by Kate MacLeod
“Do you get into many battles?” Scout asked only half-jokingly.
“It’s best to be prepared,” Tucker said. He was standing now, one hand on the back of her seat as he looked out the narrow window. Ken and Bente were in front of the rover now, guiding her in past an array of lights set on the ground, blinding her from seeing the deeper expanse of the cavern or canyon or wherever they were. First Bente and then Ken put both hands up, palms out, and Scout braked the rover. Bente gave her two thumbs up, which Ken quickly echoed, and Scout killed the engine.
“I guess you’re home,” Scout said.
“Come on,” Tucker said, suddenly energized. “I can’t wait to introduce you to everyone.”
He leapt down the steps to the main compartment of the rover, the vigorous movement setting the dogs to barking as they charged after him, but they were just excited. Scout hurried after to be sure he didn’t recoil in fear again, but he seemed to be managing better now, laughing a bit as the dogs jumped all over him, desperate for his attention. He gave her a half grin with just a little nervousness in his eyes, but the dogs were oblivious.
“They think you’re taking them out to play,” Scout said. “You might want to walk calmer.”
“They can run through the open parts of the compound all they like,” Tucker said.
“I’d prefer they stayed close to me,” Scout said.
“Of course,” he said, still overeager to put her at ease. She opened the door and waved her arm for Tucker to go out first.
Ken and Bente were waiting outside. They had taken off their long duster coats, although Bente still had her goggles dangling around her neck. They both wore the same fitted jumpsuits underneath with belts as bulky with equipment as the one Scout wore around her own hips. Ken had cleaned up already, even his hair glistening wetly as it stood straight up off his scalp. Bente was still wiping the dust off her face and neck with a cloth.
Tucker turned to hold out a hand but Scout leapt down without assistance. The dogs hopped down after her. The air here was cold enough to raise goose bumps all over her flesh. It wasn’t just the usual cool that descended after sunset. This was a bone-deep cold, like this place never baked in the light of the sun. Was it a cave?
Shadow found a scent he wanted to follow and raced off but Gert pressed close against Scout’s leg, trembling, and Scout put her hand on the dog’s head to calm her. She had no fear of machines, but people made her nervous.
“Ken, Bente, this is Scout,” Tucker said. “She picked me up outside of McFarlane’s hut.”
“Oh yeah?” Ken said, giving Tucker a darting little look before extending a hand to Scout. “Welcome.”
“Am I?” Scout asked but shook his hand anyway. Ken gave Tucker another look and Tucker made the smallest of headshakes.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Ken said and flushed with pretty convincing chagrin. “We missed his message.”
“And you’re Bente?” Scout said, turning to the girl. She was even larger up close, fairly looming over Scout, although she seemed shy about shaking hands. But when she did take Scout’s hand it was a warm, comforting squeeze, more like a fond hug than a token gesture.
“I better close the gates before Joelle—” Ken started to say, but his words were quickly drowned out by a voice coming from beyond those blinding lights.
“What is going on here?”
“Shit,” Ken mumbled under his breath. Bente hunched her shoulders as if trying to make herself smaller, less visible. Ken shot Tucker another look before scurrying away back toward the gate.
“Joelle,” Tucker said, but the voice cut him off again.
“Save it, Tucker.” Her form eclipsed one of the floodlights, growing more defined until she at last became visible. She was shorter than Scout but wore her hair pulled up tight on the top of her head, where it puffed out in a thick mass of dark, glossy, tight curls that made her seem taller. Her skin was deeply brown but unmarred by the sun damage that lined Tucker’s face. There was a roundness to her cheeks and the curve of her eyebrows that Scout would normally equate with friendliness, but clearly at this moment Joelle was livid. She wasn’t wearing a jumpsuit like Ken and Bente, but the tight pants and tank top she wore under her tactical vest had a look almost like a military uniform. She had a screen strapped to her wrist identical to Tucker’s.
She stopped in front of Scout, arms folded as she looked the newcomer up and down. Scout fought the urge to take off her hat and hold it in front of her like she was being chastised. Gert cowered further behind Scout’s legs. Shadow was hiding behind the rover tread. It would have been a more effective hiding place if his fur didn’t glow so brightly even in the shadows.
“Why,” Joelle said, not a question. She directed the word at Tucker without ever taking her eyes off Scout.
“I messaged you. Surely you got it.”
She gave a curt nod, her eyes unblinking.
“Then I’ve already explained. It just seemed like the thing to do,” Tucker said.
“My father—”
“Will understand when I talk to him,” Tucker interrupted, making her eyes narrow. “Where is he?”
“Still out,” Joelle said.
“I don’t know what this is about,” Scout said. “Your friends have damaged my rover. Tucker promised repairs. Then I’ll be on my way.”
Joelle tipped her head to look past Scout at the rover. Then she seemed to notice the dogs for the first time.
“It was entirely my fault, and I’ll make the repairs myself if Bente has other work,” Tucker said.
“Oh, stop it,” Joelle said. “You can’t fix a child’s toy, let alone this rover.”
“I promised to make this right,” Tucker said. “And dinner. I also promised dinner.”
“I have food,” Scout said. Retreating with her dogs to the comfort of the rover interior was feeling like a better option all the time.
“No, no,” Joelle said, finally relenting. “I’m sorry. Some protocols were breached here, but clearly that’s not your fault. We have more than enough to share. I probably made too much anyway. First night out of the storm shelter, sick to death of packaged food, you know?”
Scout nodded, but in fact the bulk of the food she ate was packaged food. She had occasionally splurged on fresh soup or stew if the public house where she was staying had something particularly tempting on offer. But the range she traveled on her bike seldom strayed out of the southwest quadrant, where grain was nearly the only food grown. Fruits and vegetables, those were more of a northeastern thing and usually quite out of her price range.
She was suddenly curious just what dinner would be.
“Dogs,” a boy’s voice said.
Joelle had been about to speak but turned to look past the lights behind her. This voice was small, hesitant. A young boy, not yet a teenager. The last of the anger had melted from Joelle’s face when she turned back to Scout. Now she looked a bit worried.
“Are your dogs good with kids?” she asked.
Scout had a sudden flashback to that morning, another pang of regret. “When the kids are good with them,” she said.
Joelle looked at Gert still pressed tight to Scout’s legs, then at Shadow taking the first tentative steps out from under the rover.
“They look scared,” Joelle said. The worry on her face intensified a notch. She had good reason; scared animals could react in violent ways. But Scout was certain that Shadow wouldn’t harm a fly, and Gert had been mightily provoked before she had resorted to biting.
“I’ll keep an eye on them, but they should be fine. They’ve just had a long day,” Scout said, suddenly feeling all the hours of it herself. She was tired.
“I’ve never seen a dog,” the boy said as he appeared out of the light. He had the same dark skin as Joelle, the same warm brown eyes, although his hair was cut close to his scalp like Ken’s. He had the lanky look of someone who had just shot up a lot of centimeters in a short amount of time, his ankles and wrists protruding f
rom his too-small clothes. He put out his hands and waited for the dogs to approach him. “I’ve read about dogs,” he went on. “Man’s best friend.”
“They’re certainly my best friends,” Scout said, gently encouraging Gert to follow Shadow in investigating the boy.
“This is Reggie, my little brother,” Joelle said. Scout would guess the kid was about twelve.
“I’m Scout,” she told both of them. Reggie dropped down to one knee as the dogs sniffed him all over.
“Do your dogs know any tricks?” Reggie asked.
“Shadow knows a few,” she said.
“Is this one Shadow?” Reggie asked.
“No, that’s Gert,” Scout said. “The white one’s Shadow. When he was a puppy he followed me everywhere, and my dad said he was my little shadow. The name stuck.”
“Hey Shadow, Gert,” Reggie said, carefully moving from light touches to full-on head scratches. Scout wondered what he had read about dogs. It appeared to have been quite thorough. He knew just how to put them at ease. It might end up being a good thing that they had stopped here, that the dogs were getting a good experience with a kid so soon after their bad experience with kids. She didn’t want them getting fearful or mean.
“Can we eat?” Tucker asked, pressing his palms together as he waited for Joelle to answer.
“Might as well,” Joelle said. “Come on, Reg.”
Reggie had sprawled down on the ground, letting both the dogs nose him all over, tails wagging madly, but he leapt to his feet to follow his sister, the dogs trailing close at his heels.
Well, they had certainly made a new friend quickly.
Scout was about to follow when a loud metallic clang suddenly echoed through the space. Scout flinched, afraid to look back.
“That’s just the gate closing,” Tucker told her, but she found that not the least bit reassuring. “There are other doors out. Smaller, people-sized ones,” he went on. Her anxiety must be showing if he was trying to reassure her. “As soon as the rover is fixed we’ll open the door back up and let you out. You understand we can’t just leave it open, not even at night. Especially not at night.”
“Of course,” Scout said, but she couldn’t help looking back even as she followed the others toward the blinding floodlights.
The doors behind the rover were firmly shut, some sort of massive wheel locking the two together. There was a mechanism, a machine that would control that lock. There had to be. No human could turn that wheel with their hands, not even Bente with her arms bigger than most people’s thighs.
Scout bit down on her lip and forced herself to turn her back on that gate. She told herself that even if it never opened again, all that was trapped was the rover. She and the dogs could escape any number of ways.
But still, she felt trapped. And she didn’t like it.
9
Scout blinked as the floodlights all turned off at once, plunging everything around her into darkness. She blinked again, then deliberately kept her eyes open wide, waiting for them to adjust. It didn’t take long; the darkness had only seemed absolute compared to that blinding light. She could see squares of light ahead of her that she took for windows and a longer rectangle that must be an open door.
Tucker was waiting for her next to that doorway, leaning on the wall outside the door so that the light within bathed his features. Scout hurried to join him, but even as she walked she tipped her head back to look up into the darkness over her.
Stars. Not a cavern. The walls around her were tall and sheer, probably unclimbable, although that was difficult to tell by starlight. Still, not enclosed. But narrow enough that the bottom would only get sunlight for maybe an hour near midday, hence the chill. She felt ever so slightly better.
“Your dogs are already inside,” Tucker said. “They quite like Reggie.”
Scout stopped next to him, just outside the doorway. She could hear the voices of the others within: Reggie laughing, Ken chatting a mile a minute with occasional brief responses from Joelle. She didn’t hear Bente. Had she gone in or stayed behind to start the rover repairs?
There was a hiss, like water drops striking metal left out in the noonday sun, then a rush of smell. Scout breathed it in deeply but couldn’t identify it. The scent was rich, mouthwatering, and yet completely alien to her.
“Hamburgers,” Tucker said, watching her face as she puzzled over the aroma. “Have you ever had hamburgers?”
“You mean like meat in a bun?”
“Please—Joelle has her own recipe that is way beyond just meat in a bun,” Tucker said with a wave of his hand. “They’re fantastic.”
“I’ve had beef in MREs before,” Scout said. “Beef stroganoff, beef chow mein, chipped beef with toast.”
“Yeah, I’m not convinced any of that is strictly speaking beef,” Tucker said with a sly smile. “And such little amounts.”
“Even heated up, they never smell like this.”
“I know, right?” Tucker agreed. “Now, to be honest, this isn’t the best beef either. Still no cows on this planet, not even in the northeastern cities. But this is vat-grown beef, which they tell me is a pretty close approximation.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Scout said.
“Me neither, although someday I will,” he said fiercely.
Scout looked up at him. Did he too dream of leaving this world, of seeing the rest of the galaxy?
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s join the others. We all pitch in on the work around here.”
“Of course,” Scout said and followed Tucker inside the doorway.
The room beyond was long but narrow, running along the exterior wall that faced out on the open space where all the vehicles were parked. It was lined with equipment, most appearing to be turned off or in sleep mode but others running programs, their screens displaying text Scout couldn’t quite read as Tucker took her elbow and guided her through the room.
“Top secret?” she asked.
“Well, it might be okay, but it’s not my call,” Tucker said.
“Whose call is it? Joelle’s?”
“Her dad’s,” he said. “He’s not here now, but he should be back soon. I’m sure he’ll have no problem with you seeing anything, but like I said—”
“Not your call,” Scout finished. “Not a problem. I’ll probably be gone before he even gets back anyway.”
Tucker didn’t answer that.
They crossed the room to a hallway of closed doors, although next to each door was a window into what appeared to be a darkened office. Then the hallway ended in a warmly lit room, half covered with the same metal roof that covered the offices and equipment room they had just passed through, the other half open to the starry sky. In the middle of the floor of the open half of the room was a shallow pit covered with grates. Under the grates, flames danced over darkly glowing embers.
“What are you burning?” Scout asked.
“It’s a chemical compound that simulates wood fire,” Tucker said. “We have a bunch of it in one of the storerooms. It’s amazing stuff; I don’t know why they don’t have it in the cities. Can you smell it? I love that smell.”
Scout sniffed again. There was something—a fresh, dry sort of smell—but mostly she still smelled the hamburgers Joelle was tending to on the far side of the fire pit. Scout had only smelled wood once, many years ago, as part of one of her deliveries. Someone had sent a bundle of toys to a friend expecting a child and amid the brightly colored plastic there had been a single wooden unicorn. She sniffed again but couldn’t find that smell in the amalgam of scents coming from the fire pit.
“When we’re done eating you’ll be able to smell it,” Tucker said.
Joelle sat back on her heels, long spatula tipped back but not quite touching her shoulder, like a soldier saluting with a sword. Ken was on the other side of the fire pit setting roll halves sliced side down over a part of the fire that was burning much less vigorously than it was under the beef.
“How’s that cheese comi
ng?” Joelle called.
“Nearly there,” Reggie said, slicing another square off from a long orange log of cheese and setting it on a plate. The two dogs were right beside him, both sitting at rigid attention. He cut off another slice and Scout could swear he deliberately botched it, cutting unevenly so the square broke off midway through. He broke the piece in half and tossed each dog a bit of cheese. Scout snatched his out of the air but Gert fumbled with hers, having to retrieve it from the swept earthen floor. She didn’t seem to mind the dirt.
“Where do you get all this food?” Scout asked. Her experience with cheese was also entirely from MREs, which like the beef was probably some synthetic substance flavored to pass as cheese. She had never even imagined it came in great logs like Reggie was carefully wrapping in cloth to put away.
“Places,” Tucker said vaguely.
“Top secret,” Scout guessed, and he shrugged.
“Plates,” Joelle called without looking up from the grill.
“Follow me,” Tucker said, leading Scout to the roofed part of the room. There was a long table here, benches lined up neatly on either side. The far wall was entirely cabinets and drawers of various sizes. Tucker opened one of the larger cabinet doors and handed Scout a stack of plates. “Put those around the table. I’ll bring a platter for Joelle.”
Scout walked around the long table, putting a plate down at each step. She watched Joelle arranging Reggie’s slices of cheese on each of the beef patties. Tucker carried a platter so big that Scout doubted her fingers would touch if she circled her arms around it. He held it out for Ken, who snatched the hot toasted buns off the grate and lined them up on the platter. Then Tucker walked around the end of the fire pit to where Joelle was using the spatula to peek under the burgers.
“Forks too,” Reggie said to Scout as he returned from the room he had taken the cheese to, now with a plate covered in an opaque wrap in each hand. He set a plate on each end of the long table and pulled the wrap away, revealing two small mountains of sliced onions, tomatoes, and pickles.
