And once, it had saved her life.
The smaller man whose name she couldn’t remember pulled the knife from Beryl’s boot, holding it up triumphantly.
“What are you going to do with a knife like that?” The woman—Oly, that was her name, Beryl remembered—questioned.
Beryl refrained from saying any of the twelve snarky comments on the tip of her tongue. Silence seemed to be a virtue at the moment.
Satisfied after finding the knife that neither she nor Vlad was carrying a weapon, the small man took Beryl’s arm and looked at the phone on her wrist, twisting her arm at an uncomfortable angle.
“Theirs aren’t working, either,” he said.
“So you’re not the ones who turned off the communications.” Wolf paused after he spoke. It looked to Beryl that he was thinking about what that could mean. He smiled then, but didn’t say anything more on the subject. “Quince, tie their hands.”
Quince—the giant man with them, hadn’t said a word since they had come across each other at Whit’s house, just as he hadn’t said anything at their dinner with the Civitians—came up with some ties that seemed purpose-made from a bag he had with him. As Quince tied their hands behind them, Camp growled.
Quince reached back into his bag, looking for something. As he did, a small radio-like device dropped out and onto the floor. It took Beryl a second to recognize it, and even then, it was only because she had seen them in movies—it was a walkie-talkie. Quince picked the device back up and replaced it in his bag. He then pulled out what Beryl recognized as a muzzle, even though, like the walkie-talkie, she had never seen one in person. Trying to figure out how the muzzle worked, Beryl remembered that, as far as she knew, the Civitians didn’t have a dog with them, and there was no way they could have thought Poydras would be alive after all these years.
It meant they had come here fully expecting to need it for Camp. There had never been anything peaceful about these people.
Beryl suddenly realized there was a lot more going on in the known universe than she had thought. It had been inevitable that the settled planets would eventually develop separately and, quite possibly, turn away from the ideals which had led to their founding.
It seemed that this separation was happening faster than she expected.
And if Civitas was already going rogue, it was only a matter of time before the other planets did as well.
And, probably, Columbina, too.
Quince manipulated the fabric of the muzzle so one end opened up toward Camp. The large man knelt down to place it over the brown dog’s mouth and nose. He did so carefully, like someone who had been around dogs before and wanted to be gentle with Camp. Camp was having none of the gentle movements though.
As the big man knelt, Camp growled louder and rolled his lips back to bare his teeth.
This was definitely not a gesture that needed a translator.
“Let me do it,” Beryl said. “He’ll let me do it, but he’s going to take off your hand if you get any closer.”
Quince pulled away at Beryl’s words and stood up. He moved toward her, seemingly happy to have her volunteer to put the muzzle on the dog.
“Why don’t we just kill the dog?” Oly looked at the blade of the giant knife in her hand lovingly, as if she wanted nothing more than to test it out.
Beryl looked at the knife, and realized that as impractical as it was, at close quarters it could easily slit the throat of Camp.
Or herself, for that matter.
Other than Quince, who seemed horrified by the statement, the rest of the Civitians seemed to consider her words, as if they might allow her to kill the dog. Beryl had to do something—anything—to save her dog.
“No!” Beryl had wanted the statement to come out authoritative, as if she knew something more about Camp than the Civitians did, but the statement came out desperately, the way she really thought about the situation. Not for the first time, Beryl wished she had a better poker face.
“No what? Or you’ll kill me?” The woman held the blade in her hand up to the room’s windows, allowing it to catch the glint of the late afternoon sun streaming through them. The woman then turned the tip of the knife toward Beryl’s back and the tie that bound her hands together. “Good luck with that.”
“You can’t kill him.” Beryl’s mind raced with thoughts of how she could stop this crazy woman from killing her dog. “You can’t kill him because he’s the only way we have to track my dad.”
“What?” A tight smile formed on the woman’s lips. For some reason, the gesture made Beryl remember the woman’s full name: Oleander. Appropriate, Beryl thought, that the woman was named after something poisonous, even if everyone called her Oly. “Do you think I’m going to believe that story?”
“It’s true,” Vlad said. Although he had a better poker face than her, Beryl knew Vlad cared almost as much about Camp as she cared about the dog. Sometimes, she was jealous of the relationship between her dog and her ex-boyfriend.
This was not one of those times.
The confirmation of the dog’s importance from Vlad caused Wolf hold a hand up to Oly, a gesture telling her to stop. He was clearly the one in control. Beryl thought that was a good thing. Unlike this Oly character, Wolf didn’t seem crazy. He might prove himself to be ruthless and a killer, but there was a difference between that and someone who was ruthless and a killer—and unpredictable.
Oly clearly fell into the latter category, and Beryl had hardly spoken to her.
“Oly, no need to do anything to the dog right now,” Wolf said. Beryl looked to Oly, and thought the Civitian woman looked disappointed.
“They’re clearly lying,” Oly replied, like a child who knew she wasn’t going to get her way but was going to make one last effort at getting what she wanted.
“Let’s say they are. What’s the harm in letting the dog live for now? And if they aren’t lying, it seems like having a way to track the one person we want to find seems like a great idea.” With Wolf’s words, Oly put the knife back in a sheath on her back, her lips still a little pouty. The placement of the sheath seemed designed to heighten the threat rather than serve a useful purpose. “Besides, I kind of like that dog. He’s a fighter.”
Wolf told Quince to untie Beryl, and the big man once again moved toward her to do so, still not speaking. Watching him, Beryl thought Quince reminded her of someone. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was definitely someone from back home on Columbina. It was something about the gentle way Quince acted around Camp and how little he spoke. She just couldn’t figure out exactly who it was.
Untied, Quince handed Beryl the muzzle, which she slipped over Camp’s snout. Beryl could tell Camp didn’t understand what was going on and did not like having something covering his nose and mouth, but he put up with the indignity because it was what Beryl wanted of him.
With the muzzle on, Quince stroked the dog’s head, and Camp stopped growling, as if he knew that this particular person did not mean him harm. Beryl really wished she could figure out who he reminded her of.
Beryl stood back up and Quince replaced the ties on her hands.
“Now that we have all those formalities taken care of, how about we get down to the real business.” Wolf sat down in one of the comfortable chairs in the room, carefully crossing one leg over another, before he spoke again. “I am going to assume from your being here without him, that you have yet to find Whit.”
Beryl tried to make her face show no emotion or give anything away. She knew Vlad was doing the same thing next to her.
“You wouldn’t have come straight to the house if you had him. You would have been at your Bird, attempting to get him as far away from us as possible.” Wolf seemed to be thinking out loud, trying to figure out what was going on as he went along. “I think the better question is, where is everyone else? And if they aren’t here, where are they?”
Beryl considered telling Wolf something to attempt to throw him off track. But he seemed per
ceptive, like the sort of person who would know she was lying.
He didn’t seem like the sort of person who would take kindly to being lied to.
If Vlad was thinking of lying to Wolf and throwing him off track, he thought better of it as well. The two of them remained silent.
Wolf considered the two of them. He caught Beryl’s gaze and held it. Beryl tried to will herself to look angry and as if she was the sort of person he didn’t want to mess with, but it grew too difficult and Beryl looked away.
“As you obviously haven’t found Whit, no need to talk immediately. Why don’t I have Quince take you someplace where you can both think about what you want to tell us. While you’re there, you can also think about what we’ll do if you don’t tell us the truth about my questions.” Wolf relaxed back into the soft chair where he was sitting. “How about we give you an hour or so to figure out what you want to do. We’ll come and see you then, and if you aren’t going to tell us the truth, I’m sure we can come up with some…consequences.”
Wolf’s little speech done, Quince took one arm each of Beryl and Vlad. Untied but muzzled, Camp followed them as Quince led them out of the house. The other man whose name Beryl couldn’t remember followed. Beryl guessed he was there to make sure she and Vlad didn’t try to overpower Quince.
Not that there was any real chance of that happening. Vlad was tall and large, but Quince was a true giant. He made Vlad look small, and made Beryl look like a child.
Quince led them to one of the outbuildings, then inside a door that stood open as if the Civitians had been planning to use the building as some sort of a jail. Rather than push them in, Quince let the two walk in on their own volition, with Camp trotting alongside them.
Inside, the large room that greeted them was dark, though the fading light streamed in through several windows on the far side of the building, slightly illuminating what looked like drones. Beryl decided they were probably farming drones done for the day or otherwise not in use at this point in the farming season.
Along one side of the room, three small doors led off of the large room. One of those stood open, with a light radiating out of the room. Quince led them directly there. He didn’t have to speak for Beryl and Vlad to know he wanted them to go into the room. The two complied, and Quince shut the door behind them as soon as Camp’s tail passed the threshold. Beryl looked around the room. It was not large, but not small, either—maybe twelve feet square on each side. It was also entirely empty. And the only way in or out was the door through which they had just come.
Beryl listened as two sets of feet left the building, the main door shutting behind them. As soon as she heard the second door shut, Beryl tested the handle of the door that was keeping them in the windowless room. Because her hands were tied behind her, Beryl had to use her elbow to attempt to open the long, door handle. Just as always happened in the movies when people were locked in an empty room and they tested the door handle, it remained locked.
It appeared she, Vlad, and Camp were not going anywhere.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The last of the day’s sun fell through the trees, dappling the edge of the river with dancing light as it shone between the leaves.
It was, Fawn thought, a beautiful scene, especially with the sound of the river rolling over the rocks. She was trying to think about the good things about what was going on. Unfortunately, the coping mechanism of optimism she had used for years of misery was not working so well now.
Her mind kept going back to the anything-but-good situation around her.
Heming, injured.
Iris, unable to communicate with Rediviva above them.
Beryl, Vlad, and Camp, still gone when they should have been back long ago.
Whit, still not found.
The Civitians, somewhere on or above the planet, trying to find Whit for unknown but surely unpleasant reasons.
Also, the Civitians, somewhere on or above the planet, quite possibly trying to find and kill them as well.
There was very little to be optimistic about, so Fawn once again attempted to focus on the natural world around her.
Except doing that, she started thinking about the Caterkillers.
And, almost worse than the Caterkillers, whatever unknown other creatures lurked in the woods.
Fawn was beginning to wonder why she had ever agreed to go on this expedition in the first place.
*
Vlad and Beryl sat with their backs against the far wall, looking at the single door into the room. Their hands were still bound behind them. Camp curled up next to Beryl, having given up trying to pull the muzzle off of his nose after ten minutes of attempts to do so had proved fruitless.
Likewise, Vlad and Beryl had given up attempting to get the ties off of their own hands. Their attempts to untie each other’s bonds had not gotten any further, nor had their attempts to get the muzzle off of Camp.
“Where do you think their Bird is?” Beryl asked. For the most part, the two of them had been silent. There wasn’t anything to discuss. At least, there wasn’t anything for the two of them to discuss that they wanted to talk about. “I mean, they had to get down here somehow.”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it,” Vlad said. He really hadn’t thought about it. Their own Bird was sitting where they had left it, appearing untouched. “I’d guess the rest of their group is up on Ivy, waiting for something to happen down here or attempting to find Whit from the sky.”
“Do you think they have a method to track people from up there that is better than ours?” Beryl seemed to have decided it was time to talk about the unpleasant things they had been avoiding. It was probably for the best, even if Vlad didn’t want to discuss anything beyond a way to get out of their latest predicament.
Vlad’s mind filled in the part of question Beryl hadn’t asked, in which the Civitians found Whit before they could. “I doubt it, or they wouldn’t be here waiting to find us. They need us to find him, and they know it,” Vlad said. “It’s why they haven’t already killed us. I am sure they are capable of doing so. If anything, they would prefer not to have us here and would rather kill us than keep us alive.”
Vlad looked over at Beryl, who sniffled as if she was trying to keep something inside her that she didn’t want to let out. He needed to think about something other than the Civitians finding Whit, and he knew Beryl did, too.
“We need a plan,” Vlad said. They couldn’t see any natural light in the windowless room, but he knew there wouldn’t be much light left outside. It wouldn’t be long until the Civitians returned, wanting answers from the two of them.
“Any ideas?” Beryl replied. “My brilliant ‘check the door to see if it’s unlocked’ plan failed, so I’m fresh out of them.”
“Clearly, my ‘have us untie each other’ plan was not effective, either.” Vlad leaned his head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling, as if it would give him the answer he needed.
“How much do we tell them?”
“I don’t want to tell them anything, but that Oly character is a loose cannon. I think we need to give them something.” Vlad had no doubt Oly would kill any one of them, including Camp, and not think anything of it.
He suspected she might kill them even if Wolf told her not to.
“I agree. Something true, but not the whole truth. Wolf is the sort of person who would see through any lie, and we both know I have no ability to lie convincingly. I’ll give anything less than the truth away without saying a word.”
“Even I wouldn’t want to play poker with him.” Back on Columbina, Vlad was known as something of a poker player. He wasn’t as good as Heming, but he made plenty of money.
“We could say something about needing to get away from creatures we found in the woods. Or that we split up to come back here and get the Bird, without saying anything else about why.”
“They’ll immediately ask why if we tell them we came to get the Bird. As for the creatures, why would we
have come back here and left everyone else in the woods? I could see that being somewhat plausible, but we clearly came back here not in a hurry, like we would have been had we been racing to get back and save everyone else.”
“Well, I definitely don’t want to even hint that Heming is hurt. The last thing they need to know is that we are down one more person. We’re already outnumbered, even when we’re all healthy.” Vlad opened his eyes again, the ceiling unchanged from when he had shut them earlier. It still didn’t provide him with any good ideas.
Neither he nor Beryl spoke for a few minutes. Every idea Vlad came up with in his head had the sort of fatal flaws that made him unwilling to even suggest it.
“If you want, I could try the door again and see if it magically unlocked.”
Vlad smiled, despite the situation.
Then he thought of something. “We could tell them we got split up from the rest of them, and our plan if that happened was to meet back here at the compound if that happened.”
Vlad could see that Beryl was considering it, trying to poke holes in the story. “Aren’t they going to expect everyone else to show up soon, then?”
“Probably. But if nothing else, it buys us a little time to come up with something better, or a way to get out of here.”
“And how did we get split up with them?”
“Caterkillers—we got split up fighting them off. As an added bonus, that story gives these Civitians a reason not to go out into the woods. And it will be good for you, because there actually are Caterkillers out there. You won’t have to lie much.”
Beryl smiled. “Let’s go with it, then.”
Outside the room, Vlad could hear the sound of the door to the outside opening up. Then, as before, there were steps on the floor beyond the door, before the handle of the door rattled and opened.
As the door opened, two figures appeared: Wolf and Quince.
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