by J. J. Green
“Thanks,” said Carina as the girl handed the device over.
She didn’t reply but only skipped slowly back to her grandfather’s apartment and went inside.
Carina carried the interface into the bedroom and put it down. Searching for information that might lead to the whereabouts of her sisters and brothers would have to wait just a little while.
She sat down on the bare, dirty floor and gently rubbed her stomach. She wasn’t sure exactly where her small intestines were. Transporting objects you couldn’t see was tricky. Transporting objects out of your body when you only had a rough idea of their location was plain stupid. But what choice did she have? Until she was free of the tiny electronic bugs, the Dirksens could swoop in at any moment and pick her up.
As soon as she’d removed the tracers, she would have to take them somewhere else and dump them or destroy them. When the Dirksens came for her they would go to the devices’ last known location, and she didn’t want that to be her newly rented apartment.
Carina took a sip of elixir, placed a hand on her stomach, and closed her eyes.
Chapter Twenty
A wind was rising, setting the trees into motion. The noises of the forest increased, rustling, creaking, and murmuring. The insects had retreated since the temperature dropped and the breeze arose. Parthenia hoped that rain wasn’t on its way. She and Darius were still wearing nothing except the shirts Jace had given them and Oriana and Ferne weren’t much better clothed.
At least they were heading toward the capital city, or so Parthenia hoped. She’d spotted shuttlecraft traveling overhead and because they always went in a particular direction she’d concluded they were on their way to or from a spaceport. She’d taken her pick of the two possible directions in which the spaceport might lie and for the last half an hour or so they’d been walking toward—or away from—the place. Her chances of being correct were only fifty-fifty, but they were the best odds they were going to get.
Ferne was carrying Darius. Not because her youngest brother was tired, but just for fun. Parthenia was grateful to Ferne for entertaining the little boy and taking his mind off the thirst, hunger, and fatigue they all felt. Ferne was pretending to be one of the animals from Marcia’s barn and Darius was pretending to be a hunter. He was holding an imaginary weapon and firing behind while telling Ferne to go faster.
“What are you shooting at now, Darius?” Oriana asked. Previously the boy’s targets had been various monsters of his imagination. This time, however, he replied, “Father’s guards are chasing us. But it’s okay. I’m killing all of them.”
Oriana caught Parthenia’s eye, her eyebrows raised. Parthenia returned the look. Poor Darius. It would take them all a long time to get over their terrifying escape from Father’s family. Parthenia was still struggling with the role she’d played in his death. She didn’t think she would ever come to terms with it.
“You get ’em, Darius,” said Ferne.
Her little brother screwed up one eye to take aim and fired his finger at the invisible guards.
A loud thunk resounded, and a thick cylinder of wing-tipped metal appeared in the tree trunk next to Ferne’s head.
The children froze. Someone was firing at them.
“Run,” Parthenia shouted. The children sped away through the trees. Parthenia wanted to tell Ferne to give Darius to her. Her little brother was heavy for a twelve-year-old to carry. But she didn’t dare stop long enough to make the switch.
Another loud thunk sounded. “Hurry,” Parthenia called. She hoped they wouldn’t get split up, but putting distance between themselves and the hunters was the priority.
Why were they being shot at? Did the hunters really want to kill children? A third wooden thunk resounded and Oriana squealed. The bolt had nearly hit her.
Now, above the sound of the wind, Parthenia could hear the thump of the feet of the animals the hunters rode, getting closer. How the large beasts maneuvered between the trees, Parthenia didn’t understand, but they managed it. The thought gave her an idea.
Over to one side was a dense grouping of trees. Ordinarily Parthenia would have avoided such a place, but in this case it was ideal. “Over there,” she panted to her siblings. They changed direction and ran for the trees.
A fourth bolt whistled past Parthenia’s ear. She bit back the shout of fear that rose to her lips. The forest’s trees were giving the children some cover. She didn’t want to give the hunters a clear indication of their whereabouts.
Oriana was the fastest runner of them all. She’d reached the thick trunks of the dense stand of trees. In a moment, she’d slipped between them and disappeared. Parthenia reached them next. She hopped behind a tree and watched. Ferne was lagging far behind, struggling with Darius’ weight, but finally he ran up with his little brother clinging to his back.
Just as he reached Parthenia, Ferne cried out and fell forward. Darius tumbled off of him. One of the hunter’s bolts was sticking out from the back of Ferne’s thigh.
“Ferne,” Parthenia screamed. She couldn’t help herself. Her brother raised his head, his face twisted with pain.
A burst of sound and movement a short distance away distracted Parthenia from her brother. The hunters on their animals were speeding closer. Then the animals slowed, making a strange, high-pitched sound. One of the hunters cursed. “It’s kids,” he said. “What are they doing here?”
Parthenia helped Ferne to his feet. “Run, Darius,” she said. “Run into the trees. Find Oriana.”
The woman exclaimed, “You shot one of them!”
“No, I didn’t,” the man protested. “That was you.”
“Can you walk?” Parthenia asked Ferne.
He was white and shaking but he nodded. Parthenia wrapped his arm over her shoulder and half-helping, half-carrying her brother, she took him out of sight of the hunters. As soon as they’d made it a short way through the narrow spaces between the trunks, she lowered her brother to the ground. Blood was running down his leg and he looked ready to pass out. If the hunters followed them and caught up with them, there wasn’t anything Parthenia could do about it. She only hoped that Oriana and Darius might get away.
But while she sat with her injured brother on the forest floor, no sounds of pursuit followed them. Parthenia guessed that the hunters might get into trouble for accidentally shooting children, even if they were trespassing.
“Ferne,” Parthenia said. “I’m so sorry. That must hurt really badly. I’m going to do whatever I can to help.”
Her brother only nodded, his lips tightly compressed.
But what could she do? If she had elixir, she could Transport the bolt out of Ferne’s leg and then Cast Heal on the wound. But she had no elixir nor a way of making any. The children were alone and friendless. For the thousandth time, Parthenia wondered what had happened to Carina. If only she were there she would know what to do. Parthenia felt she’d made one mistake after another.
“Ferne,” Oriana exclaimed as she came through the trees, holding onto Darius’ hand. She fell to her knees at her brother’s side and burst into tears. “Ferne, don’t die. Please don’t die. We’re nearly there. We can make you better.”
“What?” Parthenia asked. “We’re nearly where?”
“We’re at the city,” Darius said. “Oriana and I found it. Come and look, Parthenia. We can take Ferne to a splicer and make him better. Come on, I’ll show you.” He grabbed Parthenia’s hand and tried to pull her to her feet.
Leaving Ferne with Oriana for a moment, she got up and went with Darius. Not more than a minute away, the trees faded out entirely. Parthenia found herself looking at a wire fence. Beyond the fence stood a landing bay, and beyond that were the low buildings of a spaceport. Farther away on the edge of the city stood its buildings rising higher in the distance.
They’d made it to their destination, but Darius wasn’t right in everything he’d said. They would never get Ferne to a splicer from their current location. Parthenia would have to fix her b
rother’s leg somehow before they could go on.
Chapter Twenty-One
As Carina sat at the edge of the bedroom in her rented apartment, she recalled removing the Sherrerr tracers from her siblings when they were escaping on the shuttle. That had been so much easier. For one thing, she’d seen the tracer that the Dirksens had cut out of Darius, so she knew the size and appearance of the devices. And she’d known almost precisely where to find them in her siblings’ bodies.
By contrast, removing the Dirksen tracers from her intestines was going to be like hunting in the dark with a double-edged knife. One false step and she could cause herself some serious harm.
Carina swallowed. The truth was, she was almost certainly going to inflict some damage. She doubted the best mage in the galaxy could Cast with the accuracy required to lift out the tiny tracers without affecting the surrounding tissue, even without operating blindfolded. No, there was no point in kidding herself—this was going to hurt.
She took out the bottle of elixir she’d carried with her all the way from Langley’s mansion. She’d hoarded the liquid, saving it for emergencies just like this. She unscrewed the cap. Then she paused.
She couldn’t figure out why the Dirksens hadn’t picked her up yet. Should she have given Reyes a chance to explain? No. That would have been too risky. The information he held might have been useful yet she felt she’d made the best choice in the circumstances. It was time to get as far away from the Dirksens and the Sherrerrs as she could—after she found her brothers and sisters.
Carina realized she was going over her decision as a way of putting off something she dreaded to do. She refocused and mentally reached out, feeling for the tracers. Now that she knew they were there, it wasn’t too hard to sense the devices in the depths of her gut. Their material was different from the rest of her flesh, but she couldn’t tell how many there were. The tracers were all bunched together.
It wouldn’t be a good idea to try to Transport all of them out of her at once. Carina was fearful of accidentally pinching out a large piece of her intestine at the same time. Although she could Cast Heal and fix the injury, she might not be able to do that if she was in too much pain or had passed out.
She breathed in and out, deeply and slowly, and centered her mind on the tiny devices embedded in her intestines. Carina wrote the Transport character and sent out the Cast. She winced as she mentally gripped a tracer and lifted it out and away, placing it on the floor beside her. She opened an eye to look at the thing. It was a tiny metal bead—a red-stained, silver fleck on the grimy floor. One.
She couldn’t feel any ill effects yet. No pain or even discomfort. Carina took another sip of elixir. It was time to remove number two.
***
Carina wasn’t sure if she’d removed seven or eight tracers. She’d lost count, and the devices were too small to see clearly in their little bloody pile beside her. She was in pain and she was feeling faint, though she wasn’t sure if the faintness was due to the repeated Casting or the damage she’d caused. The more tracers she’d removed, the harder it had become to locate the devices. She thought she could sense one final tracer but she wasn’t sure. Her foggy mind and her aching stomach were strong distractions.
Carina took another sip of elixir and pressed on. She had to get all the tracers out. The Dirksens only needed one in order to find her. She forced her tired mind to concentrate and reached inside herself. Was there something still there? It was so hard to tell. The site where the tracers had burrowed was damaged and bleeding. She would have to Cast Heal soon.
But only when she’d removed the final tracer from her system. She only had enough elixir to Cast twice more. She had to save Heal until last. Carina strained her senses and mentally probed her gut. She felt something—some kind of anomaly. Was it a tracer? Perhaps her damaged tissue was confusing her. No matter. She would Transport a small piece out and then immediately Heal herself.
As Carina Cast Transport, a sharp pain pierced her insides. She gasped and opened her eyes. Something was wrong. She’d gone too far. Pain radiated from her gut. She had to Cast Heal. Carina swallowed the last of her elixir and closed her eyes. She tried to center herself and write the character, but she was in too much pain. She was slipping away. Everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Carina awoke to a familiar sensation. She could feel the faint vibration of a starship’s engine. For a moment, groggy with pain and too much Casting, she thought she was back aboard the Dirksen ship. She opened her eyes, expecting to see the shaven-headed officer watching her, waiting for her to slip up during his subtle interrogation. Instead, she saw a young man’s profile above her. Reyes was sitting at starship flight controls. A low ceiling was above her and she was pressed against a wall. She realized she was lying in the reclined seat of a small shuttlecraft.
Carina sat bolt upright. Pain from her stomach lanced through her and she cried out.
Reyes turned and looked down. “Stay still.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently restraining her. “I’m taking you to a doctor.”
She didn’t have the strength to resist. She was so tired and she’d definitely done something to her gut. If she had some elixir left she could fix herself but she remembered she’d drunk the last of it. As she gave up struggling, Reyes lifted his hand.
“I’m glad you’ve come around,” he said. “I was worried about you. We’ll be at the hospital in another minute.”
“You tracked me through those tracers,” said Carina.
“Of course.”
“Damn.”
“It was lucky for you that I did. I don’t know what’s wrong with you but you were out cold when I found you.”
“Huh. An old guy let you in, right?”
“A little girl, actually. She said her pops was sleeping.”
Carina guessed the old man hadn’t taken long to spend her week’s rent money on his favorite addiction. There wasn’t a lot else to look forward to in districts like that, she knew too well. “You carried me out all by yourself?”
“Hey, I’m stronger than I look. … And you came around a little and helped. Maybe you don’t remember. I only had to get you to the roof where I’d landed my star racer.”
“Why did you come for me?” Carina asked. “I thought you were going to leave me alone.”
“You did? I never said that.”
“It was kind of implied, I thought. After the whole kidnapping thing.” Carina’s wooziness wasn’t dissipating. If anything, it was getting worse. She wasn’t sure if she was going to pass out again or throw up. The latter alternative won. Her vomit was brown and granular. “Sorry.”
Reyes glanced down at her production, now slowly spreading over the shiny floor of the tiny shuttlecraft. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure glad I decided to come and get you though.”
“How come you turned up just then? Did you know I was sick?”
“Yeah. The tracers don’t only signal their position. They transmit the subject’s health status along with a few other things.”
“Pretty clever. You Dirksens love your high tech.”
“Don’t call me a Dirksen, please. Just call me Reyes. I don’t like to think of myself as one of them anymore. I decided I’m going to divorce myself from my clan, just as soon as I exploit the benefits of being a member one more time.” He glanced down at her, the corner of his lip lifted in a half smile. Returning his attention to the controls, he said, “We’re here. There should be medics to meet us. I comm’d ahead.”
The shuttlecraft rapidly lost altitude, increasing Carina’s nausea. The engine cut out and half of the roof of the vehicle lifted. It was raining outside. Carina was instantly soaked. Two medics were suddenly checking her over. The next moment, she was being lifted out and onto a gurney. The medics raced with her across the rooftop, through open double doors, and into an elevator.
Reyes stepped in as the elevator doors closed. He stood over her, resting his hand on the gurney rail. One of
the medics was cutting open her clothes.
“I only just bought these,” Carina protested. Everyone was overreacting. She’d been injured plenty of times while working as a merc. If she only had a mouthful of elixir she could fix her problems herself.
A medic was running a scanner across her stomach. The woman showed the other medic the results.
“Did you eat something sharp?” the female medic asked Carina.
“No,” Carina replied, “but someone fed me something noxious.” She glared at Reyes, who looked away.
The medics didn’t say anything else. Did they know Reyes was a Dirksen? Would the hospital check Ostillon’s databases for her genetic profile? What would the staff do when they couldn’t find her on the planetary system?
Carina couldn’t stay there to be treated. It was too risky. But as she tried to sit up she gasped with pain.
“Lie down,” admonished the female medic, pushing Carina’s shoulders to the gurney. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Away from here,” Carina exclaimed, struggling with the woman.
“Please stay still,” said Reyes. “I’m really only trying to help you. No one here is going to hurt you or even ask you who you are. You don’t have to worry.”
In her current state of health, Carina didn’t have much choice but to give in. She wouldn’t be able to fight off three people and escape. She wasn’t sure she could even stay upright.
As the elevator reached its floor and the doors opened, she passed out again.
***
When Carina came around for the second time the pain in her stomach was gone. She was in a hospital bed and Reyes was sitting beside her reading an interface, not yet aware she was awake.
Though she felt a lot better, her wooziness hadn’t entirely gone away. She guessed it was an after-effect of the drugs she’d been given while her insides were being fixed. Relief washed through her. She’d tried to pretend to herself that the damage she’d inflicted while removing the tracers was no big deal, deep down but she’d actually been quite scared. She hoped she wouldn’t ever have to attempt such a thing again.
