Quinn lifted one of the blue bats and hurled it into the cabbage field. In a flash, the worms swarmed over it. In seconds it was just bones, like a turkey after a Thanksgiving feast.

“Okay, let’s test this,” Sam ordered.

Quinn tossed the second bat to Orc. Orc caught it and walked into the field. After a dozen steps, he tossed the blue bat ahead of him.

Again, the surge of worms. Again, the zekes reduced it to bones.

“Okay, Orc,” Sam said.

Orc bent down and yanked up a cabbage.

He tossed it back to land at Sam’s feet. A second and a third cabbage followed.

The zekes made no move toward Orc.

But they wouldn’t be sure until the zekes were offered something more easily digested than Orc’s stone feet.

“Breeze?” Sam said.

Brianna hefted a bat and zipped into the field. Sam waited, tense, knowing she was faster than the worms, but still . . .

Brianna tossed the bat. The zekes hit it.

And Brianna ripped a cabbage from the ground.

“You know,” Astrid said, “I seem to recall a certain condescending—one might even say contemptuous—response when I first suggested negotiating with the zekes.”

Hunger, Three Days Later