"You could use Charlotte. Chara . . . that's not bad. Or Brun."
"Well." Bubbles shrugged. "That decision won't matter if we don't survive, and we won't survive without water, so I think the next step is to check it out."
"With your portable chemistry kit, of course," said Raffa.
"With Kell's portable chemistry kit," Bubbles said sweetly. "The one on the shelf that you didn't recognize." But the little bottles and tubes were all empty, their contents no more than a few dried grains of unrecognizable grit. "With our brains," Bubbles said, when she discovered that. "We can think it out. It's safe for the cave fish; they're alive."
"Alive now."
"Yes. And that's all we can go on. They're swimming normally, not gasping or floating. And that means—"
"We still don't know. Look—whatever it was had to be pretty quick—not more than a day—because Petris told us they'd never bothered the water. That flyover could've dropped the poison, or set someone down to do it afoot. So if one of us drinks here . . . and nothing happens in a day . . . then this water is safe."
"I'll drink. It's my island." Bubbles scooped up a handful of water and sucked it quickly. It tasted of nothing but water. "I won't drink much," she went on, "just in case. Maybe if it's only a little, it'll put me to sleep or something."
"Or only make you throw up once. You are a gutsy wench, and you shouldn't be stuck with Bubbles one day longer. Take your pick: Brun or Chara."
Bubbles sat back on her heels. "I'm used to the B. . . . Let's try Brun. If I hate it tomorrow, no one ever needs to know." If she died of poison no one ever would know. . . . She shoved that thought away.
"Good for you, Brun. Now . . . how can we do the hunters the most harm?"
* * *
Ronnie could not tell whether the pounding in his head was from the concussion or excitement. The too-regular uneven footsteps came nearer, and he could just hear George trying to breathe quietly. Then the footsteps turned back toward the little creek; he heard a rock turn, and splash noisily, and a muffled curse. One of the red-and-yellow amphibians gave a tiny bark, and several more answered. George's breath came hot and wet against his ear.
"I told you," George murmured. "We should've put our trap on the creek itself."
He wanted to say "Shut up" but the person at the creek might hear. Instead, he touched George's wrist, a sharp tap. He could hear the walker, moving upstream, occasionally tipping a rock, and then the squelch of wet boots on mud.
"Let's follow," George said, tickling his ear again. "Maybe we can take him."
Maybe we can get killed very easily, Ronnie thought. If the hunter had night goggles, if he had a fully equipped night-hunting rifle, they would be easy prey. "Wait," he breathed, as quietly as he could. "The spring's not that far away. . . . He may come back and spring the trap."
Another splash, some ways upstream, and the sound of something large moving through brittle brush. "He ought to be more careful," George said.
"We too," Ronnie said pointedly. George subsided, though his sigh was louder than Ronnie approved. After an interminable period, they heard sounds returning. The same hunter? Another whose planned route had crossed his? One of Petris's men? Ronnie didn't know. His neck prickled; he felt that someone was looking at him, that he was outlined by a spotlight. He blinked, hard. . . . No spotlight, nothing but darkness. Whoever it was coming downslope stayed in the water, for the most part. . . . They could hear the rocks grinding and turning under his boots, and occasional splashes. He moved faster, as most people do going downhill, and as if he could see his way.
He passed their position, still moving downstream, and did not turn aside along his former path. Apparently he was going to follow the stream all the way down.
"This is stupid," George said in Ronnie's ear, all hissing s's. "If we stay here . . ."
Ronnie's control broke; he grabbed George's mouth and dug his fingernails into his lips. "The idea is to stay alive," he muttered. "Be quiet." He let go as quickly as he'd grabbed, and they spent the remaining hours of darkness in icy silence, both furious. An occasional shot rang out at a distance; they heard no cries, nor anything that let them know what was happening.
In the first faint light of dawn, when Ronnie realized he could see his hand in front of his face again, the peaceful gurgle of the creek off to their left seemed to mock their fears. Not even the amphibians were making their usual racket . . . no sound but the faint sigh of a breeze in the leaves far overhead, and the water in the creek, and the sound of waves below, borne on the wind. He had heard no shots for a long time. His head ached dully, an ache he was almost used to now. His eyes burned. He felt stiff, dirty, sore . . . but alive. He looked at George, who had fallen asleep leaning against a tree. Perhaps he should let George sleep a little longer? But as he thought it, George produced a faint noise that ripened into a snore, and woke up, almost falling.
"We survived," Ronnie said, trying for cheerfulness. The sound of his own voice woke painful echoes in his head.
"Survived!" George rubbed his eyes, looking disgusted but still dapper. When he brushed at a smudge on his sleeve, it actually vanished. "We should have gone after that fellow. . . . We haven't done anything useful yet." He gave their trap an angry glance. Even in that early light, the leaves they had cut to conceal it drooped and no longer matched the greenery around them. Ronnie hadn't realized that they'd wilt in only twelve hours or so.
"It was a stupid idea, just the sort of thing you might expect from someone like Petris."
"All he said was stay up in this area, and perhaps we could trap someone. You're the one who had the idea for the trap itself."
George glared, but silently. Ronnie wondered if they should take the now obvious trap apart, or leave it. Moment by moment the light increased, and the trap's outline became clearer. It would take, he thought, a very stupid hunter to step into it now.
George stretched. "We'll have to clear that mess up," he said. "It certainly won't fool anyone."
"I suppose not." Ronnie wanted to lie down and sleep, preferably for two days straight, and wake up in a clean, comfortable bed. He did not look forward to undoing the trap, particularly when he couldn't remember exactly how the lines ran on this side. "Although . . . suppose we left it, and they saw it and sniggered, and then we had another trap they didn't see?"
"Like what?" George asked. It was a reasonable question for which Ronnie had no answer. "Dig a pit trap with our fingernails and disguise it with more wilting greenery?" Ronnie resented the inherited knack for clever phrasing.
"Perhaps a snare sort of thing—you know, where a rock drops on them." Somewhere, in some class, Ronnie remembered seeing something . . . a leaning stick or limb, with something heavy balanced above, and when someone went through—
"A rock . . . and where are we supposed to find more rope and a rock?" Evidently George didn't have the same illustration in mind. Ronnie didn't think his had rope in it.
"I've . . . got to sit down," he said, as his head and stomach renewed yesterday's quarrel. George, after all, had slept standing up. George grabbed his arm as he went down, more a fall than a controlled descent.
"You look awful," he said. Ronnie felt slightly less sick, lying on his back, but his head pounded just the same. George's thumb appeared in front of his face. "Focus on this—can you?" He could, but he didn't really want to let George assess his eyes' ability to focus—George wasn't even a medic, let alone a doctor. He let his eyes close. "I'll get water," George said, and Ronnie heard his footsteps heading toward the creek.
Silence. Aside from the untalented drummer in his head, lovely dark silence lay around him. No buzzing insects, no barking amphibians—he remembered how startled he'd been to find how loud a sound those tiny wet bodies could make. The sea sounds lay at the threshold of hearing, below the headache's contribution most of the time. He wiggled his shoulders in the soft leaves, hoping no biting insects would get him, and felt his stiff muscles relax.
He did
not know he was falling asleep until he woke; the sun had speared through a break in the forest canopy, directly into his eyelid. He squinted, twisted, and bit back a groan. He still hurt, though not as badly. He had slept some hours—too many hours; it must be near midday. George should not have let him sleep so long. He forced himself up on one arm and looked around. He couldn't see George.
Silence lay on the forest, heavy and dangerous. It wouldn't be that still if nothing was wrong. Slowly, carefully, Ronnie sat up, then levered himself to one knee, then to his feet. Nothing stirred. No birds, no insects—nothing. His own breath sounded loud to him. His mouth tasted foul, and his lips were dry. Where was George?
He had gone for water. Ronnie remembered that much, and after a short panic remembered which way the stream was. He glanced at the trap—the leaves covering it were now a sickly brown—and eased his way toward the creek, as quietly as possible.
It lay in a steep-sided bed, just here; he could see the glint of water trickling down from a pool above before he could see it right below him. Then he saw George. George sprawled gracelessly, as if he'd simply slumped to the ground while climbing back toward Ronnie. Ronnie looked around for the enemy he assumed had shot him . . . but saw and heard nothing. When he looked again, he saw no blood, no burn mark, no injury at all.
Ronnie sank to his heels and tried to think this out. George down, without a cry, but—he could now see his back move—breathing. Had he just fallen asleep? And why there? He glanced at the creek, and frowned. From here, he could see something floating, a bit of scum or something. He stood, and moved closer to George. George was definitely breathing, and from the new angle he could see that his eyes were closed.
"George," Ronnie said softly. Nothing happened. He reached out and touched George's shoulder. No response. He glanced around again, sure someone was watching, but saw and heard nothing at all. George's slack hand lay atop the water bottle he'd carried to the creek; its cap had come off in the fall, and it held only a scant swallow or two. Ronnie poured it on George's face, hoping to wake him, but aside from a grimace, George did not rouse. Perhaps more would work. With another look around, Ronnie took the bottle to the creek to refill it.
The scum he had seen lay in drifts against the rock. At first he didn't recognize it . . . but when he swished it away to put the bottle in, there were the limp legs and tails of the red and gold amphibians, the motionless fins of tiny fish. Dead . . . beginning to stink. . . . He stared at them, his hand frozen in place, not quite touching the water, the bottle half immersed. Then he moved his arm back, and let the bottle drip on the ground. Thoughts whirled through his mind in odd fragments. The man they'd heard last night. The silence—nothing croaking or barking after he came back downstream. George asleep. The dead things. The water he hadn't touched. . . . He hoped the dizziness he felt suddenly came from his concussion, or even from fear, and not from the touch of that contaminated water.
That unseen hunter had somehow poisoned the water . . . killed everything in it . . . and whatever it was put George to sleep. Or was he dying? Ronnie staggered back to George and felt the pulse at his neck. It beat slowly, but regularly, against his sweaty fingers. He shook George's shoulder. Again no response. A frantic look upstream and down . . . tree trunks, vines, bushes, rocks. No moving figures, no sounds that shouldn't be there.
But if the poison was supposed to put anyone who drank the water to sleep, that meant someone might come to collect them. He couldn't leave George so near the water, out in the open. He grabbed George firmly under the arms and heaved. His headache escalated from dull throbbing to loud rhythmic pounding, and his stiff ribs felt as if someone had dragged sharp knives across them. George, meanwhile, had moved hardly a centimeter, but he did begin to snore, a loud unmistakable snore that Ronnie was sure could be heard a long way.
"A . . . whatchamacallit," Ronnie muttered to himself. "Something to drag him on . . ." He looked around. An older cousin had gone through a period of enthusiastic camping, but Ronnie spent that long vacation at a music school, honing what his mother fondly believed to be superlative talent. After hearing his cousin's stories, most of them involving borderline criminal assaults on the younger campers, he milked the talent he himself knew to be minor, and managed another session of music school. By then, his older cousin had moved on to other amusements, and Ronnie had escaped even one six-week session at his brother's camp. Right now, he would have accepted a few buffets, tosses into ice-cold ponds, burr-pricked mounts, or stinging crawlers in bunks, for some of the practical knowledge Knut had claimed. Ways to drag heavy loads when you didn't have lifters or flitters, ways to make traps that actually worked.
His first version of the travois bound with vines cost Ronnie three blisters, an itchy rash from the vine sap, and most of the hours of afternoon. When he finally rolled George onto the vines and lifted the handles, George's limp body worked quickly through the vines to the ground before Ronnie had, with great difficulty, pulled it ten meters. Cursing softly, Ronnie untangled George and tried to weave the vines into a more stable configuration. That was when he noticed the itching rash. He had never woven so much as a potholder; he knew in theory how weaving worked, but nothing about fishnets or hammocks or anything else that would hold a sixty kilo body safely between two poles as someone dragged them along.
He did not let himself notice hunger or thirst, but the darkness creeping out from under the trees finally blurred his vision before he had anything that would support George. He had tried dragging three times, and all he had to show for it were the obvious scars in the forest soil.
And now it was almost too dark to see. . . . His hands were itching, burning, shaking; when he tried to stand, cramps seized his legs and arms; he staggered. Now he was thirsty; his mouth burned. He took several steps toward the creek before he remembered.
Don't panic, he told himself. Think. But he could not remember when he had thought last . . . days ago, it seemed. For a moment it was hard to think where he was, or why. . . . Then it came clear. They had had supplies, of course they had. Back where the trap was. He could get water there, and food. He started back, in the near dark, hoping he could recognize which dark blur was the right tree.
* * *
The worst thing about being in a cave, Bubbles thought, was how you could lose track of time. They had drunk some of that cool, clean water, eaten a little food, and then, while trying to figure out all the things Kell left, day had turned to night. Even with night goggles on, she could see nothing. If they left the candle burning, anyone who looked in the entrance might see it sparkle on the water . . . and she didn't want to go outside and make sure no gleam showed through the leaves.
Sleep came to them slowly, with many starts and twitches, but they were both still tired from the night before, and finally slept. I'm not Bubbles any more, was her last conscious thought. I'm grown up now—I'm someone else, named Brun.
What woke them was the sound of rock falling someplace. In the echoing darkness, they could not tell how far off it fell, only that it was inside and not outside. Bubbles had slept with the goggles on, and when she woke could just make out a paler smudge beyond the rock buttress. Raffa's hand reaching for hers almost made her squeak, but she managed to stay silent. She squeezed Raffa's hand and then put it aside. She would have to crawl to the edge of the buttress, and look around, to see how near daylight it was.
The pool of water tinkled pleasantly, as if it were being rained on, and when she got to the corner of the buttress, she could see light seeping in from the entrance. Not as bright as the day before (if it was the day before—had they slept the clock around?) but enough to show that no one was in the visible part of the cave. If someone had caused the rockfall, they were now out of sight. She started to creep around the buttress, and realized suddenly that her knees were wet—the pool was rising. Yesterday there'd been at least two meters between the buttress and the pool, and a meter between the pool and the entrance. Now the gleam of light reflecting from w
ater extended to the entrance . . . perhaps even outside. She backed up until her feet bumped into Raffa.
"I think it's raining," Bubbles said softly. The cave felt slightly less resonant, or perhaps the tinkle and chime of dripping water, and its echoes, covered her voice. "The pool's up."
"Can we get out?" Raffa asked.
"For now, yes. . . . It's probably not more than a couple of centimeters at the entrance. And I doubt it goes much higher for long—that's never a large creek out there."
"The creekbed—yes." Raffa sounded pleased. "If it actually flows, it'll take care of our tracks coming in."
"What about our tracks going out? And with water coming out there, it'll be obvious something's inside."
"Maybe we won't have to go out. . . . Let's look." Raffa lighted the candle-lantern again, and they peered at the water, then the cave walls. A pale streak topped by a dark one ran along the wall perhaps knee-high. Farther up, a blurrier mark showed.
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