by Nancy Kress
“No,” Kandiss said, although Leo suspected there were. But he had seen Special Forces compensate for all kinds of serious wounds, just putting the pain and damage on hold until the mission was over. Airborne troops with injuries from a hard landing went on the assault anyway; soldiers bleeding enough to turn pant legs dripping red nonetheless took the objective.
Kandiss staggered to his feet. Leo said, “Join Lamont outside.”
Bourgiba had moved on to the next body. People moaned and tried to move. Glassware, belatedly, fell along with its shattered shelf and smashed on the floor. Bourgiba yelled, “Somebody find Claire!”
Isabelle said, “I’ll look.”
Leo climbed back onto what was left of the roof beside Zoe. Nothing to the west or north. To the east and south, the camp was emptying as people ran, carrying kids and who-the-fuck-knew what else. It was chaos.
Thunder rumbled, and it started to rain.
* * *
Rain was good. Rain was wonderful. This planet wanted Austin to succeed. Proof: When the bomb exploded, Dr. Patel was standing in the Big Lab, and a piece of flying something hit her and knocked her down but didn’t really hurt her! It couldn’t have been better if Austin had planned it himself.
He had planned everything else. You had to be ready, be alert, so that when your chance came, you could grab it. Leo had told him that. Austin wore his Terran clothes, the jacket pocket bulging. In the smoke and confusion and gunfire, he’d grabbed Dr. Patel—Claire—under the armpits and dragged her away from the east wall, just like he was keeping her safe from any more explosions. Well, he was.
He dragged her into the kitchen of the clinic, tied her hands behind her back, and gagged her. Quick, quick, not much time, someone might come.… But everyone out there was shooting and screaming and nobody watched the kitchen. The door, which led to the vegetable garden, had finally been boarded up and locked because Lieutenant Lamont had insisted. Just before dawn, Austin had loosened the boards, leaving just enough nails to hold the karthwood in place, and stolen one of the multiple keys—easy job! Now he pried off the boards, unlocked the door, and peered out. Refugees might have circled around the building.…
But there was no one here. They were assaulting the east side, or maybe that and the south door, and the Rangers were busy stopping them. Everybody else was either hurt or tending to hurt people. Austin couldn’t relock the doors or replace the karthwood, but he didn’t have to. Noah would know where he was going, so no use trying to cover up his tracks. He just needed to get there with Claire before anybody came after them.
Her eyes opened. She looked around, tried to scream and couldn’t, and began to kick him.
But he was prepared for that, too. He fished the bioplast box from his pocket, drew in a huge breath, and held the fluid-soaked cloth to her face. She struggled for a minute and then she was out again.
He dragged her away and gasped for breath.
This was the hardest part. He could be seen from the roof of the compound until he reached the karthwood grove fifty meters away. Ranger Berman was on the roof, firing—Austin could just see the top of her head from this angle—and might turn around. Austin dragged Claire as fast as he could across the stony field. Two grazing pel^aks, impervious to rain, raised their heads and stared, chewing. He was astonished that Claire was so light. Tiny, light, so pretty.… And it was a good thing he was so big and strong, not like that wimp Graa^lok. There were things Austin could do that Graa^lok, for all his brains, could not!
The clouds roared and a hard rain began.
Harder to drag her through the mud. One sandal came off and he put it in his pocket. Thirty meters to the trees … ten meters.… they were under the trees.
Austin put her down and bent over, gasping for breath. Only for a minute, though. He had to get her as far away as he could. Maybe they would think she disintegrated in the explosion and that’s why they couldn’t find her body. He didn’t know much about explosions.
It would be easier when she came to. Then he could make her walk, even run. But what if she didn’t come to? The knockout stuff was from school, they’d used it to knock out leelees to study. What if Austin had given her too much? What if she died?
Panicky, he stopped to put his ear to her mouth. She breathed.
She smelled of soap and flowers.
The rain tore through the leaves above them, pelting down.
* * *
“I shoulda known,” Joshua McGuire said. “We use that explosive in the mines. Some of my miners went missing last week. I shoulda guessed, I shoulda checked the supply.…”
Salah moved his hand toward McGuire, stopped it, withdrew. McGuire was not the sort to welcome such a gesture. He sat next to his brother’s body on the floor of the tiny room, formerly Marianne’s bedroom and before that the Kindred equivalent of a clinic exam room, where the three dead had been taken. Two Kindred scientists had been standing close to the east wall of Big Lab when it exploded. Steve McGuire had been shot in the field with a pipe gun.
Another seven from the compound had been injured, two severely but not critically. Llaa^moh¡, Noah’s wife, had a belly wound. A Kindred lab tech had his arm nearly torn off. They lay in what was now the ICU, after Salah’s makeshift surgery. He longed for the sick bay equipment on the Friendship, or even the unknown hospitals destroyed in the Stremlenie attack, even though they had probably been decades behind Terran facilities. Llaa^moh¡ would be lucky to escape peritonitis.
Noah had a concussion from having been hit in the head with a rock in the refugee camp. (A rock! In the age of star-faring!) Noah was dazed, with blurred vision and sensitivity to light. It was impossible to tell how badly off Kandiss was because the Ranger refused to leave his post long enough to be examined any further: “I’m fine, Doc.” The best Salah could do was watch him. Symptoms of concussion could worsen over as much as three days as the brain swelled.
Three more Kindred inside the compound had been injured, none seriously; they’d been standing farther back from the east wall.
There were also dead and injured among the Kindred in the camp, shot by the Rangers. Salah didn’t know how many. He would have treated them, but Lamont allowed no one to leave the compound.
And Claire Patel and Austin Rhinehart were missing.
“They’re hostages?” Isabelle said, fear creasing her face into a caricature. Salah had left McGuire to his mourning and gone back to Big Lab. Shattered glass and broken equipment littered the floor. Beyond the huge hole in the wall, the camp looked quiet; a lot of people had fled. The rain had stopped. Salah bent over his last patient, a young lab tech, and began picking glass from his arm. The young man gazed at him from wide, dark eyes, refusing to cry.
“Hostages?” Isabelle repeated. “In the camp?”
“No,” Lamont said. “Go back into the clinic with the others, ma’am. We can’t protect you as well here. Doctor, can you move that man yet?”
“No,” Salah said. He was finished with the young Kindred and the lab tech could easily walk, but he wanted to hear Isabelle, who was not leaving.
She said, “I don’t want you to protect me, Lieutenant. I want my nephew back! And we need Dr. Patel. What are you doing about retrieving them?”
“We can attempt extraction once we know where they’re being held. But my first priority is to secure this building. Now go back to the clinic.”
Isabelle still didn’t move. “I can go into the camp, talk to people, find out where they were taken.”
“You’re not among my protectees. If you want to go out there, I won’t stop you. But I won’t risk my soldiers guarding you, either.”
“I’m going.”
Salah stood. “Isabelle, no. It’s too dangerous.”
She rounded on him, and he understood that her fury wasn’t really directed at him; it just had to go somewhere. “Don’t try to stop me, Salah. You do your job here and I’ll do mine.”
“Isabelle…”
“You aren’t going
,” another voice said, and Isabelle whirled around.
Leo Brodie stood on duty, his back to them, eyes and weapon on the camp. But his voice carried clearly over his shoulder.
“Brodie,” Lamont said sharply, “this isn’t your concern!”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir. But I have relevant information. Permission to speak?”
Lamont said nothing. Something in the quality of his silence, in his stance as he rolled forward on the balls of his feet, caught Salah’s attention. Lamont wore his helmet but not his goggles, and Salah could see his eyes.
Oh.
Where had he gotten the popbite? He must have brought it with him; even if it was manufactured on Kindred, Salah couldn’t see Lamont scoring a drug deal with a native. Popbite was a serious stimulant. It kept you awake and alert for days, but the price was steep: first, jitteriness. Then hallucinations. Then psychotic episodes.
Finally Lamont said to Brodie, “Permission to speak.”
Brodie said, “There are tracks in the mud on the north side of the compound, leading toward the open fields and the mountains. The kitchen door is unlocked and the boards removed.”
“Are you saying, Brodie, that Dr. Patel escaped? With that kid’s help?”
“No,” Isabelle said. Fury had replaced fear. “Claire wouldn’t do that. Austin took her!”
Salah stood, nodding at the lab tech to go to the clinic. The lab tech stood but didn’t go. How much English did he understand?
Lamont scowled. “You’re saying a teenage boy kidnapped a grown woman?” But Salah could see Lamont’s mind churning over this information, weighing the factors. Claire was tiny even for an Asian woman; Austin was strong for his age; the commotion and distraction of the assault on the compound and the aftermath of assessing the dead and injured …
Finally the lieutenant said, “Why would he do that? Sex?”
“No,” Isabelle said. “I don’t know why!”
“And where would he take her?” Lamont now looked disbelieving; he had decided to blame the Kindred rather than Austin.
Brodie said over his shoulder, “He has a secret fort somewhere.”
Isabelle said, “A what?”
“He told me once. He said he has a secret place—a cave, he said a cave, yeah—and that Noah Jenner knows about it. Also that he was going to take care of his mother there.”
Isabelle stared at Brodie’s back for a full twenty seconds. Then she tore off down the walkway, pushing past the exhausted people sitting on the floor along its walls, and slammed the door into the clinic. Lamont was grilling Brodie about the location of this cave, which Brodie said he didn’t know, when Isabelle rushed back. “Josh says Kayla was never with the McGuires! Her note said she went on a supply dirigible but Josh said the dirigible arrived and Kayla wasn’t on it. Austin—”
“Has both women trapped in a cave somewhere?” Lamont sneered. “A thirteen-year-old punk? I don’t believe it.”
“Leo, what else did Austin tell you?”
Brodie, without asking permission, said, “That’s all, Isabelle. He was filthy and sandy, said he’d been digging around for old stuff in the cave and—”
“You’re on report, Brodie,” Lamont snapped. “Pay attention to duty before it becomes a court-martial.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Isabelle ran back to the clinic, Salah right behind her. “Isabelle, wait. Noah is confused and dazed right now—”
“Not as confused as I am! Salah, Austin stole the vaccine, nobody else could have taken it, he stole Claire—is he psychotic? Is he like one of those mass murderers back on Terra? Those kids who shoot up their own schools?”
Ten years on Kindred and whatever she’d seen on Terra still lingered. Salah didn’t know her past, didn’t know Austin, thought lately that he didn’t know much of anything. But he gave her his best opinion.
“I don’t think he’s a sociopath, no. I think he’s a confused adolescent, and I also think he has help. He didn’t take Claire and Kayla—if he did take them—to some kid-built secret fort in a shallow cave. Isabelle, where did those other two first-expedition members, Tony Schrupp and Dr. Beyon, go?”
“They have a company that manufactures transistors, way over in the coastal mountains. I told you, all manufacturing is confined to—”
“Are they there now? Are you sure?”
Isabelle was silent. “No.” And then, “The Council of Mothers. They would know. I’m only a junior member but there’s a senior group, Ree^ka was the lead, of course, but—I can radio.”
“Are Schrupp and Beyon the kind to make survivalist plans for themselves somewhere? To believe that civilization is going to end and they better create a bunker?”
After a silence, Isabelle said, “Yes. They could be. I never liked either of them, but that doesn’t … it could be. But why would they take in Kayla and Austin? Claire I can see, she’s a doctor … I’m going to talk to Noah.”
“I’ll go with you.”
The clinic was jammed with people in what was now post-op. Noah sat beside his wife’s pallet, Lily on his lap and Marianne next to him, watching carefully for signs of nausea or confusion. Llaa^moh¡ slept. Noah looked a little more alert. Salah said, “How are you feeling?”
“Headache to shake mountains.”
“To be expected. Still dizzy?”
“If I stand up.”
“Any nausea, blurred vision, confusion?”
“I don’t know.”
“Count backwards from one hundred.”
“One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-six, no wait.…”
Isabelle burst out with, “Noah—what do you know about a secret cave that Austin goes to?”
“How do you know about that?” Noah said at the same moment that Marianne said “Cave?”
“It doesn’t matter how I know!” Isabelle flared. “What matters is that you didn’t tell me! I’m the mother of this lahk and—”
“Not so loud! Please!” Noah put his hand on his forehead.
“Sorry. But why didn’t you tell me? Where is this cave? Are Tony and Nathan there? Is Kayla?”
“Kayla? No—isn’t she? You told me … it’s a little confused…”
“Isabelle,” Marianne said in a tone that could have controlled an earthquake, “go easy.”
Gradually the story emerged. Tony Schrupp and Nathan Beyon were constructing or had constructed a survivalist bunker in a mountain cave. Austin had been helping them with, Noah guessed, translation of radio broadcasts; neither man knew more than a few phrases of Kindred. (Why? Salah wondered. If you emigrated, wouldn’t you learn the language?) Noah had followed Austin to the cave and then promised him that he would not tell the lahk if Austin agreed to not go there again and Austin had promised, an agreement he evidently broke. Yes, the Council of Mothers knew about the bunker; supplies and equipment had been going in for months. Noah knew nothing about Kayla’s whereabouts, and this was the first time he’d heard that Claire was missing.
“That stupid kid! What does he think—”
“Easy,” Salah said. “Don’t get too agitated, Noah. We’ll get them back.”
“How? You don’t understand, the entrance is small and probably impregnable, Beyon is an electronics expert and—”
“Easy, please.”
“Noah,” Marianne said, and Noah subsided. The power of mothers, even if the son was nearly forty.
Isabelle stood. “Okay, I got it. You rest and don’t worry, Noah. You either, Marianne. Leo will know how to get them out.”
Leo. Salah surprised himself with a flash of jealousy so strong that his stomach jumped in his belly. She didn’t trust Lamont, but Brodie.…
Salah thought he’d left this kind of sickening jealousy behind, long ago, with Aisha.
Lily whimpered and stirred. Salah laid a hand on her forehead. Still afebrile.
Marianne said, “Go now. Let them sleep. If the—”
The door flung open. Branch stood there. Like everyone else in the cl
inic half of the compound, he’d sustained no injury from the bomb, but now he looked so wild that he might be hallucinating. “Dr. Jenner!” he shouted.
“Branch! For God’s sake—you woke Lily!”
The little girl started to cry. Llaa^moh¡ woke despite the sedative—the power of mothers!—and said, “Lily?” Noah put his hand to his forehead. Marianne grabbed Branch and dragged him into the corridor, Isabelle and Salah following. Against the corridor wall, two Kindred lay asleep, their usual sleeping areas destroyed in Big Lab.
“Marianne!” Branch said. “I did it! I got it!”
Marianne said, “Good. Great. But Branch, right now astronomical data—”
“It’s not that! Come!”
They all followed him to the leelee room, which smelled worse than ever. Branch pointed dramatically to a complicated pile of equipment and said, “There! The code was convertible to sound and I did it!”
“Sound?” Isabelle said. “From the ship? Recordings?”
“No! Live! Real-time transmission!”
“Of what?” Marianne said.
“Listen! I’m going to turn it up—listen!”
Branch dropped to the floor and fiddled with analog dials. A light flashed briefly. Then Salah heard it. At first he thought it was coming from the cages behind him: chittering, very fast. But it wasn’t.
Isabelle said, “Leelees? There are leelees alive aboard the ship? How?”
Branch said, so fast that he was almost chittering himself, “It was a colony ship, wasn’t it? To a planet close enough for radio transmissions. Preset so that was the only place the ship could go. Big enough to hold animals and plants for a colony. When the people died, the animals didn’t! The leelees didn’t!”
Isabelle said, “Well, okay. They’re up there, but the ship is still contaminated with spores because the colonists went outside and brought them in. Everyone’s dead.”
She didn’t see it. Salah did, and Marianne had known the second the chittering began. She said now, sounding unlike herself, “The leelees aren’t dead. There are spores there, but the leelees survived. Mutated immunity, or maybe a virophage since at least two survived to breed … let it be a virophage. Oh, God!”