Across

by Elizabeth Edson

  Chapter Sixteen:

  The camp was in shambles. At least half the tents had been torn down; a few more smoldered from the fires. Marie walked past the remains of the mess hall, absorbing the damage. Much of the angry screaming had died down, although Marie could still hear a few people shouting at each other from the other side of the camp. The area she was going through had mostly emptied. The few people remaining were drunk. A few feet away a man Marie recognized as one of Mabel’s botanists lay slouched against a roller. When Marie walked by, he started and tried to move, then winced and slumped back down.

  Marie rounded a corner. The smell of smoke still lingered in the air, and she crinkled her nose as she observed the damage. Tent 12 was gone; all that was left of it was a pile of ashes and one lonely pole. Marie grimaced. There went most of her clothes.

  But she hadn’t come back for her clothes. She had come back for somebody else’s clothes.

  And blood.

  She just hoped the nurse’s tent still stood and still had a couple bags of blood left. If it didn’t…she would just have to resign herself to dying even sooner than expected.

  She slinked forward and peeked down another aisle. This one was more abandoned than the other, but most of its tents still stood, including the nurse’s tent halfway down it. She quickly ducked inside, straightened, and almost groaned in dismay. Tiffany stood inside, sorting out medicine vials. She looked up when Marie entered.

  “Marie!” she exclaimed, striding forward. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes assessed Marie, and finding no obvious damage, she gazed at Marie questioningly.

  Think quickly.

  Marie smiled wryly at her. “Just going around and observing the damage. You know—my job. People were going crazy earlier.” Her eyes roved over the tent. The stacks of refrigerators and strange machines seemed untouched. “It looks like this place escaped the craze, though. Everything still intact and in place?”

  Tiffany smiled wearily and returned her attention back to the vials. “Yes, thank goodness. I’m just preparing for when people sober up and stumble in.”

  “Good, good.” Marie leaned over and grabbed a microscope sitting on a nearby table, its cord wrapped around its neck. She weighed it in her hand. Pretty heavy. “That’s so good to hear.”

  “Yeah.” Tiffany straightened and started to turn. “With all that—”

  Crack! Tiffany collapsed. A few vials splintered beneath her. Marie dumped the microscope on the table, leaned over, and checked Tiffany’s pulse. Still alive. Good. She didn’t want to start a murderous rampage. Yet.

  She sidestepped the table and made her way to the line of refrigerators. The first couple she opened were filled with strange looking bottles and jugs full of liquids she didn’t recognize. The second to last refrigerator held a few packets of blood, and Marie took a couple out, flipping through them. She was O+.

  A+, A+, A-, B+, AB-, A-…O+. Marie grabbed the bag and ruffled through nearby drawers, searching for anything that could help, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. She didn’t know how to do a blood transfusion. Science had never been her best subject, and medical things grossed her out. All she knew was that she would have to transfuse the blood intravenously, and that meant finding something to stick into her vein. Somehow.

  She found something that looked like it could work, then hesitated. How much blood did she need? Her eyes darted to the prone form of Tiffany, and she briefly regretted knocking her out. But then again, she probably couldn’t have trusted anything Tiffany said.

  She scanned the room, looking for something—anything—that could help her. A sheet of papers on a nearby desk drew her attention, and she tore through them. Most of pages looked like gobbledygook, and she threw them away in frustration. How am I going to do this?

  She searched the rest of the tent, ruffling through hundreds of papers, until at last she found a promising sheet. It had the record of another man’s blood transfusion, and Marie took what information she could from it.

  Several curses, pokes, and painful prods later, Marie had it done. At least, she thought she did. There was a good chance she had messed it up horribly. She would find out soon enough. She had already risked a lot by staying in camp as long as she had. She couldn’t linger. She had to go.

  She crept out of the tent. The shouts had finally faded away. She wondered if Barnabas had come back to the camp already, if he had heard about this fiasco. She hoped so. She hoped he was tearing his hair out.

  She found one of the soldiers’ tents, picked up a spare uniform someone had left, and scampered out of camp. No one bothered her. She didn’t even think anyone saw her. In fact, the entire camp was so ghostlike that Marie had to wonder where everyone had run off to.

  Nothing but open plain stretched between the camp and the city wall, so Marie thanked her lucky stars it was dark outside as she stripped and redressed in the soldier’s uniform. She grabbed a ribbon and pulled her hair back into a bun, as best as she could in the dark. She imagined in broad daylight she would never pass for a soldier, but she just needed to pass in torchlight.

  Thirty minutes later she stood before the gates of Melei-Argalla.

  “Come back later! The gates open at sunrise!”

  “I must deliver an urgent message to Lord Barnabas! I am from the Visitors’ camp!”

  She heard the soldiers muttering to each other. The balls of flame above the gate moved. Marie followed the movement with her eyes. Something directly in front of her clicked and grinded. A face appeared in a square of light. A grizzly-looking man was squinting at her through the peephole in the main gate.

  “You say you’re from the outsiders’ camp?” the man growled, his beady black eyes narrowed at her.

  She nodded jerkily. “I have an urgent message to deliver to Lord Barnabas! He must hear it immediately! It cannot wait until morning!”

  The man snorted. “How many more urgent messages can you people send in one night?” He disappeared from view, and Marie’s heart leapt to her throat. She heard him muttering something on the other side of the door. The door creaked, groaned, and swung open about a foot. Marie slid through the crack, nodded tersely to the guard, and ran into the dark streets of Melei-Argalla.

  The city felt deceptively calm and quiet as she raced through it. She heard the light tinkling of dripping water and the roar of drunken laughter, but that laughter felt far away, as if on the other side of the city…

  The clouds broke, and one of the moons shone through the gap, bathing the city in a swath of silver. Up ahead a fountain’s water glistened as it tumbled silently into its pool. Large puddles of water collected in the stone streets, and the puddles reflected the night sky above them. Marie’s heart ached when she saw the city; it was so beautiful. She would miss it when she died.

  She shook her head. Now is not the time to think about that. She pressed on, racing toward the royal palace. As she neared it, she attempted to make her run more disciplined-looking—the way she had seen Dustin run.

  At last she stopped at the gates and paused for a minute to rein in her gasping.

  “I have an urgent message to deliver to Lord Barnabas!”

  “Again?” The soldier appeared disgruntled. He arched an eyebrow at his fellow, and Marie opened her mouth to explain…but the soldier just shrugged. “Fine, hurry up!” Relief swept through her. She ran inside. The guard closed the gate behind her and muttered, “How many messengers does that make tonight? Nine?”

  Marie grinned as she jogged up the front steps of the palace. She hoped Barnabas was in a rage right now, preferably screaming profanities at Darius and Pamela. She could picture the scene in her mind…Barnabas storming back and forth…Darius and Pamela cringing against the wall…Darius occasionally plucking up the courage to say something like, “Barnabas, we will recover…” and then Barnabas screaming at him again…She wanted that scene to be real. She wanted it so badly.

  As soon as Marie made it safely inside the palace a
nd out of the guards’ sight, she stopped, peering around. Her heart pounded insider her. She had no idea if this was going to work. She was surprised she had gotten this far. She swallowed her fear, and instead of following the stone staircase up to the suite, Marie turned on her heel and headed downstairs through a line of corridors, till at last she found herself facing the doorway to the slave quarters.

  She knew as soon as she passed through it that something must be wrong. Hardly any of the slaves were asleep. They scampered back and forth, looking stressed even through their blindfolds. And they were louder than she remembered. From the kitchen she heard pots and pans banging, doors slamming, and slaves grunting as they knocked into each other. As Marie rushed down the hallway, she had to duck out of the way several times as slaves hurtled past her, carrying a wide assortment of items whose functions Marie couldn’t guess. One such item, something that looked like three crosses strung together, was so large it took three large slaves to carry at it.

  Marie’s felt a flicker of unease. There were so many slaves clambering everywhere…what if she couldn’t find Max?

  She climbed down a set of stairs and entered the kitchen. One of the cooks looked up at her entrance and narrowed her eyes. She stuck out her hand, awaiting instruction, the expression on her face hard.

  Marie felt a twinge of unease. She didn’t recall the slaves being so unwelcoming before, but she didn’t have time to ponder the reason for the change. She weaved her way through the kitchen toward the woman, grabbed her outstretched hand, and put it to her lips.

  “I need to find a specific laewin,” she said quickly. “I call him Max, but I don’t know what everyone else calls him. He is a young man assigned to the Earth-Visitors. He has long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and he’s pale.” Inwardly, she despaired. That description could fit every laewin assigned to the expedition. “He is assigned to me, Marie Nettleson. Or more specifically, my bedroom, which has a red, canopied bed…” She felt a wave of desperation. Why didn’t she know more about Max? “He wouldn’t have had to work the past few days, because I haven’t been in the palace…” She bit her lip, trying to think of something else that could describe the laewin she was looking for.

  But the woman tilted her head, looking thoughtful. Then her eyes widened, and she nodded earnestly.

  Relief flooded Marie. She knew Max!

  The woman turned, grabbed a laewin passing by, and tapped a series of instructions on his hand. He bowed deeply and dashed off.

  The cook smiled briefly at Marie before resuming beating a bowl of what looked like cake batter.

  Marie stood and waited. And waited. The minutes seemed to stretch by like hours, and Marie started shifting her weight anxiously from foot to foot. She glanced out a small window nervously. Dawn was still four or so hours away. She had time, but not much.

  She jittered with nervous energy. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and every sense felt hyperaware. Her heart pounded in her chest, and blood rushed to her ears.

  They probably had to wake up Max, she decided. That’s why it’s taking so long.

  She felt a brief pang for taking Max from his sleep—he probably didn’t get much to begin with—but it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t really trust anyone anymore, even the slaves, but Max hadn’t been proven traitorous, and he would know what she needed to know.

  At long last she saw Max appear in a horde of laewins. All of the seeing laewins stiffened as he weaved his way through the kitchen, their eyes following him nervously.

  Max stopped about five feet away from her and bowed. Marie leapt forward and grabbed his hand. His fingers found her lips.

  “Max, I need you to do something for me.” A butterfly fluttered through her stomach, and Marie briefly wondered if what she was doing was very smart. Probably not. In fact, it was probably one of the stupidest things she had ever done. “The Earth-Visitors are holding a prisoner. She would be locked away in a room in their suites somewhere. They’ve probably ordered laewins not to bring her anything, and they’ve probably blocked the laewins’ entrances into the room. Perhaps they even ordered a bunch of laewins to take valuables out of the room. This woman they’re holding—I need to talk to her. It’s urgent. Can you take me to her? Please nod if you can.”

  Max stood still for a long time, but at last he nodded.

  Marie felt a wave of relief. “Good,” she exhaled. “Can you bring me to her now?”

  Another nod.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Max held out his arm, and Marie grabbed hold of it. She allowed him to drag her through the halls, her heart pounding, her head whirring. This was such a bad idea—returning to the rooms of the people who were trying to kill her—but if anyone knew what Barnabas was up to and be willing to tell, it was Cristaña.

  It’s not like I’m going to live that long anyway, Marie reminded herself. She would eventually die here, if what Hollis had said was true. And even if she didn’t die from blood loss—if she somehow managed to keep on stealing blood from the expedition—she still had a death sentence hanging over her head. Barnabas would find a way to kill her when she didn’t die as expected. She couldn’t protect herself forever.

  Except…

  Her thoughts wondered. Perhaps tonight had changed things. Perhaps now that the CD was broken and the group was stuck, Barnabas would reevaluate their situation. He might need her. She could read and write Maretzian. He might revoke her death sentence.

  Marie shook her head angrily. Did she really want to stay around and help someone who would kill her once she outlived her usefulness? No. Something was wrong here, and she was going to find out what it was.