“He just left on patrol, searching for the Raviners. She has a few hours,” Vanda added quietly.
Jenna’s chest tightened. Lenata easily made the short list of people Jenna loathed, but she still didn’t wish her dead.
“All right, say we hide out in this decrepit ship for a few days,” Kip said. “If we don’t get any more rain, the Sauro will probably drop enough for us to cross at Rocky Bend. It’s possible that the three of us could make it back to my house, and if those Raviner friends of Lenata’s have left, I can take both women out in a crawler. I have a good friend in the Ravine who will probably fly them out for the right price. But Vanda, you know that your village won’t stay a secret if the city bird makes it back home. Why are you really doing this?”
The silence dragged out for a long moment. Part of Jenna wanted to slug Kip for reminding Vanda exactly why she should let Jenna be executed: it was the only way to make sure the Roran village stayed secret. However, she knew that something about this whole proposition didn’t make sense, and Kip was right. They needed more information.
Vanda sighed heavily. “I can sense the impressions from the isithunzi, and it is not a force for good. If it is indeed a manifestation of the planet, as I have been taught, then the planet truly hates the humans living upon its surface. I want the Armada to come and take us away. It may be the only way to save our people from the isithunzi.”
Jenna’s stomach churned. “Then why does Kendra matter to you? Why did Lenata risk so much to bring her here?”
“She is a Speaker,” Lenata said huskily. “I suspected it as soon as she managed to short out the medical capsules without even being awake. She can truly communicate with her isithunzi. We don’t know why. We don’t know what creates such a bond between a shadow and a human. It has happened only with Father Konrad that we know of, but of course our people have hoped for another. Most Rorans wait for another Speaker to usher us back into greatness. To lead the village in reconquering Zenith by using the incredible forces a Speaker can harness. However, my mother taught me that we needed a Speaker to tell us what isithunzi really are—and what they truly desire. They are the true enemy here.”
Jenna could see Kip shaking his head, a sharp movement in the shadows. “They’re aliens, Vanda. We can’t communicate with them.”
“You honestly think that? After all your years of study?” Vanda’s tone was disgusted. “I tell you, they can plant suggestions in your mind. Very strong ones, very hard to resist. Is that not a method of communication?”
“Kendra speaks to hers,” Jenna added, her voice shaky but certain.
Vanda’s voice dropped to a whisper again. “My people are very traditional. I have tried to convince my fellow councilmembers of our danger, but they will not believe me. They will listen to a Speaker, though. If Kendra can convince them that the isithunzi are dangerous, maybe they will let the Armada take them away without fighting back. Many innocent lives could be spared.”
Jenna digested this silently. This village was filled with children who were as innocent as Kendra was. When the Armada came blazing in to rescue them, lives would be lost if the Rorans fought back. Could she live with that if there was a way to save her daughter and spare the villagers as well? But what would Kendra say to the Council in the first place? Jenna had no idea what her isithunzi might communicate to her. Even if Kendra told them the isithunzi were dangerous, would the Rorans listen to her? She was only seven years old!
Another glaring possibility needed to be pointed out too. “Even if you leave the village, the isithunzi could go with you,” Jenna said. “Konrad Roran was a Speaker without ever stepping foot in this forest. Kendra and I have also been shadowed without living in Zoria.”
“But every villager that has left has lost the shadow. That is why they are named Forsaken,” Lenata argued. “I do not think the isithunzi will follow us now.”
“I’ll only go if Kendra comes with me,” Jenna said stubbornly.
“They need her!” protested Lenata.
“No, they don’t!” retorted Jenna hotly. “Vanda, your own people do not trust her. She is an outsider, and they will never believe what she says, whether it comes from her shadow or not!”
Vanda ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath. Jenna planted both her hands on her hips and waited. “Think of the lives that could be saved,” Vanda pleaded softly. “I will help her find the right words to convince the Council we must leave, and then we will be ready when the Armada arrives. But if you try to take her away with you now, there will be uproar in the village. The Guardians will go after you all. Your daughter could be severely injured or killed. If they capture you, you will be executed, and she will probably lose her Blessed status. Worse, we will all be left at the mercy of the isithunzi.”
Jenna chewed on a fingernail. This was the devil’s own choice. She probably could take her daughter with her—if she insisted, Vanda might relent and help her try to smuggle Kendra out of the village tonight just because Lenata needed help getting to safety. But if Vanda was correct and the guards hunted them down to find the runaway Speaker, Kendra would end up much worse off with even less chance of rescue.
“Mrs. Forrest, I give you my most solemn vow: I will protect your daughter with my life. Just promise me that you will bring the Armada and take my people away from here.”
“We are out of time,” Lenata declared, her voice low but firm. “Will you help me reach the Quinzell or not?”
Jenna hesitated for a long moment. Kip wisely didn’t speak at all, and even Lenata held her tongue. Jenna’s chances of escaping execution in the morning were not good, and like Kip had so aptly reminded her, she couldn’t help her daughter if she was dead. “Fine,” she relented at last. But a sickening dread filled her stomach, and she wondered if she was making the worst mistake of her life.
48. The Quinzell
Once Jenna had agreed to Vanda’s mad scheme, she had no time to do anything but impulsively hug Kip.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For taking us in.” Her breath hitched. “For saving my life.”
Kip awkwardly patted her back. “Just make sure it’s worth it, eh? Find that ship, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jenna pulled away and turned back to Vanda, who hovered near the doorway.
“Not a word until you’re out of the village,” she warned softly, and then she pushed the door open soundlessly, tugging Lenata after her. Jenna stepped forward and slid out of the cracked door behind them. Fortunately the moon was nearly full, casting a soft glow over the whole village. The guards were missing. Either Vanda had sent them away, or they were conspiring with her, perhaps hiding in some of the shadowy corners near the other huts. Hopefully they had some plan to explain how Jenna had disappeared on their watch.
Vanda was already stealing silently away from the hut, keeping to the long shadows near the huts as much as possible. She moved slowly, her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. Jenna gave them just enough space so that she wouldn’t stumble into them by accident. She nervously glanced around in every direction, but the village was utterly silent. It puzzled her until after they’d passed about the fifth dark hut, when she remembered that the Rorans didn’t use technology. No solar globes, let alone electric lights. The cell hut had some kind of lantern sitting outside the door, but that apparently was an anomaly, since she didn’t see any other lanterns outside the huts. The whole village probably went to sleep as soon as it was dark. What else were they going to do?
She stared eagerly at each hut they passed, wondering if Kendra slept inside. It was like a maddening itch just out of reach—she couldn’t check, yet she knew her daughter might be just on the other side of one of the bowed wooden walls. When they passed the last hut and moved into the trees, Jenna sighed both with relief that they hadn’t been seen and with sharp pain that she was l
eaving her daughter behind.
Vanda led them past several large trees, slowing almost to a crawl so Lenata could feel her way past the giant roots. Jenna began to wonder if Vanda meant to lead them all the way to the ship after all when Vanda stopped at the trunk of the third tree. She reached down into a pitch black crevice between knobby roots and yanked out a large lumpy object. She handed it to Jenna and then pulled another one out for Lenata. Jenna peered at it, her hand fumbling through the straps. It was the pack she had carried from Kip’s house. She didn’t bother to look inside; from the weight it probably still held all her supplies. Strapping it on, she glanced around the forest. It was anything but quiet in here. The screeching, buzzing, and chirping made her skin crawl. Who knew what they were going to run into? What if more wattenwils found them? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to.
“To reach the ship, you need to travel due south from here,” Vanda directed quietly.
Jenna opened her eyes and stared up at the moon. “How in the name of all the stars am I supposed to know what direction is due south?”
Lenata snorted softly and thrust a small, slick object at Jenna. “Press the button at the top.”
Jenna did so, and a small digital display lit up with 36 degrees.
“Just point until you get 180 degrees. That’s south. Think you can handle that?” Lenata drawled.
“You’re awfully smug for someone who can’t read the display on her own.” Jenna had no desire to fight, but neither was she in the mood to put up with Lenata’s condescension.
Lenata fumbled through her pack and drew out a pair of goggles. “You’ll need those too,” she said. Jenna pulled them on over her head, and Lenata pressed a button on the band. Lenata’s profile flared to life in green. The night vision goggles. Jenna sighed in relief. She wasn’t going to have to trudge through the jungle with only moonlight to guide her.
“Just stay as directly south as you can,” said Vanda, her voice still low, reminding Jenna that they were still within earshot of the village, not to mention any patrolling guards. “Keep moving. The closer you get to the ship, the safer you will be.” She pulled her daughter close and kissed her forehead. “May the luck of the Blessed go with you,” she murmured.
“Thank you, Mother,” Lenata said huskily.
Then Vanda started to pick her way back toward the village. “Go now,” she urged over her shoulder. “Go swiftly.”
Jenna pointed the compass until she found the south heading, and then Lenata offered her arm. Here goes nothing, she thought heavily. The blind leading the blind. Go swiftly, indeed. Then she carefully led Lenata around the tree and deeper into the forest.
The next half hour was pure torture. The compass seemed to point their way directly through every overgrown thorny bush, if it didn’t lead directly to a giant tree trunk. They spent so much time picking their way over rocks and roots and around vegetation that Jenna wondered if they had even made it twenty meters away from the village yet. Without the compass, she would probably have led them in endless circles. Even with the compass confirming that they were still more or less heading south, she wondered if they weren’t hopelessly treading the same loop around and around. Everything looked the same—looming dark greenish blobs and shorter stabby greenish blobs. Bright green things scurried around by her feet, though she never got a good look at them. It was probably a good thing that she didn’t get a good look at them. The noises were scary enough.
“Are you armed?” she asked Lenata, thinking of the animals underfoot, the guards patrolling the jungle, and the Raviners across the river. She suddenly remembered that when they had crossed the river, Lenata had been armed with a gun, a real modern laser, the kind of weapon the Rorans would never use. The guards had taken it from Lenata when they had captured them at the Sauro River, but had Vanda given it back to her daughter along with her pack?
“What do you think?” Lenata said with a snort. Aha! Vanda had given it back to Lenata.
“I think you should let me carry the gun, that’s what I think,” Jenna said.
“I think you should just keep dreaming,” Lenata said.
Jenna sighed but didn’t protest. Lenata probably didn’t trust Jenna not to shoot her and run off on her own. The thought was tempting. If not for Lenata, she wouldn’t be in this mess.
At last Jenna caught the glint of moonlight reflecting on metal above the treeline. After another endless slog through trees, vines, and thorny branches, they broke through the trees into a clearing. Well, an area clear of massive tree trunks, Jenna reconsidered as she stared at the large metal tube that was almost completely grown over. Bushes grew in tight clumps right up the sides of the ship, and the ubiquitous vines covered nearly every other metal surface. Only a small strip near the top was clear enough for Jenna to be sure that they were staring at something manmade rather than a really peculiar hill.
“Mother said that the landing was a bit rough. The pilot hadn’t flown a ship in more than two decades,” Lenata explained as they picked their way through the vegetation toward the rear of the ship. “He was an early convert to the Roran lifestyle who came from Motambique.”
“How long ago was that?” Jenna could see that much of the rear fuselage of the ship was gone. Had it broken off during the landing? Or had it been salvaged by the Rorans when they first landed? What would they have used the metal for?
“When our people escaped the oppression by the Armada. Right after Father Konrad was killed,” Lenata answered.
They reached the jagged edge of the open back end, and Jenna peered into the gloom. “So this has been rusting in the jungle for more than four decades,” she mused. “I don’t even want to know what’s in there. Vanda can’t possibly expect us to camp out in what is essentially a dark, musty cave. Who knows what animals have made their homes in there?”
“She said to try the pilot’s pod in the front. I guess it still seals.”
Lenata stepped ahead of Jenna, keeping one hand on the vines running up the side of the ship. She walked hesitantly forward, guiding herself around the curve of the ship. Jenna followed after her, glancing backward every so often, wondering if something was going to come charging out of the gaping hole behind them. Suddenly, Lenata stumbled to a halt.
“Here,” she said. Jenna wormed her way past Lenata, trying to avoid as many of the prickly fronds from a nearby bush as possible. They had reached the pilot’s pod, and Lenata stood right in front of the sealed door. Jenna studied it for a minute and then twisted and pulled on a manual release, yanking the door open with a cringe-inducing screech. Lenata covered her ears.
“Well, you just announced to everyone within two clicks that we’re here,” she grumbled.
Jenna didn’t bother to answer. Instead she tugged the door all the way up and ducked her head to step inside. Lenata awkwardly clambered in behind her and pulled the door back down until the seal clicked again. A set of wavery emergency globes activated, and Jenna pulled the night vision goggles off, staring around in awe. The ship controls and nav computer were still intact in the front of the pod just below the viewscreen, though all the panels were dark and grimy. The crew chairs were missing, and Jenna immediately realized they must have been removed from the pod to be used as the Council chairs. She wondered if the village council numbered five because there had been five chairs in the pilot’s pod or if that was just a coincidence. She could see the bolt holes where all five had been attached to the dust-coated floor. Something odd caught her eye, and she stepped forward to look at the insignia engraved at the top of the ship’s control panel. She slung her pack to the floor, dropped the night vision goggles on top of it, and wiped away the dust on the insignia.
“This is an Armada ship,” she breathed.
Lenata frowned. “That’s not possible.”
“No, look! This is the Armada emblem—right here.” She traced the fami
liar emblem on the control panel and then remembered that Lenata couldn’t see it. “Never mind, just trust me. I know what it looks like. This is an Armada ship.” She stepped closer, studying the controls. What kind of ship was this? Would it have some kind of emergency beacon she could activate? Jenna shook her head in frustration. Andie would know the answer to these questions, probably would know just how to get a forty-year-old pilot’s pod up and running. But Jenna had never been interested in ships of any kind, let alone ancient ones. The emergency globes still worked. So why not a locator beacon? But if the ship had one, why hadn’t the Armada found it before now? And how had the Rorans ended up using it to escape to Zoria? Had someone in the Armada arranged the “escape”?
“Where do you think the supplies my mother mentioned are stored?” asked Lenata gruffly, clearly unwilling to even discuss a connection between the Armada and the Rorans.
“I’m not—” A sudden screech interrupted her as the door began to swing open again. Jenna’s eyes darted around the pilot pod, wondering where they could go. There was the door that presumably led to the main ship, or maybe to the storage that Vanda had spoken of, but it was sealed shut. Jenna moved toward it just as a man in a black slimsuit stepped through the door aiming a large laser directly at them.
“Looky what I found here!” he crowed. “I told Finn I saw our target slipping away from the village, and I was right!”
Just what they needed. Finn’s Raviners had made it across the river. Obviously they hadn’t dared enter the village.
“And Lenata the traitor, too!” the man added. “Tonight’s my lucky night!”
Lenata told him quite forcefully what he could do with his luck.
“Now, Lenata, that ain’t language for a lady.” He trained his laser on Lenata, clearly considering her the greater threat. “Just give me a reason. I’d love to end your miserable life, but then Shiz wouldn’t get to use you as an object lesson. She gave particular orders. You know what she thinks of traitors.”
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