Pauli trudged up toward the foothills, a pack laden with the dismantled wings of her glider awkward on her back. If she hurried, she could climb in daylight. Sealed into her flightsuit were copies of Rafe's research notes, anything that might help her use the computer they had left in the caves.
"Don't ... don't forget Thorn,” Pryor had said, breaking off to cough. “You know how young he is .. but the mind ... potentially he's got the best brain on the planet...” Her blue eyes filled with tears, which Pauli didn't think the spasms of coughing had brought on.
"Tell him..."
"Captain, this is long enough,” a medical tech warned Pauli. “Now, Doctor—” He slapped an antibiotic patch on her fragile throat.
"Reverse vampires,” Pryor husked. “Damn, that stuff is scarce! Keep it till we need it!"
Pauli helped settle the older woman against the pillow that propped her to help her breathe, despite the fluid in her chest. “We need it now, Alicia,” she said. “If you die of pneumonia, what will become of us?"
"You'll ... think of something..."
"If you don't shut up,” Pauli threatened, forcing a smile, “I'll tell Thorn Halgerd you're sick."
Pryor's sudden obedience turned the false smile real, and let her maintain it as she left the clinic. Rafe was waiting outside.
"I cached the pack at the camp perimeter,” he told her.
"For God's sake, Rafe, tell them I'm sick, tell them I'm sleeping, or that I've gone to check on something—but don't tell people that I've left!” she asked. “I won't have time to see Serge before I leave, either. Will you kiss him for me?"
Rafe hugged her again. “Go now,” he said. “We can't take any more of this."
She raised her eyes toward the distant, misty cliffs, tempted to fly instead of climbing up there. Don't risk it, she told herself. Once you get some answers and transmit them, maybe you can fly back.
What would she see up there? Pryor's fears for the Secess’ renegade had affected her more than she wanted to admit. He might be sick, or dead up there in which case, I'll give him a decent burial somehow, she told herself. But if he was there, would he be an ally or an enemy? She hoped she wouldn't have to use the weapon heavy on her hip. Perhaps the weight Halgerd had placed on her—captain, a human born, not cloned as he had been, even the fact that she had given birth—would let her handle him.
He had gone up into the hills to be alone with himself for the first time in a short life every bit as deprived as those of the refugee children. The Secess’ had made him a thing, a killing machine interfaced with other killing machines who looked like him, and whom he loved as much as any creature as starved for humanity could love anything. But they had died. Unaccountably, he had failed to die with them, failed to betray the enemies he found on Cynthia to the creators who had so abused him.
Pryor hoped to turn him, hoped that whatever had drawn his “father” to her side might serve to turn the cloned son from his exile back to humankind for the first time. Cloned from one of the most intractable minds ever to terrorize a research university, Halgerd was potentially a strong ally. If he could be turned. If he could be convinced that he too was human and had a stake in the dying settlement.
What if I tell him that Pryor is sick? At her age, people die of pneumonia. As Pryor knew, which was the only reason she consented to have the valuable antibiotics used on her. She knew her worth to Pauli and to the settlement. That was one tactic she could use. Another was the danger to the children, to Lohr who had had every reason to kill him, but who had saved his life.
What are these tactics? Pauli thought. We're human, he's human. Let it go at that. She quickened her pace, struggling up the slope, which grew increasingly rocky and increasingly steep. Soon she would be climbing, not hiking.
She brought up against a boulder so quickly that it forced a grunt out of her, then froze, listening. That scuffling crash, what was it? An animal? Her hand slipped down to her blaster, and she released the catch of the holster. There it came again. Not that she knew much about the habits of predators—other than humans—but she didn't think that a hunting beast would make that much noise. Unless it was sick.
She drew her weapon, and crept forward.
A spatter of pebbles fell, and something heavier with them. That was a human voice Pauli heard, crying out in pain and frustration. Who had seen her leave and been able to outpace her into the foothills? she wondered. And why would someone do that?
She set her weapon on low power and began to stalk whoever had cried out. It was hard to stalk noiselessly, while struggling not to fall on the scree, or to let boots scrape against the rocks. Fortunately, her quarry made even more noise than she. Up ahead now, Pauli girl ... there ... one last boulder...
A wail of pain and sorrow floated back to her and made her quicken her pace. Rounding the last boulder, Pauli saw Beneatha crouched at the base of a rock, her booted foot caught in a narrow crack. As the xenobotanist saw her, she laid her head down and wept.
"Why don't you ask what I'm doing here?” Beneatha demanded. Her dark face was coated with dust, except where tears and sweat had left clean black streaks.
Pauli glanced past the woman at the rocks. Another hundred or so meters ahead some of them were high enough to be classified as cliffs.
She sat down on her heels beside her old adversary. “Looks like I got here in time to stop you from doing it,” she remarked, her voice calm as she'd trained it to be. “The river—I set a watch on the bank where Ramon..."
Beneatha turned her face away and laid it against the cold rock.
"I'm sorry,” Pauli said firmly. “But if you're stupid enough to plan to join him, you had it coming."
"You know better than that.” The woman's voice crackled with anger. She turned her head slowly, and Pauli was sure that she was gauging the distance between her hands and Pauli's blaster.
"Don't try it,” she warned her, and holstered the weapon. “All right, so you don't want to throw yourself into the river where your friend died. But you certainly look like you were planning to throw yourself off one of these rocks until you got your foot caught."
Beneatha spat a series of words at her. “Good. Now you want to kill me, not yourself. That's a step in the right direction. Which, in case you'd forgotten, is back down toward that settlement. Where they need you."
"How can I go back there?” the xenobotanist cried. “I'm the one that's destroyed it."
"On purpose? You actually set out to spray that fungus on the fields? You wanted to strike half the population crazy? You tried to do that?"
"Don't overact Yeager,” snapped Beneatha. “You know what this place means to me. You know how hard I've worked to make it run, to help these children have a new life, to have one myself..."
Pauli raised an eyebrow and looked at the nearby cliffs.
Fresh tears streaked down Beneatha's face. “I can't forgive myself. I meant the Kwanzaa feast to celebrate our new future here—and look what it's done! How can I live with this?"
The sun was rising in the sky, and Pauli had a long climb ahead of her. She was conscious of a furious aggravation, and her back ached from squatting down.
"How do you think I handle it?” she demanded. “Something got by you, as it's done for centuries. But look what I did, what I planned. A whole race of people, wiped out! I planned it, and I'd do it again if I had to. You remember, you had plenty to say about the heartless, ruthless, racist military."
Beneatha's head drooped. “How do you handle it? I can't believe you don't care."
"That's the first sensible thing you've said since your feast turned sour!” Pauli declared. “I have to go up to the caves now to use the computer there. Which means I have to face a man I refused to kill. Then I have to come back. If I'm real lucky, I'll have something worth coming back to. You think I wouldn't rather join you in a nice quick jump off the nearest cliff?"
All the fear, all the uncertainty, and the months of guilty frustration that Beneatha's p
rinciples inflicted on Pauli came bubbling up in an angry brew. “Dammit, you've been a thorn in my side long enough!” Pauli shouted. “You've fought at every point, you've been self-righteous, obstructive—and the minute you make a mistake, you want to take yourself out. I had you down for a pain, maybe an enemy, woman. I didn't have you pegged for a coward."
Beneatha glared murder at her. Good. Just a little more.
Pauli unholstered her sidearm, and began methodically to burn away at the rock that imprisoned Beneatha's foot.
"Don't jar my hand, or you won't be able to get as far as the cliffs,” she said. The rock crumbled under the fine red beam. Despite the cold, she felt herself sweating. What if Beneatha brought a rock down on her skull and took the gun?
The last of the rock chipped away, freeing Beneatha's foot. The boot was scratched, but not punctured. “See if you can put weight on it."
Beneatha braced herself against a boulder, then, cautiously, stood free. “I can manage,” she said stiffly.
"For how long?” Pauli asked the question flatly, with none of the anger and sarcasm she had used before. “Long enough to get to the cliffs? Or to get back home?"
Wearily she checked the blaster's charge, and slid it back into its holster. Beneatha was wearing her out, and the longer she stood here, the more formidable the climb to the cliffs looked. “You might want to think of something else,” Pauli suggested. “If you really want to punish yourself, what's the worst thing you can do? Not kill yourself, certainly. But sentence yourself to life, life among the very people you injured. Do you want me to tell you that? Hell, I'll sentence you to live if you want,” she took Beneatha by the shoulders and held her at arm's length.
"What do you think I've told myself?"
Beneatha bent and examined her foot again. “If I take the boot off, my foot will probably swell."
"Probably."
"I think I can hobble back to camp, though. They'll strap it for me there."
Pauli shut her eyes to hide tears of relief.
"I've got a comm, if you want to use it."
Beneatha shook her head. “Better not. Let ‘em think I had a flashback, wandered off, and hurt myself. I'll say I blacked out, and when I came to, I limped on back. They'll put me under observation but"—she sighed—"it's better than admitting the truth."
Pauli held out a hand to the other woman.
"Don't think that this makes me approve of what you've done—or what you may do. Right now, I don't ever want to see your face again."
"I've never had your approval, so I won't miss it,” Pauli said. “You can go right ahead and hate me all you want, Beneatha. You're not alone. But at least you'll be alive to do it."
The xenobotanist glared at her. “Why do I feel like I've been tricked?” she muttered.
Pauli sighed and adjusted her pack. It wasn't getting any lighter. “Do you really think I'm that smart?” she asked over her shoulder.
With any luck, that parting shot would keep Beneatha simmering with the fury and chagrin that would save her life all the way back to camp.
18
Since the last time Pauli struggled up the rock chimney to the caves, the trip had grown no easier. Lit only by cracks in the jagged rock walls, and by faint light from where it opened near the Cynthians’ caves, the rocky chute was dark by late afternoon. Ice made hand- and footholds treacherous; and if the rockfaces protected Pauli from much of the wind at these altitudes, an occasional frigid gust struck at just the right angle to draw wails and howls from rock, like breath hooting over an empty bottle.
Pauli cowered back into the nearest crack until the wind died and the howling subsided. In one such respite, she took out her light and hung it around her neck. In the next, she opened her pack and snatched out the first food she found, a high-energy sweet that hit the bloodstream with a rush of energy. Though she climbed more strongly after eating, she knew she'd have to pay later. Even in the icy cold of the rock chimney, exertion made her hair sweat and slide down her back before she had scrambled halfway up.
There were no moths to stop her now, she told herself Even if there were, they'd all be dormant. And her worst fear, of a sudden attack of vertigo or madness while climbing, had vanished with the knowledge that she had not eaten any of the tainted bread. Ice and rock broke off in her hand, and her pulse rate spiked. Adrenaline, she reminded herself. Good for rock climbing. Among other things. She clung to the rock with both feet and one hand while seeking another grip. Always stay anchored at three points, her survival instructors had drilled her. At the time, she wondered why a ship's pilot needed to know such things. Now, she no longer wondered: she climbed, and she clung, and she thanked God for every sturdy rock outcropping.
The wind was working itself up into frenzy once more. She hunched her aching shoulders and pressed against the unyielding rock as the wind screamed into the shaft. It shook and boomed from its force until Pauli too wanted to howl. Then the wind died again. The quiet was unbearable.
"Thorn?” she called, her voice reedy and echoing as it rose into the still night air. “Thorn!"
That wouldn't do. She sounded like a scared girl. Maybe he hadn't heard. If he's in the caves, she realized mordantly, he had to have heard it. Remember, he isn't just a clone. They augmented him. Halgerd probably thought a climb like this was light exercise.
A grayish light told her that the lip of the chimney was almost within range. Slowly now. Don't get cocky, she warned herself in between sobbing gulps of air. That rock looked rotten; there was ice to her left. There! One foot secure. Now, try the other. Grip with the left hand, and with the right raise yourself until you can see over the rim, grab the nearest projection, test it, and lever yourself out!
She lay flat, panting, on the rock for long moments, almost too weak to fight the easy tears of exhaustion until she felt the sweat begin to cool all over her body. If she rested any longer, she'd put herself in danger. Like Pryor.
"Thorn?” she called again. But up ahead, the caves Rafe had plundered to kill the Cynthians were dark. She turned up her light, unsnapped the holster on her weapon—she was no match for Halgerd's speed, but she had to do the best she could—and advanced at a cautious, limping walk. Her muscles were beginning to ache from the long climb.
To her surprise, her left hand brushed across a rope. Someone had chipped and smoothed the rock here, and strung up handholds. She didn't think that the evacuees had had time, or heart, to make this place more than marginally habitable: so it had to have been Thorn.
The beam slanted across the cave as she entered. Her imagination turned the long shadows slanting up across the walls into the spectres of Cynthians dead seasons ago, dead and watching her. The caves still smelled faintly from their musk, and a few stray scales, somehow still preserved, glittered with reflected light.
Her light showed her traces of human habitation: neatly stacked cartons, scrubbed dishes, boxes of food. In the most sheltered alcove of the outermost cave she found tools, oiled and carefully wrapped, commgear, now deactivated, and—where was the computer? She edged farther into the caves, into the quarters that the settlers had marked out and hated. Immediately she recoiled.
Her light had glinted off shining wings.
At least she hadn't screamed. As soon as her urge to panic, to hurl herself out of the cave, and back toward home (such as it was now) subsided with her pulse rate, she remembered. Lohr had lent Thorn Halgerd his wings. To make it easier for the man to come back to them, once he permitted himself to believe he deserved companionship.
And Halgerd had hung them on the cave's wall right across from the neatly folded pile of foil blankets that he used as a bed. Nearby were a heatcube, a spare torch, and the computer. Halgerd's private quarters resembled nothing so much as a cell: just necessities, kept painfully tidy. Except, of course, for the wings, hung up in a place of honor,to remind him of what? that once he too had flown? or that once, someone had given him a gift?
Pauli shook her head and sighed.
Slinging her pack from her shoulders, she set it down and approached the computer. Slowly, now. Tired is stupid. First, check with Rafe, if you can. She forced herself back to the mouth of the cave. As she suspected, the wind made transmission impossible.
If she couldn't provide the camp with an immediate answer, the least she could do was make certain that when she could talk to them, she'd have the right answer for them. Wearily she walked back to Halgerd's stark quarters, slapped POWER ON to set the heatcube radiating, then shuddered with relief as the warmth spread throughout the sheltered cavern. She switched on the light he kept here and wrapped herself in one of the light blankets. Then she tucked her hands in her armpits and strode up and down until her feet warmed too.
Settling down before the computer, she tugged her crumpled notes from her pack. So tired, she thought, yawning. And it was warm in here. She should eat something before she started work, she supposed, but it was warm here, out of the wind...
There was no point in trying now. Her eyes were blurring; she might just as easily erase data she needed as enter the facts she had. But she'd be damned if she'd curl up on the Secess’ bed. She tugged another blanket from the pile, wrapped that around her too, and leaned against the rock wall, staring at Lohr's wings.
Should turn down the lights, she thought drowsily. But the light and warmth were good, so good; and it was quiet here. She caught herself slumping to one side. Why not? It's not as if I'm going to wake up and see big, black moths hovering over me to bring me to trial. After all, the Cynthians had wanted the human settlers to climb up to the caves. Uriel and Ariel had invited them. Now she was sheltered, just as they had intended her to be.
Lohr's wings glittered and blurred before her eyes, shifted into a shining haze like the nebulae on the Cynthians’ wings as they danced in the high passes the way she'd seen them the last time she had climbed up here. Seen them, loved them—and been forced to destroy them.
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