I dragged her to cover in case Jelca was being tricky; he might be waiting to leap out of the elevator and shoot us both. The safest place I could find was just inside the edge of the woods: far enough to be out of stunner range, but with a clear view of the elevator entrance if Jelca tried to sneak out.
Once we were safe, I examined Oar. She was bad. Fluid dribbled out of her ears, thin fluid with a smell like vinegar. Her breathing crackled each time she inhaled. After her collapse, she had wet herself; I mopped up as best I could with a handful of soft-rotted pine needles.
There were no wounds on the outside of her body — no chance for me to feel useful by applying bandages. I pulled the first aid kit from my belt pouch and looked for anything else that might be useful. Nothing. Antibiotics and disinfectants intended for a human metabolism, not hers.
And the scalpel, of course.
I wished I had brought my Bumbler — at least I could have used it to scan her on various wavelengths. As it was, her body was as clear as ever, internal damage invisible.
Oh well, I thought, this time I won't be tempted to operate.
Camping Out
Unable to help Oar, I turned to the problem of Jelca. With due caution, I approached the outcrop hiding the elevator entrance… and he was gone, back down to the city.
When I pressed my palm against the plate that opened the door, nothing happened. I tried it again. And again.
No luck.
Jelca must have shorted out the controls. He didn't want me chasing after him. More importantly, he didn't want Ullis or a rescue party coming up to find me and the truth.
I wasted several minutes smashing the door with rocks, then trying to pry it open with a stick. Even before I started, I knew the effort would prove futile. The door was thick metal, its frame embedded deep into the mountain itself. Nothing I could do would budge it.
Back in the woods, Oar was still unconscious, still breathing. The shadows under the trees had thickened; only the peaks of nearby mountains caught any sunlight. I would need a fire soon to drive off the chill… and perhaps firelight would be good for Oar too. The IR from the flames might be like giving her intravenous nutrients.
In case Jelca tried to bushwhack us during the night, I built the fire in front of the elevator entrance. If he tried to come out, we'd see him immediately. I had also leaned a pile of stones up against the door. If it started to move, the pile would topple down with enough noise to raise the alarm.
Once I had propped Oar in front of the fire, I warmed myself a bit, then set out for the lark-plane, only half a klick away. If it was still in one piece, I could fly Oar home — back to her own village, where I could lay her out in the Tower of Ancestors and let her absorb a full spectrum of energy. That was the only way I could think to help her; if she drank in enough strength, her body might repair itself. Even better, Oar's mother was there in the tower… dormant yes, but she might stir herself if she saw Oar was seriously injured. For all I knew, Oar's mother might tell me about some miraculous med-tech machine that could fix Oar in seconds.
When I got to the lark, I saw it was not going anywhere. Athelrod's crew had ripped out circuit boards, left wires dangling, even cut away part of one wing. The plane looked like the victim of vandals; and perhaps it was. I was beginning to think that the High Council's greatest crime was not committed against Explorers, but against the people of Melaquin. We were cultural pollutants, contaminating an otherwise pristine environment. Think of Tobit and his homebrew… think of the people who had been forced out of this city by Explorer activities… think of the glass lark in front of me, kept intact for four thousand years, but torn to useless junk as soon as it fell into Explorer hands.
And that was ignoring what Jelca intended to do.
Back at the campfire, I sat beside Oar as night drew in. My belt pouch still contained protein rations — the flavorless kind that supply your nutritional needs but give you constipation if you eat them more than two days in a row. I munched on a cube and wondered if I should try to feed Oar too… dissolve a chunk in river water, then feed it to her like gruel. Not yet; I wasn't sure rations intended for humans would sit well with her digestion. Besides, her voice had been so raspy before she passed out. I didn't want to make her swallow if her throat was filled with broken glass.
Hours trickled by. I kept the fire burning brightly. Once, as I gathered more wood, I came face-to-face with a deer buck displaying a majestic rack of antlers. He went on his regal way without paying me the least attention. Other animals occasionally appeared as beady eyes reflecting the firelight, but none came closer than that.
With nothing else to occupy my thoughts, I replayed my conversations with Jelca. What should I have said? What could I have done to change his mind? I had an immediate answer: I hadn't been able to reach him because I didn't look like myself. I didn't look like an Explorer. If I hadn't covered my birthmark, Jelca would have taken me more seriously. He may have softened, allowed himself to be drawn back to sanity. Instead of destroying the planet in a fit of pique, he might have considered the possibility of a future here… a future with me.
But no. I looked like an empty version of the woman he knew. Sanitized. Made cosmetically acceptable. That only added to his anger… maybe pushed him over the edge.
Listen. I knew I was being ridiculous: putting the blame on my face, as always. Ugly face, beautiful face, it was always in the wrong. Loudly and clearly, I told myself, "You've really got to work on self-esteem, Festina."
I stared into the fire a long time. It felt hot on my cheeks.
A Gray Morning
I slept three or four hours over the night. Nothing happened. Nobody came… not Jelca and not a search party. That bothered me. Ullis must know I was missing. Even if Jelca had sabotaged the elevator, all those non-zoology majors should have been able to repair it by now. Where were they?
Dawn arrived diffidently, easing itself into a chilly gray. Clouds had crept in overnight — a high overcast that misted the top of the tallest mountains. It would rain before the end of the day… either that or snow. I threw more wood on the fire and huddled against Oar for comfort.
Her comfort or mine. Both.
My watch read 10:05 when I first heard the distant whine. I snatched up a handful of throwing stones… but the sound did not come from the elevator. It was somewhere outside. Was the city opening its roof doors? Could the Explorers be launching the whale? I tried to imagine a way Jelca could trick the others into leaving without even looking for me. Nothing came to mind.
As I listened, I realized the sound was not coming from the mountain; it came from the sky.
"Don't I have enough trouble?" I groaned.
I debated moving Oar to safe cover, but she'd already been moved too much for a patient with internal injuries. Anyway, if something happened to me, I wanted her in plain sight where searchers could find her.
Better to leave well enough alone.
I stood. I waited.
A glass eagle set down on the rocks in front of me. It had missiles mounted under its belly.
The cockpit slid open and a man clambered out. "Saw your fire!" he shouted.
"Happy birthday, Phylar," I said.
Yet Another Reunion
He was no longer wearing his tightsuit. In fact, Tobit had stripped to his underwear, giving a more revealing view of his hairy torso than any woman could wish. The only piece he had retained from his uniform was the helmet, carried under his arm: his good arm. His other arm, the prosthetic one, now hung from a cord around his neck, its fingers gripping the rope like a chin-up bar. Oddly enough, the false arm's skin was several shades darker than the rest of Tobit's pale body. I wondered if the prosthetic surgeons had been careless in matching his complexion or if years of drunkenness had leached the color from the rest of his flesh.
"That was a shabby trick, Ramos," he complained. "Running out on me like that." With a look of wounded dignity, he grabbed the free end of his artificial arm and clapped it into the receptor housing that Fleet surgeons had hollowed into his shoulder. A few hearty thumps hammered the connector jacks into place. "You make me feel unloved," he said as he flexed the prosthetic fingers experimentally. "You have something against amputees?"