“Actually, we just found out that you’re Becky’s ‘great’ uncle,” Ryder said. “We’re here about the hats.”
“Hats?” Margaret, Hondo, and Randy all asked at once.
“Hats!” Ryder restated. We have footage of the four kidnappers. Three of them were in a poorly constructed disguise, but it was effective. They were all wearing your hat.”
Hondo stared at Margaret, and Margaret stared back, then they both burst out laughing. “My hat?” Then Hondo paused. “Maybe you do have a brain in your head, even if you are related to that old mule Steve. Margaret, how many of these things have we made and sold in the last six years?”
Ryder expected Margaret to open her computer, but instead she looked toward the ceiling and started counting with her fingers. “Twenty-two.”
“How many have you sold this year?” Ryder continued.
“Three,” Maggie responded immediately. “Just two months ago.”
“Who did you sell them to?” Ryder could sense that he was getting somewhere.
“Why, your Ensign Steerman of course.” Maggie smiled, then frowned.
All four people in the room stared suddenly out the nearest window.
“With Steerman involved, does that mean Aster is involved as well?” Randy asked.
Ryder had to rewind through all his experiences with Aster. “I’m not sure. Nothing he has done or said leads me to believe that he is involved. But the math is fascinating. Steerman buys three hats, almost certainly the three hats worn by the kidnappers. When we met Aster and Steerman, they were with three companions. Guilt by association? I wonder if we can find out the names of the three companions who were with them at Arion?” Without pausing, he called, “Pinoke, you there?” With the link opened on the other end, he heard a sudden snort.
“Wha…oh....Yes, Apprentice Ryder?”
“Sorry to interrupt your nap, but I need you to look up some information, back when my party first arrived on Arion.” Ryder provided the date, then asked, “Can you find out for me who was traveling with Lieutenant Aster Freeport and Ensign Duncan Steerman? There should be three other members of the party.”
Lieutenant Pinoke was quiet for several seconds before she responded. “I assume this is for limited distribution.”
“That’s correct. How fast do you think you can get that for me?” Ryder asked as he stood and walked to a second window and scoured the area where Aster and Steerman had walked.
“Open access records. You could probably do it yourself in five minutes. I’ll have it in two,” Lieutenant Pinoke responded.
“Thanks, Heliotrope.” Ryder couldn’t seem to find Aster or Steerman in line of sight.
“You are welcome…William.” Pinoke then disconnected the line.
“Randy, can you go out to the front porch and take a nap?” Ryder asked.
“While I wonder whether those two are going to cut my throat? Sure, no problem.” Randy leered at Ryder.
“No, I mean rock on the chair and let me know if Steerman or Aster head back this way or move back toward the flyer,” Ryder clarified.
“Ohhhh, a ‘nap.’ Yes, I can do that.”
Ryder turned back to the table, where two sets of very alert eyes were staring at him. “Like I said before, I need your help. I’ve got several problems, and I’ve got loads of information. I’ve also got some big holes.”
Hondo pulled up his chair, scraping the floor, and put both arms on the table leaning forward. “So what do you know?”
Ryder quickly brought Hondo and Margaret up to speed. When he mentioned that Miss Li was part of DDF security, and that she had bolted and was now part of the kidnapping team, Margaret made him pause. “Go over what you saw and what you know regarding Miss Li. I was not aware that she was part of DDF security.” When Ryder indicated that he suspected Mr. Small was somehow involved, Hondo commented, “Never could trust those security types.” Hondo was rewarded with a sharp smack from his wife.
“What I don’t know is where the kidnappers took the girls, or why.” Ryder rose and started to pace.
“Can’t help you with the why, but I have some ideas of where,” Hondo spoke slowly but definitively. “At least if it’s Steerman and his friends. It appears likely that he is at the center of this somehow. Whether or not he’s the leader depends on the motive. Aster is a tougher question. Hate to throw out the barrel for a rotten apple, but if eighty percent of the barrel is rotten, it seems like the other twenty percent is bad too. But that takes too much supposition.”
Just then Pinoke came back through on the bug. “I have your answers, and some additional answers to go with those answers.”
“Oh goodie, an enigma wrapped in a riddle, surrounded by a mystery,” Ryder replied.
“Are you being snarky? Quoting one of your statesmen when I rose from my long deserved rest to help you?” Pinoke responded in kind.
“Sorry. What did you find out?” Ryder asked as he paused mid stride.
“Vander Portmaster, also known as Shooter, and Ednon Winger and Curran Newbold.”
“So what’s the rest of the story?” Ryder asked.
“You asked me to crosscheck for Singer or Stinger and Harold. After listening to the recording, with this information, I’m sure the one name was Winger. I am also more than fifty percent confident that the other name was not Harold, but Newbold. I think you have the kidnappers identified.”
Ryder heard someone tapping on the window. “I think I better sign off for now. Thanks for the great work! Go get some more sleep. Good-bye.” Ryder sat down and started talking with Hondo and Margaret about rafts and how they worked. They carried on the conversation for three or four minutes, trying not to look at the screen door.
Rather than Aster and Steerman, Randy burst through the door. “They’re leaving!”
“What?” Ryder jumped to his feet.
“I tried to get your attention. You said to let you know if they were approaching the lodge or the flyer. Well, they ambled back up stream, and when they reached the landing, Steerman started holding his hand to his ear. I think he was getting a message of some sort. Anyway, after that they quickly marched back to the flyer.”
As the word flyer was spoken, Ryder had reached the porch and watched as the ship rose out of sight and accelerated through the canyon headed down river.
“Now what do we do?” Randy asked solemnly.
Ryder made several attempts to reach Aster through his bug, but with no response. He hesitated, then tried to reach Steerman as well.
“Get Joel and Athena back here. I guess we’ll have to hitchhike out of here.”
Ryder turned back to Hondo. “You said you didn’t know why, but you had a good idea of where. What did you mean by that?”
Hondo leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “That gang has been here a few times in the last year. They asked me to run them on downstream below the falls. That seemed a bit odd to me. Most folks, after the adrenalin rush from the plunge, are ready to come back to the lodge. Plus there ain’t much to see for close to a hundred miles after the falls. Light rapids—not worth the trouble—barren landscape, hardly a tree in sight. The first time wasn’t a big deal, but then two more times after that? Didn’t make a lot of sense. The third time I paid a little more attention to what they were doing. Several of them seemed more interested in the cavern accesses than the river or the canyon. I’m pretty sure they were taking pictures with their sub-computers. That wouldn’t seem strange perhaps, but it reminded me more of old reconnaissance missions than tourist pictures. I’m pretty sure we’ll find them about ten miles below the falls, left side, about two hundred yards above the river. That or fourteen miles down the river on the same side, at about the same elevation.”
Ryder grasped the old man’s arm. “How fast can you get me there?”
Chapter 21: Break Dancing
Debbie was listening at the door when she whispered, “They’re coming.” All three girls shifted to their pre-planned positio
ns. Debbie and Cynthia chatted. Becky pretended to be asleep. The raft had made another sharp turn, and then plunged downward. There had been a notable splash when the raft entered the water. They had determined that they were probably above Kuu’aali Falls on the same river, but not sure how far.
Miss Li slid the door open again, summoning the girls out of their box. The raft was lashed ashore at a makeshift landing. It was well past dawn, but without her computer, Cynthia was not sure what time it was. She didn’t recognize the landscape, but even if she had been on this part of the river, she wasn’t sure she would know it. It seemed desolate. She couldn’t see trees in any direction, and the canyon walls rose on both sides steeply.
Miss Li pointed up the rock face about two hundred yards toward an opening that was well sheltered from above, with a hard rock protrusion jutting out twenty to thirty feet above the entrance. “Your ad hoc accommodations,” Miss Li stated. Newbold and Winger stood on either side of Miss Li with pistols that looked ridiculously small for their hands, but the deadly menace of the weapons was still clear. Shifting their bags to backpack mode, the girls began to climb, with Winger leading the way.
“Shooter, get back down as soon as you hide the raft,” Newbold called behind him.
The climb was challenging, with jutting rocks in all directions. Some of the stone surfaces sprang ten to fifteen feet into the air. On their side of the river, most of the rocks were a heavy combination of quartz mingled with ore. The climb was steep, and everyone slipped more than once as they tried to navigate between narrow openings and gravelly surfaces.
Cynthia was getting tired, even in the reduced gravity, and felt that they had probably climbed the better part of a mile, but they were still only about halfway to the cavern entrance. Newbold slipped, and Miss Li tried to grab his arm, resulting in both of them losing their balance and sliding about twenty feet down the gravel. Debbie immediately took off to the left. Cynthia nudged Becky, and they ran to the right. They were hidden by rock outcroppings before Winger even knew they were gone.
“Get them!” Cynthia heard Newbold scream.
“Okay, Becky. Like we planned!” Cynthia huffed. Cynthia turned up and away at the first fork of rocks, and Becky turned down toward the river. According to the plan, they would each run to the count of one hundred, and then toss an item, any item, out of their backpacks. They would repeat this process, tossing the items in different directions each time. Once they ran out of items to toss, if they were still free, they were to try to find a good hiding place after the count of one thousand, being sure to take as many twists away from where they tossed their last items as possible.
Cynthia had just tossed her sixth item, a hairbrush, as far as she could to the left when she heard something zip past her ear and explode several feet in front of her shattering rock.
“The next one is in your back!” It sounded like Winger. Cynthia stopped, put her arms in the air, and waited.
“I’ve got the Flores girl,” Winger shouted at the top of his lungs.
For a moment, Cynthia considered taking a quick twist and race for the next rock formation that was only ten feet in front of her. She thought that Debbie would probably try that sort of thing. But the plan was straightforward. “Don’t be stupid. When they catch you, surrender.” As she turned, she was glad she hadn’t tried to dodge. Winger looked mad enough to shoot. He pointed with the tiny pistol, and she raised her head and marched past him.
Several minutes passed, and Cynthia started to worry. “Had they killed the other girls?” It didn’t seem likely that the other two could have gotten away. But she kept hoping. Then she heard the sound she least wanted to hear, a shot, then a second shot, and then a third and fourth exploding in the distance to her left. “Debbie,” she muttered under her breath. Debbie had been her chief concern in the plan. She did not want Debbie’s blood on her hands, and if Debbie didn’t surrender, it was likely she would be killed.
Seconds passed, but they seemed like hours. Finally from above, Debbie, Miss Li, and Newbold appeared. “Where’s the other girl?” Winger asked.
“Apparently we guessed wrong,” Miss Li observed. “We thought two went left and one went right. With the trail they left, I’m guessing we’ll spot some discarded items from Rebecca to the right. Am I correct, Miss Flores?”
Cynthia wanted to respond with something really smart, but the tone of respect that Miss Li had provided felt like she had just earned an A on one of Miss Li’s famous tests,.“I can’t say,” was all she got out.
“Well, she can’t get anywhere anytime soon. We’re probably a three to four day walk from the lodge in this terrain. And I’ve no idea how she’d ever get up the falls,” Newbold stated. “But we’ve got to get her back. Time for reinforcements.” Cynthia noticed that he turned and made a call, but wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Her guess was Aster and Steerman.
It was another thirty minutes of strenuous climbing before they finally reached the entrance of the cavern. Newman and Winger escorted the girls the rest of the way. Miss Li broke off in search of Rebecca. “If I can’t find her, I should be able to narrow things down when Steerman arrives,” she volunteered.
“Yeah, Steerman should be a lot of help,” Winger said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Debbie looked scraped up a bit. Her knees and left hand were bloody from the jagged rocks, but was otherwise unhurt. She had the same triumphant expression on her face she got when she had just gotten under Ryder’s skin. Cynthia was worried that Debbie would make another break for it, and the look of death that their escorts displayed made it clear that another break was not a good idea. She took Debbie’s hand and kept a firm grip.
The entrance to the cavern was wide open. Cynthia had been spelunking two years earlier with some friends. One of her friends had gotten stuck in a narrow space, and the group had to call for help. A search and rescue unit had been able to pull her friend out. Since then, Cynthia had decided spelunking was not for her. She braced herself for yet another bad experience.
Inside the cavern, they followed a passageway that was cracked and narrow, but also tall and dry. The tunnel proceeded about twenty yards, and then opened into a large, natural lighted, open room about fifty yards across that was filled with giant shadows of scorched rocks and boulders, and tall natural outcroppings. It looked like a great place to play hide-and-seek, or even better, it would have been wonderful for a game of tag. Near the center of the room was a rectangular rock about five feet high, three feet wide, and eight feet long. The slab of rock looked like a table. As if to confirm this, several metal stools surrounded the rock, and open containers of food were spread across the surface. In a ringed area off to one side were a number of cots with sleeping bags done up military style at the foot of each bed.
The girls were escorted toward the far end of the room, and Cynthia noticed three exits. They were all dark, whereas the large room they were in was well lighted. There was indirect light coming from a crevice somewhere above, but the ceiling was over fifty feet high, so she couldn’t see the source. The party approached the far right opening. “In you go,” Newbold said briskly, but not unkindly.
Entering the den, Cynthia saw another stone table, and a variety of supplies, mostly for eating, including several plates, utensils, and a couple of pots and pans. The mismatch nature of the equipment reminded her of camping with her family. Two things her family did not have on their camping trips were the battery operated grill and refrigerator that sat next to the makeshift table. She also noticed at the back of the chamber a construction site outhouse. On the table was a box of standard issue light sticks. Light sticks were actually made of the self-eliminating quartz like material that was found in many parts of Demeter. The sticks were about two inches square and six to eight inches long. Cynthia also saw numerous sconces two to three feet above her head.
“Welcome home,” Newbold said as he closed a cell-like door. Cynthia could hear the locks click shut.
***
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br /> Becky had never been that athletic, so she was very surprised to find herself still running when she heard a loud echoing sound, then a second, third, and fourth—loud cracks echoing through the rocks. Obviously, Debbie was done. She had earlier heard a shout that indicated Cynthia was out as well. That left her. What should she do? She made one last toss, her backpack itself, then paused. “Up or down?” Once she got to the river, the movement would be more manageable, but she’d be easier to spot. She decided on up and back. She had no vain hopes of walking out of the canyon. Her best hope was to be of some assistance if the opportunity arose. She wished that she’d saved that last energy bar she’d tossed away, and considered going back for it. She counted to a thousand, then started looking for somewhere to hide. She found a ring of boulders and managed to squeeze into a small alcove between the rocks.
Nearly an hour later, Becky could hear the sounds of a flyer echoing in the canyon. Looking upward, she saw the flyer pass by her location, and then slow to near hovering as it gradually lifted toward the top of the canyon. As flyers were typically the property of Cryellians, she wasn’t excited by the new arrival, and crouched up closer to the rock she was hugging.
Chapter 22: Passages
“Can’t this crate go any faster?” Ryder asked impatiently.
“Never saw anybody so eager to go to their own funeral,” Hondo spat.
“We’ve talked about getting one of those new raft models. I understand that their cruising speed is fifty miles per hour, and actually can be cranked up to sixty,” Margaret informed everyone.
“Don't know why they had to tinker with a perfectly fine Perv design. They go fast enough already,” Hondo complained.
“The Pervs?” Joel asked. “Don’t you mean the Slicks?”
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