“Is that you, Josh?” Her hand groped for and took his.
“Yes. Topaz, something really strange is going on here. You’re the third person who’s come out of the camp. Do you think that Sapphire knows what you’re planning to do?”
“I’m sure she doesn’t.” Topaz was still holding hard to his hand. “When I left her she was asleep with her arms around Ruby. Snap withdrawal is hitting her really hard. If she didn’t feel she has to look after the rest of us, I think she’d fall apart.”
He could see her eyes now, wide open and glinting reddish-brown in light from the Avernus Fissure’s smoking deeps. She was glancing from side to side, imagining people where there were only shadows.
Had he done the same? Or had he really seen people leaving the camp?
“What’s going on, Topaz? Why did you want to see me outside here?”
“To tell you that I’m going ahead. If we stop every time Brewster makes us do something we didn’t expect, Dawn and I will never get started.”
“You’re going to do it here?”
“Where else can I do it? Here is where we are. And from the point of view of finding ruperts, one place is as good as another.”
“But what about supplies?”
“I’m going to steal them. Why shouldn’t I? I won’t be in any worse trouble with Brewster, just because I helped myself to a bit of food. What’s wrong?” She was still holding his hand. “You’re all tensed up.”
“I sure am. Maybe it’s that.” He turned his head toward the dim red glow. “I don’t care what Brewster says, or Bothwell Gage says, or anyone says, the Avernus Fissure is a dangerous place. What would happen if you fell into it?”
“You’d burn to a crisp. But don’t worry, Josh, we won’t be going that way. Dawn and I will head in the opposite direction.”
“There could be other fissures out there.”
“Sure there could. There could be boojums, too.”
“What?”
“Ask Amethyst, she’ll tell you more than you want to know. Look, Josh, I didn’t get you out here to ask for your approval. I came to ask for your help.”
“How?”
“Dawn and I are going to sneak away before anyone gets up.”
“Do you think she understands that?”
“She does. Trust me. The trouble isn’t Dawn, it’s my sisters, ’specially Saph. Now she’s off triple-snap she doesn’t sleep normally. We’re in the same expanded dorm room, and Saph wakes up a few times in the night and checks that everything’s all right with the rest of us. Provided it is, she goes back to bed.”
“I can’t do anything about that.” Josh had an awful feeling that he knew what was coming.
“Sure you can. Saph won’t wake me up, she’ll just check that I’m there. I want you to go back right now, get into my bed, and sleep the rest of the night there.”
“Topaz!”
“Of course, it won’t be nearly as much fun as if I was in there with you. Sometime, maybe, but not tonight. This isn’t about fun. Will you do it, Josh? Will you go right now and pretend you’re me, in my bed? Say you will.”
“Topaz!”
“Say it, Josh. Promise you will and I’ll owe you forever.”
“I won’t—I mean, Topaz, I just can’t.” Her face was only a few inches from his. He could feel her breath, warm on his cheek. “Oh, all right. I will. I’ll do it.”
“Great! Let’s get back. I don’t want Sapphire even suspecting that I might not be there.”
As they headed toward the camp, Josh had only one thing on his mind. It wasn’t the warm touch of lips on his cheek when he said yes, though that was unexpectedly pleasant. It wasn’t the hint of possible things to come, which sounded ever better. It wasn’t the mystery of who else had left the camp, and what they were all doing, which at the moment felt abstract and remote.
No. At the top of his head was the thought of what he would say and do when Sapphire found him in Topaz’s bunk.
Josh knew that he would not sleep for a single moment. He would lie all night in the darkness, waiting and worrying.
It was a great shock to open his eyes and find he was looking up into Sapphire’s perplexed face.
“Where’s Topaz?” she said. “This can’t be what it looks like, because she’s not here with you. What the hell is going on?”
There were times when a person could plead innocence and ignorance. This wasn’t one of them. Josh pushed back the covers and sat up.
“I can explain everything.”
“You sound just like Sig Lasker.” Sapphire glanced down at him. “At least you’ve got all your clothes on and you aren’t bare-ass naked. That’s a good start.”
“Of course I’m not!” Josh scrambled out of bed. He looked to where Amethyst and Ruby were still peacefully asleep. “Look, I’ll tell you everything, but only if you promise not to tell Brewster.”
“I wouldn’t tell Brewster if his ass was on fire. Talk, Josh Kerrigan. Amy and Ruby usually sleep another hour, both of ’em. I want to know what’s going on before they wake up—and keep the noise level down.”
Josh’s explanation, in the chilly orange light of dawn, sounded worse than stupid. Sapphire simply shook her head.
“She talked you into it, didn’t she?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do. You have to know our Topaz. She’d talk a witch out of her broomstick. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Are you worried about your cousin?”
“I should be. But it’s funny, I feel more comfortable than I expected, knowing the two of them are together.”
“Funnily enough, so do I. But I guess we’ll act as worried and puzzled as everyone else, and we don’t tell anybody what happened to Topaz and Dawn. Except maybe Sig.”
“Does he have to know?”
“If we don’t tell him, he’ll probably guess. He’s smart.”
Josh sensed that there were other reasons for including Sig, but he didn’t pursue them. “What about you?” he said. “Do I have to worry about you?”
He didn’t want to have to explain that question, but luckily Sapphire was ahead of him.
“No. You would have had to worry, four days ago.” She breathed deeply, as though inhaling an invisible something into her lungs. Her eyes, like Winnie’s, had black bags underneath them. “I feel like it’s killing me, but it’s for my own good.”
“You don’t have any more of it?”
“Not a single sniff.” Sapphire smiled, but without a trace of humor, and her eyes wandered around the room as though seeking out hiding places where a small tube might have been mislaid. “Oh, hell. If I did have any, I’d be taking a whack right now. May I make a suggestion?”
“Anything.”
“Good. Now you’ve fooled me for long enough, and told me how and why, get the hell out of here and back to your own bed. You probably think you look like Goldilocks. But I think Amy and Ruby will have a few questions if you’re still here when they wake up.”
Josh expected to be the one grilled most severely. In fact, it was the Karpov sisters who bore the brunt of Brewster’s questions. Apparently Sol Brewster shared Aunt Stacy’s view, that Dawn was a total retard, so nothing that she did could be expected to make sense.
Amethyst and Ruby were genuinely worried and puzzled, and only a little reassured by Sapphire’s shrug and dismissal with, “Topaz knows how to look after herself. I’m not her keeper.”
If Brewster had been more sensitive to relationships, he might have realized that Sapphire saw herself as exactly that. Instead he grumbled and threatened about what he would do when Topaz and Dawn came back.
“But the rest of you are going to work,” he said. “You don’t get away with anything, just because they think they can. Take your test kits. I’ll tell you the areas where each of you will operate. I don’t want you straying outside the places I tell you to be. This part of Solferino has natural hazards, but as I told you before: Do as I say, and you’ll be in no trouble.”