“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to—”
“Christ, Austin, I told you not to come here unless I asked you to! We don’t want you followed, we don’t want anyone to—Did you see anybody on the way?”
“No,” Austin said, which wasn’t strictly true. He’d seen a rancher rounding up skaleth¡ for milking and, farther on, a group of people hiking toward the mountains, who had called to him. But he didn’t know them or they him, so it didn’t really count. “Tony, I brought you something!”
“What?”
“Something you really, really need! Let me in!”
Tony unlocked the grill and Austin wriggled through and dropped to the lower tunnel. Tony said, “You’re all muddy. Give me whatever you brought.”
“It’s raining out there. I’ll give it to you inside.”
Haven had changed in the two weeks since Austin had been here. More food had been delivered to the shepherd’s cottage Tony had bought as a drop point, and then lugged here. That was usually Austin and Graa^lok’s job, but Tony must have done it this time. Beyon-kal did not lug. Machinery had been rearranged, and the cave was filled with a low hum.
“What’s that noise?”
“Nathan is testing the air filtration system. Negative pressure.”
Austin didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. Tony’s eyes raked Austin, looking for bulges in the pockets of his rain wrap. Tony said, “Well, where is it? The thing must not be very big.”
“It’s not a thing, it’s an idea. You know how you said you had to kidnap Llaa^moh¡ so you’d have a biologist to continue to work on the vaccine? And kidnap Lily so that you could make Llaa^moh¡ work? Well, you don’t have to! The new Terrans have biologists, and they know more than Llaa^moh¡, and one is still a little weak”—he was fudging that a little, Dr. Patel had mostly recovered from having her microbes changed—“and would be easy to take! Plus, she’s small and can’t fight. I bet even I could bring her here—tonight! Or tomorrow!”
Tony stared at him. Tony didn’t look happy. The first swirl of anxiety roiled Austin. He waited for Tony to say something.
“You think we should kidnap a Terran biologist who is creating the vaccine at a compound guarded by Army Rangers, two months before the spore cloud hits, taking her away from the work she’s doing there and inviting Rangers, who are experts in personnel extraction, to charge in here and rescue this woman?”
Austin hadn’t thought of it that way. “Well, you could… you could… she would be useful!”
“She would indeed. And if and when the time comes, we might save her life by bringing her here. But do you really think we wouldn’t know about her and her potential usefulness without you coming here to tell us?”
“Well, how would you know? You have a radio, sure, but you don’t speak World!” Yes—how did Tony know all about the Terrans?
A movement to Austin’s left. He whirled around. Beyon-kal and Graa^lok emerged from the biolab cave. Graa^lok said, “I greet you, Austin.”
Graa^lok was bringing news. Graa^lok was here, invited when Austin hadn’t been. All because Graa^lok was better at machinery, better at inventing, already apprenticed to an engineer. It wasn’t fair!
Graa^lok, his face wrinkling, repeated, “I greet you, Austin.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Tony, unexpectedly, put a hand on Austin’s muddy shoulder. “Look, kid, I know you meant well. And you’re part of this team, definitely. But we don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention. The Mothers still think we’re just some crazy business start-up or something—well, I don’t know what they think. But they don’t know what our plans are, and we want to keep it that way. Don’t come again until Graylock brings you.”
Until Graa^lok brings you—when it was Austin who brought Graa^lok here in the first place! Really, really unfair!
But he couldn’t risk making Tony angry. Austin said grudgingly, “Okay.”
“Good man. Look, you can get something to eat before you leave, okay? I know it’s a long walk.”
Austin ate, his back turned pointedly away from Graa^lok. But Graa^lok came and sat humbly beside him. “I have something for to show you.”
“I don’t care! Leave me alone!”
“It’s really wondful.”
“The English is ‘wonderful,’ idiot.”
“It’s really wonderful.”
“I don’t want to see anything you made.”
“I didn’t make it, I found it. And”—Graa^lok leaned close to whisper—“Tony-mak and Beyon-mak don’t know yet. I saved it for you first.”
“I said go away!” But when Austin had finished eating and Graa^lok was still there, Austin said grudgingly, “Okay, what is this wonderful thing? It better be fucking amazing!”
Graa^lok looked carefully around. Neither Tony nor Beyon-mak was visible. Graa^lok led the way to a side tunnel, and Austin followed. Three feet in, the first of Haven’s chimneys rose, letting in air and light, although not as much light as before Nathan Beyon had installed the air filtration machinery at the top. When it and the other three chimney filters were turned on, Haven would be safe from spores. Below the chimney, Graa^lok picked up a bacto-torch and handed another to Austin. Each one held enough microbe-powered fluorescence to let the boys see the tunnels they walked or crawled through.
They went deeper into the mountain. This tunnel, Austin knew from previous explorations, branched and branched again, going on farther than they had ventured. Some tunnels were small, some slick with dripping water, some partially blocked by falling rocks. It seemed to Austin that they went a long way. His clothes were wet and filthy and he shivered with cold.
“Gray, how much farther?”
“Not too far. If I can do it, you can. You’re stronger and quicker than me.”
Austin warmed under the flattery, even though a part of him wondered if that was why Graa^lok said it.
All at once the tunnel widened and grew higher, and Austin could stand upright. A fall of rock blocked the way forward, rising halfway to the ceiling. Graa^lok said, “We go over this and there it is.”
“There what is?” The rock pile looked unstable.
Graa^lok didn’t answer. He clambered up the rockfall, which slipped and shifted under him, sending rocks crashing to the tunnel floor. But he got himself over it, and so Austin had to follow because he was, after all, stronger and quicker.
Beyond the rockfall, the tunnel widened even more into an irregular room. Graa^lok raised his bacto-torch and waited.
“Wow!” Austin said.
“Wow!” Graa^lok echoed, clearly savoring both the new Terran word and the sight he presented to Austin as proudly as if it were an illathil share. Gold crystals sparkled on the ceiling, on the walls, in heaps on the floor. Nuggets glittered at Austin’s feet. Piles of white quartz sand glowed.
“What is it?”
Graa^lok said in World, “We had it at school, didn’t you? It’s the inside of a geode. The gold precipitates out from circulating water that gets hot from magma. Some of these caves have diamonds, too. That’s where manufacturing gets the diamonds and gold to make things. You know!”
Austin didn’t. If he’d had this in school, he didn’t remember it. Certainly nobody had ever shown him anything like this. “Does Tony know it’s here?”
“No.”
“Graa^lok, we could take some of this back and sell it and get rich!”