by Merry Farmer
“You bet,” Stacey replied.
Carrie met Danny’s eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. He stared hard back at her, narrowing his eyes. “Stay within my sight.”
Again the cold feeling of anticipation trickled down Grace’s spine. Her friends must be anxious if they were listening to Danny. He had given his last command specifically to Carrie. The situation was dire if the two of them were working together.
“What do we do if things go sour?” Stacey asked, readying their flag.
“They aren’t going to go sour.” Grace pulled herself together and stood, ready to resume leadership.
“I hope the hell not,” Stacey replied. “The timing might suck on this, but I should probably tell you that Gil and I’ve got one in the oven. So let’s not mess that up, ’kay?”
Grace’s eyebrows rose and she broke into a smile. “Really?”
Of all things, Stacey looked embarrassed. “Yeah. Shut up.”
“Don’t look at me.” Carrie held up her hands when Stacey glared at her. “I’m sure I’ll be knocked up in no time myself.”
Carrie sent a smarmy wink to Sean. Sean lowered his head, glanced out over the waving field, and rubbed a hand through his hair. His eyes flickered back to Grace, ashamed.
Grace took a quick swig from her canteen and handed it back to Danny. Not now. They couldn’t afford personal drama when the balance of their new society was at risk. The part of her that would have burst into joy at the thought of her best friends having babies was long gone anyhow.
“I’m sure we’ll all be knocked up in no time,” she brushed over the topic. She fought the wave of nausea that accompanied the realization that she wouldn’t know whether Danny or Kinn was the father of her children. All of her efforts, all of her sacrifices, and that was what she had to show for it.
There was nothing to do but go forward. With eyes open.
“Let’s get this over with.”
There were guards standing along the ridge of the far hill as they walked across the rocky field. Placed intermittently between them were more flags like the one Kutrosky had fastened above his hut. Why a man who showed no interest in a dawning civilization had picked a sunrise for his emblem was another useless mystery to add to her pile with the wooden box. She glanced up at their Canadian branch. It was as close to an olive branch as they were going to get.
Kutrosky’s guards went on the alert when they saw Grace’s party, raising their weapons and calling down into the valley behind them. Moments later they were joined by others, men and women, until the people on the ridge outnumbered them two to one.
“Looks like they sent the welcome committee,” Stacey drawled.
Grace was beyond seeing the humor in her statement. She held her back straight and marched steadily forward up the hill. Stacey held their white flag high, the leaves fluttering in the breeze. Carrie and Sean walked ahead while the half dozen men with guns followed behind, shouldering their weapons. They just needed to let Kutrosky know they meant business. It was imperative that no one got hurt. That one thing hadn’t changed. She would make the future her priority, since the present was lost and confused.
By the time they climbed to the top of the hill, Kutrosky and his own armed escort were there to meet them.
“Ah, Grace Hargrove.” He smiled, singling her out and extending his arms as if they were old friends. The steel in his eyes said otherwise.
“Brian Kutrosky.” She did her best to smile in return. No need to turn the negotiations into anything more than what they were supposed to be.
“What brings you back to our humble camp?”
“We need to talk about the future.” She stood her ground, tendrils of red hair escaping from the bun at the back of her neck and whipping around her face as the late morning breeze traveled up through the valley.
Brian laughed. “Isn’t that what you said last time?”
She nodded. “It’s still true. We never resolved things.”
“What’s to resolve?” He made a show of shrugging, then cut her off before she could answer. “I see you brought some friends along this time.” His eyes narrowed when they met Danny’s. “And that you haven’t drowned that rat in the river yet.”
She drew in a careful breath. It wouldn’t do their cause any good if she ripped through Kutrosky before they even started their mission.
“Danny is a trusted advisor,” she replied without expression.
“Then I feel sorry for you.” Kutrosky laughed.
“We’ve come here to discuss a truce.” Sean stepped up, drawing attention to himself. They had rehearsed his part in the negotiations to the letter. Danny watched him as though marking his every word.
Kutrosky’s friendly smile slipped. “A truce? My, my.”
“You have some things that we need and we most definitely have some things that you need. Badly.” Sean stuck to his guns, far less capable of being intimidated than Grace was. She should have let him be the leader.
Kutrosky narrowed his eyes at Sean, glanced to Grace. “You going to let him speak for you this time?”
Grace shrugged. “We all speak together in our settlement, Brian.”
A slow laugh rumbled out of his chest. “Right. Let’s all speak together. But let’s do it in the shade.”
He turned and waved for them to follow down the hill. Grace glanced to Danny, and then on to Sean with a nod. Sean and Carrie walked ahead of them, Gil and Stacey and their guard behind them as they descended the hill. Grace could tell Carrie was nervous but determined to put on a good show. A wave of fondness for her friend settled her nerves.
A split-second later, that too was gone.
Carrie reached back to gather her hair into a ponytail as she walked down the hill. When she lifted her long mass of hair Grace caught a glimpse of the back of Carrie’s neck, of the tattoo high between her shoulder blades. A tattoo of a sunrise.
Grace’s eyes shot up to the flags all around them. Sunrises. Her heart choked its way into her throat and she stumbled.
Danny caught her and pushed her on.
“Keep walking,” he whispered in her ear, low and serious. “It’s all right.”
Her eyes shot to his, wide as moons. He shook his head and placed a hand on the small of her back as they walked.
She whipped back to Carrie again. Her friend had dropped her hair, covering the tattoo. But Grace knew what she saw. She slowed her steps, tried to backpedal, but Danny forced her to march on.
“Keep going, Grace.”
“This isn’t right,” she whispered. Her heart hammered against her ribs, panic threatening to swallow her. “It’s a trap. We have to stop.”
Danny shook his head and kept her moving forward. “You have a job to do, Grace. It’s too late now.”
“But Carrie—”
“I know. It’s all right. Trust me.”
Their eyes met. His were stone cold with determination. Up until that moment Grace had never seen what everyone told her when they said Danny was dangerous. She saw it now. It sent chills down her back.
She loved him. She needed to believe in that, even as her trust crumbled. Panic sunk like a rock in her stomach. She swallowed, kept her eyes straight forward, and pushed on.
The camp Kutrosky led them into hadn’t changed much since the last time they had been there. More branches had been set up to shade the small huts. Their wreck had been further deconstructed. A cluster of guards were perched on the far hill. Grace was fairly certain the rooms and tunnels that had been dug into the rut left by their crash had been widened, maybe deep into the ground. Several women were wandering out to see what the commotion was.
“You have to excuse me.” Kutrosky smiled and fell back to walk by Grace’s side. “I don’t think there’s enough room to meet in my shelter, like last time. How would you feel about sitting in the shade of our marvelous ES26?”
“It’ll do,” Sean answered for her.
Kutrosky frowned and narrowed his eyes at Sean. Grace f
orced herself to return his suspicion with a polite smile. It was on her shoulders to make this plan work. “I think that will be fine.”
The clearing in front of the hulking ship wasn’t as shaded as it would have been later in the afternoon. A large number of people seemed to be milling around the wreck doing nothing. Kutrosky had some of them fetch chairs, seats from the ship that had been taken into the underground tunnels. As soon as one was offered, Grace sat, Danny standing guard behind her. Sean helped himself to the seat beside hers, but even though more chairs had been brought out, the rest of their group remained standing. Grace took a deep breath. Panic aside, the plan was still moving smoothly.
Their few armed men spread out toward the edges of the shadow of the wreck while Stacey handed the flag off to Gil and joined Carrie a short distance away from the main meeting. The two of them scanned the area like hawks.
Grace let her attention wander for a moment to watch Carrie, uncertainty clouding her eyes. Carrie’s tattoo was no accident. What else wasn’t an accident? Grace had no idea who her closest friend was. She had no idea what she was doing.
Carrie met Grace’s troubled stare with a reassuring smile. That smile grew strained when it wasn’t returned.
“So what do you need to talk to me about this time? Same old, same old?” Kutrosky asked, lounging back in his own chair as Mina stepped forward to hand him a bottle of water.
Mina deliberately met Grace’s eyes, then retreated to a spot about ten feet away from Carrie and Stacey. Grace thought she caught the outline of a bruise on the tiny woman’s arm. She blinked. Bad as Kutrosky was, she had never imagined he would stoop to abuse. Just as she never thought Kinn would stoop to sexual blackmail. Her chest tightened.
Her gaze traveled around the clearing on its way back to Kutrosky. This time she saw the guards clearly, their hardened, hungry expressions. She would have trusted her well-being to Kinn’s men a hundred times faster than to these desperados. They were in over their head in spite of all of their planning.
She squirmed in her chair, looking for a way out. Danny was behind her where she couldn’t see him, his presence vivid.
“Our mission hasn’t changed, Brian,” she began in a smaller voice than she wanted to. “In order for all of us who survived the explosion of the Argo to survive long-term—”
“We’d like to set up an alliance.”
Sean’s statement froze her in her chair. She felt Danny shift behind her. Carrie and Stacey stopped scanning the camp and stared at Sean, Stacey confused, Carrie alarmed.
Kutrosky turned to Sean, cautious surprise etched on his face. “An alliance. Why?”
“Trade,” Sean went on, closer to the plan. “I’m sure there are things that we have discovered in our time on the moon so far that could benefit you, just as there are things you have discovered that we would like to share.”
“Like what?” Kutrosky’s voice grew flatter by the moment.
“We’d be interested in knowing how you dug your tunnels for one. How did you keep them from collapsing?”
Grace fought to keep a straight face, fought against welling panic. They had just started and already Sean was off-script. Her back itched with danger.
“They run deep, don’t they?” Sean went on.
“You have a good eye.” Kutrosky smirked. “We dug them like anyone would dig a hole, with the tools we have available to us.”
“What tools?”
Kutrosky narrowed his eyes, studying Sean to learn his intent. “Pieces of the wreckage mostly. It’s very handy.”
“Ours too.”
Grace dared another glance to Carrie. Mina had taken a step closer to her and Stacey. She stole a look behind her to the corner of the wreck.
“We’ve also noticed that you seem to have figured out a way to spin yarn from the wool of the sheep,” Sean continued.
“We have.” Kutrosky settled back in his chair. “Is that what you’re after? Shovels and yarn?”
“We could use the yarn.” Sean mirrored Kutrosky’s casual posture. “We’ve come up with other arrangements for housing and storage.”
“What are you offering in return then?”
Sean shrugged. “We’ve come across an orchard miles downriver. We have more fruit than we could possibly eat. We’ve learned fast ways to catch fish in the river. Since Kinn won’t let you near the river, it would be an even exchange.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” Kutrosky considered, raising a hand to rub his chin as he thought about the deal.
“It’s the principle of setting up trade that we’re interested in,” Sean explained. “We’d rather set up an alliance with you than with Kinn.”
Grace’s heart stopped in her throat.
“Sean,” Danny warned him.
“In fact, we want to join with you to crush that bastard.” Sean held his ground.
“Sean.” Danny edged toward him.
If there was a plan, Sean had just shattered it.
“I see.” Kutrosky grinned. The coup wasn’t lost on him. A sick chuckle started low in his lungs.
Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw Carrie step to Mina’s side. She leaned over and began whispering in Mina’s ear. Had she gone off-script too? Kutrosky didn’t notice. Grace wasn’t sure if she wanted him to catch Carrie or not.
“I think what Sean is trying to say,” Grace rushed to rescue the situation, voice trembling, “is that if we join together in peace—”
“That’s not what I—”
“We think it would be a good idea to compare resources,” Grace cut Sean off, desperate to go back to a point in the conversation before she had lost control, “so…so that we can find out if there are other ways we might help each other. Helping each other is what’s most important.” She flicked a sideways glance to Sean.
Sean would have replied, but a slow laugh rose from Kutrosky. “I get it. You want to figure out what our strengths and weaknesses are and take advantage of them? You think we’re fools?”
“We think—”
“It’s not our intention to take advantage of anyone,” Grace answered before Sean could. “There’s been more than enough of that already.”
“Ah yes.” Kutrosky turned to her. “The idealist speaks. Because we’re all here to form a Utopian society, aren’t we?”
Grace shifted forward in her seat, panic coalescing into anger. Even Carrie and Mina stopped conversing to see what was going on.
“I have said from the beginning that we all need to work together if we’re going to survive in the long term, if our children and our children’s children will survive.”
“Are you saying that because you’re pregnant?” He sneered.
“I’m not pregnant. Not yet.” Her frustration rose as he tried to wrestle the situation away from them. “I just want to find a way to help. To help everybody. Even you should be able to see that’s what we need to focus on now.”
“What’s the point in helping anybody?” He lounged in his chair. “I know as well as you know,” he glanced over Grace’s shoulder to Danny, “and certainly as well as you that in the end you’re just going to take what you want, what you’ve wanted all along and damn the consequences.”
“That’s not what we’re—”
“So why should I play along with your charade when I should be protecting myself?” He rode right over her protest.
Grace snapped her mouth shut, aching with the pointlessness of it all.
“Come on. We’re all adults here,” Kutrosky said. “I know you’re plotting something. What’s more, you’ve got her plotting something too.” He jerked his head to where Mina and Carrie had resumed whispering. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re really here about.”
Grace flushed.
“What are we really here about?” Sean tried to stop the storm.
“Destruction.” Kutrosky curled his lip in Sean’s direction. “Dominance. The same thing you’ve wanted all along. You want to kill me and
destroy my people because we know the truth.”
“There is no truth anymore—” Grace started her tired argument but stopped when she heard her own words.
“You don’t want an alliance, you want control. You want to control my people.” Kutrosky continued to harangue Sean. “Steal the women at least. That bastard on the other side of the river wants them.”
“Kinn is a menace that needs to be taken down,” Sean agreed.
His statement was drowned as Grace shouted, “Women are not a commodity.” Her voice shook. “We’re not yours to manipulate to get your way.”
A flash of wicked surprise lit up Kutrosky’s face at the force of her declaration. “Grace! I never would have pegged you to be so touchy. Can’t handle the role of brood mare like you thought you could?”
“I’m done with this.”
Grace started out of her seat but Danny clamped a hand on her shoulder to push her back in her chair. His hand stayed on her shoulder like a shackle.
“Whatever cause you think you’re fighting so hard for doesn’t exist anymore, Kutrosky.” Danny took charge, using her arguments. “The Terra Project is over for us all. You’re standing in the way of the future.”
“And you would know all about the future, wouldn’t you, Dr. Thorne.” Kutrosky stood and glowered across the shadow at Danny. “You and your experiments, your Consistory. You don’t have immunity from the coming storm now, do you, Dr. Thorne?”
“No, I don’t.” Danny’s reply was rock hard. “Neither do you.”
Danny raised his free hand. Half a dozen clicks echoed around them.
Kutrosky opened his mouth to say more but closed it at the sound. His eyes darted from side to side. Grace followed the line of his gaze. Her friends had drawn their weapons at Danny’s sign, guns from ES5 that she knew about and bows, not unlike Kinn’s crossbow, that she hadn’t known they were carrying. They trained them on Brian’s men all around them, on Brian himself. They’d brought the war with them.
Fear swelled through Grace’s anger.
“This is wrong.” She stood, not letting Danny keep her down this time. “Conflict isn’t going to get us anywhere.” She appealed not only to Kutrosky but to Danny as well, to them all. “We need to put the past behind us and look to the future. How many times will I have to go through this?” It was a plea for herself more than for them.
