by Merry Farmer
“What’s wrong?” He sat straight. Pain smashed into him, hands and feet, back and legs. None of it mattered.
Stacey, Heather, and Jonah—who must have returned when he was dozing—eyed them warily from nearer to the cave’s entrance. They were all fully dressed in parkas and skis, backpacks slung in place, ready to go.
“We need to leave now.” Grace swallowed her tears. “We don’t have much time.”
He rubbed a reddened, blistering thumb across her cheek, wiping away the moisture, flickering between a smile and a scowl.
“Please don’t.” She sniffled, pushing his hand away and struggling to stand.
Hollowness filled his gut as she turned from him.
Outside, the fuzzy grey of the early fog had brightened to morning. Danny stood, wincing as his feet took his weight, and limped to the cave entrance. With a jerk he pulled back. Scruffy sat right outside, guarding the cave. The huge cat regarded him with distain that only a cat could manage.
“You’re right,” he said, half to the cat. “We should get going.”
Renewed energy pulsed through him as the last hint of sleep and dreams fell away to mission and purpose. He crossed the cave to retrieve the last pair of skis and sling his backpack over his shoulder.
“The sooner we get across the river the better off we’ll be.”
“Thank God!” Stacey threw up her hands and adjusted her pack over her shoulder. “I am so ready to go home.”
Danny raised an eyebrow at Grace as he worked to put his skis on. Her eyes met his for only a moment before flickering down, her face coloring.
“We’re not going home.” He broke the news to Stacey. “Not yet.”
“What?” Stacey barked.
“We’ve got something we have to do first.”
“What do we have to do first?” Stacey fixed him with a mutinous stare.
“We’re going to find Kutrosky’s camp.”
“What?” Heather exclaimed as the same time as Stacey said, “Oh, hell no!” Jonah kept his mouth shut but shook his head as he gathered his things.
Danny ignored their protests, focusing on fastening the straps of his skis. He glanced up at Grace. “You want to explain?”
“I think Kutrosky’s people are in trouble,” she said without remorse. If it bothered her to disappoint her friends, it didn’t show. “I want to see if he’ll agree to integrate his people with the other two settlements.”
“Uh, Grace?” Stacey shifted her weight and crossed her arms. “We tried that once already, remember? We tried it and it blew up in our faces.”
“Things have changed,” she replied, glance flickering to Danny.
“Yeah,” Stacey agreed, hiking her backpack higher on her shoulder. “Things have changed. Things like my ninety-three-day-old son who hasn’t seen his mother since last week.”
“With any luck we’ll be home in a few days.” Danny defended Grace without looking up.
“Fuck that, I want to go home now.”
“There are people out there who need our help.” Grace pushed her cause.
“My baby needs my help,” Stacey argued, shuffling across the cave in her skis to stand as close as she could to Grace. “Gil needs my help. He has no idea where I am. I handed him the baby and said ‘Danny wants to check on something and I’m going with him, see you when I get back.’ I walked off into the snow and as far as they know I fell in a hole and died. I want to go home.”
“Me too.” Heather threw her hat into the ring, biting her lip and shrugging when all eyes turned to her. “I’m tired. I don’t like it here.”
Danny let out a breath and pushed himself to stand. “Kutrosky’s camp is just under a day’s hike north of here. We can find it, do what we need to do, and be home in two days.” He shuffled to the cave mouth in his skis, passing Grace without a glance. He could feel the burn of her eyes on his back.
“How the hell do you know where Kutrosky is?” Stacey demanded.
All eyes turned to him.
“I’ve been working with that man, Jeff, for the last four days. Yesterday he finally talked. Kutrosky isn’t as hidden as he wants people to believe he is. Jeff said he’s only five ridges north of here, on the other side of the river.”
“And how do you know that Jeff isn’t a lying bastard trying to get us all killed?” Stacey argued.
How did he know?
“It’s all we have to go on,” he answered. He hated relying on faith. He had precious little of it to begin with. “We’ll ski up to Kutrosky’s camp, spend a few hours negotiating, and then,” he turned to face them all, eyes meeting Grace’s with enough emotion to light a fire, “then we’ll go home.”
She tried to hide her expression from him, but she was a bad liar. Her eyes glittered and the corners of her mouth twitched. Grace wanted to go home too.
“This is bullshit,” Stacey shouted, throwing a glove against the wall of the cave and grunting in frustration as she bent over to pick it up. She twisted with her skis and turned on Grace. “If you don’t—”
“What the hell is this party all about?” Kinn’s voice thundered from the mouth of the cave. He wore a thick parka with the hood down and his crossbow strapped to his back as if he hadn’t expected to need it.
Already aggravated, in pain, and strengthened by the knowledge Grace wanted what he wanted, Danny rounded on Kinn. “Get out of my way.”
Kinn’s eyebrows flew up. He fumbled the ski poles strapped to his hands in an attempt to toss them aside and reach for his crossbow. Jonah beat him to it, pulling a long homemade knife from his belt and lunging to hold it against Kinn’s throat. Kinn froze, hands held at his sides, one ski pole still tangled in his mitten. He feigned calm, but quick puffs of frosted breath betrayed his alarm.
“You got a hell of a lot of nerve, jackass,” he said, staring at Danny. Jonah slipped his knife to cut the strap holding Kinn’s crossbow to his back, tugging it away.
“You don’t know the half of it.” Danny met Kinn glower for glower, not a nerve in his body intimidated.
The faintest hint of questioning flashed through Kinn’s eyes. It morphed into fury as Jonah handed his crossbow to Stacey.
“Grace!” he shouted, continuing to stare bullets at Danny, “You better tell your four-eyed friend here to shut up if he knows what’s good for him.” His mouth twisted into a sly grin, as if Grace’s support won any argument.
Grace kept silent. The others held their breath, not even daring to swallow.
Kinn’s bravado faltered. He dropped his arms and tore his focus away from Danny to stare at her. “Well?”
Grace’s expression was as hard as stone.
Kinn shifted, rolling his shoulders. He checked to be sure neither Jonah nor Stacey were actively aiming a weapon at him and changed tactics.
“What’re you doing out here at the ass-crack of dawn in the snow?” he harangued Grace, inching to the side to stand towering over her. “You need to get your butt back to the house and back in bed before—”
“No.” She spoke the word so softly Danny wasn’t convinced he’d heard it.
Another pregnant pause.
“No?” Kinn puffed out his chest and gaped down at her.
“I’m going to find Kutrosky’s camp, Kinn. I’m going to talk to him about integrating the settlements.” She walked past him toward the mouth of the cave, stealing a glance to Danny.
“Like hell you are,” Kinn called after her a beat too late. His anger was replaced by slack-jawed shock. He shuffled in his skis to follow her. When he got close enough, he attempted to grab her.
Danny stepped between the two of them, blistered hand held up.
“Don’t touch her.”
Kinn bristled. “If you don’t get out of my way, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Danny asked with absolute calm. “You’re unarmed. There are four of us,” he nodded to Grace, “five of us, and only one of you. What the hell could you possibly d—”
Kinn slammed a fist
into the side of Danny’s face, knocking him off-balance.
Danny spilled to the floor. Grace shrieked. Stacey fumbled the crossbow in an attempt to aim it and Jonah lunged toward Kinn with fists raised. Heather pulled her own crossbow from her pack and aimed it at Kinn’s heart.
“Leave Danny alone!” she shouted.
Through the throbbing pain in his jaw, Danny smiled. That was his girl.
Kinn backed toward the fire, hands up, eyes wide with shock. “You wouldn’t do it,” he challenged Heather. “You’re just a kid.”
“I’m no kid, and I would do it,” Heather seethed. “You hurt my friends.”
The tense silence that followed was split only by the crackling of the dying fire.
“You’re just asking for trouble, aren’t you, pal?” Stacey was first to break the standoff. She had recovered Kinn’s crossbow and inched closer to him. “And I am so in the mood to give it to you.”
“Grace,” Kinn snapped, pleaded, splitting his attention between the two women who pointed weapons at him. He worked his jaw and fumbled to silence again when Grace stood her ground and stared at him. Slowly, jaw clenching tight, he lowered his arms, relaxing in defeat.
Danny hid his surprise at Kinn’s quick capitulation by straightening his skis and squatting. He stood and worked his jaw to make sure nothing was broken. Blood oozed onto his hand when he wiped his nose. It didn’t feel broken. He wiped the blood on his parka and picked up his backpack, shrugging it over his shoulders with slow, calculated calm.
When he was good and ready, he straightened and faced Kinn. With all the casualness of command, he adjusted his glasses and hiked his pack up on his shoulder. He was determined to make the man see who the victor was and always would be.
“Grace wants to go to find Kutrosky’s camp,” he said as though she wanted to host a picnic. “She thinks they need help. She wants to negotiate with him to see if he will let his people integrate with our settlements.”
“How many times do I have to tell you no, Grace?” Kinn growled, looking at her instead of Danny. The arrogance of his stance had melted to entreaty. “It’s a stupid idea. We don’t need anyone else nosing around our business.”
“You can’t stop me.” Grace wouldn’t budge.
Kinn sighed in irritation, sending Heather and her crossbow a wary glance before leaning closer to her. “What…what about the baby?”
“It’ll be fine.”
“You really gonna let her go out there?” He tried another strategy, appealing to Danny. “Aren’t you a doctor?”
Danny blinked. “I’m nothing anymore.”
They stared each other down, neither willing to be the first to give in. Outside, the orange sunlight of early morning spread across the new snow.
It was Grace who broke the stalemate. “You can either go home or you can come with us, help us.”
A flicker of anger flashed across Danny’s face before he could hide it.
Kinn shifted his weight, breaking eye contact with Danny to glare at Grace.
“Oh, you better believe I’m coming with you.”
Chapter Six – Half Truths
They shuffled out of the cave, climbing on top of the ice-packed snow with their wide skis. Danny positioned himself in the lead, shaking his head with a sigh at the motley group they made.
“You didn’t happen to bring concealed weapons for everyone, did you?” he murmured to Heather when she scrambled up to his side, fumbling her crossbow and a ski pole in one hand.
Heather dropped her jaw and flushed. “I…I didn’t think we’d all need them. I just thought we were going home. This one was mine from before and I wanted it back. Grace said—”
“It’s all right.” Danny let out a breath that turned into an unlikely laugh. He scooted closer to her to take the crossbow from her and to tuck it securely between her backpack and parka. “We’re on a mission of mercy anyhow.”
They exchanged looks that dissolved into ironic grins and a half-giggle from Heather. The two of them were among the least likely people on the moon to embark on a mission of mercy. He gave her shoulder a pat once the crossbow was in place and winked before he stepped away.
Grace was watching them from her spot by Scruffy’s side. When their eyes met she went back to work, fiddling with what appeared to be a fur-covered box on skis. Her granite determination was mingled with something new, curiosity. Danny paused, checking over his shoulder on Heather. Last time Grace had seen him and Heather together, they hadn’t exactly been roasting marshmallows over a campfire. It would take more time than they had, even with the moon’s slow tick of hours and seasons, to explain how things had changed, how the bond between him and Heather had grown. He’d have to explain it to himself first.
“Well? Are we gonna do this or not?” Kinn huffed from his position near Grace.
Anxious frowns and glares of distrust and disapproval spiked the air between them all as they started to move. Heather skied ahead of the group where she could serve as a scout. Danny glided back to Grace.
“You shouldn’t come,” he told her.
“I’m coming,” she said in no uncertain terms. She stroked Scruffy’s back, checking on the leather harness the cat wore.
“Grace, in your condition, walking or even skiing as far as we plan to go could—” He swallowed. “It could send you into labor.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, a spark of triumph and teasing in her deep green eyes. “Good thing I’m not planning to walk, then.”
She stepped around to the far end of the fur-covered box, peeling back the fur. Danny blinked. It was a sled. She slipped into a padded seat, adjusted the fur over her legs, and picked up a set of reins that were attached to the harness Scruffy wore. One short snap and Scruffy stood, tugging at the lines. Another and he pulled the dogsled, or rather catsled, out of the spot where it had settled and up over the fresh snowfall.
“Did you make that?” Danny asked, admiration squeezing his chest.
A hint of a smile tickled its way into Grace’s eyes. “Had it made. Kinn has three army engineers living in his village, remember. They were more than—”
“This is a bad idea,” Kinn interrupted what could have been the first normal conversation between them in months. “We should go back.”
“We’re not going back,” Grace said.
Danny frowned at her with a mixture of authoritative concern and personal wariness, as if it was her fault Kinn was there. Grace ignored him, which only deepened his scowl.
“Let’s move.”
Danny skied to the front of the group where Heather waited. There would be time to untangle emotions later.
“Since we know we’re relatively safe on this side of the river, let’s move as fast as we can. Jonah?”
“Yeah, Danny?”
“Keep an eye on that one.” He nodded to Kinn with a scowl.
“What, you think he can take me?” Kinn swayed taller, squaring his shoulders.
Danny glanced to Jonah. He was only an inch or so shorter than Kinn, and what he lacked in Kinn’s bulk, he made up for in brains.
“Jonah? Can you take him?”
“Just say the word,” Jonah replied with a low growl.
For half a second, Kinn floundered. Then his arrogance shifted to peevish indifference. “At least let me go back and get some men to go with us.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring an army already,” Grace murmured.
“I…I didn’t….” Kinn’s bravado flared and he flexed his hands over his ski poles. “They thought you were just trying to run off again. Argumentative bastards wouldn’t even—” He stopped himself midsentence, darting glances at the others as though he’d dropped a key piece of strategy.
Danny arched an eyebrow. So more than just the couple who had given him space in their cabin had warmed to the idea of letting Grace go. If it was him, he would have been overjoyed to get rid of Kinn at the same time. By the smirk on Stacey’s lips, she was thinking the same thing.
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“No going back.” Danny gave the closures of his parka one final tug. “We take only what we have with us. Keep quiet, stick together.” He dug in his poles and skied forward.
“Hey, who made you leader of this mission?” Kinn rushed to catch up to him as they all set out in the early morning light.
“Grace did.” Danny smiled, enjoying everything the words implied and the impact they had.
Kinn stopped, gaped, and fumbled to find words of protest as they all passed him. “You know I could go back and get together a whole squad of men to come stop you.”
“No, you couldn’t,” Danny called over his shoulder without looking back. He grinned up at the clearing sky.
“I could and I should,” Kinn protested, skiing forward to travel tight by Grace’s side. It was the only position he had left.
Grace sent Danny an annoyed frown.
He lost his smirk.
Carrie may have preferred to handle everything through highly encrypted code on her handheld, but he had preferred old fashioned pencil and paper. The list on the sheet in front of him had been growing longer with each twist of his imagination. Kutrosky had put him in charge of the menial task of commandeering supplies from The Terra Project to take to Leif Chernikov’s people. With Carrie’s supervision. It hadn’t exactly been a stellar leadership role. Fifteen years of university, including hush-hush government programs unknown to the public, and Danny had been put in charge of writing a grocery list.
He sat by a simulated window in one of the Argo’s common areas, tapping his pencil against his lips. At midday the room was reasonably crowded with Project members chatting in groups or playing board games to pass the time. It gave him the privacy of blending in.
There was something distinctly wrong about making the list. It only gave the illusion of inclusion. He knew he was no more a part of Kutrosky’s renegade band than Grace was. He was well aware that everything he’d been told was half true at best. He’d been involved with these people for a month and had yet to hear anything resembling a stirring call to action for the greater good against an evil oppressor. What he had heard were whispers of a future coup, hints that another ship was following them. There was something beyond a simple scheme to undermine The Terra Project at work in the background. He wasn’t sure, but from the veiled comments Carrie and Kutrosky had exchanged in their brief midnight meetings, he had the feeling that they were being led like lambs to the slaughter of…something.