by Mel Odom
In the stream that ran near the camp, Hella scrubbed the tin plates she and Stampede had used for breakfast then rinsed them with sanitized water. Minnows and crawfish darted through the shallows and plucked tidbits of food that floated on the surface before swimming back into the depths with their prizes.
A shadow fell onto the ground beside Hella as she shook the water from the plates.
"You could have had breakfast with us."
Holding on to the plates and utensils, Hella stood up and faced Riley. "Thank you, but no. Stampede and I were fine."
"Look, about yesterday—"
"Scatter panicked Pardot and I overreacted. I understand that." She said that but she still didn't feel it was true.
"No hard feelings?"
"No."
Riley smiled and nodded. "Good. That's really good. I pointed out to Dr. Pardot that we couldn't have come as far as we have or found the fractoid without the help you and Stampede provided."
"I hope he understands that."
"He does."
"Are Scatter's people really called fractoids?"
Riley laughed and the sound was almost honest and easy. "No. I heard Stampede say that, and I liked it. Even Dr. Pardot has begun calling them fractoids."
"Scatter isn't the first one they've found?"
Face darkening, Riley was silent for a moment. "That's something I can't tell you."
"Can't or won't?" Hella kept her tone light, but she knew she wasn't fooling anyone.
"If Dr. Pardot told me not to tell you, I wouldn't. But he hasn't told me, and I don't know."
Back at the camp, everything was in full swing as the security team loaded up the ATVs and mini wagons. Stampede stood with Dr. Pardot and consulted a map.
Hella turned back to Riley. "Where's Scatter?"
"With Dr. Trammell."
"I haven't seen him this morning."
"Dr. Pardot and Dr. Trammell have had a lot of questions for him. As it turns out, he's had a lot of questions for them."
After her experience with Scatter over the past couple of days, Hella easily believed that.
"We should be ready to move out within the next thirty minutes."
Hella gazed at the eastern sky and saw the sun was up. She knew Stampede was antsy to get under way. "Do you know where we're heading?"
Riley shook his head. "East. That's all Dr. Pardot told me."
"How far?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"If we go very much farther, we're going to run into Amichi Mountain country."
A frown creased Riley's forehead creased. "That's a bad thing?"
"The eastern section of the Redblight is swampland. It's hard traveling and the area is filled with every kind of winged, walking, slithering, and swimming bloodsucker you can imagine."
"You don't paint a very appetizing scenario."
"Wait till you see the alligators. Some of them make Daisy look small." Hella headed back up the hill toward the camp.
Riley fell into step beside her. "That's a joke, right?"
"No."
"Where are we going?" Hella stood at Stampede's side, apart from the security people. She still hadn't seen Scatter and wasn't happy about that.
"East."
"That's what Riley said."
"Then you know as much as I do, Red."
"Why east?"
"Trammell."
"More visions?"
"That's what she says."
"She tell you that?"
"Pardot did."
Hella glanced around the camp and knew that Riley would have his people ready to go in a few more minutes. "Did you happen to tell Pardot about the Amichi Mountain range?"
"I did."
"He knows what he's getting into?"
"As best as I could explain it to him."
Taking a hard candy from her pocket, Hella popped it into her mouth. "Did Pardot tell you what we're looking for next?"
"No. He said we'll know it when we see it."
Hella sucked on the honey-flavored disk. "Have you talked to Scatter?"
"No. But I saw him." Stampede nodded his horned head.
Stepping around the bisonoid, Hella looked at the tent just behind Pardot's. Colleen Trammell stood outside her tent, talking to Scatter, who seemed to hang on her every word.
Alice is going to be all right. No matter what has to be done, Alice is going to be taken care of.
"Did you say something, Red?"
Startled, Hella glanced up at Stampede. "No." She went to saddle Daisy, but she didn't like the way the echoes of Colleen's desperate thoughts rattled through her mind.
Hella took point, but Riley flanked her with two wings to double up on security as they followed the trade road. Other travelers and merchants walked the road as well, and most of them approached the expedition. Several had goods they wanted to barter. A few had funds they wanted to invest in buying goods from the expedition.
The way was hot, humid, and hard. Daisy flowed effortlessly along the trail, but Hella started to feel fatigued as she rolled in the saddle. She missed having Scatter behind her asking questions. Every now and again she caught sight of the fractoid walking with Pardot. The two chatted constantly, and Pardot appeared to be matching Scatter question for question.
When they took a noonday break, Hella was disappointed to see that Scatter continued his dialogue with Pardot without approaching her.
"What's on your mind, Red?"
Hella glanced over at Stampede as he took a jar of peaches from the goods they'd purchased in Blossom Heat. "Scatter." She nodded at the fractoid still talking to Pardot.
"I suppose they have a lot to talk about." Stampede opened the jar of peaches and hooked out a slice with his fingers. He popped the peach into his mouth.
"I didn't figure he would stay away from us."
"We don't have the answers he's looking for."
"Do you think they've told him he doesn't have a way home again?"
"For all we know, Red, those people can get him there. But I've never heard about it."
"Why do you think that?"
Stampede shrugged and slipped another peach into his mouth. "Dr. Trammell seems capable of finding fractoids."
"Don't you think that's odd?"
"There's a lot of odd things out in the Redblight. You've seen them." Stampede cut his gaze to Daisy, who had her face happily inside a feedbag. "You ride one of the strangest anyone here has ever seen."
"You and I know how to follow tracks and sign. Do you think Colleen's precog is something like that?"
"Maybe." Stampede looked at her. "You and I learned to track by following things. We know track and sign because we've seen them before."
"Right. Colleen and Pardot have seen a fractoid before."
"That's what they said."
"I don't have any answers about it, though."
"You're right. But someone knows the answers."
Stampede screwed the lid back on the peach jar. "Maybe one of us should talk to Colleen Trammell."
"Sure."
"But do it carefully."
Although Pardot kept Colleen Trammell under his thumb most of the time, there were still occasions she was on her own. During the evening, after camp was made, Pardot took Scatter into the lab and performed tests by himself. Hella passed by without being seen. Through the tent flap, Scatter looked totally at ease as Pardot scanned him with instruments. Hella didn't understand how Scatter could act so relaxed after getting blasted by the disruptor.
Two guards stood watch over Colleen's tent. They stopped Hella at the doorway.
"I'd like to see Dr. Trammell." Hella remained polite with effort. The schism between the security guards and her and Stampede seemed to have grown wider and wider all day. Whatever secrets Pardot guarded were splitting the expedition.
"Dr. Trammell isn't seeing anyone." Broad and beefy, the guard bordered on the edge of rudeness.
"I have a wound that I think may be getting septic."
"Have your boss take a look at it."
"I'd rather have a woman look. Stampede doesn't embarrass easily, and I don't either, but he's not a medical doctor and he's not female."
"You could go see—"
Colleen stuck her head through the tent flaps and glared at the guards. "She can see me."
The guards didn't move.
"Now, if you please." Her words carried an edge to them.
Reluctantly the guards stepped back and allowed Hella through. Hella ignored both of them as she entered the tent. Colleen zipped the flap closed behind her then switched on a small device in the center of the dome roof.
"You're not really wounded, are you?" Colleen studied her. "I would have noticed it, and I don't think you would have waited all day to come see me."
Hella didn't speak.
Colleen pointed at the device. "That's a white-noise generator. It keeps anyone outside the tent from listening in. Even those men standing guard can't hear us speaking in here."
That also meant Stampede probably couldn't hear her over the comm link. "I'm out of touch with Stampede. He's going to come looking."
"Tell him you're with me." Colleen flicked a switch on the white noise device.
"Stampede?"
"Yeah. I lost you for a minute."
"I'm with Dr. Trammell. She's going to look at my wound. While I'm talking to her, you're not going to be able to hear me."
Stampede hesitated for a minute and Hella knew he was uneasy about the situation. The comm links were important in their line of work. "Okay, Red. If you get into trouble, you can always shoot your way out of the tent."
Hella smothered a smile since Colleen couldn't hear the exchange. She nodded and Colleen switched the white-noise generator back on.
The tent was small and neatly organized. A tiny desk and a computer occupied one corner, and an airbed took up about a third of the space. An energy-charged pad lay on the ground and kept the dust and allergens at bay. The air inside the tent smelled too clean, almost as if it were canned.
Colleen sat on the airbed and gestured at the desk. "Please. Sit."
"Thanks, but I'm all right." Hella sat cross-legged on the floor.
"What did you want to talk to me about?"
"You came out here to find Scatter."
"Or something—someone—like him, yes."
"Why?"
Colleen composed her thoughts before speaking. She still looked worn out from the hard traveling they'd done that day. "Dr. Pardot believes he can reverse-engineer some of the technology that created Scatter."
Hella took a breath and considered how best to proceed in her questioning. She thought about simply asking the woman how they knew about Scatter or his people, but she decided that might spook Colleen. Hella didn't want to do that. "You told me this has something to do with your daughter, Alice."
"Yes."
"Is she dying?"
Colleen opened her mouth and looked shocked, as though she'd just been slapped. "I never told you that."
"Not in words but when you touched my mind, it opened up something that hasn't completely stopped."
Embarrassed, Colleen shook her head. "I never intended for that to happen."
"I didn't think so but it did." Hella hesitated. "When you were in Blossom Heat, still suffering from the drugs Pardot kept you on, you dreamed of Alice. I saw her. I saw you. In the lab where you were trying to find a cure for her."
Tears filled Colleen's eyes, and Hella almost panicked. She hadn't meant to make the woman cry. Hella had seen people cry before, but she'd never been the cause of it. She and Stampede lived apart from other people and didn't get involved on an emotional level or even get close to them. She didn't know whether to apologize or run.
"Alice has a disease." Colleens words came hard and sounded hoarse. "A horrible, deadly disease. And if I don't save her, she's going to die."
Images of the dying rodents overlapped with those of the child in Hella's mind.
"There is nothing—nothing—as horrible as the death of a child."
Despite the gravity of Colleen's words, Hella almost objected. Any death was horrible. When they'd burned the Wroths back at the Coyle River, Hella would have been hard pressed to figure out whom she felt more sorry for. Age wasn't a distinction in her world. Death, when people weren't looking, took everyone.
"I will not allow my daughter to die." Colleen's voice shook with emotion.
"How did you know to look for Scatter out here?"
"I've dreamed about Alice for almost two years. I was desperate to find a way to save her. So I took drugs to amplify my precog abilities." Colleen took a breath, more under control. "I forced myself to see a way to save her. And I did. Even then, though, I almost killed myself before I found an answer. If Dr. Pardot hadn't found me and saved me when he did—" She shook her head. "Then no one would have been alive to save Alice."
"How do you know Scatter can help you?"
"I know he has told you how his people found a way to save themselves from the disease in his world."
"Yes."
"By putting their personalities into the machines."
Hella nodded.
"Alice is wasting away, Hella. Dying a little bit each day. If Dr. Pardot is successful in his endeavors, we'll be able to replicate the machine bodies in our labs. I can save my daughter."
The possibility didn't sound like salvation to Hella. It sounded too much like becoming a 'Chine. "You didn't just dream up Scatter, though. You already knew his people existed."
Colleen shook her head. "You're asking too many questions. Dr. Pardot would be unhappy to learn that I've told you as much as I have."
"I'm not going to tell him. And what you know could help Stampede and me"—Hella was going to say, save us, but changed her mind.—"help you save your daughter."
For a time Colleen remained silent. Then she nodded. "We knew his people existed."
"How?"
"One of them came through a ripple in our city. Dr. Pardot and I got to examine it—him—but never managed to speak with him."
"Why?"
"There wasn't time. It—he—expired too soon after we made the acquisition."
"How?"
"Damage from coming through the ripple? From colliding with the ground? Or maybe he was damaged and dying before he appeared in our world. We don't know."
Hella thought about the entry Scatter had made into their world and figured it would be hard to destroy a fractoid. However, Dr. Pardot's disruptor had taken Scatter out pretty quickly.
"You've been an amazing help to us, Hella. You and Stampede. Dr. Pardot is aware that we're probably alive only because of the two of you and that we wouldn't have been able to recover Scatter without you. Please don't think any of us take that for granted."
Hella didn't, but she also didn't doubt that Pardot would still rather follow his agenda than give in to any sympathetic feelings of gratitude. Guides were worth time and money only if they were taking people where they wanted to go and getting them there safely. Even that didn't mean the client wouldn't bushwhack a guide to keep from paying him or to maintain secrets. Stampede had taught her that early.
"If you already have Scatter, why are you searching for another fractoid?"
"Because we have to have two of them."
"Why?"
"One of them doesn't survive alone."
"How do you know that?"
"Dr. Pardot's investigation into the fractoid we found months ago revealed that, and the tests he's conducted on Scatter bear that out." Colleen leaned forward and caught Hella's hands. Hella just barely kept from turning her hands into weapons. "Please, Hella. I know Dr. Pardot can be hard to get along with, impossible at times, really, but we need you and Stampede."
Hella sat quietly, looking into the woman's liquid gaze.
"Whether he's told you or not, Scatter needs to do this too. Otherwise he'll die just like the last fractoid did."
CHAPTER 23
After Hella finished relating her conversation with Colleen Trammell to Stampede, he sat back and scratched his chin. His ears flicked in irritation. Then he fixed his gaze on her. "Do you believe her?"
Hella thought about that for a moment then nodded. "Colleen has too many reasons to tell us the truth. At least some of the truth." She let out a disgusted breath. "The problem is trying to figure out what they're not telling us. Before it gets us killed."
"Remember the golden rule to scouting, Red."
"Try to save one life a day, especially if it's your own."
"Yeah. That's the one." Stampede lay back inside their shared tent and crossed his arms behind his head. "Also, take one day at a time. We'll follow this trail a little farther and see where it takes us. We're not any more invested than we want to be."
"I know. But I have to tell you, I don't want the death of that kid on my head. I don't want to dream about her or what I could have done if there was something I could do."
"That little girl isn't your problem. She isn't our problem. There are some things we can't do anything about."
"You say that, but it seems to me you and Faust went out of your way to help another kid not so long ago."
Stampede didn't say anything for a while. "Get some sleep. We're going to have a long day tomorrow, and when we head into the Amichi Mountains, we're going to have to be at our best."
Hella rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes. As wound up as she was, she expected sleep to come hard. Instead it came for her in a rush and carried her away almost at once.
For three days, Hella rode point on Daisy and almost grew bored. If it hadn't been for Riley's insistence that Colleen Trammell's precog visions were coming faster and stronger, she would have thought they were wasting their time. Usually she thought that anyway despite Riley's news.
She occupied some of her time hunting fresh meat for her and Stampede. Game was plentiful and she had a selection of deer, quail, squirrel, and rabbit. At least hunting gave her something to do that focused all of her attention for a time and she didn't have to think about anything else.
Since the night in the tent, Colleen hadn't gone out of her way to speak to Hella. The woman seemed happy to know that Stampede and Hella continued to guide them and didn't want to jinx the arrangement. Or maybe the precog visions were taking their toll. Or maybe Pardot was watching her more closely. Hella had had to admit it could have been any of those things.