But then one of the young men came down from atop the hillside, came close to her, that same far distance in his expression. She might have been a stone. She was not really afraid of him for that reason–until he put his hand on her breast.
“They won’t like that,” she said, “the people in the camp.” And then she wished she had not said that at all; her wish was to get out of here alive, and threatening them was not the way to assure that. The youth fingered her clothing, and began at the closing of it. She stood quite, quite still, not minded to lose her life to these creatures.
He was beautiful beneath the dirt. Most were, who came of azi lines. They were gentle in their moves–all of them curiously gentle, stroking her hair, touching her now without violence, so that it began to wander somewhere between nightmare and dream.
v
“She’s not here,” Jin Younger said, looking about the rocks and scrub of the summit–looked at his brother as if Mark could comprehend any more than he what kind of craziness had taken Jane Gutierrez off the heights. “She’s just not here.”
“She’s got to have tried it on her own,” Mark said, no less than what Jin had in his own mind. Jin pushed past his brother at the narrow passage up among the rocks and started down the trail at a run.
“We’ve got to get the rest of us,” Mark called after him. “We’ve got to get some help fast.”
“You go,” Jin called back, and kept going. His brother yelled other things after him, and he ignored them.
The sun was throwing the last orange light into the clouds, glinting like fire off the solar array down in the camp, like miniature suns; and around that brightness was the dark. She had come to them, this main Camp woman, her own choice, come to him in particular, because he had that about him, that he could impress any woman he liked–he and his brothers. She came into the wild country, against all the rules and regulations: that was her choice too; and he was not one to turn away such favors. It had been good, up on the ridge. Good all day, because Flanahan‑Gutierrez was like them, wild.
But he should have reckoned, he chided himself, that a maincamper who would have had the nerve to come up here with them would not cower atop the hill waiting; with more nerve than sense, she would not stay put.
And Flanahan‑Gutierrez was more than born‑man, she had a father on Council; and a mother in the guards. That was more than trouble.
“Jane,” he called, plunging off the trail and into the most direct course through the mounds. It was twilight this low among the hills, deep dusk, so that he pushed his way blindly among the brush, for the moment losing his way, finding the trail again. “Jane!”
But he could see her with her anger and her born‑man ways, just walking on, hearing his voice and ignoring it–determined to find her own way home. If she had started immediately after they had left the hill, she might almost have made it through the mounds by now, might be coming out among the hills just this side of town.
That was his earnest hope.
But the further he went, in the dark now, with sometimes the slither and hiss of calibans attending him–the more he feared, not for his safety, but for what an ignorant born‑man might do out here at night. One could get by the calibans; but there were pits, and holes, and there were the Weirds like Green, who lurked and hid, who had habits calibans did not. Flitters troubled him, gliding from the trees. He brushed them aside and jogged where he could, out of breath now. “Jane!” he called. “Jane.”
No answer.
He was gasping and sweating by the time he reached the top of the last ridge, with the town and Camp in front of him all lit up in floods. He stood there leaning over, his hands on his knees, getting his breath, and as soon as the pain subsided he started moving again.
For a very little he would have given up his searching then, having no liking for going into the main Camp–for going to Gutierrez–Pardon, sir, has your daughter gotten home? I left her on the cliffs and when I got back she was gone…
He had never seen Gutierrez angry; he had no wish to face him or Flanahan; but he reckoned that he might have no choice.
And then, when he had only crossed the fringes of the town, running along the road under the floodlights–“Hey,” a maincamper shouted at him: “You–did you come up from the azi town?”
He skidded to a stop, recognized Masu in the dark, one of the guards. “Yes, sir.” A lie, and half a lie: he had cut across the edge of it and so come up from the town.
“Woman’s missing. Out of bio. Flanahan‑Gutierrez.–They’re supposed to be looking down in town. Are they? She went out this morning and she hasn’t gotten back. Are they searching out that way?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and the sweat he had run up turned cold. “They don’t know where she is?”
“Get the word down that way, will you? Go back and pass it.”
“I’ll get searchers up,” he said, breathless, spun about and ran, with what haste he could muster.
They would find out, he kept thinking in an agony of fear. The main Camp found everything out, whatever they tried to hide. They would know, and he and his brothers would be to blame. And what the main Camp might do then, he had no idea, because no human being had ever lost another. He only knew he had no wish to face her people on his own.
vi
The sun came up again, the second sun since Jane was gone; and Gutierrez sat down on the hillside, wiped his face and unstopped his canteen for a sip to ease his throat. They had it gridded off, searchers in all the sections between the Camp and the cliffs and the Camp and the river. His wife reached him, sank down and took her own canteen, and there was a terrible, bruised look to her eyes.
The military was out there, in force, by pairs; and azi who knew the territory searched–among them the young azi who had come to him and Kate to admit the truth. A frightened boy. Kate had threatened to shoot him. But that boy had been out all the night and roused all the young folk he could find…had gone out again, on no knowing what reserves. It was not just the boy. It was Jane. It was the world. It had given her to them. But Jane thought in Gehenna‑time; thought of the day, the hour. Had never seen a city. Had no interest in her studies–just the world, the moment, the things she wanted…now. Everything was now.
What good’s procedure? she would say. She wanted to understand what a shell was, what the creature did, not what was like it elsewhere. What good’s knowing all those things? It’s this world we have to live in. I was born here, wasn’t I? Cyteen sounds too full of rules for me.
The day went, and the night, and a new day dawned with a peculiar coldness to the light–an ebbing out of hope. His wife said nothing, slumped against him and he against her.
“Some run away,” he offered finally. “In the azi town–some of them go into the hills. Maybe Jane took it into her head–”
“No,” she said. Absolute and beyond argument. “Not Jane.”
“Then she’s gotten lost. It’s easy in the mounds. But she knows–the things to eat; the way to survive–I taught her; she knows.”
“She could have taken a fall,” his wife said. “Could have hurt herself–Might be too wet to start a fire.”
“All the same she could live,” Gutierrez said. “If she had two legs broken, she could still find enough within reach she could get moisture and food. That’s the best guess: that she’s broken something, that she’s tucked up waiting for us–She’s got good sense, our Jane. She was born here, isn’t that what she’d say?”
They did it to bolster their own courage, shed hopes on each other and kept going.