I took Aleka’s hand and stood. “We’re going to free him,” I said.
“We’re going to try.” She pressed something into my hand. My fingers closed around its handle, still clammy from her touch. I’d held guns before, my dad had insisted I learn how to take them apart, keep them clean, load and aim. I’d never fired one, though. He was adamant about not wasting ammunition, and they were no good against Skaldi anyway. Even when he’d showed me his secret arsenal, I’d never thought a day might come when I’d have to use one against a member of my own colony.
“How did you . . . ?”
“There’ll be time for that later,” she said. “Now it’s time to listen.”
She signaled for us to huddle close. I looked around the circle at their eyes, shining and intense in their shadowed faces. I could hear everyone breathing, though they tried to suppress the sound.
“Remember,” Aleka said, “we don’t shoot unless we have to. Our plan is to free Laman quickly and quietly, then head for the river. If anyone gets separated from the group, we rendezvous at the following coordinates.” She held up a series of fingers in rapid succession, and I strained to remember what they meant. “Querry will stay with me. The rest of you know what to do.”
The others nodded and, led by Petra, melted into the gray darkness.
We waited a minute before Aleka gave my arm a gentle tug. I tucked the gun into my belt, and we headed east, the same direction the others had taken. Though they couldn’t be far in front, it seemed Petra’s knack for invisibility had cloaked them all. “They’ll deal with the guards,” Aleka whispered to me. “It’ll be up to you and me to free him.”
“Why us?”
“Because he won’t trust anyone else.”
“And you trust them? Petra, the others? Nessa is one of Yov’s—”
“I trust them,” she said. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Querry. A lot I haven’t been able to tell you.” She didn’t look at me, but I saw the strain and sadness in the twin curved lines around her mouth. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to prepare you for this. But you’ve been watched closely. Until tonight. Wali was assigned to keep track of you. What they don’t know is that Wali is one of ours.”
I remembered Wali’s rifle jabbing into my dad’s back, looming over his head. I remembered his fury the night at the swimming pool, his anguish the night Korah died. One of ours?
But then I remembered him hanging around my resting place after last night’s interview. I’d wondered if he planned to question me about my conversation with my dad, threaten me with his muscles or his gun, but he’d wandered off before I settled down to sleep. At the time, I’d been too preoccupied with my dad’s cryptic signal to think anything of it.
“But how—?”
“There’s no time to explain,” she said. “Just remember, Querry, things aren’t always what they seem. You have more friends than you know.”
I nodded, trying to believe her. “What’s the plan?”
“Kin is on guard duty with three others,” Aleka said. “Araz and Yov are, to the best of our knowledge, stationed at the command post, there,” and she signaled across camp to the hill where I’d met them the evening before. I could see nothing from that distance, no lights or movement to indicate their location. “They’re in communication with Kin via walkie-talkie, so we don’t think they’ll put in an appearance at the prison site until the time they’ve chosen for the execution. If they do show up, that may complicate things.”
I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed a grimace flickered across her face as she said that.
“The others will flank the camp,” she continued, “and Soon’s contingent will seek to draw off as many guards as possible. If the guards follow the protocol they learned under Laman, they’ll leave at least two of them behind. It’s possible Kin will contact Araz at this point. If he does, the plan is off and we’ll have to try something else.”
Her frown deepened, but she went on.
“If all goes well, we’ll have a few minutes’ opening to make our move. Petra’s team will have the tougher job. They’ll need to overpower the remaining guards with a minimum of noise and fuss. Then you and I will release Laman and make for the river, where other members of our colony will be waiting for us.” She sniffed, an almost laugh. “At least, that’s the plan.”
I was no tactician, but I’d spent enough time around my dad to recognize that their plan was as full of holes as my memory. What if the guards didn’t bite at the decoy, what if Kin did contact the camp’s leaders or one of them made an unscheduled visit to check on their prisoner, what if shots were fired, what if my dad insisted on peppering us with questions, what if his hip, stiffer than usual from cramped sitting, wouldn’t allow him to keep up? “Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Because we still believe in him,” she said. “And in the colony. We don’t know for certain what Araz and Yov are up to, but we know it can’t be for the good of our people.”
A sudden fear gripped me. “The kids—”
“Are meeting us by the river,” she said in a soothing voice. “Everything’s been taken care of. All you need to do, and this might be the toughest part of all, is convince Laman Genn to go along with a plan he didn’t personally develop.”
I caught her eye, caught that hint of a smile I’d seen on her lips once before. It seemed like months ago, though I knew it had been only days. I realized she knew as well as I did how risky the plan was. Probably better than I did. She’d served as Laman Genn’s second-in-command, and the man wrote the book on risk. But she was willing to risk her life, they all were, to rescue a man who’d given them every reason to doubt.
“Thank you,” I said.
She stopped for the first time since we’d left the others, her eyes searching my face. Then, unexpectedly, she reached out and laid a hand on my cheek. Her touch lingered for a second, warm and surprisingly gentle, before her fingers slid off.
“Save that for an hour from now,” she said. “If we pull this off, we’ll all have reason to be thankful.”
We resumed our silent journey to the prison site. The sky remained a peppery dark, but the first hints of amber rimmed the horizon. We’d left the main body of camp behind, which meant less chance of discovery, though we needed to take care not to call attention to ourselves by tripping on the rough ground. Having arrived at this place only a few hours before, I hadn’t had time to learn its layout, and it would have been easy to lose my way. Everything looked different in the dark. But Aleka glided forward with confidence, never slowing or glancing to either side, and I felt sure that if I stuck with her I’d be all right.
Before long I saw the solitary tree where they’d set up their prison, its twisted outline stark against the dim glow on the horizon. I couldn’t make out human figures, but it occurred to me that if we got much closer we’d be totally exposed to their eyes.
The thought must have occurred to Aleka, too. “This way,” she whispered, and led me to a low hill that broke the ground to our left. We crouched behind the natural barricade and peered over the edge, but the distance and the tree’s silhouette made it impossible to see the people we knew must be there.
“We’ll wait here,” Aleka said. Her eyes scanned the sky, looking, maybe, for some sign or signal, or measuring the time till daylight.
“How will we know?”
“We’ll know. Be still and listen.”
I noticed the walkie-talkie hanging at her belt. Apparently, Petra had been busy tonight. “Couldn’t we call them?”
“Araz might pick up the frequency,” she said. “Hush now.”
I held my breath and closed my eyes, trying to reach out with my ears into the undisturbed night. All I heard was Aleka’s steady breathing beside me. That comforted me somewhat, though I still felt a knot of tension in my stomach. The pressure built as the moments passed by. Not knowing wha
t to listen for, I thought nothing of it when a sound like a rising wind sighed in the distance.
“That’s it,” Aleka said softly, her voice startling me after the long silence. “Soon’s group has been successful. Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?”
“That was Soon’s whistle. He carved it himself. Very ingenious, very useful. Let’s go.”
We rose to a crouch and started off in a long arc, staying always to the left of our target, where rocks and the occasional tree stump broke the open ground. We kept low and used what cover we could find. I still saw nothing except the prison tree, but Aleka always seemed to know when to pause and when it was safe to move again. Within a minute of stop-and-go running we had drawn near enough to the tree for me to make out two figures standing in its larger shadow, a third seated at its base. Soon’s group, as well as the two other guards, were nowhere to be seen.
“Get down!” Aleka hissed, and I dropped to the ground beside her. We’d fallen in open ground with no cover to speak of, but I hoped that with the distance and speckled darkness we might be mistaken for a part of the landscape. She placed a cautioning hand behind my head as we rose on our elbows to survey the scene. Her fingers prickled along the spot where I’d had my accident six months ago.
The guards’ backs were to us. They’d taken a couple steps away from the tree, so my dad’s shape could be seen as well, resting against the trunk. He seemed to be asleep. One of the guards was obviously Kin: short and stumpy, with bowlegs and arms that barely hung to his waist. His head jutted forward as he sighted into the predawn gloom. The other, tall and broad, was Kelmen. I hoped he’d prove as slow-witted about the rescue as he did about everything else.
“We wait for Petra,” Aleka breathed in a whisper hardly more audible than Soon’s wind whistle.
We waited. Each second seemed like an hour. I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare ask any questions. But my mind raced like my dad’s on overdrive. I ran down a long list of worries: why we’d put this off till dawn, when Petra would show up, how we’d know if Kin had called for backup, whether Soon’s group had managed to detain the other two guards, what would happen if they hadn’t. Still nothing moved in the dim light. I saw Kin confer with Kelmen, their voices too low to make out words. Then I heard a distinct rustling, and the guards spun, weapons drawn, aiming at the branches of the tree.
Not fast enough.
A dark shape fell from the knot of branches, swept their legs from under them, chopped at their arms. I heard the guards cry out in pain. Aleka leaped up and ran, and I followed a step behind her, sprinting low over the rough ground, keeping my eyes on the confused jumble of bodies at the tree’s base.
We pulled up in front of the tree as Petra disentangled herself from the guards and stood, pointing their pistols at them, one in each of her hands. The pale darkness disgorged another figure: Nekane, whose look of surprise showed that Petra had decided to wing it as usual. How the scout had gotten into the branches without us seeing her or the guards hearing her was beyond me.
“Well done, Petra,” Aleka said. She sounded as impressed as I was.
“Piece of cake,” Petra said blithely. She tucked one of the guns in her belt and, keeping the other trained on Kin and Kelmen, dangled their walkie-talkie in front of their eyes. “Or should I say, like taking candy from a baby.”
Kin’s eyes bugged with rage, but he kept his mouth shut. Kelmen, as usual, looked like he’d just heard something in a completely different language.
“Bind and gag them,” Aleka said. She leveled her own gun at the prostrate guards while Nekane produced the rope and rags. Within seconds the two were lashed together, the scout looking like an underfed twin that had grown out of its giant brother’s back.
“You’re on, Querry,” Aleka said.
I took out the red-handled pocketknife and squatted by my dad. A single glance told me how exhausted he was: though the ruckus of Petra’s one-woman show had started to rouse him, his eyes had yet to open. His face appeared pale and drawn, his hair seemed to have grayed even further in the hours since I last saw him. No visible cuts or bruises marred his face and hands, but I suspected Kin and Kelmen had spent the first part of the night working him over, the former for malicious fun, the latter out of some dim sense of duty.
His eyes finally struggled open as I sawed at the ropes around his wrists. At first he looked confused, even frightened. I thought about the many times he’d stood over me, silently watching before shaking me from sleep, and I wondered what he’d seen those times.
“Querry,” he said now. The confusion in his eyes registered in his voice as well.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I said. “We’re getting you out of here.”
“Out,” he said dreamily. Then his eyes snapped into bright focus and his voice sharpened. “No!” he said. “It’s not safe. You’ll be—”
“Laman,” Aleka said, stepping beside me. “Querry’s with us. We’re all here.”
By now I’d freed him from the ropes. He tried to push himself upright by bracing his back against the tree, but his bad leg gave out under him. Aleka and I each caught one of his arms and helped him to his feet.
“What is this?” he asked, looking around at the small group of rescuers. His eyes had lost all signs of sleep and regained their dark intensity. “Aleka, you know the plan, you know the need to save—”
“The plan has changed,” she said. “There’s simply no time. If we’d waited any longer, you might not be here.”
“Then so be it,” he said. “No man is worth taking that chance.”
I looked from him to Aleka. Their eyes locked, their jaws set. Ragged as he was, pale as she was, neither seemed ready to back down.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He remained silent. Aleka hesitated, her eyes dropping for a moment, then volunteered, “The plan, Querry, was to save you first. Then, and only then, to free Laman. We discussed this days ago, when the first real signs of trouble cropped up in camp. If ever the camp’s leadership were to change . . .”
“You’d have Querry on the first train out of here,” my dad finished. “And if it wasn’t feasible to bring me along, you’d leave me behind.”
“And return for you later,” Aleka added. “Which we may no longer have the opportunity to do. You know what they’re planning for you, Laman.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” he said.
“But why me?” I said. “What do you mean you have to save me? Save me from what? From the Skaldi?”
Both of them looked at me, then back at each other. I could sense a contest going on between them, entirely unspoken. But I still had no idea what they couldn’t or wouldn’t say.
“There isn’t time for this, Laman,” Aleka said at last, and I heard an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice. “I take full responsibility for what we’ve done. But we’re here now. What can you possibly accomplish by sacrificing yourself?”
“I can secure the future of this colony,” he said defiantly.
“By saving me?” I said.
Neither of them answered. Neither of them would even look at me. All the unexplained events of the past week came rushing back to my mind: how my dad had assigned Aleka to guard me that night in the hollow, how Petra had insisted the Skaldi were searching for something or someone, how the creature that had killed Korah had come looking for one specific victim. They’d driven us here, Petra had said, so they could take back what they’d lost. But the time was coming, Aleka had warned, when my dad might not be able to protect me anymore.
Not protect his camp. Protect me.
The question Yov had raised that night in the hollow bubbled out in words I knew as my own but in a shrill tone I hardly recognized: “What’s so special about me?”
“Funny,” a familiar, mocking voice spoke from behind us. “I was just about to ask that myself.”
“She’s a smart lady, Laman,” he said. “You should have beat it while you had the chance.”
The voice belonged to Yov.
He stepped forward. The silver pistol that had been Aleka’s flashed as it caught the traces of coming dawn. His usual crooked smile spread across his face, and a cruel light kindled in his eyes.
Petra instantly dropped the walkie-talkie and pointed the guards’ weapons at him. My hand reached for the gun at my belt.
“Put those down,” Aleka ordered in a voice I’d never heard from her before.
My hand froze. Petra wavered, her eyes flicking from Aleka to Yov. Aleka drew her gun, pointing it not at Yov but at the stunned scout.
“I said drop them,” Aleka commanded.
Petra did, the weapons clattering to the ground.
“Aleka,” my dad said, reaching toward her.
She held him back too. “I can’t allow this,” she said. Her gun swung in a circle around the small crowd, and we all backed away. Then she turned toward Yov, her gun still raised, her eyes pleading.
“We don’t want to hurt you, Yov,” she said.
His smile widened. “But we do want to hurt you,” he said. “So I guess that gives us the advantage.”
The dawn split with a sharp crack and a flash of light, but not from either of their guns. Yov’s face twisted, his features etched by the gunfire’s brief glare. Then he grabbed his leg above the knee and crumpled to the ground, his weapon flying loose. Aleka spun, shrieking, “I told you not to shoot!” I followed her frenzied eyes and saw Soon with his command group of Nessa and Adem, his gun raised, his face frozen in shock.
Yov rolled on the ground, gripping his leg and cursing. I heard footsteps in the distance, the faint sound of voices. Petra had recovered all three of the dropped weapons and stood facing Aleka, whose eyes gaped wide and whose gun hung limply from her hand.
Survival Colony 9 Page 16
