“We’re on the bench above the lake now,” Claude said. “The trail to the fort must be near. Be very quiet and keep your ears open.”
They crept onward, skulking in the shadows of giant conifers, cycads, and ferns. Anticlimactically, they blundered right into the trail when they had to alter course to avoid a spider-web the size of a banquet tablecloth. The bush-constricted track was deserted.
Felice bent over a pile of chaliko dung. “Cold. They must have passed here two hours ago. See the prints heading north?”
“They’ll be coming back,” Claude said. “And if they have amphicyons, they’ll be able to track us. Let’s blot out our own prints and get out of here. Once we get higher, there should be fewer trees and easier going. We’ll have to follow another stream somewhere to kill our scent.”
The trees did become more widely separated as they continued upslope, but the going was hardly easy. They followed a dry watercourse for most of an hour before the gentle grade above the bench steepened to a bluff studded with house-sized chunks of rock. The wind died and the heat of mid-afternoon smote them as they climbed.
At times when they rested, they could see out over the great lake. There were sails far to the south, apparently motionless on the water. It was impossible to tell whether they belonged to the gray-torc marines or to the escapees. They wondered out loud about the fate of Basil and his contingent, about Yosh, and about the Gypsies and their quixotic foray against the guard post; but the trail talk dwindled as they were forced to save their breath for more difficult climbing. Hope that they would be able to cross the first high ridge began to fade after one of Richard’s plass-and-fabric running shoes was slashed by a rock and he had to put on the more awkward seaboots of his original costume. Then Amerie’s saddle sore legs betrayed her on a treacherous slope and she lost her footing, dislodging several large stones that tumbled down upon Claude and bruised his arm and shoulder.
“Well never make it to the top today,” Richard groused. “My left heel is one big blister and Amerie is ready to collapse.” Felice said, “It’s only a couple of hundred more meters. If you can’t climb, I’ll carry you up! I want to get a view of the terrain we’re heading into tomorrow. With luck, we might be able to see the bonfires from the fort or even trail beacons below us once it gets dark.”
Claude declared he could manage on his own. Felice gave one hand to Richard and the other to the nun and hauled them up after her by main strength. It was slow going, but they were finally able to reach the top shortly after the sun descended behind the hills on the other side of the lake.
When they had regained their wind, Claude said, “Why don’t we hole up on the eastern side of these big boulders? There’s a nice dry shelter in there and I don’t think anyone below could spot a fire if we lit one after nightfall. I could gather some wood.”
“Good idea,” said Felice. “I’ll scout around a bit.” She went off among the crags and gnarled savin junipers while the others tended their wounds, inflated decamole cots and weighted the legs with earth, because there was no water to waste, and regretfully laid out a meal of biscuits, nutrient wafers, and cheesy-tasting algiprote. By the time Claude had assembled a pile of dry branches, Felice was back, her bow resting jauntily over her shoulder, swinging three fat marmot-like animals by their hind legs.
“Hail, Diana!” chortled the old man. “I’ll even skin and clean ’em!”
They lit the fire after it was completely dark and roasted the meat, devouring every gamey morsel. Then Richard and Claude collapsed onto their cots and were asleep in minutes. Amerie, her brain buzzing with fatigue, still felt obliged to shake the grease and scraps off the dinnerware, sterilize them with the power source, then shrink and stow them away. There’s my big, helpful girl!
“I can see the fort,” came Felice’s voice from the nearby darkness.
Amerie picked her way over the rocks to where the athlete was standing. The ridge fell steeply to the southwest. The young moon hung over the lake and an incredible profusion of Pliocene stars reflected upon the water, differentiating it from the black land. Far to the south on their side of the lake was a cluster of orange specks.
“How far away is it?” the nun asked.
“At least fifteen kloms. Maybe more. As the vulture flies.” Felice laughed, and Amerie was suddenly wide-awake, experiencing the same feeling of fear and fascination she had known before. The woman beside her was an indistinct silhouette in the starlight, but Amerie knew that Felice was looking at her.
“They didn’t thank me,” the athlete said in a low voice. “I set them free but they didn’t thank me. They were afraid of me still. And that fool of a Dougal!…None of them, not even you, sympathized or understood why I wanted to…”
“But you couldn’t kill Dougal. For the love of God, Felice! I had to put you out.”
“Killing him would have been a comfort,” said the young girl, coming closer. “I was working on my plans. Plans I never told to the rest of you. The golden torc was the key. Not only to free us, but to rescue the others, Bryan, Elizabeth, Aiken, Stein. To free you of the human slaves! Don’t you see? I really could have done it! With the golden torc I could have tamed this thing inside me and used it.”
Amerie heard herself babbling. “We’re all grateful to you. Felice. Believe me. We were simply too stunned by it all to say anything after the fight. And Dougal, he was just too fast for Basil and Yosh to stop, and too crazy to realize what he was doing when he threw the torc away. He probably believed he wouldn’t be safe from Epone’s power until the torc was separated from her body.”
Felice said nothing. After a while the nun said, “Perhaps you could get another.”
There was a sigh. “They know about me now, so it will be very dangerous. But I’ll have to try. Maybe waylay another caravan, or even go to Finiah. It’ll be hard and I’ll need help.”
“We’ll help.”
Felice laughed softly.
“I’ll help. I won’t be retiring to any hermitage for quite some time yet.”
“Ah. That’s… good. I need your help, Amerie. I need you.”
“Felice. Don’t misunderstand.”
“Oh, I know all about your little vow of renunciation. But that was made six million years ago in a different world. Now I think you need me as much as I need you.”
“I need your protection. We all do.”
“You need more than that.”
Amerie backed away, tripped over a rock and fell, tearing open the scabbed cuts on her hands.
“Let me help you up,” said Felice.
But the nun scrambled to her feet unaided and turned back toward the glowing remnants of the campfire where the others were sleeping. She stumbled and clenched her fingers into the lacerated palms so that her nails opened the cut even more, while behind her Felice laughed in the darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN