They arrived within thirty minutes and went directly to work. There were eight of them. They went down into the storage bay and stripped most of the metal from the bins, containers, cabinets, storage units, and dividers. Then they came topside and went through the compartments and the common room, doing much the same sort of thing.
Katie helped her clear out her own quarters. When she was finished they repeated the process, taking most of the metaclass="underline" the bed panels, the lamps, a foldout table, a built-in cabinet. They thanked her, apologized for the inconvenience, loaded everything into their shuttle, including her, and left.
The trank hadn't worked. Kellie listened to the sound of distant tides-they had finally camped near Bad News Bay-and watched Jerry Morgan, a vast swollen moon, sink toward the hills. The eastern sky had already begun to lighten. Hutch was their sentry, and her slim form leaned against a tree, just beyond the fire's glow.
She gave up finally, pulled herself into a sitting position, and wrapped her arms around her knees.
"Did you love him, Kellie?" The voice startled her. It was MacAllister. He was lying with his back to her, but he rolled over now. His face was in shadow, and she couldn't make out his expression.
"No," she said. And, after a moment: "I don't think so."
"I'm sorry." He sat up and reached for the coffeepot.
"I know," she said. "We're all sorry."
He poured a cup and offered her some. But she declined. She didn't really want to put anything in her stomach.
"Sometimes," he said, "I think life is just one long series of blown opportunities."
She nodded. "You know what I really hate," she said. "Leaving him here. In this godforsaken place."
"It's no worse than any other, Kellie. He'll never know the difference."
She felt empty. "He was a good guy," she said, biting down a wave of anger and tears. Suddenly the grief rose in her, and she couldn't contain it. She clamped her teeth together and tried to hold on. MacAllister took her in his arms. "Let it come," he said.
Hutch was talking to someone. Kellie had collected herself, tamped down the storm, and was feeling drained. She pour herself some water.
Hutch stiffened. Lifted her arms in frustration. Kellie knew the gesture, and it raised the hair on her scalp.
The conversation ended, and Hutch strode swiftly into the ring of the campfire. "Let's move, folks. We're down to our last day." She knelt beside Nightingale and gently shook him.
"That can't be right," said MacAllister. "They told us we had until tomorrow night."
"They've changed their minds. Come on, we have to get rolling."
Mac needed no further prompting. He was searching for his toothbrush. "How far do we still have to go?" he asked.
"Thirty klicks," she said. "Give or take."
"In one day? We'll never make it."
"Yeah, we will."
"Hutch," Mac said privately, "it's not as if we're going to get there and you can turn the key and start the damned thing. How long's it going to take to get it up and running? Assuming we can do it at all?"
"A few hours," she admitted.
He looked at the approaching sunrise and rubbed his feet. "Then we have to get back to the tower and recover the capacitors. By what time?"
"Late tonight. Around midnight."
He held out his hands helplessly. "We need to go to Plan B."
Nightingale was watching while he tried to pull himself together. "What's going on?" he asked.
She explained.
"I'll be with you in a minute." He limped down to the creek to wash his face in icy water and brush his teeth. Mac went with him.
"You okay?" she asked Kellie.
Kellie was fine. Kellie would never be better. "You and I are going to have to do a sprint," she said.
"I know," said Hutch.
"We'll have to leave them."
"Mac's already been suggesting that."
The tides were loud in Bad News Bay. They came out onto a promontory and looked out over the water. It was a vast inland sea, the far shore lost in the distance.
"Ground gets rough to the south," Marcel told them. "Angle off your present course and head southwest for about a kilometer. There's a small lake. Circle the lake and keep going, same direction. It looks like easier country."
"Okay."
Far below, the bay was peaceful. Gulls skimmed along the surface, and Hutch saw something that looked like a large turtle basking in the rising sun.
They turned and faced each other. "We'll wait for you here," said Nightingale.
Hutch nodded.
Kellie was looking from one of them to the other. "We'll be back as soon as we can."
They had checked with Marcel. They were on high ground, and should be safe from the tides.
The four of them walked together along the rim until they found an open area that would be wide enough to set the spacecraft down. "Since time's pressing," Hutch said, "we're going to go to the tower first. Then we'll be back for you."
Kellie looked down the face of the cliff. "Don't wander around in the dark," she added.
"We won't."
Mac shook himself and rubbed his spine against a tree, not unlike an elephant, Hutch thought.
"I have to tell you," he said, "I love this plan. Anything that gets me off my feet." He extended his hand and his voice softened. Became personal. "Good luck, ladies."
Kellie pushed past the hand, embraced him, and planted a large wet kiss on his lips. "You're a jerk, MacAllister," she said. "But you're worth saving."
Hutch looked at Nightingale, hesitated, told herself what the hell, and repeated the ceremony.
Kellie, amused, shook her head. "Love fest," she said. "Who'd've thought?"
Kellie and Hutch followed the shoreline for a time, angled away from it when Marcel told them to, and struck off again to the southwest. The land was heavily forested, marked with ravines and ridges, with rocky bluffs and narrow waterways, and with occasional mountains.
A herd of gray creatures with faces like camels and long floppy ears rumbled past in great ground-eating leaps and disappeared behind a line of hills.
Marcel sent them around a mountain and across a trail. Animal or something else? Of course, in a world in which flying creatures attacked in synchronized squadrons and hunting cats walked erect, the line between sentience and pure animal behavior had grown a bit murky.
They kept moving.
At about noon, in the middle of a forest, they came upon a balustrade. Above it, Hutch saw a coved dome. Two domes. Twins.
"By God," said Kellie. "Look at that thing."
The domes were connected by a cornice.
"It's a temple." Hutch stopped in her tracks and stared.
It had six columns. They were fluted and supported a triangular pediment, on which a frieze had been carved. The frieze depicted two crickets, one seated in a shell of some sort, the other standing. The one in the shell was handing something, a cylinder, to the other.
No. On closer inspection Hutch saw it was a scroll.
"Lovely," said Kellie.
Hutch was glad for the excuse to stop moving for a minute. "It's baroque," she said. "Very close to eighteenth-century Parisian. Who would have thought…"
She could see an entrance hidden among the columns, and marble steps leading up to it. Kellie started toward them.
"No time," said Hutch.
"There's more over here."
A cylindrical structure was set at right angles to the temple. Pedestals projected every few meters, and a sculpted frieze circled as much of the building as she could see. It had a polyhedral roof supported by braces, and was adorned by roll molding and a small dome. The figures in the frieze seemed to show crickets in various poses, talking, reading, picking fruit from trees, playing with their young. Some were on their knees before a sun symbol.
There might have been an entire city hidden within the trees. She caught the outlines of majestic buildings, resplendent with arches and rounded windows and parabolic roofs. With galleries and buttresses and spires. And overgrown courts and abandoned fountains.