by Chele Cooke
Georgianna frowned. “Seriously?”
Beck shrugged. “It’s like Dhiren said. Too much close breeding leads to problems. We did it occasionally between tribes. Offer a man and a woman who had agreed to it, see if it can bring children.”
Georgianna gulped and looked down. “It was how Braedon was born,” she said.
“Exactly. How your mother joined the Kahle, Alec.”
Alec looked horrified at being informed about his parents, but remained quiet.
“So, what happened?” Lacie said.
“The Cahlven came and they wiped out the people on the planet. Every last one of them killed.”
“ What?” Georgianna covered her mouth, wincing at her outburst. “How would they even—”
“Sickness,” Beck said. “Sickness that’s encoded into their genetics. It won’t touch the Cahlven because their genetics are different. It’s… a targeted bomb.”
“But why?” Lacie said.
“Because they don’t want to damage the planet. The Veniche have spent generations building, the Adveni have spent a decade. Why ruin all that work?”
“So why aren’t we all dead?” Dhiren said. “If that’s their plan?”
“Because they’re still testing. They want a weapon they know will kill every Veniche, and that takes a lot of testing.”
Georgianna rose to her feet. “Are people dying?”
Beck shook his head and sighed. “Not yet. As far as I’m aware. They’re using low doses until they can figure out what works, and probably to keep the Veniche happy, claiming it’s just side effects. Once they have a weapon, and they’re certain they can drive the Adveni off Os-Veruh, we’ll be gone.”
Her family were under that shield. Her friends and thousands of other innocent people. Keiran was under that shield, and he wouldn’t even know what was coming. Their plan to wait it out wouldn’t work anymore.
“We have to get them out,” she said. “Right now. Before they get a bomb that works.”
They crowded around the map, laid out on the floor of the tunnel. Debate about how to proceed had been raging for over an hour.
“We don’t have the resources, George,” Dhiren said, tossing a handful of pebbles across the map. “Even if we had five times our numbers, we couldn’t get past the Cahlven guards. Or did you forget that they can detect people passing through the shield?”
“Well, I don’t see you coming up with a better plan.”
“Maybe because there isn’t one. There are five of us. What do you expect us to do?”
Georgianna got up off the floor. “I don’t know, alright? Is that what you want to hear? That I don’t know? I don’t have some magical plan to get us out of this. I just know we have to try. My family are in there. Other people’s families are all in there, and they’re going to die if we don’t stop it.”
Alec extended his hand to her. “George. Sit down. We’ll figure this out.”
She shook her head and turned away. “I need to be alone.”
Georgianna walked away down the tunnel, leaving the arguments behind her. She walked out of their little section of tunnel, through the larger lines partially blocked by the damage the Mykahnol had done. She knew Dhiren was right, and maybe that was why she was so upset. They had no way to fight this, no way to heal those under the shield, even if they could get them out. Beck’s fever had risen and broken twice already. In most cases, a breaking fever was a signal of recovery, but his was rising again within the day. He’d barely kept down food, and Jacob’s herbs were doing little to help. Whatever the Cahlven had done to him, it was starting to look like they were the only ones who could fix it.
Snow had drifted down the steps into the tunnel from above, and each step was slippery with ice beneath. Georgianna braced her hands against the upper steps as she climbed, brushing herself off at the top as she stepped out into the wind.
The sun had hidden itself completely behind clouds and it looked more like the late evening than the middle of the day. She pulled her coat tight around her, drew up her hood and set off through the snow, picking her way between buildings where patrols were least likely to look. From what she’d seen, the whole area was deserted. Footstep holes in the snow were almost covered over. There were glistening white roads and iced up windows as far as she could see. She wrapped her scarf over her nose and mouth, leaving nothing more than two brown eyes peeking out from beneath her hood. Even if she came across a patrol right now, she was sure they wouldn’t be able to tell whether she was friend or foe, just from the sight of her. Although the Adveni would spot her; she would always be too short to be considered one of them.
How she wished that Edtroka were with them. True, the plans he had been involved in were no less crazy, but he had a strength and a command about him that made it all seem possible, even necessary. Stomping off during an argument hardly said ‘leader’ to anyone, let alone Dhiren and Alec, and yet she couldn’t take their pessimism for one more minute. She knew how impossible it all seemed; she wasn’t stupid. But if they did nothing, they were resigned to losing, and she wasn’t willing to give in to that, not yet. She just needed something, anything, to turn it all around.
But the longer she walked in the beautiful but barren streets, through the buildings erected by the Adveni, it seemed more and more impossible that they could take them on.
Darkness was well and truly falling by the time Georgianna returned, no more inspired. If anything, she was feeling even more lost than usual. She traipsed through the tunnels, her socks wet inside her boots and her toes screaming with the pain of the cold, wondering what she would say to Dhiren and Alec when she reached them. Even if Beck had recovered—which she didn’t even dare hope for at this point—that gave them six people; seven if they could get word to Keiran. Perhaps—though she didn’t dare hope for this, either—Keiran could get word to some of the other Veniche, like Taye, who had signed up to the Cahlven guard, and they could gather a few dozen people. But whatever she thought of, it didn’t seem enough.
She unwrapped her scarf from around her face and opened her coat, knowing that someone would pop up at any moment to see who was coming down the tunnel. But the further she got, the more worried she became when she encountered nobody: Dhiren wasn’t sitting in a crevice in the tunnel, watching with silent scrutiny; Alec didn’t challenge her with a rifle; even Jacob didn’t peer out to see who was coming. She was almost at the camp when she heard a sound that had been rather sparse of late.
They were laughing.
Georgianna shook off the last of the snow and removed her coat, her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she came across the group. They were sat around a lamp: five bodies huddled together as something was passed between them.
She stood, staring at the scene for so long she didn’t even realise there were too many of them.
“George!” Jacob jumped to his feet, beaming. He rounded the group with exuberance, and wavered as he changed course, tripping over his own feet.
“Jake? What’s going on?”
“Keiran brought us some Cahlven stuff!” Jacob waved a hand in what he probably assumed was the direction of the group, but was actually the tunnel wall.
“Keiran?” she said, finally looking properly at the group and finding Keiran twisting his body to look up at her. “Keiran!” Georgianna hurried over, dropping her coat on the floor and falling down onto her knees on top of it. “Keiran, what are you doing here?”
“I was given permissions to leave the shield,” he said, grinning. “I convinced the Cahlven that it would do good for Veniche morale if they could have some Ven food for once. We gathered a troop, and left the shield to go hunting, and once we were past the shield, I made my excuses and came here.”
“You convinced the Cahlven? Really?”
Alec snorted. “He convinced Olless. Apparently, we’re pathetic enough now for her to agree to let Zanetti fool her bosses.”
“And bring us booze.” Dhiren held up a bottle.
Ge
orgianna stared wide-eyed at them all.
Keiran laughed. “Hey, I did at least bring food, too. Not my fault you lot are more interested in getting sloshed.”
Her gaze flickered to Lacie and Jacob. “You let them… Are you guys drunk?”
Lacie giggled. “Jacob is. I’m…”
“She’s being responsible,” Dhiren hissed in a stage whisper, covering his lips with one finger. “Don’t want to disappoint daddy!”
“It’s not that!” Lacie said. “I just… I don’t like the taste, that’s all.”
Keiran passed the bottle to Georgianna. “George used to steal us Adveni liquor when she worked in Crisco.” He pushed it up towards Georgianna’s lips. “Only right I return the favour.”
“Well, you’re all a lot cheerier than the last time I saw you,” Georgianna said, batting Keiran away with a scowl. She took a swig of the alcohol and spluttered at the strength, and how it burned her throat. She coughed and smacked her fist against her chest. The boys all laughed. “At least this makes our complete and utter failure easier to take.”
Dhiren scowled at her. “Talk for yourself. While you were out there moping, we came up with a plan.”
“What?”
He grinned and waved for her to drink another mouthful before taking the bottle. “Drink up, little bird. Day after tomorrow, we’re breaking into another prison.”
Georgianna touched the side of her head, grimacing at the sticky substance they’d put in her hair to make it behave. Upon leaving the Cahlven shield, Keiran had thought of everything. A mess of curly blonde hair didn’t exactly meet the regulations of the Cahlven soldiers. Once they’d sobered up, he’d gone over their strict instructions once again for Georgianna’s benefit, then returned to the shield to synchronise with the hunting party.
“Stop fidgeting,” Dhiren said out of the corner of his mouth. “You are soldier.” He hung his head low and affected his most Cahlven accent.
Georgianna nodded and tightened her grip on his arm, giving it a twist for emphasis. He hissed and looked back at her, growling under his breath and almost drawing a giggle. No. She couldn’t laugh right now. She was supposed to be serious. He was supposed to be her enemy.
The shield glimmered in front of them and, for the first time in months, they walked along the main road towards one of the official checkpoints.
A dozen feet away, five Cahlven soldiers stepped through the shield to meet them.
One raised a hand. “Halt!”
They came to a sudden stop as two of the soldiers moved closer.
“What is happening here?” the soldier said.
Alec smiled. “We were sent on a scout.” He stood up straight and tall, towering almost a head above the Cahlven soldier. “Found these two hunting. They’re part of the group that was banished.”
Georgianna nodded. While she knew she was supposed to be playing the part of a Cahlven soldier, they’d decided that actually pretending to be Cahlven was a bad idea. There were enough Veniche signed into their guards, and it would be easier to pretend to be one of them.
“Where are your passes?”
Georgianna and Alec each dug into their pockets and pulled out a pale card with Cahlven symbols. The soldier placed them into a reader, examined the results, and handed them back.
“Take them to the transport ship. Someone will meet you on ground to take them.”
Alec nodded, pocketed his fake card, and grabbed Jacob, shoving him forwards past the soldiers. Jacob tripped and had to struggle to right himself, his hands tied behind his back with Cahlven bindings, just like Dhiren. Georgianna only realised once they were stepping through the shield that her controlling Dhiren, and Alec, handling Jacob might have been the least believable combination they could have come up with. Still, since it had worked, it didn’t seem to matter.
“You know,” Dhiren said as they walked further into the camp, “I find it insulting that you would draw more of a crowd. If I’d turned up with you in tow, the Colvohan himself would probably come down to take you into custody. You’d have a parade through the camps.”
Georgianna rolled her eyes and gave him an extra hard shove in the small of the back to keep moving.
He chuckled and righted himself easily, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Silly little bird.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You should own it. You think I don’t know what the inmates said about me?”
“They called you Coyote.”
“I know. And instead of getting upset about it, I owned it. I took their mockery and I turned it into something to be feared.”
Georgianna moved further around his side, so that it looked like she was directing him and not the other way around. “There is nothing scary about ‘little bird’.”
He grinned at her. “Birds are the hardest animals to catch. The little ones… even worse. And let’s face it, you ain’t been caught yet.”
“Ehnisque caught me.”
“Because you let her. And you escaped from their cage, didn’t you?”
Georgianna grumbled under her breath. “I still don’t like the name.”
That only made Dhiren laugh again, but this time he stopped on his own, and Alec’s frustrated glare was not needed.
They made their way through the camps at a plausible pace, considering they had two prisoners who would be reluctant to reach their destination. The ship loomed over them, its shadow spread over everything on the ground. Its curved underside was littered with windows and multicoloured lights that flashed and twinkled at regular intervals. They were further into the camp than any of them had been in months, and there was little familiar to be found on the ground. The houses were the same shape, but they had been ransacked long before, their doors left wide, their windows broken.
Dhiren had long since shared that looting like this was why he distrusted tribes so much. No matter how Georgianna argued that people wouldn’t have done this to their tribe before, he would hear none of it, except to claim that doing it to another tribe was just as bad.
“There,” Jacob said, nudging Alec in the ribs. “Over there a quarter turn to the right, see?”
They followed his gaze, and, sure enough, Jacob had spotted exactly what they were looking for. A red star had been crudely painted on a doorway. To say it was a star was a stretch of imagination, but she imagined it was all Keiran could manage quickly, in the dark, while trying not to be seen. They adjusted their course, and Georgianna had to focus on keeping her footsteps even, and not lurching into a sprint.
They ducked into the alleyway beside the house with the red star, looking for the next marker. Dhiren stretched his arms back, waving his hands.
“Not yet,” Georgianna said. “Who knows who we’ll run into?”
“If you wait until you get me in a cell before you’ll remove these things, you and I will be having words, you hear me?”
“I have no intention of seeing you locked up, but thanks for the reminder.”
The second red star was painted on the broken slats that had once covered a window. Alec pressed ahead, as Jacob and Dhiren tried to keep their balance steady in the snow with their arms tied behind their backs and Georgianna bringing up the rear. She checked over her shoulder every few steps, each time sure that she would see someone watching them, chasing them.
There was nobody.
The final star was at the bottom of a door; it was so small that Alec almost missed it. He pushed open the door, drew a copaq from underneath his coat and aimed it inside. He checked the shadows and waved them through. While Alec looked over the rest of the house, Georgianna unfastened the bindings from Dhiren and Jacob’s wrists, pocketing them.
This house, like all the others, had been looted and emptied. The furniture had been taken for firewood, and beloved items were abandoned and broken. Georgianna leaned against the wall by the window and stared through the broken shutters.
Alec returned with an armful of supplies. Two Cahlven guard coats for Dhir
en and Jacob, with passes in the pockets. Keiran had said that creating them had meant lying to Tohma about their use, but at least the information would match, which had certainly proved useful in passing through the shield. He had drawn a crude map, detailing the layout of the ship, and the quickest and quietest ways to and from the quarantined zone. He’d done all he could in making the journey to the quarantine easy, but if they wanted him to keep his cover within the shield, even just for another day, they would have to be alone from there.
Dhiren and Jacob exchanged their heavy coats for the Cahlven versions. Georgianna had been surprised to find how warm it was, despite the flimsy material, and though Dhiren didn’t comment, she could see he was similarly intrigued as he fastened the buttons. Alec stuffed their heavy coats into a bag and slung it over his shoulder. Since his pass said he’d been on the hunting trip, it was most logical that he’d have the supplies.
Once they were set, Alec faced them. “Everyone know where they’re going?”
“You’re sure we should split up?” Jacob said.
“It’s the best way, kid,” Dhiren said. “We have the tsentyls. One of us gets caught, sound the alarm and the others can make a run for it.”
Jacob nodded, steeling himself for what was to come. He’d been involved in their scouting, and he’d been on multiple hunts with Alec and Dhiren, but this was the first time he’d been at the front of it all. He looked much older than his twenty-one years, standing beside her in a Cahlven coat.
“Dhiren’ll look after you,” she said, stepping close and giving him a brief but tight one-armed hug. “If he doesn’t, I’ll let Lacie kill him.”
That seemed to perk him up a little, if nothing else.
“On the other side, then?” Alec said.
They all nodded.
“On the other side.”
Georgianna had almost forgotten the odd sensation of being stuck in mud when moving around the Cahlven ship. As she made her way down one of the long corridors through the sleeping quarters for Cahlven soldiers, she wondered how they put up with it. Was it the same when they laid down to sleep? Feeling like they were being sucked into their beds until the mattress swallowed them whole? She didn’t want to think about it, but at least it muted her worries about someone stepping out of their bunk to see her creeping down the corridor.