The compliment threw him for a moment, until he realized it was what she’d intended. “My leg’s broken…”
“What makes you think that? Does it hurt?” she demanded.
He stared at her, taken aback by her vehemence.
She took advantage of his loss of attention and pulled free, her knife quickly slipping under the remaining fastenings and severing them.
“Stop!” he hissed, instinctively jerking his leg away, then wincing as the blade grazed his flesh. “Damnit, woman! You don’t have to slice me up to prove your point!”
Slipping the knife back into its sheath, she stood, hands on hips, and regarded him dispassionately.
“If you don’t believe me, look at the palm of your left hand.”
“Why?”
“You hurt it, probably on the side of your scouter. There was a dressing on it when you arrived here.”
He closed his hand into a fist, determined not to do what she wanted. “What does that prove?”
“So don’t look then. You can fly a shuttle, can’t you?”
He frowned, thrown again by her sudden change of topic. “I can, but what has that to do with anything?”
“The Deigon’s left. The Company believes you both died in the avalanche.”
“What?” Stunned, he sank back against the pile of pillows.
“They won’t be back for another ten years, ’cause winter’s just started here.”
“They can’t have left… Why would they think we’re dead?”
“Because the town told them you were.”
He felt a tug on the cast and immediately turned his attention back to her. “Dammit! Leave my leg alone!”
“Only if you look at your hand,” she said, continuing to work her way up the form-fitting cast, pulling the sides apart.
“All right! Just stop!” he snarled, unclenching his hand and turning it over to examine. There wasn’t a mark on it.
Nothing made sense right now, but somehow, what Avana was telling him seemed more credible than anything he’d been told since he and Weis had crashed on the mountain.
“How?” he asked, leaning forward to take hold of the top of his cast, where it was against his groin, and pull the sides apart. If his hand could have healed that quickly… He had to know if his leg had been broken.
“I’ll tell you if you help me,” she said, reaching out to help him.
He batted her hands away and pulled the cast apart. “I can manage.”
She pouted briefly. “You’re spoiling my fun.”
Ignoring her comment, he stared at the pink jagged line on the top of his thigh, the one that hadn’t been there a few days ago.
Her hand reached down, one brown finger lightly tracing its length. “That’s where the broken bone came through. Not bad for only three days. You might find your leg a little painful for another day, so be careful,” she said, her tone very matter-of-fact.
“I want to know what the hell is going on here, and I want to know now!”
“I’ll tell you when we’re in the air,” she said. “The nurse will come to check on you again shortly. You do want to be gone by then, don’t you?”
“Help me get this off,” he said, suddenly making up his mind and releasing her. He began pulling at the cast again.
“That’s not the way,” she said, stopping him. “Roll over on your side, with your back to me. I’ll cut it down the center, then it’ll just fall off.”
He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, watching as her face lit up in an elfin grin.
“What, don’t you trust me? I’d never take advantage of a man in his sickbed… unless invited.”
“You’re mad,” he said with feeling, rolling over, but turning his head so he could watch her.
“Not mad,” she said, pulling out her knife, all trace of the grin now gone. “Just different.”
“I’ll need my clothes. Do you know where they are?”
“In the closet over there,” she said, nodding her head toward a corner of the room.
The repaired tears and the rubbed patches of cloth on his insulated fatigues were impossible to miss. Thoughtfully, he ran his fingers over them. No one could fake that kind of damage. What she’d told him must be true.
“Nothing gets thrown away in Landing,” she said, uncannily following his thoughts. “Everything’s reused. Hurry up. Much as I hate to lose the rather pleasant view of you in your shorts, we must leave now.”
He glanced at her again, trying to work out how old she was as he balanced himself on his good leg and started pulling the one-piece on.
She moved closer, ready for him to lean on as he put his full weight on his injured leg. There was an ageless quality about her, but this close, he could see the tiny signs that she had left the first flush of youth behind-laughter lines at the edges of her eyes and frown ones between her eyebrows.
“I’ll answer all your questions later, when we’re in the air,” she said, holding up the top of his fatigues for him, taking the weight so he could push his arms into the sleeves.
“Lady, I’m going nowhere with you till I get some answers,” he said, pulling up the zipper and sealing the protective flap over it.
Shrugging, she turned away. “Then you can stay here and I’ll try to fly the shuttle myself.”
“That’s insane, especially in this weather!”
“You keep saying those words,” she said, frowning. “I assure you if you come with me, you’ll find out that I’m perfectly sane. Now, are you coming or not?”
Knowing she had no intention of telling him anything until she got her own way, he followed her to the window with an exclamation of annoyance.
Outside, though there was no sign of snow on the ground, it was bitterly cold. The night sky overhead was only partially clouded; every now and then the crescent moon swam into view, illuminating the village that was Landing.
Almost immediately, they’d stopped behind the generator shed belonging to the medical facility, where she’d hidden her own winter gear-brown fur jacket and hood and plain fur-lined trousers that tucked into the matching boots she wore.
“They’ll be cold,” he said, picking up her jacket as she began hauling the pants over her jeans.
“You don’t know much about Danu, do you? Furs like these are better stored outside. Helps them keep their thermal properties.”
He held the jacket for her as she shrugged herself into it.
“Follow me, and keep to the shadows.”
She led him round the outside of the village, darting into the shadows of the buildings whenever the moon lit up the sky.
“The place is deserted. I thought you said Weis had escaped. Doesn’t look to me like they’re looking for him or guarding anything.”
“They aren’t. They expect the mountain to kill him,” she said shortly, as they waited in the lee of one of the communal buildings for the moon to disappear behind the clouds again.
“The mountain? Why the hell would that kill him?” Even as he said it, he felt a shiver of uncertainty run through him.
“How much do you remember about the crash, Jensen?”
“Everything, of course! The wind slammed us into the mountain and the actual crash knocked us out.”
“Then what?” she asked, turning round to look at him.
“We got out and… walked away from the scouter before it blew up.” Even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t right.
“You saw or heard something else, though, didn’t you? You must have.”
Her brown eyes regarded him seriously as he tried to remember that night.
There had been something more, he was sure of it, but the harder he tried, the more it seemed to slip away from him.
“I can’t remember,” he said, angry and frustrated with himself. “You know what it was, so tell me!”
“I can’t,” she said, turning away again. “You have to remember it for yourself.”
The moon disappeared behind a large cloudbank, plunging them into darkness.