Over Freezing Altitudes

by Kate MacLeod

  “Did you sleep at all?” Scout asked, feeling guilty for how deeply she had been slumbering while Daisy did all this work.

  “I require very little,” Daisy said. “But I promise you I got what I need. I’m not irresponsible.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so,” Scout said.

  “Finish that protein bar,” Daisy said. “You’re going to need the energy, and it’s too cold out there to unwrap your face if you get hungry later.”

  “It’s going to be a long day,” Scout sighed.

  “I’m afraid so,” Daisy said. “And we can’t dawdle in getting it started.”

  Scout stuffed the last of the crunchy, fruity, honey-sweet bar in her mouth, then started layering her goggles, hat, and scarf over her head.

  Daisy was fitting little balaclavas over the dogs’ heads. She had sewn in goggles to fit over their eyes and a more breathable fabric over the noses of the balaclavas so that the dogs, too, would have their faces completely covered. With the vests and the booties, they should stay perfectly warm this trip.

  Daisy left her pack on the floor as she headed out the opening in the tent, pushing snow away ahead of her as she cleared the tunnel she had dug the night before that the storm had almost completely refilled.

  Scout looked at the empty pack. That might come in useful later. She folded it tightly and stuffed it inside Daisy’s pack.

  Then she saw the gun lying on the canvas floor of the tent. It had been underneath the pack, and Scout wondered if Daisy had forgotten it was there.

  It was more likely to come in handy than the empty pack, but still, she was loath to touch it.

  Without letting herself give it a second thought, she snatched up the gun and tucked it in the loop at the back of her marshal’s belt, where Gertrude Bauer’s gun had gone before Scout had lost it.

  That little bit of extra weight just felt right. But that rightness made Scout almost sad. What sort of life was she choosing for herself? Or being driven to choose?

  Weak sunlight suddenly filled the tent and Scout knew that Daisy had broken out. She grabbed the pack and dragged it behind her as she climbed up through the snow to the world above, the dogs scrabbling up after her.

  It was intensely bright in the morning light. There was very little exposed rock left, just a world plastered with fresh snow that reflected every bit of light from every possible angle. Scout was grateful for the tinted goggles.

  The dogs beside her were confused by the booties on their feet. It was like they didn’t know how to put their paws down or weren’t sure through the fabric if they were actually touching the ground or not. Shadow clambered about with paws spread wide like a four-legged spider, a staccato dance that seemed to deeply startle him.

  Gert, as usual, minded the change less.

  But neither of them were slipping on the slickly frozen snow. Daisy had been right about the gripping soles.

  “Let’s get up there first,” Daisy said, pointing up. Scout’s eyes took a moment to pick out the rocky promontory that jutted high into the air. The snow sticking to all of its sides made it blend with the distant strands of white cloud behind it.

  “What about the tent?” Scout asked.

  “We can’t spare the time to dig it out,” Daisy said. “I have the other from your pack. I doubt it will snow so hard again.”

  “I hope not,” Scout said, but she couldn’t argue about the time it would take to dig the tent out. It had been buried under nearly two meters of snow. No wonder it had gotten so warm on the inside.

  The dogs saw Daisy climbing the rock and raced to follow her. Shadow danced over the frozen top of the snow, but like Daisy, Gert was too heavy and kept busting through. The poor dog found this very frustrating, as it slowed her down considerably.

  Scout followed Daisy up to the highest point on the rock. The mountain itself was behind her, the dome atop it gleaming even more brightly than the snow. The mountainside spread out before them, all uniformly white now.

  “There’s the village,” Daisy said, pointing as if she knew Scout couldn’t make out any details. “The cabin, and the other cabin.”

  “I see them,” Scout said, although she wasn’t sure she did. The dots were so tiny. Had they climbed so far already?

  “And there are our pursuers,” Daisy said, pointing again.

  There were three separate groups of dots, not much bigger than the dots that made up the village, only these dots were moving. One group was following a ridge, walking in single file. Another was scaling a rock face with the jerking start and stop motions of climbing. The third was following the trail they had taken the night before. Scout guessed they had just passed the flat place where the three assassins had tried to ambush them.

  “There might be others we can’t see,” Scout said. “They might be closer.”

  “Maybe,” Daisy said. “But I wouldn’t worry. None of these are making any effort not to be seen. They know we know where they are. They just don’t care. They’re that confident.”

  Scout remembered how they had just disappeared before blowing up the tram station. Whatever camouflage they had used then, they weren’t using it now. “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “Get to the city before they get to us,” Daisy said like it was the simplest thing in the world. Then she turned to face the mountain, scanning everything in front of her before pointing off to her right. “There.”

  Scout had to shade her eyes from the gleaming of the city’s dome to see what Daisy was pointing at, and even then she wasn’t sure if she was seeing anything at all.

  “A trail?” she ventured.

  “It will be clearer when we get closer,” Daisy said. “Just go back down the promontory and start following the ridge off to our right. The dogs will follow you, and I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “Okay,” Scout said nervously. She wasn’t sure she was up for this responsibility, but she couldn’t work up the courage to say so out loud.

  It was weird. That feeling of not wanting to disappoint Daisy was growing even stronger than her fear that Daisy would find out what Scout had done to her sister. But she needed Daisy to get to the city; she would never be able to do it alone.

  Scout walked carefully over the top of the snow. It squeaked beneath the soles of her boots, and although the top was all little whorls and ridges like dunes of sand, it didn’t give under her weight, not even enough to leave a boot mark where she had gone.

  Occasionally something far below her would shift. The icy crust didn’t break, but she could feel just how much snow was between her and solid rock, and just how treacherous it could be. If the crust she was walking over cracked, all that snow was waiting to swallow her up. Swallow her up and carry her like a river far down the mountain, under the icy crust, into a deep, cold darkness she would never escape . . .

  Scout gave herself a little shake and forced her mind to stop imagining worst-case scenarios. If she did fall into a hole in the snow, she’d likely just be pinned up to her knees until Daisy pulled her out. Daisy and the dogs were only a few paces behind her. Nothing irreversible could happen in less time than it would take for Daisy to get to her. She would be fine.

  The sun climbed higher into the sky, finding a less glaring angle off of all of the snow, if not exactly warming the air. Scout looked back at her dogs trotting happily behind her and was immensely grateful for the sleep Daisy had given up in favor of fabricating little outfits for the dogs.

  At some point in the future, long after Shi Jian was no longer a threat to the galaxy and the fate of Amatheon had been decided in the tribunal court, when she had a moment for such things, Scout was going to have to find a way to properly thank Daisy.

  Somehow; she had no idea what Daisy liked, what gesture would be meaningful to her.

  The ridge ended in another plain of snow and Scout drew to a halt. She could see the snow on her right ending in a feathery edge and remembered what she had seen when looking around from the promontory. She suspected this was
one of the curlicues of snow blown off a ridge to curl downward in a frozen wave.

  “Why are you stopping?” Daisy asked as she and the dogs reached Scout.

  “I’m not sure how much of this is rock and how much is snow with a long drop below it,” Scout said. Daisy scanned the plain, moving her head in tiny deliberate adjustments from left to right.

  “Stay closer to the left,” she advised. “Even if it is just snow, it’s very thick here and frozen on top and bottom. It should be strong enough to hold your weight.”

  “But what about your weight?” Scout asked.

  Behind her goggles, Daisy was giving her a dry smile. “Just stay closer to the left. We’ll both be fine.”

  Scout nodded and turned back to face the plain. She took a deep breath, and then she took a step.

  Then another. And another. It felt just as solid beneath her as it had before. Which wasn’t entirely heartening—the image of a river of snow waiting to swallow her up still lurked in the back of her mind—but it was the best she was going to get.

  Scout risked a glance up from her own feet and saw the plain ending in what looked like the snowy outline of a human-made bridge. The sides were so straight and so parallel, and its body rose at such an even, gentle arc to the center before falling away again. Surely snow didn’t just blow itself into such an even shape?

  And behind the bridge was something very like a road, one side hugging the side of the mountain, the other a sheer cliff, but its edge was clearly defined by stone markers that stood starkly up out of the snow. Walking up that path was going to be a joy.

  Scout stepped out onto the bridge. The cold snow still squeaked under her feet, but there was no deeper creak or rumble, no feeling of deep beds of snow shifting beneath her. She continued on over the arch of the bridge and down the other side to the waiting road.

  The snow wasn’t so deep here, close to the mountain. This must have been the leeward side of the mountain last night when the winds were blowing the snow around. It had been spared.

  Scout grinned at the feel of solid rock under her feet, then turned to put her hands on her knees as the dogs came charging down to her.

  This had to be a road that led all the way to the city. Why else would there even be a road here?

  Daisy’s head appeared over the apex of the bridge, and Scout gave her a friendly wave, not sure if she was even looking up enough to see her.

  Then her shoulders were visible, then her swinging arms, and she must have seen Scout waving at her then, as she raised a hand in salute.

  And then she was gone, without so much as a crash of snow or a yelp of surprise.

  She was just gone.

  16

  The dogs both started barking like crazy, and Scout bent to grab their collars in case they were about to charge back up the bridge to help Daisy.

  Scout didn’t think it likely that Daisy had just fallen down, but she held on to that hope for several long minutes. Maybe she really had just fallen, despite how vertical her descent had appeared to Scout. Maybe she was about to pop back up, dust herself off, and join them on the other side.

  She held on to that hope for far longer than she should have, but she didn’t really grasp that fact until the first dart whistled past her ear.

  Then the dogs were barking again, a deeper warning. Scout threw her arms up over her head and looked around, but her perfect road built for easy walking provided no cover whatsoever. She would have to make a run for it, hope she didn’t get hit before she could make it around the curve of the mountain . . .

  She was never going to be that lucky. Another dart whistled past her and Scout felt a rush of anger. They were aiming not to hit her; she was suddenly sure. Like they were having some sort of game of who could come the closest.

  Scout unzipped her coat and pulled the gun from the holster on the back of the marshal’s belt. She didn’t give herself time to think. She could feel the indecision and the guilt and the waffling about to wash over her in a tidal wave and she knew she didn’t have even a second to act before she would be in over her head in all those emotions.

  She fired.

  She had aimed in the general direction of the assassins flocking to the edge of the snowy plain on the other side of the bridge, but she hadn’t drawn a bead on any one of them in particular.

  To her surprise, they flinched back, crouching and retreating at her wayward shot. Had they expected her just to stand there and wait to get hit?

  Scout ordered the dogs to back away from the edge, then shuffled closer to it herself, trying to see the bottom of the ravine.

  Again it took her eyes a long time to turn the field of bright white into features with definition.

  Then she saw it: a flash of motion. Directly below the bridge were tall mounds of snow that must have shifted off of structures above, pouring down to get hung up here where the ravine was at its narrowest. And protruding from one of the mounds of snow was a pair of waving arms.

  Daisy. She was fighting to pull herself out, but the snow kept shifting beneath her heavy weight. Scout’s hand twitched, about to wave down to her, but she held it back.

  The assassins on the other side might not know she was down there, or they might think she had died or been grievously injured in the fall. Daisy was going to need a minute to get herself out. Scout would have to be sure she got that minute.

  The assassins were creeping up to the edge of the ravine again. Scout saw two of them aiming long-barreled dart guns at her. She was sure they weren’t aiming to miss this time.

  Scout held the gun in both hands and pointed it at the larger target of the two assassins with guns. She squeezed the trigger, then watched in horror as the bullet bounced off a rock nowhere near the assassin.

  She could swear through the dark mask she could see that assassin grinning at her as they aimed their weapon.

  Then there was a low rumble, and Scout stumbled back from the edge, not certain where the sound was coming from. It echoed all around her, and she was terrified it was coming from above her, that she was about to be buried under tons of smothering snow.

  Then she saw the bridge shiver. Cracks shot across the surface, branching like lightning bolts. A few chunks broke away to tumble down in agonizing slow motion.

  Somewhere in the back of her brain, Scout knew this slowness was because of the low gravity, but it still felt like the universe was doing it for dramatic effect, to mock her.

  Then the entire bridge sheered away from the cliff and plunged down to land in the deep snowy mounds below, throwing up a cloud of swirling flakes that spun all the way up to where Scout stood, obscuring her vision of the assassins on the far side.

  And vice versa. Scout turned and ran, the dogs close at her heels, not stopping until she was around the curve of the mountain, out of range of the assassins’ weapons.

  Without the weights in her coat, she was considerably lighter. Not as light as she had been on Amatheon’s moon—that had been true microgravity—but light enough to run in long, ground-eating bounds that made her faster even than her still-weighted dogs. It would almost be fun if she weren’t constantly feeling like darts were already zooming towards her exposed back.

  When she was certain she had reached a safe distance, she skidded to a stop, collapsing to the ground with a dog on either side of her. Her nanite was working properly, but she was still getting winded quickly.

  That bridge had fallen directly on top of Daisy. Daisy, who had still been trapped in the mound of snow.

  Shi Jian with her body modifications had once survived a trip through the vacuum of space with no apparent harm. Were Daisy’s modifications as advanced? Were they enough to keep her alive in the smothering, cold dark beneath all that snow?

  Scout bit her lip and thrust her head back against the cliff wall behind her in frustration.

  She was going to have to go back. She had to get to Daisy, somehow.

  She had to get down into the ravine and across all of that loose s
now, snow she had no idea of the true depth of.

  And she had to do it without being seen.

  Scout hugged both her dogs tight, then took out their leashes and fastened them to an outcropping of rock.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said. “I have to get Daisy or we’re all dead, but I can’t try taking you with me. I don’t even know how I’m going to get down there, let alone you. But I’ll be back.”

  She pulled down her layers of scarf to give them each a kiss, then bundled back up, her scarf and coat both. She put the gun in her coat pocket where it would be closer to hand if she needed it again.

  You know, in case she wanted to trigger another massive avalanche.

  Scout pressed herself as flat to the ground as she could, then crawled to the edge of the road. She could see the assassins gathered at the far edge. Had any of them fallen down the ravine? Scout quickly counted heads. No, they were all there.

  One small favor. She didn’t want to have to fight any augmented assassins lurking at the bottom of the ravine on top of the dangerous climb down and the still-uncertain task of digging Daisy out.

  One thing at a time.

  She had to get to the bottom of the ravine. Quickly. But she had no climbing equipment. She might have had some yesterday, but now everything was in Daisy’s bag.

  Down there, at the bottom of the ravine.

  Scout bit her lip again to stop the vicious cycle of her thoughts. The assassins on the other side were working together, assembling a larger sort of gun. Scout frowned in confusion; what were they aiming at?

  Then she saw two of them fire bolts to secure the gun's tripod into the ground, and another of them holding a long coil of rope.

  They were coming across to her. She had to act, now.

  Scout fought the urge to laugh maniacally out loud. There was really only one way down, and there was no point in dawdling, hoping for another solution.

  Scout looked down to the bottom of the ravine one more time.