Steve turned and frowned at Peter. "Good point, boy. Good point." He went right back to cutting but he didn't say anything, even after they got back to the cellar with their harvest. He said nothing until they were getting ready for the raid, when Chloe told them which buildings to investigate.
"Been shifted here before, Chloe?" he asked then, staring at her with hard eyes.
"I could not say," Chloe replied without hesitation. "The type of structure and the form of the settlement are familiar. But then all times begin to have similarities to one who has circled the present for centuries."
"How long have you been here, Chloe? Who ensorcelled you?"
Chloe met Steve's hard glare.
"I chose my fate."
"So you prefer us to think."
"The shift may not hold long. Be sharp-eyed. Vale. Warn the others the instant thee sees a ripple. I'd not risk it but we must have more protein. I like not the patterns of these past few shifts. Try either the first or second building to the left of the center…"
"Shouldn't I remember to check for breaker boxes or eye circuits?" Steve asked mockingly.
Chloe gave him a long studied look. "Thee knows well how to approach a strange place, Steven, else thee would not have returned so often."
Samuel chuckled.
"Will I return from this one, Chloe?"
She gave him a longer stare. "In the fullness of time."
Then she stepped aside to let them pass. When Vale surreptitiously touched a fold of her dress for good luck, she caught his hand.
"Stay close to Elric and Fateri, Vale," she whispered, and made as if to kiss his cheek. Then, as both realized their eyes were level, she drew in her breath with a hiss, and stepped back. All the long trek down to the rivers, Fateri and Steve took turns checking on the settlement through the binoculars.
"How long ago was the snow, Fateri?" Steve asked once.
The breed jammed his fist through the crust, fingered the snow. "Three-four days."
"Any sign of people?"
Fateri shook his head slowly. Steve peered at the settlement for another long moment and then gestured the party on. ';••
Full dark had fallen by the time they reached it, and Vale was tired. They huddled together, chafing cold faces and frost-clogged nostrils as Fateri crept around the outskirts. Vale wished they'd have time enough for Fateri to teach him how to move so easily through snow, and creep around noiseless and unseen.
When the breed returned, shaking his head, Steve motioned to Peter and Samuel. They walked right up to the nearest building, then cautiously inspected it. Peter tossed twigs toward it but nothing happened. Finally Peter walked right up to one. Peered around its corner, disappeared behind it, and then reappeared on the other side. Just then lights began to appear on all the buildings like an advancing wave. Instinctively they all ducked down, to be roused by Peter's shout.
"It's automatic. C'mon, cowards."
Cautious still, Steve rose, motioned the others toward Peter and Samuel.
"There's no one here. I tripped an automatic relay when I reached the front," Peter said, grinning.
"What kind of place is this, then?" Samuel asked, peering closely at the doorway.
"Could be some kind of unmanned power station," Steve said, but his tone was dubious. He stood squarely in front of the door now, examining the frame, the inset handle. He looked around at the other buildings in the same circle, their blank door-mouths indistinguishable from the one he faced.
He hunkered down, eyeing the doorframe until, with a grunt, he passed his hand over the threshold. Nothing happened. He rose and, using the handle of the power beam, touched the door handle. He gave another grunt and then, as if he expected no result, tried the door.
He dropped where he stood. So did Peter and Samuel. A huge hand grabbed Vale by the shoulder. He was pulled violently off his feet and propelled back the way they had come so fast that his head rocked on his neck. He had kaleidoscopic jumbled impression of Peter, Samuel, and Steve sprawled in the snow by the door, of the circle of lights, of the dark slopes beyond the settlement, of Elric's staring eyes and gaping mouth on one side of him, of Fateri, plunging and lurching through the snow on the other.
This confused him, for he distinctly remembered seeing Fateri, flat on the snow, and Elric staggering and shouting. Now the three of them were racing away from the others as fast as they could. By the time they reached the safety of the darkness beyond the ring of automatic lights, Elric was gasping and groaning. Here Fateri stopped them, pushing Elric and Vale flat into the snow while he crouched, his attitude one of intense concentration. Vale made himself look back, where Peter, Samuel, and Steve lay, plainly visible and just as plainly motionless.
"Are they dead?" Vale asked, trying to keep his voice a whisper, only it came out in a broken rasp.
Fateri gestured abruptly, listening. Suddenly he whirled, his eyes so wide they seemed all whites. He pointed urgently up the slope, pulled at Elric, who was heaving for breath, and taking Vale's arm in cruelly tight fingers, led the way up to the cellar.
"We can't just leave them," Vale protested, trying to pull free. "They may not be dead." "Bad sound," Fateri said, jabbing a finger to the southern sky.
"We can't leave them!" Vale struggled harder.
"No! Chloe say you come. You safe!" Elric said, capturing Vale's other hand and yanking him along.
"Go!" the half-breed urged. "Fast!"
There was no use resisting, so Vale tried to keep up with Elric's long stride and Fateri's jog trot. They did not relinquish their tight holds on him, though he reassured them he wouldn't be silly anymore. It was doubly humiliating: to be half helped along because his legs were shorter than Elric's and less powerful than Fateri's, and because they wouldn't trust him to walk… to run… alone.
They had reached a concealing slope when the bad sound Fateri had heard materialized into a stolplane. It circled the settlement twice at low altitude before squatting down, blocking from the watchers all sight of the fallen men, and of whoever emerged from the vehicle.
Fateri waited no longer but renewed his grasp on Vale's right hand and started to move. Elric did not, and Vale felt as if his other arm would come out of its socket. His cry of pain stopped Fateri, and both of them stood looking down at the fallen bulk of the Viking, his fingers seemingly welded to Vale's forearm. Fateri knelt down and began to slap the man's face.
"What's wrong?" Vale asked, his voice breaking again as he imagined himself forever locked to the giant.
Fateri grunted as he rose and began to pry the thick fingers loose.
"Is he dead?" Vale demanded, slapping at Fateri's hands.
"Not dead. Sleep. Not duck good."
"Asleep? We can't leave him. He'd die in the snow."
"He not die. They find. We go. Go fast."
Fateri got Elric's fingers loose but their viselike grip was nothing to Fateri's claw-hold, nor the supple strength of the breed as he dragged the reluctant Vale onward.
"We can't leave them all. We can't, Fateri. I'll help you with Elric. We can't leave him."
Fateri only grunted at his protests, jerking him roughly forward if he slowed so much as half a step behind. Suddenly Vale realized that Fateri was striking off to the lower end of the forest, where they had been garnering boughs scant hours before.
"That's not the way, Fateri. Where are you taking me?"
"They follow. No find track."
Fateri was jogging faster now, because the thick ever-greens had kept the ground remarkably clear of snow. Fateri came up against a huge trunk and stopped. He motioned for Vale to climb up into the tree and then roughly boosted the boy to the splintered end of the first limb.
"They'd find us here, Fateri," he protested. His buttocks were sharply prodded to make him climb higher.