The temperature is cooler but not frigid.
“Western gate still tight,” she says, glancing back at me. “And welded shut. My fat’er told me t’ere now only two gates, two ways in, sout’ern and nort’ern. When te Voors took te Drifter, t’ey wanted exclusive, madeT defensible wit’ small force.”
“Do the Voors know we’re here?”
“T’ey know I’m a-here,” she says.
“How?”
She shakes her head and walks to our right, toward a glassed-in booth mounted high in the empty chamber, where a dispatcher or controller might sit, looking down upon the garage floor. She climbs the ladder and pushes on a door in the booth’s side.
I stand below and look up. “Tell me what happens if they get in,” I say.
“If t’ey find me, t’ey take me back. If t’ey find you, t’ey kill all.”
“They can fucking try,” I say.
“T’ey have guns,” she announces, working to pry open the booth door. No go. It looks welded shut as well. She descends, eyes darting like a deer seeking a canebrake.
“We need to know the truth,” I say. “Why did you come here? What if those buggies are just bringing back miners?”
“T’ey wouldna come back just now,” she says.
“Why not? The hobo’s down—”
“Because t’ey’re afraid!” she cries. “You think t’is just a mine? You donna know a t’ing!”
“Afraid of what? Us?”
“Na!”
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask, voice a little too high. I try to stay in front of her and intercept one of her looks, but as she sets foot on the floor, and I push in, she grimaces, reaches out with a long, agile arm—and slaps me. I don’t know a single Skyrine who reacts well to being slapped by anyone bigger than a child. My hand is up and about to return the favor when the look on her face collapses into anguish, and she lets out a piercing scream.
That stops us both cold. We face off in the middle of the chamber, breathing heavily. She twists about, hands out and clenched, stretched to the limit.
“We have a find it!” she cries. Her voice echoes—broken, lost, hollow. Then she falls to one knee, as if about to pray, and hangs her head. “It warna just the hobo drove out fift’ team. My fat’er wouldna say all. Even so, he told me come here when if t’ere is na ot’er place a go. Drifter safer t’an Green Camp, if I wor put a te dust. But he said I must go alone.”
This floors me. “Even so, you rescued us,” I say, trying to reestablish common ground, common sympathies. “Maybe you thought, like you said, we might be able to help. You don’t think anyone else can or will help… right?”
She shakes her head. “I doan know why I pick you. You’re na our people. You’re na even friends.”
“We’re human, goddammit!” I say. “We’re fighting for everyone.”
“Na for us,” she says softly. “We doan want you here. Likely t’ey doan want you here.”
“The Voors?”
Teal forces her calm, fixed face, stands, and wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. Then, looking down and blinking, she reaches a decision. “Sorry. Na call for sa much at onceT.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“If t’ere be power, we switch T’on afore Voors reach te sout’ern gate. T’en we lock and stop t’em outside.”
Her lingo is getting too thick for me. One sound, inflected, passes for a page in a dictionary. “We haven’t checked the eastern gate.”
“Na time. T’ey’re close.”
“We’re fighters,” I say. “We should check and if necessary post watches at all the gates—”
“Voor buggies haul twenT’each. T’at wor sixty. You?—” She holds up one spread hand and three fingers. A stern look.
“Okay. But they’re just settlers. What kind of weapons would they carry?”
Her withering glance away tells me I’ve asked exactly the wrong question. “T’ey find lost guns on te dust—maybe yours?”
“Nothing they’re trained for. Nothing they have codes or charges for. They’re not Skyrines.”
Teal has this expression, avoiding looking at me, like she wants to tell all—but it’s hard. Long years of indoctrination and resentment. No love for the Earth that cut them off and joined an interplanetary war. Then, her stiffness slides away. She’s come this far. There’s no turning back. She focuses, makes a face—she has to speak to me in a way I’ll understand, and so she reaches back, speaks more slowly. “T’ey’re Voors. Dutch, Germans, Africans, some Americans—whites only. Independent, old history. Smart, cruel—fat’er-rule. They came first a join Green Camp, t’en cause trouble, break wit’ all, took a trek—t’eir trek—fifteen hundred kilometers. Claimed and routed a French camp—Algerians, Moroccans, some Europeans—cleaned t’em out, sent most a die on te dust. Rebuilt. Regimented. T’ey used French printers a make weapons, said a fight off solders from Eart’ coming a destroy t’em. Na a body at Green Camp or Robinson or Amazonia or McClain said naught a t’em. We’d all been cut from Eart’ already, na more supplies, na more uplink—pushed on our own, we couldna afford te bigger fight.” She takes a deep breath, shakes her head.
“Who found the Drifter first?”
“French camp. T’ey did sommat little mining, t’en pulled out. After, te Voors worked a hard five years until t’ey breached te lava dike and hobo surged. T’ey’re the fourth and fift’ teams. T’en… t’ey withdrew, but keep claim.”
“What did they leave behind?”
“Buggies back at te north gate, clot’ing—some supplies. I doan know how else much.”
“Your father was a Voor?”
“French. Voors let him live a-cor he war white. But t’ey sent his first wife out te dust. She wor African, a Muslim. Fat’er left Algerian camp just after Voors close te Drifter. Went te Green Camp…” She gets that distant look, too much history, too many nasty tales even before she was born. “Married my mot’er, and t’ere wor me.”
The Drifter was closed due to the hobo for more than twenty years? Nine or ten Martian years? And we happen back just in time for the reopening! This isn’t making even a skeletal sort of sense.
“The Voors, do they partner with Antags?” I ask.
She makes a face, I would think that—then shakes her head vigorously. “We call t’ose Far Ot’ers. We wor told Amazonia sent folks out te dust a meet t’em. Nobody’s heard a t’ose since.”
“If the Voors left good stuff here, what could we expect to find? Mining machinery? Food?”
“Fat’er say t’ere wor a printer-depositor, barrels of slurry, maybe safed food, surely spare parts, enow te gear up quick—all in upper chambers so na get swashed. T’ey keep all locked, wrapped, and sealed—stake and reclaim onced hobo sinks. But…” She reaches into her pocket and takes out another platinum coin. Shows me a string of numbers and letters inscribed on both sides. Similar to the coin I found. Different numbers, however. “Codes te get in.”
“That’s how you got us in?”
She nods.
“And the power?”
“Hydro deep, far below. Where te hobo still flows.” Saying all this, Teal looks sick with doubt and uncertainty. She has no idea what we’re capable of.
“Where do we look for their cache?” I ask.
She walks off a few steps. “Fat’er show a chart, but t’wor old.”