light. In the dark, he pressed against a curved panel and found a seam. He pushed. The panel folded outward. Gob dropped through and landed on cold ground below the parked craft. He crawled under the hull and stopped. "I need a plan," he whispered. His parents had taught him a trick for this, a rule for when everything went wrong. He reached for it. The words slipped away. He could not remember Plan A at all. So Gob made a new one. He cracked his mouth and let a thin blade of light out. It struck a wall of sticks and moss ahead, a small castle patched with mud. On its top tower sat a beacon that pulsed red. He understood then. The robots aboard the fleet aimed their killing beams at whatever the beacon marked. If he climbed the tower and smashed the light, the beams would lose their eye. Gob ran for the mossy keep. A beam swept the ground behind him and turned dirt to glass. He did not look back. He squeezed through the crooked gate and found a ladder of lashed branches inside the tower. He climbed. Moss came loose in his grip. Twice his foot slipped, and twice he caught the rung. Above him, the peppermint figure appeared at the tower window. It must have seen him bolt. It reached down with a white glove, teapot swinging at its belt. "Come back, little light," it said, sweet and slow. Gob flared his mouth. The blast lit the peppermint head white. The figure jerked its arm away and lost its grip on the sill. Gob pulled himself onto the tower top. The beacon pulsed at arm's reach, a lamp caged in sticks. Two saucers hung close, their rims spinning up bright. They were aiming. Gob had one breath. He opened his mouth as wide as it went and poured every drop of light into the beacon. Then he grabbed the caged lamp and tore it from its post. The beacon died. Above him, the two saucers' beams fired into empty tower and struck the peppermint figure where it clung below. The blast knocked the striped figure off the keep. It fell into the dark and did not climb back. Gob stood alone on the tower, the dead beacon in his hands. The killing beams had lost their mark. But the saucers did not leave. They turned, slow, and their rims swung toward the small light still glowing in his mouth. He had blinded the beacon and made himself the brightest thing for miles. Below, the fleet drifted on toward the hills, toward Fluroess and Potbelly. Gob clamped his mouth shut and dropped flat against the moss.

Gob lay flat on the dead beacon tower. The saucers hunted the small glow in his mouth. He clamped his lips shut and held still. Then a horn blared below, deep and round, three notes at once. A fire truck raced across the burnt ground toward the keep. It should not have been there. Nothing worked in this dark. But there it came, ladder rattling, and four riders clung to its sides. Gob knew none of them. A chicken in a soldier's coat rode up front, a great brass sousaphone wrapped around her body. She was Sooza. When she blew the horn, three colors spilled from the bell at once, fire and frost and green shoots, braided into one sound. "Jump, little light!" she called. "The music holds them stupid for now!" The saucers wobbled. Her three quarreling elements, forced through one tube, jammed their beams. Gob did not know if he could trust them. But the saucers were turning back. He dropped from the tower and hit the truck's ladder. A teenage girl caught him, a hula hoop spinning at her hips. "Got him! Got him!" Hoola shouted. "Told you I'd catch him, told you!" At the wheel sat a tall woman with a blue tower of hair. She waved two bright pompoms and steered with her knees. "We drive now," PomPom said. "We talk later." A granny in a pink ballet dress spun on the truck's roof, arms out, holding balance against every bump. "Four turns," TooToo said, landing hard. "Not three. Four." A princess sat behind them, bow in hand, drawing it across her own long hair. The strands rang out. "I'm Rooba," she said, calm. "I'm opening a path through the fleet's signal. If I find the right note, their beams go blind." Her bow slid. One note screeched wrong. She frowned and tried again. A saucer broke free of Sooza's music. Its rim spun bright and swung at the truck. Gob felt the heat build. He opened his mouth and threw a hard flash of light straight up. The beam chased the bright thing, as it always did, and struck empty sky above them. The truck roared on beneath the burnt beam. Rooba's bow hit its note. The hair sang clear and low. Every saucer above them jerked, then drifted off course, hunting a signal that no longer led anywhere. The truck rolled clear of the keep and out onto open ground. Gob gripped the ladder and caught his breath. He had a truck now, and five strangers who had risked the beams for him. Ahead, past the drifting saucers, the hills waited where Fluroess and Potbelly still stood. "Plan C," Gob whispered. He had a way through. "Hoola. We're going to make it." But the fleet still crawled toward those hills, and it moved faster than one fire truck could.

The fire truck outran the drifting saucers, but it could not outrun the fleet. PomPom stopped it at the foot of a tall building. "Town hall," she said. "Highest roof for miles. We signal your parents from the top." Gob's mouth pulsed with light. Somewhere past the fleet, in the hills, Fluroess and Potbelly still waited. A tall roof could carry his glow all the way to them. They ran through the dark lobby. PomPom slapped the elevator button. Nothing. She slapped it again. The doors stayed shut, dead as everything else in this dark. "Broke," Hoola said. She yanked the door to the stairwell. "Fine. We climb. Come on, come on." She scooped Gob up in one arm and started up. Twenty floors. PomPom counted landings out loud, calm and flat. Hoola took them two at a time, breathing hard, never slowing. She was the kind of girl who did the thing everyone swore was impossible. She just did it louder. By the fifteenth floor Gob felt her arms shaking. He wanted to help. He held his light steady so she could see each step. It was all he had to give her. "Almost, almost," Hoola gasped. "Told you I'd get you up. Told you." They burst onto the roof. Cold wind hit them. Below and far off, the saucers crawled toward the hills in a slow line. And there, on a dark rise, Gob saw two small shapes. One glowed faint gold. The other had two heads. "Fluroess," Gob breathed. "Potbelly." Hoola set him on the roof's edge and held his sides so he would not fall. "Now, little light! Now!" she shouted. "Give them everything you got!" Gob opened his mouth wide. The light poured out, a cone brighter than the beacon he once burned. It cut across the dark sky toward the hills. He flashed it. Once. Twice. Three times. On the far rise, the gold shape flared bright, then dimmed, then flared again. An answer. Potbelly's two heads swung toward the light. Fluroess raised one hand, glowing, and signaled back. "They see us," Hoola whispered. "They see you." PomPom did not cheer. She watched the fleet. "They see us too," she said. Every saucer in the line had stopped drifting. Their rims spun bright. One by one, they turned. Not toward the hills now. Toward the roof. Toward the brightest light for miles. Gob had reached his parents. He had also just made himself and his friends the target of the whole fleet. He clamped his mouth shut. Too late. The saucers were already coming, and this time no music jammed them and no bow sang them off course. "Down," PomPom said. "Now."

The saucers came fast. Hoola grabbed Gob and ran for the stairs. But a white beam struck the roof between them and the door. The floor buckled. Hoola stumbled. Her arm swung wide, and Gob slipped free. He rolled off the roof's edge into open air. The fall never came. Gob hung in a cold black nothing. No wind. No roof. No stars. He opened his mouth. His light spilled out and touched nothing at all. Then two shapes drifted into the cone. PomPom floated beside him, pompoms limp, her tall blue hair strange without gravity. She was the cheer captain who had counted every stair, who never wasted a word. Now she said nothing. She stared past Gob, jaw tight. Hoola turned slow circles, arms reaching for a wall that was not there. "Where's the roof," she said. "Where'd the roof go. Gob, where are we?" Gob had no answer. The beam had thrown them somewhere the light could not measure. A voice cracked across the void, huge and furious. "WHY DID YOU TAKE OUR CHILD?!" Gob knew that voice. Potbelly. Both heads roared it together. Two green shapes swam into his light, teeth snapping, jaws wide with rage. Beside them glowed a soft gold figure, one hand raised. Fluroess. His parents. Here. Somehow, the void had pulled them in too. "Potbelly!" Gob cried. "It's me!" The two heads froze. Both stared at the small letter e in the dark. Potbelly's jaws hung open. "Gob," said one head. "You," said the other. The rage drained out of both at once. Potbelly had thought a captor floated there. Not a son. Fluroess drifted close and cupped Gob in both glowing hands. Warm. Real. "We felt the beam," Fluroess said, voice low and even. "It took the whole rise. It took us with it." Gob understood then. The saucer's beam had not killed them. It had swallowed them, all of them, into this dark. His signal had led his parents straight into the trap. "Then we're together," Gob said. "We made it." "No," PomPom said flatly. She pointed. Far off in the black, a pale rim began to spin. Then another. The saucers were in here too, and they had lights of their own. Potbelly pushed both heads in front of Gob. "Stay behind us," one head said. Fluroess raised a hand, and gold light flared out to meet Gob's cone. Two lights. Bright enough to be seen. Bright enough to be hunted. "We can't hide in the dark," Gob said. "We're the only light in it." Hoola stopped spinning. She grabbed Gob's cone with her eyes and grinned, fierce. "Then we stop hiding," she said. "We're the brightest thing here. So we lead them. Right into each other." Gob had found his parents at last. They were reunited, floating, hunted, trapped in a void with the whole fleet closing in. The reunion had a price, and the price was nowhere left to run.

Hoola's plan hung in the dark. Lead the saucers into each other. Use the light. But Fluroess still held Gob close, and the two glowing hands trembled. Gob felt it. His parent was afraid. And under the fear sat a question no one had asked yet. "Wait," Fluroess said. The gold light dimmed. "Gob. The beam that took us. We felt your signal first. We climbed the rise to answer it. Then the sky opened." Fluroess paused. "We came because of your light. That's why we're here." Gob went still inside those hands. He could lie. He could say the saucers found them by chance. But the truth pressed against his mouth like the light pressed against the dark. "Yes," Gob said. "I made the signal. On the roof. I flashed it across the sky so you'd see me." His voice stayed low. "The fleet saw it too. It came for the roof. It came for you. I led them here." Silence. Both of Potbelly's heads turned toward Gob. Neither snapped. Fluroess's hands closed a little tighter, then loosened. PomPom watched, jaw set, saying nothing. "You told the truth," said one of Potbelly's heads. "You could have hidden it," said the other. "I didn't want to trick you," Gob said. "Not you." Then the gold light snuffed out. Fluroess had shut off. The warm glow in the two hands went black, and Gob hung in his own cone alone. For one cold breath he thought he'd lost his parent for good. "Fluroess?" Gob whispered. "Quiet," Fluroess said. The voice came from the dark now, close and even. "They track light. Yours and mine. So I go dark. You stay bright." A hand found Gob's edge and steadied him. "You be the target. I'll be the eyes they can't see." Gob understood. Fluroess wasn't leaving. Fluroess was becoming the hidden one. Gob's light would pull the saucers. Fluroess, dark, would watch where they went and call the turns. A shape drifted into the door of light at the edge of the void. Gob's cone touched it. Fluroess, floating there, dark and calm, one hand raised. The pale saucer rims spun closer, drawn to Gob's glow. "Now," Fluroess said from the black. "Left. Down. Toward the far one." Hoola grabbed Gob and hauled him where Fluroess called. "You heard the eyes," she said, loud and fierce. "Go, go, go!" Gob blazed as bright as he could. Two saucers swung after him and clipped rims in the dark. A flash. A crack. One spun away broken. They had a weapon now. Gob's light for bait. Fluroess's dark for aim. His parents trusted him again, because he'd told them the truth. But the void still held the whole fleet, and only one saucer had fallen. Gob shone alone at the front, and every rim that was left now turned toward him.

Gob shone alone at the front. Every saucer left in the void now turned toward his glow. Then, deep in the dark, a shape rose that was not a saucer. Three long legs unfolded. A tall machine walked out of the black. Fluroess's voice came sharp. "A tripod. It's fixing the sky." Gob turned his cone on it. The light touched a broad round body high on three legs. Below it, a false town flickered into place. Blue sky. Houses. A whole bright world painting itself over the void, like a lid closing on a jar. The tripod was sealing them in. If it finished, no beam-door would open again. No way out to the hills. No way to the sky where his parents once flew their home. "It knows how to build," said one of Potbelly's heads. "It's almost done," said the other. Hoola gripped Gob tight. "Then we break it. We break it before it finishes." But the tripod's body was smooth. Gob's cone slid off it and found no seam, no weak spot. He felt only one gap. High on the round belly, a single dark port glowed. The place the fake sky poured from. "There," Gob said. "The light comes out there. If I fill it, maybe I choke it." PomPom hung in the black, arms crossed. "Then get above it," she said. "Hit the port straight down. No angles. Angles waste light." Hoola swung Gob up and around. She spun him once, twice, building speed like her hoop through a long summer. "Higher," she said. "Higher. I got the throw. You got the shine." On the third turn she let go. Gob flew up over the tripod's round back. He opened his mouth as wide as it went. Every spark his parents gave him poured out at once. His light dropped straight into the glowing port. The fake sky stuttered. The blue tore. Gob's brightness fought the tripod's own, and for a breath the two lights strained against each other inside the machine. Then, from the dark below, Fluroess called the last turn. "Now, Gob. All of it." Gob gave all of it. The port burst. The false town shattered into black shards. The tripod's legs buckled, and the whole machine folded down and went still. Gob drifted, dim and spent, and Potbelly's jaws caught him gently before he fell. The sealed sky was gone. But so was the fake town that had hidden them. And where the false blue had been, a real gap now showed. A jagged tear in the void, and past it, far off, the true dark sky over the hills. The way out was open again. But the light Gob spent to open it was nearly gone, and every saucer left had seen exactly where the tear had torn.

The tear hung open in the void. Past it, the true dark sky stretched over the hills. But every saucer left had seen the gap tear. Now they turned as one and dove toward it. Gob drifted in Potbelly's jaws, so dim he could barely feel his own light. His parents had sensed his signal and come. He had brought the fleet with them. That guilt still sat in his chest. "They'll reach the gap first," said one of Potbelly's heads. "Then it closes," said the other. Hoola pushed off into the black. She had spent her whole summer landing one impossible trick, and she wore that same stubborn face now. "No. No way. We open it wider." She grabbed the nearest saucer's own tilt and shoved. "Push them at each other! Same as before!" But Gob had almost no light left. Without a bright target, the saucers had nothing to chase. He opened his mouth. Only a weak flicker came out. PomPom hung in the dark, arms crossed, watching the saucers cut their turns. She had studied a hundred rival routines frame by frame, and she read the fleet the same way. "They're sloppy. All of them aim at the same spot." She pointed at the gap. "Make the gap the bait. Not Gob." Fluroess understood first. Their light flared bright, then dropped dark, marking a false path along the tear's edge. The lead saucers swung to follow the flash. They crowded the same line. Then they clipped wings and spun. "Again," PomPom said. "Left side. They always crowd left." Fluroess flashed left. The saucers piled into each other. One by one they cracked and drifted, dead metal in the dark. The last few pulled up short. They could not find a target worth a beam. Slowly they turned and fell back into the void, hunting easier prey. The gap stayed open. The sky beyond it went from black to a soft blue as the false void thinned around the edges. Real air moved through the tear. The hills waited on the other side. Potbelly carried Gob to the opening. Fluroess floated close. "We're sorry," Fluroess said quietly. "We came down here to take this town. That was wrong. We should have looked for you instead." "We fixed what we broke," said one of Potbelly's heads. The other nodded at the calm blue sky. "It's right again." Gob's mouth flickered. He wanted to fly through with them right now. But his light was nearly gone. He could not lead. He could not even glow enough to see the path. "Rest," Fluroess said. "We carry you now." So they passed through the tear together, into real air and blue sky. The town lay quiet behind them. Ahead rose the hills. But the way up was long, and Gob had no light to climb it.

The tear closed behind them. Real air moved over the hills. Potbelly carried Gob up the slope in one careful jaw. Fluroess floated beside them. Hoola climbed with her hoop spinning at her waist. PomPom walked last, watching the sky, still reading it for threats. But the sky stayed empty. The fleet was gone. At the top of the hill sat something Gob knew by feel before his light could name it. A smooth domed hull. Round windows that once glowed. His home. The UFO his family had left behind when the world began to end. "There," said one of Potbelly's heads. "It waited." Gob opened his mouth. Only a thin flicker came out. The cone barely reached the hull. He could not see the door. He could not see his parents' faces. His light was almost gone, and without it he could not feel his way home. Hoola stopped spinning. "You did the whole thing on empty," she said. "You. Empty. And you still blew that machine apart." She dropped down beside him. "So you rest now. That's the trick. You rest." PomPom crossed her arms. "Light comes back. Give it time." She said it flat, like a fact she had checked twice. Fluroess drifted close. Their glow brightened. "Watch," Fluroess said. They flashed once, soft and warm, and held it steady. The light spread across the hull. The round windows caught it and gave it back. For one moment the whole ship glowed. Gob felt the warmth on his small face. He could not see it, but he felt where it landed. The door. The steps. The path home. Fluroess pushed their light toward Gob's open mouth. Not much. Just a thread. It slipped inside him and settled. Gob's flicker steadied. It did not blaze. It did not need to. It only had to reach the door. "Try," Fluroess said. Gob opened his mouth wider. The cone stretched. It touched the hull, the windows, the steps. He felt the whole shape of home at last. He was not carried now. He held his own light again. Potbelly set him down on the grass. Gob stood on his own. His glow was small and steady and his. "Inside," said Potbelly's other head. "We rest. Then we decide." Gob moved toward the door on his own light. But at the threshold he stopped. Hoola stood behind him. PomPom stood behind her. They had carried him here. They were not from these hills. Their homes lay somewhere in the ruined town below. Gob turned his small cone back on them. It was weak, but it reached. It asked a question he had no words for. PomPom answered it. "We got you home," she said. "Now we find ours."

Gob stood at the door of his home. PomPom and Hoola stood behind him on the grass. They had carried him up this hill, but their own homes waited in the ruined town below. Gob turned his small cone on them one last time. He wanted them to stay. He had no word for it that felt big enough. Hoola stepped forward. Her hoop spun once, then stopped. "Hey. Hey. Look at me," she said. "You did the thing. You. On empty. That machine's gone because of you." She poked his side. "That's why we're saying it now. While it still counts." "Down there is ours," PomPom said. She pointed at the town, flat and dark below. "We find it. We fix it. That's the plan." She did not soften it. She never did. Gob's flicker dipped low. He thought of the stairs they climbed together, the beam that split the roof, the saucers that fell. He did not want to feel his way through the world without them touching the edge of his light. Then the ground hummed. Gob felt it first in his feet. A low pull, like the hill itself had taken a breath. Behind him the round windows woke. One by one they lit from inside. The whole hull began to glow. Warmth washed over Gob's small face, and his weak cone caught the shape of a shadow moving in the doorway. Two shadows. He knew them by feel before his light could reach. Fluroess floated out, glow steady and warm. Potbelly's two heads leaned through the door, jaws open in something like a grin. "Inside," said one head. "It still flies," said the other. "We fixed the last of it while you said your goodbyes." The hum grew. The ship lifted off the grass. Gob felt the hill drop away beneath the steps. Panic seized him. Hoola. PomPom. They were still outside. But they were not. Hoola grabbed the doorframe and swung herself up, hoop and all. PomPom climbed in after her, arms crossed, chin high. "Change of plan," PomPom said. "Nothing left down there tonight. We ride." Hoola laughed, loud and bright. "You thought we'd walk into that dark? No. No way." Gob's cone flared. Just a little. Enough to touch every face around him. Fluroess. Potbelly. His two friends. All of them, inside, together, as the ship rose off the hill. The UFO climbed into the black sky. Below, the ruined town shrank to nothing. Ahead lay only dark, deep and wide, the kind Gob had feared his whole search. But he was not alone in it now. His parents floated close. His light held steady. And the ship carried them all up, away from the hill, into the coming night. Wherever the darkness ended, they would reach it together. The ship flew on.

The ship climbed, but Gob did not know where to steer it. Below lay the ruined town. Above spread only black sky. Fluroess floated to the window and watched the dark close in. "The engines hold," said one of Potbelly's heads. "But hold toward what?" said the other. Gob pressed his small cone against the glass. The light touched nothing. No hills. No stars. No place that could be a home. He felt the old fear return, bigger now with the whole crew depending on him. Then his light caught a shape far below. Something pale rolled across the dead ground. It stopped. It turned. It was searching. Gob opened his mouth wide and poured a beam down onto it. The shape froze in his light, then rolled hard toward the climbing ship. A snowball. Not just any snowball. The same one that had carried him away in the first days, then handed him to the peppermint figure. "That one tricked you," Hoola said. Her hoop went still. "It fed you to the candy monster." Gob remembered the betrayal. But the snowball below was not fleeing. It was chasing. It wanted to be seen. "Let it close," Gob said. His cone held it steady. Potbelly swung the ship low over the ground. The snowball leaped and smacked the hull. It clung there, panting, eyes fierce. "I found you," it said through the glass. "I came back to find you." It pushed a shape against the window. A small striped bow tie, torn and dirty, pulled off a coat of red and white. Gob knew that cloth. The peppermint figure had worn it. "Why bring me this?" he asked. The snowball's face twisted. "He made me take you. I hated it. When the beams killed him, I was free. So I rolled. I rolled for days looking for your light." It pressed the torn bow harder to the glass. "I know where to go. I saw it while I searched. A valley the fleet never reached. Soil. No saucers. Dark and bare. The kind of dark your green thumb could fill." Gob's light flickered. Dark and bare. Those were the words he had chased his whole search, the place his parents had always wanted to find with him. But the snowball had lied before. Hoola crossed her arms. PomPom said nothing, waiting. Fluroess floated close to Gob. "Your choice, child," Fluroess said. "We steer where you point." Gob held the snowball in his beam and felt its face. No grin. No trick. Just a creature worn thin from rolling. He opened the hatch. Cold air rushed in. The snowball tumbled inside and settled on the floor, dripping. "Show us," Gob said. It rolled to the front window and pressed one side flat. "There. Follow the low ground. Past where the hills break." Potbelly turned the ship. Fluroess steadied the wheel. Gob opened his mouth and threw his cone far ahead, farther than he had ever reached. The light found a gap in the black. Below the gap lay open land, folded and quiet, with no saucers and no false sky. The ship dropped toward it. Gob's beam swept the valley floor. Bare dirt stretched wide, dark and empty, waiting. He felt the soil in his light the way he felt faces. Soft. Deep. Ready. His flicker surged bright enough to fill the whole cabin. Hoola laughed. PomPom finally smiled. The ship landed. The hull hummed down to quiet. Gob stepped out first onto cold ground. Fluroess and Potbelly came behind him, one head on each side, glowing warm. The snowball rolled out and circled the ship, keeping watch. Gob knelt and pushed his cone into the dirt. Then he reached into the pocket his mother had sewn and found one last seed, saved from before the fleet came. He pressed it into the dark soil. He opened his mouth and poured his light down onto the spot, steady, no longer bait for any beam, just light for a growing thing. A green shoot broke the ground. Then another. Fluroess added their glow beside his. Potbelly watered the row from a tank in the ship. Hoola spun her hoop over the seedlings. PomPom cleared stones. The snowball patted snow over the roots to keep them cool. Gob stood in the middle of it all, his family on one side, his friends on the other, his light spilling over a valley that was dark and bare no longer. He had searched the whole ending of the world for a place like this, and for the two who made him. Now he had both, in one spot, under his own small cone. The final darkness had come. And Gob had filled it with green.