“What do you think the Fosaanians Ansun sent to Reyet did with their time?” Javen said. “We’re proficient in using all kinds of handheld weapons.”
Nic took a step back and held up her hands. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Okay then, you two split up,” Illarion said. “Nic, if you’re going to pilot one of the slides, then Javen, you ride with Quinn and me. If we have to stop, it’s possible some predator might come see if we are edible. You two are in charge of dissuading them. That means Lainie is with Nic.”
Lainie tapped the canopy over the seats. “When you’re talking predators, surely there isn’t anything out there that can break through these?”
“No, but we might run into a spot where we need to get out if the paths are blocked. Sometimes trees fall, and because there aren’t enough people using the paths to keep them clear, we’ll have to do it ourselves. That’s when we’ll be most vulnerable.”
“Terrific,” Javen said. “What kind of predators are we talking about?” I knew he was thinking of the tachesums on Fosaan.
“You’ve been around Decker too long. That sounded exactly like him.” Nic made a motion like she was going to punch him in the arm, but she stopped herself at the last moment.
He glared at her. “I like to know the situation in advance.”
“Bears, mainly,” Illarion said. “Leopards. Wolves. Siberian tigers. That’s about all. They all have sharp teeth, and some are good at stalking. We won’t hear them coming.”
I could see from his expression Javen didn’t like that last part. I didn’t either.
“The air inside the sliders is filtered, so you don’t have to wear your masks while we’re moving. Eventually we’ll turn and get back outside the radiation zone. I’ll tell you when we’re clear but you can check your monitors if you feel the need. We’ll start slow.” Illarion looked at Nic. “I’m counting on you not to run into me.”
We climbed in and closed down the canopies. As Illarion headed off, I turned around to watch Nic and the others. She managed to get her slider going without too much of a jolt. A short distance out of town, Illarion turned his slider off the main track straight up a hill onto a smaller track between two strands of trees. It began to snow lazy flakes, almost lulling me back to sleep. It wasn’t too long until my eyelids felt too heavy to keep open.
Javen nudged me awake when we passed one abandoned dome. It didn’t look like what I had expected. I’d been envisioning an entire dome covering the top of a mountain. These were more like half domes, curved so that they fit around one side of a mountain, somewhat like the buildings we’d seen on Fosaan. Some of the panels were broken, and snow had piled up inside. I was about to turn back to watching the track in front of me when movement inside the dome caught my attention. I stared until I realized what I was seeing. The dome was full of birds, hundreds of them.
“I thought the radiation had a negative effect on life forms in the exclusion zone,” I said to Illarion.
“It does, on the mammals at least. There are many birds in the zone. Some species managed to adapt.”
“We passed a cabin before we reached that dome,” Javen said. “There was smoke coming out of the chimney. Don’t tell me people adapt too.”
“There are a few people who live out here.”
A shudder ran through me. “Why would anyone do that? Isn’t that a death sentence?”
He shrugged. “No one is going to come looking for them, so I suppose they don’t want to be found. They’re trading years of their lives to be left alone for whatever time they have left. I wouldn’t do it, but if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can never know for sure what motivates someone to make the choices they make. But we have more important things to discuss. Now do you think you can tell me what you’re doing, or what you’re looking for?”
It took a long time to explain. Illarion kept interrupting with questions. He was well-informed about the uprising on Reyet, far more than I suspected most Earthers would be, though I supposed it was because he was a journalist.
“Unbelievable,” he said softly when I was finished. “Unbelievable.” He stared out the window and then glanced over at me. “Don’t you think this might be too big for you and your friends to handle? By all accounts, this Ansun is a very dangerous man.”
“Yes, he is. But we’re not handling him. We’re just getting my friend and her sister out. Then we can notify the authorities, and they can deal with him.”
“I think I’m going to have a lot more questions after I think about all this,” he said. He was smiling to himself. “Unbelievable,” he said again. “What a story.”
“You’d better not wait too long,” I warned. “Once we get Mira and Cadia out of there, we can’t stay here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know yet.” I hoped there was a doctor in town who could give Cadia some initial treatment while we decided what to do.
Illarion asked an occasional question after that, but he had to concentrate on maneuvering the slider among the trees. Every time I looked back, I was relieved to see Nic keeping up.
The snowfall increased. Illarion punched a comm mark. “Nic, we’re almost there,” he said. “It’s right over the next stand of trees. I’m going to slow down, so adjust your speed accordingly.”
When he brought the slider to a halt, I didn’t see anything at first, but then I realized the vactram tunnel was right in front of us. It was made out of some kind of white material, and with the snowfall it blended into the landscape.
Illarion climbed out. Javen and I followed him. A gust of wind made me stagger. Snow fell in clumps off the tree branches around us.
“That’s cold!” Lainie said, brushing off a pile of snow that had fallen on her head.
“I’ve got a couple of shelter popups to put over the sliders to keep the snow off,” Illarion said as he moved to the back storage compartment. “If we need to get out of here fast, I don’t want to have to clean snow off first.”
We got out our equipment. The canopy of the slider made a thunking sound as Javen shut it. I felt a pinprick of unease at the noise. It had a sound of finality to it, as if he were shutting it for good.
The wind picked up. I could feel the cold biting into me.
“Let’s do this,” Lainie said.
I climbed up to the top of the tunnel. The thick tree canopy had given the break in the tunnel some protection from the snow. I shined a light down inside and could see snow had piled up about halfway.
“What do you see?” Nic asked.
“There’s enough room to climb down and do the digging from the inside. We won’t have to start up here and dig our way in.”
“Good,” Illarion said. He turned all the way around, surveying the landscape. “The less time we are out in the open, the better.” He shuddered. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be out here. We don’t know what is watching us from those trees.”
“Probably nothing,” Nic said. “But Javen and I will be lookouts while you three are digging. We’ll both climb up on top and then each take a side.”
As they took up their positions, I dropped down inside the tunnel opening and in an instant was surrounding by fluttering, flying bodies. One bumped into me, and I let out a yell. Closing my eyes, I tried to tamp down the panic. Bats, probably. That thought brought back an extra dose of panic. I did not want to be bitten by a bat that might have rabies. Before I could decide if I should stay still or try to move away from the opening, the movement around me stopped. I opened my eyes, and a gray feather floated down in front of my face. Not bats.
Illarion stuck his head in the opening. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Those were pigeons, right?”
“Right. The forest is full of them.”
“Pigeons don’t usually live in forests,” I said, trying to focus on something besides my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
&nbs
p; “These pigeons do. The city of Dimostok was full of them. They don’t seem to be affected by the radiation, so the population has exploded. Someone told me they like to live in manmade structures. I guess they like this one.”
“I suppose I can see why. It’s warmer at least, though it smells bad.” Dankness, overlaid with something else I didn’t recognize. Probably pigeon.
“Are you going to move so I can get down there?” Lainie asked.
I moved, and she and Illarion came down. The digging went quickly at first, where the snow was relatively fresh. But as we dug farther down, the snow was more solid. It must have melted and refrozen several times.
We had made a fairly good size opening when Illarion stopped digging. “I need a rest. I think this is almost big enough. We should be able to crawl through it if we widen it just a bit more.”
“It needs to be bigger, big enough for one of us to carry Cadia out, if we have to.”
“Right. Okay, we do have more … ” Illarion’s words cut off. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking over my shoulder.
I heard a snuffling sound like an animal would make. A big animal.
I whirled around, wishing I had more than a shovel for a weapon. I’d put the small walthaser I’d picked out in my pack. Not the best idea. I raised the shovel. Illarion pulled out his own walthaser and raised it.
Something shambled out of the dark. Every monster film I’d ever seen flashed through my head. A bear, mutated by radiation, very skinny and walking on two legs.
The thing spoke, or rather mumbled, “Got any food for a hungry fellow?” Not a bear. The man who came into view was in bad shape. Between the extreme thinness, the mottled skin on his face, and the lack of teeth, he looked almost too far gone for medical help. He saw Illarion’s walthaser raised at him and held up his hands. “Don’t shoot. I’m just hungry.”
“What are you doing down here?” I asked.
“Just trying to stay out of the cold. My cabin needs some work, and it’s warmer in here. I’m going to wait out the winter until it’s warm enough to fix up my place.”
I didn’t think he would live to see spring.
“What’s happening down there?” Nic called. “Whose voice is that?”
“A local,” I called up to her. “There’s no problem. Throw down a bit of food, something soft.”
“We don’t have much,” Illarion warned.
“We won’t need it,” I said.
Nic passed down some supplies, and I handed them to the man. He took them and disappeared back into the darkness of the tunnel, as if running into us was just an ordinary occurrence.
“I don’t suppose he’ll come back,” I said, not wanting to turn my back on the dark tunnel.
“He won’t,” Illarion said. “He’ll go eat the food and forget about anything until the next time he’s hungry. Radiation poisoning affects memory.”
I shuddered, hoping the Fosaanians Ansun had forced to come here knew enough to stay away from the exclusion zone.
I went back to digging, ready to get on with our plan. By the time we were done, my arms were aching.
“Okay,” Illarion said. “Now we go ahead and hope your friends on the inside can do their part.”
We climbed through the opening to find the tunnel ahead of us didn’t smell as bad, which I took to mean there hadn’t been pigeons in the section between the break and the factory dome entrance. I shined a light around the inside. While there weren’t any big breaks in the tunnel walls, there were cracks, which let in both air and a little light through the snow that covered them.
We walked along in silence. I felt my spirits lift—we were actually doing something and the end was in sight. I just hoped it was the end we wanted.
Illarion shined a light ahead. “There’s the entrance,” he said. I could make out a large metal door filling almost the entire end of the tunnel.
Lainie was already speaking into her gabber. “Decker, we’re here. What’s happening in there?”
He didn’t answer. Lainie asked again.
“He’s probably somewhere he can’t talk at the moment,” Nic said. “Give him a few minutes to get to where he can talk.”
We waited more than a few minutes. The cold seeped back into me in the stillness. I put my hand on the door. Only a few centimeters of metal were holding us back.
“Lainie.” Decker’s voice was low as it came through the gabber. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” Lainie said.
“We’ve got a problem.”
I sighed. Of course we had a problem. We never managed to carry out a plan without a problem.
“There are too many supplies piled in front of the door to the tunnel,” Decker said. “It would take a long time for just the two of us to move them, and someone would notice us doing it.”
“Do you have any other ideas?” I asked. “Because we’re out of them over here.”
“Mira does. She’s been all over the place, examining the panels that cover the dome. They repaired all the broken ones, but they didn’t do a good job. There’s a panel on level three that’s not sealed well and is leaking air. She thinks you can break through it.”
Get out of the tunnel. Walk to the dome. Climb up. Break in. Of course. No problem. “Then what?” I asked. “Won’t someone notice we’re breaking through the dome?”
“Mira picked that spot because it’s in an area that isn’t in use yet. I haven’t seen it. I can’t get into that level. She’ll get Cadia up to you somehow. We’ve made a harness for her. You’ll have to carry her down on the outside and get her away from here. Mira and I will leave after that. We’ll pretend I quit or something so they’ll let me get back to town on the main road.”
“We can do that,” Lainie said. “When can Mira get Cadia there?”
“In a half hour.”
“How do we know where the panel is? The dome is huge.” I said. “We can’t climb all over it looking for the right one.”
“It’s close to where the vactram connects with the dome. You should be able to see it once you are back outside. Mira will shine a light up at it once she’s in there with Cadia.”
It sounded as if Mira had thought everything out. We just had to carry out the plan. I was a little concerned about the part where Mira would get Cadia up to us somehow. That implied the panel we were going to break was not an easy reach from the floor.
“I have to go,” Decker said. “I hear someone coming.”
“Since we have to climb back out of the vactram and go through the snow to the dome, I hope you brought snowshoes, because the sliders would definitely be noticed,” Nic said to Illarion.
Illarion looked upset. “I only have two pairs. They were just for emergencies, in case someone had to go for help.”
“No good,” Nic said. “It will be impossible to carry the girl through all that snow.” She grabbed the shovel out of my hand and poked at one of the cracks in the side of the tunnel with the handle. “I say we try to make an opening for ourselves right here. We can climb out and then up the dome without slogging through the snow.”
She took the first swing at the covering, and then the rest of us joined in. By the time we were done, I was sure all the hammering and noise would be met with a whole troop of Ansun’s security people as soon as we climbed out.
Instead, outside we were met with total silence and yet more snow. The wind had dropped, but the flakes were still coming down. We had to use the shovels to clear a short path from the opening we’d made to the dome because the snow was waist deep. It made me nervous that we couldn’t move very fast if the situation turned ugly.
I put my hand on one of the frames that held the dome panels in place. Decker had acted like climbing up was going to be easy. It might have been if we weren’t wearing gloves and the frames weren’t slippery from the snow.
“Do we have some rope or cord?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if any had been in the pi
le of supplies.
“We have some cord,” Illarion said. “I was worried we might have to fasten one of the sliders to the other if one got stuck. It’s in Javen’s backpack.”
“We can’t bring Cadia down by carrying her on someone’s back,” I said. “It’s too slippery. Her extra weight will make it too likely whoever is carrying her will fall. We’ll have to lower her down.” As I was talking, I saw a flash of something move behind the nearest stand of trees. My heart began to race.
“Javen, Nic, turn around and raise your weapons,” I said.
I was glad they didn’t ask questions. They whirled around in unison, walthasers up, ready to fire. I stared at the space between the trees. No movement.
“I saw something,” I said. “It moved too fast to be a person. It was brown, or gray. I don’t know. It moved so fast.”
“Wolf,” Illarion whispered.
Chapter Twenty
Still no movement. I waited, scarcely breathing. Javen and Nic raised their weapons.
Nothing appeared. I began to doubt myself. “Maybe it was just some snow falling off a branch or something,” I said.
Illarion turned his head from side to side, scanning the woods. “It is probably a wolf. I was afraid of that. They can smell us from miles away. They won’t touch anyone who is suffering from radiation exposure, but as soon as anyone who is not affected appears on the scene, they are right there.”
“You two should stay down here and keep a lookout,” Lainie said to Nic and Javen. “Illarion too. Quinn and I will go up. The fewer people, the better. We’re going to have to get up there without someone looking out and noticing us.”
Suddenly I was happy to be the one making the slippery climb.
“I’ll go first,” Lainie said to me. I nodded and slipped off my pack. Javen handed me the cord from his pack which I draped it around my neck.
“I’ll tie it when we see what kind of harness they’ve made for Cadia.” I realized I had no idea how big the girl was, or even how old. It made me a little ashamed I’d never asked many questions about her. When I was with Mira, I’d concentrated on her.
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