Away from the lights and the buildings with the foliage dripping about her, the darkness was intense. The ground was soaked and slippery underfoot; though the leaves gave her some shelter, each time she brushed against a branch, it unloaded; itself over her and she was wet through after her first few strides.
As she headed for the end of the lake and the Drill Field, she tried to run and scan at the same time. That was a mistake. Her foot slipped off a root she didn’t notice and hit a patch of clay mud. She went down hard, her head glancing off the tree, her other knee twisting as she fell on it, the stunrod flying from her hand.
For a moment she lay there, dazed and hurting, then she heard Ptak shrieks and the splatting of feet off to one side.
She struggled up, gasping at the pain in her knee. There was no time to search for the rod and maybe no need; between the rain and the mud the Ptaks shouldn’t be able to learn much from it. And they already knew an offworlder was involved. She took a step, gritted her teeth, and limped as fast as she could toward the Drill Field.
Swing that leg, plant the foot, lurch forward, over and over, grab onto branches to take at least a little weight off the knee, swing lurch splat. Confusion around her. Sound of rain hitting the leaves, rain in her face, cold and dreary, trickling down her neck. Wind. Mud. Mud. Mud.
A shout. The light brightened around her, unsteady light, wavering through the boles of the trees. They got the door open and the draft hit the fire. For the glow to reach this far, it must be going good. Ah Spla! Ten minutes gone already?
Step. Slide. Slither. Gasp. A gust of rain hit her in the face. Arm crooked over her eyes so she wouldn’t be blinded by the downpour, she lurched another two steps and was out of the trees. She hunched her shoulders, and continued to limp toward the field she couldn’t see. The rain battered at her, blew into her face until she was half drowned.
A shout. Ptaks! Close behind her. She swung awkwardly around, fumbling for the cutter at her belt. She could just make out two dim gray forms heading for her. “Ah Spla, why did there have to be two cool heads in that lot?”
She lifted the cutter, but before she could use it, she felt the aura of a stun beam going by too close and saw the Ptaks crumpling into the mud.
“Shadow, Wann said you were hurt.” Yseyl’s voice. Shadith turned. “Fell and twisted my knee. My own dumb fault. Appreciate the assist.”
“Ha.” Yseyl moved closer. “Use my shoulder. You forget you’re the only one who can fly that thing?” Shadith managed a chuckle. “Nice to be needed.”
She turned the flier in a tight circle above the caldera. “Thought you might like a look at the damage.”
The roof of the Control Center collapsed at that moment in a shower of sparks; in spite of the heavy downpour the suddenly released flames leaped twenty feet into the air. The thorn hedge was smoldering and several of the closest houses were also burning.
Pressed against the window as if they couldn’t get enough of the sight, the Pixas were silent, a fiercely triumphant silence. Zot clapped her hands and giggled, then she, too, went quiet, snuggling up against Yseyl.
Yseyl hesitated, set a hand on the child’s shoulder. She saw Shadith watching her, stared back with angry denial, then turned her head away.
Hm, maybe Digby will have himself a ghost for hire. I don’t think that relationship is going to work out. Assassin and little mother don’t seem to be compatible occupations. “Right. If you seat yourselves and get comfortable, we’ll be on our way. Before I take you back to the camp where we started, I want to go look at where the Fence was. Just to make sure it’s really down, not an aberration in the software. Thought you might like to see that, too. Or rather, not see it.”
Luca threw herself, into the front, seat, drawing Wann down beside her. “Yes,” she said. “I want to see it. I want to see it gone.”
Khimil slapped his hand hard against the side of the cabin. “Yes. I saw that cursed thing every day when we were on that coaster working our way south. Syon, remember the time the wind caught us and Cap’n Dakwe was drunker’n thuv?”
“Urr. We coulda been ashed.” The young mal shivered, edged up close to Hidan, took xe’s hand, and held it against his face.
Xe freed the hand, patted his shoulder, then seated herself beside Nyen.
As soon as the rest had sorted themselves into the seats, Shadith took the flier into a sweeping circle, and sent it racing west as dawn pinked the sky behind them.
8. Afterbite
“No! What we just did is one thing, you got your adventure and lived through it, but where I’m headed now, it’s too dangerous.” Yseyl thrust her fingers through her hair, turned her shoulder to the crouching, glowering child and stalked to the stream. She squatted, separated out a pebble from the scree on the bank, flung it at the bole of a conifer on the far side of the stream. The snap of her arm and the satisfying clunk of the pebble calmed her. She looked over her shoulder at Zot. “I won’t take you, Zot. You can argue all you want.”
Zot brought her head up and forward like a striking yok. “Liar! You just want to get rid of me, that’s all. You think I don’t know?”
“Believe what you want, it doesn’t change anything.” She got to her feet, dusted her hands together. “I talked to Luca. Khimil and Syon are joining their ixis and they want you with them. You’ll have a family again and you need that.”
“I don’t want a family. It’ll be worse than living in the Hall, people messing you around all the time.”
“I’m doing the best I can for you, Zot. You’re a good kid and smart, but you don’t know me. I don’t know what you think you see, but it isn’t me. And you don’t know thuv about the world I’m going into.” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, anger putting edges on the words. “And don’t tell me you could learn. You’d get yourself killed and maybe me, too.”
Zot stared at her a moment, biting her lip to keep it from trembling, eyes squinted to hold tears back. Abruptly she was up and running full out, vanishing a moment later into the shadow under the trees.
Yseyl stood where she was, anger and affection both emptied out of her, only a vague relief left to temper the coldness. It was done and easier than she’d expected. Zot will calm down once I’m gone. She’ll see it’s the best thing and go along with Luca. Family. She needs family. Not me. Not me. Not me… She shivered, drew her hand across her face, wiping away all that nonsense, then walked briskly across the grass to the hunter.
“Is there any reason why you need to wait longer? I want to get out of here.”
“I don’t want to lift until there’s enough traffic in the air so we won’t be spotted and targeted.” She nodded at the flier a few paces off, backed under the overhang of the canopy. “Alarm’s set to tell me when more fliers are up. Shouldn’t be long now.”
“I don’t understand, I thought…”
“The Ptaks know a lot of arms dealers and those gits sell more than weapons. I’m no gambler, Ghost I like to have my feet planted and know where I’m jumping…”
A musical chime, a single pure note, sounded through the open door of the flier.
Thethunter came: to her:feet in one of those fluid swift moves that always startled Yseyl in one so large and:lumpy.
“And it’s time to jump,” she said. “Get your gear and let’s go.”
15
Chapter 13
The dawnlight was gray under the ragged trees as Luca stepped across the boundary line of the camp.
There was a loud alarm whistle and a young fern she didn’t know stepped from the shadow cast by one of the tents, rifle lifted, face stony. “Stop there, or I’ll shoot.”
“What is this? Where’s ixis Shishim?” Luca looked round. The corral was gone, and the jomayls, but two of the tents were familiar-she recognized a patch Xaca had sewn over a rip. “What happened?”
Shadowy forms were coming from the tents, spreading out behind the sentinel, then Kanilli darted forward. “Luuuucaaaa,” she cried and flung herself at the fern. “You came back,” she cried, the words muffled against Lucca’s shirt.