The Sunseekers lay flat on their stomachs on the ground a short ways away, hands behind their heads. Three more bandanna-wearing men waited with their ancient rifles and one shotgun held ready as six newcomers jogged toward them across the clearing, but the newcomers paid no attention to the prisoners. Like the bugs in moist dirt, they swarmed the hover.
"March," said the commander, gesturing with his scatter gun.
No one complained as their captors prodded the Sunseekers upright and started them walking, but not back the way they had come.
Akvir sidled up beside Rose. "Where'd you go? What's going on?"
The boy slammed him upside the head with the butt of the rifle. Akvir screamed, stumbled, and Rose grabbed his arm before he could fall.
"Keep going," she whispered harshly. "They killed some of those people."
The youth stepped up, ready to hit her as well, but when she turned to stare at him defiantly, he seemed for the first time really to see the blemish that stained her face. She actually saw him take it in, the widening of the eyes, and heard him murmur a curse, or blessing. She had seen so many people react to her face that she could read their expressions instantly now. He stepped back, let her help up Akvir, and moved on. "No talking," said the commander. "No talking." No one talked. Soon enough they passed into such shelter as the jungle afforded, but shade gave little respite. They walked on and on, mostly downhill or into, out of, and along the little ravines, sweating, crying silently, holding hands, those who dared, staggering as the heat drained them dry. After forever, they were shepherded brusquely into a straggle of small houses with sawed plank walls and thatched roofs strung alongside a tributary river brown with silt, banks densely grown with vegetation. An ancient paved road that was losing the battle to cracks and weeds linked the buildings. Someone still drove on it: at least four frogs caught while crossing the road had been flattened by tires and their carcasses desiccated by the blast of the sun into cartoon shapes. Half covered by vines, an antique, rusting alcoline pickup truck listed awkwardly, two tires missing. Three of the houses had sprouted incongruous satellite dishes on their roofs, curved shadows looming over scratching chickens and the ever present dogs. A few little children stared at them from open doorways, but otherwise the hamlet seemed empty.
A single, squat building constructed of cement rebar anchored the line of habitation. It had a single door, through which they were herded to find themselves in a dimly lit and radically old-fashioned Kristie-Anne church.
A row of warped folding chairs faced the altar and a large cross on which hung a statue of a twisted and agonized man, crowned with a twisting halo of plastic thorns. None of the chairs sat true with all four legs equally on the floor, but she couldn't tell if the chairs were warped or if the concrete floor was uneven. It was certainly cracked with age, stained with moisture, but swept scrupulously clean. A bent, elderly woman wearing a black dress and black shawl stood by the cross, dusting the statue's feet, which were, gruesomely, pierced by nails and weeping painted blood.
The old woman hobbled over to them, calling out a hosanna of praise when the commander deposited Doctor Baby Jesus into her arms. As the Sunseekers sank down onto the chairs, dejected, frightened, and exhausted, the caretaker cheerfully placed the baby doll up on the altar and fussed over it, straightening its lacy skirts, positioning the plump arms, dusting each sausagelike finger.
"What kind of place is this?" whispered Yah-noo. "I didn't know anyone lived like this anymore. Why don't they go to the cities and get a job?"
"Maybe it's not that easy," muttered Rose, but no one was listening to her.
The commander was pacing out the perimeter of the church, but at Rose's words he circled back to stand before them. "You don't talk. You don't fight. We don't kill you."
Zenobia jumped up from the chair she had commandeered. "Do you know who we are?" Her coiffure had come undone, the careful sculpture of bleached hair all in disarray over her shoulders, strands swinging in front of her pale eyes. "We're important people! They'll be looking for us! You can't just-! You can't just-!"
He hit her across the face, and she shrieked, as much in outrage and fear as in pain, remembered her torn clothing, and sank to the ground moaning and wailing.
"I know who you are. I know what you are. The great lost, who have nothing to want because you have everything. So you circle the world, most brave of you, I think, while the corporation gets free publicity for their new technology. Very expensive, such technology. Research and development takes years, and years longer to earn back the work put into it. Why would I be here if I didn't know who you are and what you have with you?"
"What do you want from us?" asked Akvir bravely, dark chin quivering, although he glanced anxiously at the young toughs waiting by the door. For all that he was their leader, he was scarcely older than these teens. Behind, the old woman grabbed
Doctor Baby Jesus and vanished with the doll into the shadows to the right of the altar.
The commander smiled. "The solar array, of course. That's what that other group wanted as well, but I expect they were only criminals."
"You'll never get away with this!" cried Zenobia as she clutched her ragged shift against her.
Rose winced.
The commander lifted his chin, indicating Rose. He had seen. "You don't think so either, muchacha?"
"No," she whispered, embarrassed. Afraid. But he hadn't killed her because she was blemished. Maybe that meant she had, in his eyes, a kind of immunity. "I mean, yes. You probably won't get away with it. I don't know how you can escape surveillance and a corporate investigation. Even if the Constabulary can't find you, Surbrent-Xia's agents will hunt you down in the end, I guess." She finished passionately. "It's just that I hate that line!"
"That line?" He shrugged, not understanding her idiom.
"That line. That phrase. 'You'll never get away with this.' It's such a clichй."
"Oh! Oh! Oh! You-you-you-defect!" Zenobia raked at her with those lovely, long tricolor fingernails, but Rose twisted away, catching only the tip of one finger along her shoulder before Akvir grabbed Zenobia by the shoulders and dragged her back, but Zenobia was at least his height and certainly as heavy. Chairs tipped over; the Sunseekers screamed and scattered as the toughs took the opening to charge in and beat indiscriminately. Yah-noo ran for the door but was pulled down before he got there. What envy or frustration fueled the anger of their captors? Poverty? Abandonment? Political grievance? She didn't know, but sliding up against one wall she saw her chance: an open path to the altar.
She sprinted, saw a curtained opening, and tumbled through as shouts rang out behind her, but the ground fell out beneath her feet and she tripped down three weathered, cracked wooden steps and fell hard on her knees in the center of a tiny room whose only light came from a flickering fluorescent fixture so old that it looked positively prehistoric, a relic from the Stone Age.
A cot, a bench, a small table with a single burner gas stove.
A discolored chest with a painted lid depicting faded flowers and butterflies, once bright. The startled caretaker, who was standing at the table tinkering with Doctor Baby Jesus, turned around, holding a screwdriver in one hand. A chipped porcelain sink was shoved up against the wall opposite the curtain, flanked by a shelf-a wood plank set across concrete blocks-laden with bright red-and-blue plastic dishes: a stack of plates, bowls, and three cups. There was no other door. It was a blind alley.