CHAPTER 28
There’s an entire city hidden
here.
Well, on second
glance, it’s more of a scavenged, retrofitted, grungy underground
settlement. The survivors have pitched tents and set up chemical
heaters. Here and there, I see salvaged ship parts doing double
duty as furniture. A couple of dirty-faced kids bounce on a broken
nav chair.
They pause as we pass
by, whispering. Then one of them calls, “Doc! The Dahlgren’s
looking for you.”
He nods. “I’ll find
her. Thanks.”
I’ll never get used
to the way her clan refers to Keri. My breath comes easier as I
register a ceiling so high I can’t even see it. I’ll never take the
open sky for granted again, though. Ambient noise gives the space a
low roar, part people, part machinery, and the air smells faintly
of spices, like someone is cooking.
The kids giggle and
whisper a little more, and then: “So is Rose!”
“She’s alive?” he
breathes. “She made it! Where?”
They point. To my
surprise, Doc alters course, practicallyrunning. March better be
down here somewhere, or I’ll never forgive him. Or myself.
I’m not Psi, so this
is probably pointless, but I build his face in my mind’s eye,
feature by feature, and focus on him. All my fear, yearning, and
need, I bundle up and send outward, hoping he’ll sense it.
Silence answers
me.
Shoulders slumped, I
follow Doc through the throng. Everyone looks tired, worn. In the
far corner, they’ve set up an infirmary, rows of bodies on
blankets. Blood. The tang of antiseptic. It’s all so astonishingly
primitive that I can’t believe people choose to live like this. But
folks do crazy things in the name of freedom.
Naturally, Doc heads
straight over. Two Dahlgrens are trying to patch up the wounded,
administer treatments and medicine. A weary-looking woman with a
sweet face, capped by red-and-silver-streaked hair, greets him with
a kiss. Not a polite one either. She melts against him in a way
that makes me look away, a private moment flaunted. I guess I know
now what keeps him on Lachion.
“This is Rose,” Doc
says, drawing my eyes back.
I manage a smile.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Her tone
is cool, and I sense she wants to be rid of me.
Doc adds, “She could
use my help here, but I’m sure you want to find the rest of the
crew as soon as possible.”
Nodding, I leave my
fear unspoken. “Thanks for seeing me through the tunnel.”
I part from him there
and thread my way through the camp, searching through the smoky,
intermittent light. In here it feels like perpetual twilight, faces
emerging out of the shadows to peer at me, startled and curious.
All strangers, all clansmen.
I find Vel first. He
sits apart from everyone else, of course, watching them eat. I
hurry toward him, remembering not to hug just before I grab him.
That leaves me standing there, not knowing what to do with my
hands.
He gets to his feet
in a motion that doesn’t entirely ring true as human, now that I
know what to look for. To my surprise, he does the hugging, awkward
and tentative, like a dance step he isn’t sure he’s mastered. And
he doesn’t have it quite right either. His hands cup the back of my
head, smoothing my shorn hair as if I’m a baby bird with ruffled
feathers.
It’s oddly
comforting. Even though I know what he is under the skin, it
doesn’t matter. In fact, I register awe at his versatility; the
ability to assimilate new customs seems enviable.
“Our situation is
less than ideal,” he says, when I finally step back.
I have to smile.
Typical Velith statement. He probably thought it a “trifle
inconvenient” when we were holed up in a cave on the Teresengi
Basin.
“You can say that
again.”
He cocks his head at
me. “Why?”
Right, he tends to be
literal. “Never mind. Have you seen the others?”
“No. I made one sweep
before settling here. Are you hungry?”
I am, actually. “Is
it real food?”
“S-meat with potatoes
and peppers,” he answers. “You’ll want to eat something. They’re
closing up in a few minutes.”
That decides the
matter. I take a bowl and get in line behind the other stragglers.
Short and gristly, the woman scraping food from the grill looks a
little like Keri’s grandmother, the clan matriarch who sacrificed
herself for us. She narrows her eyes on me.
“In case you don’t
know how this works,” she snaps at me, “that bowl is yours now,
Ambassador.” Her tone gains an ugly stress. “Keep up with it, and
keep it clean, or you don’t eat. You’re just like everyone else
down here.”
For Mary’s sake. I’m
steaming by the time I rejoin Vel in the far corner. They act like
I’ve put on airs and demanded all kinds of special treatment when
in fact we’d barely landed before all hell broke loose.
As I sit, I realize I
have no utensils, so I take a quick look around to see what
everyone else is doing. They use their fingers to scoop the food
into their mouths, which seems basic enough. It’s messy, but
practical.
“What was it like out
there, Vel?” I have to know. My imagination will create a thousand
terrible scenarios to torment me otherwise. “I was in the lab with
Doc.”
He steeples his hands
in a familiar gesture that tells me he’s thinking the question
over. “Bad,” he says finally. “Those creatures swarm, as if from a
hive mind. When the bombardment started, I thought the buildings
would break wide open and the beasts would devour us. I am more
than a little amazed to be alive.” His stark, quiet tone makes it
worse somehow.
A shudder runs
through me. I don’t ask anything more, not while I’m eating. I’m
not sure I can hear more, not until I know whether we all made it.
When I finish, I watch the others scrape their bowls clean with dry
granules, but I don’t have any. I hate being unprepared. Vel tips
some into my bowl wordlessly, and I smile my thanks.
Gotta love his
bounty-hunter travel pack. I should get one.
I feel a little
better now, slightly stronger. “I’m going to look for the rest of
the crew. They must be around here somewhere.”
The alternative is
unthinkable.
He regards me for a
moment with an inscrutable expression. “Have you applied for a
place to sleep?”
“What? No. Do I need
to talk to someone about that?”
Leaning around me, he
points to another line fifty meters away. “Lex is handling
that.”
I can’t miss him. Lex
is a mountain of a man with big, rough features; he also happens to
be Keri’s co-chieftain. If she ever gets over hating him, they’ll
wed to seal the deal. She doesn’t seem likely to do that anytime
soon with March on scene.
“Have you already
arranged for . . . accommodation?” A kind euphemism for the
shantytown we have going down here.
Vel pats his pack. “I
have everything I need.”
Well, of course he
does. “You want to come with me?”
“It seems pointless
to waste energy moving about when that might make it more difficult
for the others to find me.”
That makes sense, but
I don’t know if I can sit and wait. Patience isn’t one of my
well-developed virtues. “Vel . . . is there room with you? If I ask
Lex, I’ll end up sharing space with the clansmen.”
If what Doc said is
true, the McCulloughs went full throttle because they were afraid I
was intervening on the side of Gunnar-Dahlgren, bringing supplies
or reinforcements. I don’t want to guilt him, though, so I leave
the crucial part unspoken: And they aren’t too
happy with me right now. Since it was just a personal visit,
serving a dual purpose, and I didn’t bring anything but trouble,
it’s safe to say Gunnar-Dahlgren wishes me to perdition.
But I needed to make
sure Tarn told me the truth, and I wasn’t abandoning my obligations
to Keri. I had to make sure I wasn’t forsaking people who helped me
out of a jam. And on a personal level, I needed Doc to check me
out. I just don’t trust anyone else. If I’d known stopping would
prove so disastrous, you can bet I would’ve gone another
way.
But hindsight is
twenty-twenty.
The silence grows
awkward. I toy with the idea of reminding him he’s supposed to
watch my back, and he owes me for sticking by him on Emry, but I
don’t say another word. I figure he knows those things
already.
No clue what thoughts
run behind his eyes, but the silence starts to make me
uncomfortable. Maybe he’s not used to such . . . intimacy? I can’t
imagine that he is, given his race and what he does for a living.
I’ll say it’s that, and nothing personal. Mary knows, enough people
hate me as it is.
“You can stay with
me,” he says finally. “Are you still going to look around?”
“Yeah.”
“If I see”—he
pauses—“anyone, I’ll tell them where to find you.”
His hesitation tells
me he’s worried about March. That makes two of us.
I’m none too eager
for my own company, considering that everyone blames me for the
increased furor of the McCullough attack. It feels like the Hate
Jax backlash that followed the crash of the Sargasso—only this time, it really is my fault.
Nothing I did on purpose, but bad mojo follows me just the
same.
With a wave, I set
off into the crowd. I have people to find, or I’ll die
trying.
