by Merry Farmer
A moment later, a lump in the snow only a couple of yards away from him moved. Then another. The lump closest to him peeled back to reveal the ghostly figure of a man. He had a long, unkempt beard and hollow eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Danny gaped at the snow as Kutrosky’s people pushed aside their camouflage to stare at him. There were easily two dozen of them. The forest floor was a sea of hungry, desperate faces, all dug into the snow. Of course they would dig in and hide. That was what Kutrosky had taught them.
“I’m Dr. Daniel Thorne,” he announced as loudly as he could. He was sure he didn’t look or sound any better than the pitiful souls in front of him. “I’m here to help you.”
A few terrified murmurs, which came so close to keening that they made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, answered him. The bearded man from the hole in front of him stood to his full height on shaking legs. When he stepped up onto the snow, he was taller than Danny. The man had probably once been fit and strapping, but one harsh winter under Kutrosky’s command had made him gaunt and stooped.
“I’m Scott,” he said, keeping his distance. “I know who you are.”
Danny shook his head. “I’m not who you think I am. Kutrosky lied. I’m no more dangerous than….” He had no way to finish the statement. He was dangerous. He always had been. He’d killed a thousand people. How could he possibly save a few dozen? “Gather your things and come with me. I can bring you to a village south of here where they have food and log cabins where you can rest.”
Scott replied with a weak laugh. “Elysium? Are we dead already?”
“No, and no one is going to die. Not if I can help it.” The statement filled him with energy. “I’m not sure how far of a walk it is, but if you’re ready, we should leave as soon as we can.”
Scott nodded. He turned to the others and gestured for them to come along. “We’ve been walking all night. If a little more walking doesn’t kill us, maybe you’re telling the truth.”
Something in his statement caught in Danny’s chest. “Were you with Kutrosky at his camp yesterday? When we were taken prisoner?”
“I was.” Scott lowered his head with a sigh but said nothing more.
Danny caught his arm, hope pumping through him. “There was a woman with us. Kutrosky separated us. She had red hair.”
“I know who Grace Hargrove is,” Scott said, raising his head.
“Where is she?”
The slowness with which Scott worked his way to a reply was maddening, but patience was the only way Danny would be able to master the situation.
“Kutrosky took her.” Scott shrugged, staring blankly ahead as though reliving a horror. “There were more of you too. Other prisoners. Two women and a man.”
Danny’s heart beat faster. “Yes. Where are they? Are they alive?”
“They are. Kutrosky took them all. He was raving—more than usual. He pulled out with his inner circle so fast that the rest of us were left with no idea what to do or how to go on. As soon as they were over the hill, we ran.”
Scott went limp in his grasp. Danny pulled his hand back, not realizing he still held the man’s arm. Grace was in the hands of a madman. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Kutrosky needed her now, but he didn’t trust the man not to hurt her when she slowed him down.
“How fast can they move?” he asked, his question little more than a hoarse croak.
“I don’t know.” Scott’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “The inner circle. They’re loyal to him because he feeds them better than the rest of us, but no one has had a full stomach since the snow started. He won’t admit how weak we are, how pitiful.” His voice fell away on the final word. He raised his hands to cover his shame-filled face.
It could have been him. It was him. Danny knew that shame—the sting of failing when the people you cared about relied on you. It burrowed deep.
“Come on,” he said. He looked from Scott to Natalie and her baby, past them to the weary people still climbing out of their holes and shuffling toward them. “Follow me. I can take you to a safe place. I can make sure you’re well taken care of. It’s not far.”
It was a ridiculous message delivered by someone who was wind-burned and hunched, half-blind, ready to pass out with fatigue. For all Danny knew he could have been hallucinating the whole thing. The weary, shocked faces that stared back at him as though he were either a messiah or a demon only furthered his sense of the surreal. Then, one by one, they moved on with him along the river’s course, droopy, hollow-eyed, and weak. They followed him.
Chapter Ten – Salvation
The group that straggled behind Danny into Kinn’s village near sunset was bleary and vacant. Danny himself could hardly keep his eyes open and his feet moving. Since crossing the river—one and two at a time out of fear that the ice might break—he had been pushing ahead half-delirious, no idea where he was or what he was doing. He followed the path kept clear by Kinn’s soldiers, knowing it would take them where they needed to go, nothing more.
When they rounded the crest of the last gentle hill in the stretching, orange sunlight of dusk, Kutrosky’s people stared in disbelief. Rows of cabins, cleared streets, smoke rising from roofs. Shelter. Safety. Everything their lives had lacked since their ship had crashed months ago. A few began to cry, the sound mingling with the wind in the swaying branches above them. One of the men dropped to his knees and wept. A soldier jogged to meet him and lift him to his feet, walking him into the center of the village in shocked silence.
“They need food and warm, dry clothes,” Danny instructed the first cluster of soldiers that ran to meet them. “Kutrosky didn’t prepare for the winter. They probably haven’t eaten a full meal in…in a long time. Do you have enough to go around?”
“We’ll find something,” one of the soldiers answered.
“Some of them might be injured,” he went on, ignoring his own throbbing hands and feet, “and there are a few babies with them. Is Alice available to tend to them?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll find her,” the soldier answered. “We’ll see to it.” His jaw was hard with rage, enough to send one of Kutrosky’s women shrinking away from him. Danny let him be. The soldier’s rage was for Kutrosky. So was his, what was left of it through his exhaustion.
“What happened to you?” a familiar voice asked Danny.
“We were taken prisoner,” Danny answered without thought. “Kutrosky’s people ambushed us. Kinn and I were left for—”
He turned and saw Sean standing to the side of the scene, fists planted on his hips, sharp disapproval radiating from him. Danny gaped and squinted, trying to force his eyes to bring the man into focus, to prove it was really him. “Sean?”
“Where’s Grace?” Danny couldn’t see his face clearly, but Sean’s voice dropped to a dangerous rumble.
Guilt stronger than anything he would have expected grabbed hold of his chest. It threatened to collapse him like the man the soldier had led off. Sean had every right to be furious with him.
“Kutrosky has her,” he answered as evenly as he could. His voice trembled. His whole body trembled, with emotion as much as fatigue. “He took her with him to find the transmitter.”
“What transmitter?” Sean demanded.
“And Stacey? Is she with him, too?”
Danny blinked and shifted to stare at the fuzzy figure beside Sean. He may not have been able to see him clearly, but there was no mistaking the academic lilt of Gil’s voice.
“Is Stacey Kutrosky’s prisoner?” Gil asked more forcefully, bordering on panic.
“Yes,” he answered and lowered his head. “And Heather. And Jonah.”
“This is your fault.” Sean took a step toward him, pointing a finger. He shifted to clarity as he came within a few yards of Danny.
“Yes.” Danny faced him, voice cracking. “It is my fault.”
Sean’s belligerence faltered. He lowered his accusatory finger.
“It’s my fault,” Da
nny admitted, too close to weeping for his own comfort. “I let Grace follow her passions in spite of her naiveté. I let her march off into danger because I believed in her too much to warn her to caution. I thought I could control the situation. I couldn’t. It’s my fault.”
Thick silence followed. Sean stood impotently by and watched him crumble. Exhaustion pressed down on him, bending him into submission. His useless eyes burned with grief that he couldn’t hold back. It would be so easy to let go and wither in defeat.
“What about Kinn?”
The question held him back from collapse. The way Sean asked was reserved, almost compassionate. God help him, but his old enemy was throwing him a bone to save his dignity.
Before he could answer, the tiny, formidable shape of the woman Mina, Grace’s friend, strode into view. She carried a bundled baby in her arms, and when she came close enough for him to see, wore a stern frown of determination.
“Where is Kinn?” she demanded, far less kind than Sean. Another woman walked up behind her, Julia, the one who did all the cooking.
Mina had helped Grace. She had bought Grace time to talk to him the day he’d been tied to the post. Her question had nothing to do with concern for Kinn’s safety. Prickles of possibility raced down Danny’s spine. He stood straighter.
“Kinn and I parted ways this morning. He tried to kill me—well, almost tried to kill me—then ran off to search for Grace.”
“If that bastard finds her….” Sean started, flaring with anger.
“He won’t find her.” Danny stopped him, sounding more certain than he felt. “He’s in as bad shape as I’m in.” But he didn’t have a herd of starving refugees slowing him down all day either. “We can go back across the river now, find her before the sun is fully set. Kutrosky can’t have traveled fast with prisoners.”
He turned to go, willing the strength for the search into his spent body.
A hand reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him. In his current state, that was all it took to send him spilling to the packed snow of the path. Julia and a few of the refugees yelped. Several sets of hands reached out to prevent him from falling completely. He was pulled to his feet again in seconds. He blinked, the world blurry. Gil held him upright.
“We can’t go back across the river,” Gil said. “At least not now. We’re stuck here.”
Danny’s panic was disconnected, as though it were at the end of a long tunnel. “What? No. We have to go back now. Kutrosky plans to attack our settlement.”
“Kutrosky has an army camped on the other side of the river,” Sean said.
Danny squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his slipping consciousness to focus. “How? We just crossed over. He wasn’t anywhere.”
“He and his men have hunkered down in their old camp,” Gil said. “We saw them from a distance when we came up here looking for you. You say Stacey is over there? With them?” He wrung his hands and twisted to peer through the forest, as though he could see his wife across the miles.
Danny nodded. The gesture made his head swim. “And Heather and…. We have to get to them before Kutrosky finds the transmitter.”
“What transmitter?” Sean demanded. He was the only person Danny could make out that hinted at any kind of understanding of the stakes they were up against. Everyone else surrounding him was either terrified or confused.
“The transmitter for his beacon, to contact Vengeance.”
Sean shook his head, shifting his weight and bristling with impatience. “What Vengeance? The beacon doesn’t work. Carrie told me so.”
Danny’s eyes flared wide, but instead of anger, Sean’s words brought him hope. “She knew. She knew there was something wrong with Kutrosky’s beacon.” He turned to face Sean, lurching closer to him. “I saw it. I saw the ship, or at least the indication of the ship, in orbit around Chronis on Kutrosky’s beacon. It’s there, but Kutrosky can’t communicate with it unless he finds the transmitter. Carrie knew where it was, didn’t she?”
“What transmitter?” Sean repeated. This time his words were distant and he ran a hand through his hair as he stared blankly ahead, thinking.
“We’ll have to search for it. Now that Carrie is dead—”
“She’s not dead.” Sean blinked out of his thoughts. Danny could only gape at him in disbelief. “She pulled through. At least she has so far. Marjorie thinks it could still be touch-and-go, but she’s hanging in there.”
“Is…is she conscious?” Danny stammered.
Sean rolled his shoulders and winced, his own guilt etched in the lines of his face. “Sometimes. Sort of.”
Danny was decided. He took a breath and faced the others. “We need to organize a group of men to head south, to try to intercept Kutrosky’s army before they get to our settlement.” He attempted to wrestle his way out of Gil’s grasp and march on. “Kutrosky can’t have more than thirty men with him and some of those might not be in good enough condition to fight. We have a total of thirty-seven adults in our camp, thirty-one without the two of you, me, Stacey, Heather, or Jonah.”
His foot hit a rock in the path and he stumbled, spilling to the ground. The world spun around him. He felt pain, from his extremities, his torso, his head, but it was remote, like a dream. He tried to roll over, to stand, but the energy for movement flooded out of him. His eyes wanted to close and stay closed. He fought it. He couldn’t pass out now, not now that he knew what needed to be done. They had to fight, band together and fight for their future.
He was lifted, hauled up under his arms and carried toward the center of the village. “We have to,” he tried to speak, but even that took too much energy. He couldn’t struggle against the people who were carrying him, taking him God only knew where. He couldn’t be a prisoner again. He had too much to do. They needed his help. Grace needed his help.
“Grace,” he muttered as the world slipped into blackness.
Time was running out. The lighting level of the executive sector had still been set to predawn as Danny crept through supply corridors to the hallway full of meeting rooms. He and Carrie had sweated through the night bringing the three metal crates up to ES5 from the storage room. They had hacked into the elevators to bypass the security code that allowed them up to the executive sector, holding their breath lest they make a wrong move. As soon as they’d done what they’d come to do, Carrie had rushed off to prepare for what promised to be a busy day.
Danny had stayed behind. He had one other mission to accomplish.
The executive sector hallway was still deserted. He had roughly three hours left until nine. It might take an hour or so for Private McKinnon to come looking for him once he missed the rendezvous time, but an hour was nothing. There was one last piece to fit into his puzzle, and it required a return trip to Governor King’s office. He hurried on to the private elevator that would take him to the governor’s floor.
Two steps from the elevator, the door hissed open. Danny froze as the governor’s daughter, Heather, stepped out. She started out of the elevator, head down, and barreled straight into him.
“What the hell?” She gasped and tensed. Danny had to hold her to keep them both from falling over.
“Shh!” He jerked her to the side as the elevator door slid shut behind her.
Adrenaline squeezed his chest, cutting his breath short. It was several seconds before he felt steady enough to let her go. As soon as he loosened his hold, Heather dashed to the side, putting distance between the two of them.
“I have every right to be here,” she panted, a hand raised in warning. Her cheeks were flushed dark red. “I’m not breaking any rules. You can’t tell my father.”
Danny gaped for a half second before whispering, “I wasn’t going to.”
Heather slowly stood straighter. Her shoulders relaxed and her eyes narrowed as recognition lit her expression. “I know who you are. You’re that Dr. Thorne. The one who was in my dad’s office yesterday. Who saw me—”
“One and the same,” Danny said. He turne
d away from her and stepped to the elevator, pushing the button. Whatever the fifteen-year-old girl was doing in an empty hallway before dawn, chances were she wasn’t up to any more good than he was. She wasn’t a threat.
He pressed the elevator button again. Nothing happened.
“It won’t work,” Heather told him. “It’s got DNA recognition.”
He faced her, controlling his expression not to reveal the panic that gripped him. He hissed out a breath and raked a hand through his hair, staring past her to the opening leading to ES5. His mind raced. Everything was where it should be. They could get along with the supplies he’d gathered. It was too much to hope he could get the book as well.
“Why do you want to go up to our floor anyhow?” Heather asked. She danced from foot to foot, darting a look down the hall to the elevator leading to the rest of the ship. Her young body swayed toward it as if she wanted to run. Instead she met Danny’s eyes, curiosity burning bright.
His heart pounded in his chest as the power he had over her dawned on him. After the position he’d found her in with Jonah the day before, she owed him.
“I need a book from your father’s office.”
“Why?” She crossed her arms.
“Why not?” He shrugged, mimicking her defiance.
The corner of her mouth quirked. “Which one? Dad’s got tons of them.”
“The wilderness survival guide. It’s big, bound in brown leather, and displayed on the table in the front room.”
“I know it.” Heather nodded. “It’s for show, you know. He’s never opened it. He hates old stuff.”
“I don’t,” Danny said. “Go up there and get it for me and I’ll make sure no one knows about this little trip out of bounds.”
Without hesitation she said, “Okay.” She broke into a smile and skipped to the elevator.
The door slid open the moment she touched the button. She leapt inside and pressed another button. As the doors slid shut, she sent Danny one last mischievous grin.
