by Kate MacLeod
Because that would just lead back to Clementine.
14
Scout knew the days were short and the nights were long on this planet, at least currently. It made sense to keep plowing on despite the total darkness. She could see well enough with the night vision her glasses provided for her, even if the incessant green was starting to give her a headache.
But the dogs were having a tougher time. They stayed close by Scout, watching her for guidance. They both kept on going, putting one paw in front of another, but she could see they were tiring. They were letting more and more of the thick snow coat their backs before shaking it away.
Actually, the thick layer of snow was probably warming. With no exposed flesh, Scout only had a vague sense through the layers of her clothing that the temperature was dropping, but she knew that it was. And her dogs had only the vests to protect them, vests only really designed to keep them weighted down in the low gravity.
Daisy ranged farther and farther ahead, sometimes checking out multiple paths before coming back to get Scout and the dogs going on the better one before running forward again. She was like a machine, never tiring.
Scout still had stim running through her bloodstream, but she didn’t like it. It made her teeth grind together and her muscles clench, and the light from her glasses was piercingly bright. And on top of all that, she was still tired.
Shadow stopped walking and lifted his paws with a little whine, one after another, then two at once. He even tried three, teetering on a single paw before falling into the snow.
Scout tried to urge him to keep moving, but he wouldn’t budge. She dropped to one knee and took one of his paws in her mittened hand. The bottom was raw and bloody from walking over freezing rock and snow.
Scout unzipped her coat, her breath hissing at the sudden rush of cold, then bundled him inside to zip it back up around him. She still had to hold him up with her hands, but he would get warmer soon.
She could press on. She could keep up, even with the extra weight. She had to. It had been hours since they had been jumped by the last three assassins. They must have been missed by now. Their compatriots would be on top of them all too soon. She had to keep going.
Scout hugged Shadow close and took another step up the mountain, but this time it was Gert who made a soft whine and refused to take another step. Scout looked down at her. She wasn’t lifting her paws as Shadow had done. It was almost like she wasn’t sure why she was whining. But Scout could see the bloody paw prints up the trail behind her, little pools spreading out beneath her as she stood looking up at Scout with great sad eyes.
“What’s the problem?” Daisy asked as she came jogging back down the path. “It’s barely steep at all here. We should be making much better time.”
“The dogs,” Scout said. “I don’t think they can keep walking like this over these trails. It’s too tough on their feet. I can handle Shadow all right if you can carry Gert?”
Daisy’s head tipped as she looked down at Gert. With her face wrapped in scarf that even overlapped the edges of her goggles, it was impossible to see her face, but Scout could feel her frowning darkly at the three of them.
But then she turned and marched back up the hill without a word.
Was she leaving them behind?
“Come on, Gert,” Scout said. “Can you walk a little?”
Gert wagged her tail gamely, but when Scout took a few steps, Gert remained behind.
Scout walked back to Gert’s side and squatted down to press her scarf-covered face to Gert’s, ignoring Shadow’s grumble of protest at being crushed against her.
What was she going to do?
Then Daisy was back, gently moving Scout aside so she could scoop Gert up in her arms. She led the way back up the path, even with the extra weight moving faster than Scout could follow. By the time Scout caught up with her they were in a small canyon deep in a rock fissure, out of the worst of the blinding storm. And, in a little niche in the rock off to one side, Daisy had erected some sort of tent-like shelter. Daisy was on her knees in the doorway, laying Gert inside. She held the door for Scout and Shadow to follow, then sealed it up behind them.
Was she still mad about the fight before? Or was she mad because they were stopping when she was clearly prepared to keep marching all night?
Scout heard a rustle of sound outside the structure and put a mittened hand against the canvas roof. She could feel it shiver as something slid over the top of it. Then there was another rustle and a weight pressed against her hand.
Daisy was covering the shelter with snow. For warmth or for camouflage? Probably for both, Scout decided.
The sounds grew more and more muffled as the snow over the walls and ceiling grew thick. Then there was a different sort of sound, and Scout guessed that Daisy was digging with her hands through the snow, scooping and packing over and over.
The temperature inside the shelter rose to something almost like a comfortable level, and Scout unzipped her coat to let Shadow come out. He took a few shaky steps over the canvas floor, but the cold from the stone beneath the floor was still intense, and he quickly raced to Gert’s side to curl up against her and get to the business of licking each of his paws, one after another.
And then each of Gert’s, as she had fallen into an instant deep sleep and was not so fussy over wounds as Shadow was.
The door of the shelter shook, then Daisy found the opening and crawled inside, sealing it back up behind her. She slipped off her pack, and Scout realized she was still sitting with hers on.
It shouldn’t have been so difficult to get the straps off her shoulders, but her brain still felt thick and stupid. Plus, she seemed to be tangled in something. Daisy caught her hands to stop her flailing about, then pulled off the oxygen bottle that had been taped to the side of her pack. She took the mask off Scout’s face as well, dislodging most of her scarf in the process. The rush of cold air on Scout’s skin woke her brain up a little, but only for a moment.
Scout was starting to realize that coldness had a lot of different levels to it. And she had no idea just how much worse it got than what she’d already felt. She didn’t want to know.
Mask and hose gone, Scout got back to work removing her pack. By the time she had it, Daisy had set up a little glowing thing in the middle of the tent. It was giving off both light and heat, and Scout regretted not finding the one in her pack and starting it up sooner. Then Daisy found two self-heating containers of soup and activated the heating elements. She handed one to Scout without a word.
Scout unwrapped her scarf, then pulled her mittens off with her teeth and just sat for a moment with the warm disposable cup in her hands, breathing in the aroma of chicken and thick egg noodles. The steam felt good on her cheeks, dissipating some of the numbness.
Daisy took off her scarf and goggles and then her hat, scratching at the short bristles of her brown hair with both hands until it all stood on end again. Then she picked up the soup and took a long pull, drinking down the broth before setting it aside. She chewed at the chicken and noodles in her mouth, cheeks bulging like a nut-hoarding rodent, as she reached into her coat pockets and took out the three pairs of mittens she had taken from the assassins that had jumped them on the rock face.
“Eat,” she said to Scout after swallowing her overly large mouthful of food. “We have more food in the packs, but soup is the best to start. You need the energy.”
Scout took off her goggles and hat, then sipped at the soup. It was saltier than Scout was used to, but the long, thick noodles were a treat.
Her stomach, as if suddenly realizing it hadn’t been keeping her up to date on its empty status, growled loudly, and Scout took another swallow.
“About what happened down below,” Daisy said, eyes on the mittens as she arranged them into some design on the canvas floor in front of her crossed legs.
“I’m sorry,” Scout started to say, but Daisy waved that away.
“Apologies aren’t going to help things,�
�� Daisy said. “Your nanite is working now, so low oxygen levels aren’t going to be a problem. You’ve acclimated as well as can be expected to the low gravity, so that’s not a factor either. But that’s as far as my diagnosis goes.”
“I don’t understand,” Scout said.
“I don’t either,” Daisy said, gesturing for Scout to finish her soup. She took another swallow of her own, then took another small pack out of her bag as she chewed. She turned one of the mittens over in her hand and started cutting at it with a small pair of scissors she produced from the little pack. Her eyes were on her work, not on Scout, as she said, “I need you to explain why you couldn’t take the shot.”
“I didn’t have a shot to take,” Scout said. “You’d just given me the stim. I wasn’t quite recovered from passing out. My hands were shaking like crazy. I didn’t have a clear shot at any of them that didn’t risk hitting you.”
Daisy said nothing, just kept turning and snipping at the mitten. She set it aside and took another gulp of soup before picking up the next one. “There’s more to it than that,” she said as she snipped.
Scout suspected she wasn’t looking at her on purpose. Perhaps she thought that made it easier for Scout to talk. Maybe it did, but like the cold, it was a thing that had a lot of levels far past the point where Scout was comfortable.
“I’ve been through some things,” Scout said.
“So have I,” Daisy said.
“I’ve had to do some things.”
“So have I.”
Scout bit her lip and focused her eyes on the empty cup in her hands. “I’ve done things I don’t want to do, ever again. I felt like I had to at the time, but I don’t feel good about it. And when I come close to having to do it again, I just can’t.”
Daisy drank the last of her soup, then set down the mitten to dig through her pack again. She tossed something in a plain brown wrapper to Scout, then sat down with another of the same in her hands. Scout peeled back the wrapper and found a stack of crackers with peanut butter smeared thickly between the layers. She took a bite, careful not to waste any crumbs by crumbling the crackers too much.
“If the moment comes again and you can’t step up, we’re lost,” Daisy said. “I’m not here to rescue you, you know. I’m here because I need an ally. You have to be that. I can’t do this on my own.”
“Do what?” Scout asked. “Get up the mountain? I think you could.”
“Getting up the mountain is only where this all starts,” Daisy said. “I’m after Shi Jian. And given what she’s done to you and yours, I assumed you were with me on that.”
“I can’t take her on,” Scout said. “She’s not even human.”
“I’m not entirely human either. Not anymore,” Daisy said bitterly. “Thanks to her.”
“She modified you against your will?” Scout asked. It never occurred to her that the army of assassins hadn’t volunteered. As much as one could meaningfully volunteer at that age.
“That’s the least of what she did to me,” Daisy said.
Scout took another bite of crackers and peanut butter. The dogs were both awake now, watching her intently. She broke off two large chunks, one for each of them, and they ate them eagerly.
“I don’t see where I come into this,” Scout said. “I’m not like you. I don’t have augmentations. I’m not a fighter.”
“You once wanted to join the rebellion, didn’t you?” Daisy said.
“That was a long time ago,” Scout said, wondering how Daisy even knew about that.
Or how much more she knew.
“You need to find that spirit again,” Daisy said. “We have to stop Shi Jian. Before she kills you, which she fully intends to do.”
“Why do you care if Shi Jian kills me?” Scout asked.
“I care about stopping everything Shi Jian wants to do. Because it’s all bad, and it’s bad on a level I don’t think you even grasp. You realize the Tajaki trade dynasty is one of the most powerful families in the galaxy? And Shi Jian infiltrated them to manipulate them?”
“For some sort of financial gain? Or political power or something?” Scout guessed.
“That’s just the thing,” Daisy said, putting the scissors away and fishing around in the little box until she found a needle and a spool of shiny black thread. “I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of what she’s up to for years now. Years. And as best as I can tell, she’s doing this just for kicks.”
“For kicks?” Scout repeated. “She put one of my friends in a coma she might never recover from, and it was just for kicks?”
“Yes,” Daisy said with deadly seriousness. “But that’s just because all of this that we know about? It’s just a thing she’s got going on on the side. She has a real mission, and I don’t think she’s acting alone. She’s been inside the Tajaki trade dynasty for more than a decade, but I don’t know why. Is she waiting for something? Some sort of signal or command?” She ended with a shrug.
“That’s why her body augments are so advanced? Because she’s working for someone even richer than the Tajaki trade dynasty?” Scout guessed.
“Yes,” Daisy said, sounding happy that Scout was finally catching on. “So ask yourself, who would pay for such things? And what would they want in return?”
“I don’t know,” Scout said miserably. “Until a few days ago I knew nothing about even life in orbit around my planet, let alone life in Galactic Central. I don’t have a clue.”
“But you’re getting a sense of the scope,” Daisy said. “Shi Jian is killing time with us, waiting for word from her employer. I really want to take her out before she gets that word. Because whatever it is that she’s lying in wait like a sleeper agent to do, it just has to be bad. But even aside from that, all of this she’s killing time doing is going to put your friends in danger. Mortal danger. And I’d like to stop that too. Even if just because my interfering would make her so very, very angry.”
She bit off the thread and put the needle back in its protective sleeve. She looked approvingly over her handiwork, but it just looked like a bunch of black bundles to Scout.
Daisy looked up at her again. “So I need you to promise to step up. The next time you have a gun in your hands and a dire need to take out someone who is going to murder you the moment they’re done murdering me and probably make you watch them kill your dogs first, take the shot.”
Scout nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The last bite of crackers and peanut butter coated her mouth like sticky dust.
“Good enough,” Daisy said, her tone suddenly bright, and Scout realized she was talking about the little bundles in her hands.
“What are they?” Scout asked.
“For the dogs, silly,” Daisy said, sliding one over two of her fingers to demonstrate. “The palms of the mittens are this denser material with kind of a knubby texture to aid in gripping. Perfect for booties with grippy soles. These are going to work just great. Now, why don’t you get some sleep? I don’t really need sleep myself, not more than a few minutes. Plus I have a spare scarf in my pack that should be big enough for two dog-sized balaclavas.”
Scout curled up around the dogs, burying her nose in Shadow’s soft fur and warming her hands under Gert’s snout.
She had thought this would all be over once they got inside the city. But that was just going to be the beginning.
And she had no clue where it was all going to end.
15
When Scout woke, the tent was almost uncomfortably warm. The dogs had moved away from her to sprawl their legs out. She had taken her coat off at some point.
The little glowing heater wasn’t even on anymore.
Daisy was already awake. Or, perhaps more likely, she had never slept. When she saw Scout’s eyes were open, she immediately set a mug of something steaming within arm’s reach.
“I was about to wake you to get going,” Daisy said as Scout sat up and sipped at the beverage. She had no idea what beverage it was trying to be, only that it wasn’
t quite pulling it off.
“Yeah, I know,” Daisy said, seeing her face. “The water up here boils too soon to make a proper cup of tea. But it’s hot and has an extra shot of caffeine, so drink it up anyway. The storm stopped a few minutes ago.”
Scout wondered how she could tell, as silent as it had been inside the tent all night long. She tried not to grimace as she drank the tea. She could feel the caffeine stirring up inside her, so much less unpleasant than the stim had been.
Daisy opened a container of some sort of meat in a rich sauce, and the dogs were awake in a snap, rushing to fill their bellies. When they finished, they sat back to lick the gravy from their lips and quite willingly allowed Daisy to fasten the booties to their paws.
Scout found a protein bar in the side pocket of her pack and munched on that while she straightened her own clothing, rebraided her hair, then reached for her coat.
That was odd. She could have sworn it had been distinctly heavier the night before. How far up the mountain had they come?
“I took some plates out of it,” Daisy said when she saw the look on Scout’s face. “It will make you lighter.”
“Why?” Scout asked.
“The snow has blown up in some interesting arrangements,” Daisy said. “We might need to test a few places that look like they’re on a trail but aren’t. I’m too heavy, and I can’t make myself any lighter.”
“So I’m going to be walking in the front?” Scout asked.
“Yes, Scout,” Daisy said with a wry smile, “I’m asking you to scout.”
“I don’t think I can push up a trail as you did,” Scout said.
“You won’t need to for you or the dogs,” Daisy said. “About an hour ago we had a brief blast of sleet; then the temperature dropped very low. The snow has a nice crust on it now. You’ll be able to walk on top of it now that I’ve reduced your weight. Plus, I’ve consolidated the packs to just what we need, so you won’t need to carry one.”
Scout looked around and saw that indeed Daisy had an oversized pack beside her, and the one Scout had been carrying was mostly empty, sitting like a deflated bladder beside it.