attest to that.
That leaves us with the possibility of a change of plans, or maybe the aliens found a different
way to communicate their message. Or maybe they figured out it was someone else who responded to
their message and not Plantation-4.
“We have to get out of here,” Damian whispers. “It could be a trap.”
We take the same way back, another four hours of walking ahead of us and we’re already tired,
disheartened and hungry. Daphne is devastated and has hardly spoken a word. Finn dwells on who
knows what in his own head and I stay away from him because I am still too upset about what I
witnessed last night and I don’t want to make things worse.
Every minute that goes by makes the day hotter and every step I take feels heavier than the one
before it. I’m thirsty and sweaty, and, as strange as it sounds, the more I walk, the more I realize that a part of me feels relieved. I was never convinced that we had made the right choice coming out here.
Now we can go back and continue to grow stronger and become more competent. Besides, I
won’t have to live with the fact that I had to stay behind in the trenches when everybody else had to
fight.
The way back feels longer than the way to the canyon and we are exposed to many more dangers
walking in plain daylight. When we finally get within five miles of the camp at noon, Damian sends
Rabbit out to make sure the coast is clear. Scout and Biscuit have led the way so far. Between the two of them, it’d be practically impossible to miss any signs of Sliman around.
We slow down so as to give Rabbit a chance to run to the camp and back. We remain silent even
though we know this is an area we know very well. I wonder how many times Finn has patrolled this
place and then I wonder how many times he has sneaked out at night. I take a look at him and notice
that he’s exchanging signal messages with Daphne who is in a terrible mood. She looks tired and
defeated, more so than anyone else.
Rabbit’s sudden return interrupts my thoughts. He comes running at full speed and in record
time. He practically falls at Damian’s feet as he tries to halt his flight. Damian takes a step back to make room for Rabbit.
Damian suddenly turns pale and looks sick. He sees something in Rabbit’s eyes that can only be
described as terror.
17
“It’s not chimps this time, is it?” Daphne says with a blank face that frightens me more than
Rabbit’s horrified features.
Rabbit shakes his head.
“I knew something like that would happen,” Daphne goes on turning her face to the unforgiving,
clear sky. She shuts her eyes immediately and I don’t know if she does so to protect them from the
scorching sun or if she’s falling into some sort of trance.
Damian looks at her as if she’s gone completely mad. He motions to us to get out of the path and
hide in the forest. He turns his attention to Rabbit.
“What did you see?” he asks.
“Sliman, everywhere, about three miles from here.” Rabbit is breathless, his speech is labored.
“They have blocked the way to the camp from the north and they are searching the forest. There is no
way to get through them to the camp from here.”
“Have they been at the camp?” Finn asks.
“I couldn’t get anywhere near the camp. But I’m pretty sure they have seen it and they definitely
know their abandoned buildings are in use. It would be impossible to miss a thing like that once you
get so close.”
“Okay,” Damian says, “we are turning back, we’ll reach the mountains by nightfall.”
“What do you mean?” Finn says. “We can’t just run away, not yet. We have to make sure the
Sliman have been at the camp and they know we’ve been using the abandoned facilities. We can’t just
guess. We have to figure out what they are doing there.”
“Wasn’t it your last bright idea that had us attacking an alien ship against my command? I told
you all it could be a trap. Isn’t that why we’re here now? Isn’t that why we’ve lost our camp and our
base and isn’t that why Sliman are hunting us as we speak?” Damian says while the familiar swollen
veins make their appearance on his temples.
“Turns out you guessed right, but on this we can’t guess. We have to go around and approach the
camp from the south and up the hills.”
“And what would that accomplish exactly?” Damian says with exasperation in his voice.
“From the hills, we’ll have a vantage point and we’ll be able to see what’s going on in the camp
without being seen.”
“Finn,” Damian says, “I appreciate your dedication to the Saviors, your enthusiasm, your
fierceness, your selflessness. I really do. But this is the stupidest idea you have come up with so far, even worse than trying to attack the alien ship.”
“You know I’m right,” Finn says as his features harden. “You can’t protect us from danger
anymore and you can’t make this go away. My mistake, your mistake, it doesn’t matter. The danger is
in our backyard. How long do you think it will take them before they discover our tracks? We don’t
have the time anymore to cover them up, you know that, they’ll find us no matter where we go. It’s
better to know what we’re facing.”
Damian resists the temptation to jump Finn. “I won’t listen to this nonsense,” he says. “Let’s get
going.”
He puts his backpack around his shoulders. Theo and Doc follow his example right away.
“Stop it,” Daphne says. “Finn is right, it’s too late to play it safe.”
At this point, I believe Daphne will say anything to contradict Damian. Something has happened
between them and it’s not good.
“We don’t have time for your embittered antics, Daphne,” Damian says. “Pick up your stuff,
we’re heading to the encampment on the mountains.”
“I’m staying right here with Finn,” she says with a face as hard as stone. “We’ll do this by
ourselves if we have to. We’ll come and find you later.”
We are all stunned at this turn of events. It’s anyone’s guess what is going to happen from now
on. There’s a definite rift forming among the Saviors and if the clash of powers keeps escalating, we
might end up destroying ourselves.
“Finn didn’t say he’d stay by himself,” I protest and glance at him for support. He doesn’t return
my glance. He looks at Daphne and I can’t read him like I’ve been able to in the past.
“Finn is a big boy, Freya, you can’t keep telling him what to do,” Daphne says.
“Finn?” I’m desperate and I can’t hide it.
“You’re right, Freya,” he says, “I didn’t say I’d stay by myself, but as it turns out, I don’t think
I’ll have to. Daphne’s staying. Who else is in?”
I think my head will explode any minute now, the pressure inside my skull is unbearable. I look
to Damian but he pays no attention to me.
Damian’s entire being focuses in as he drops his backpack to the ground and punches Finn on the
nose. Finn is taken aback for a moment, but only for a moment. He springs back up onto his feet quick
as lightning and jumps in the air to kick Damian in the stomach.
Theo and Doc try to get between them but Damian and Finn are too strong. They keep fighting,
crushing anyone who attempts to get in the way.
“You are to blame for this,” I accuse Daphne. “Hel
p me put an end to it!”
She nods and with a swift movement throws herself behind Damian, grabs his right wrist and
twists it behind his back. I barely have time to get my loop out of the pocket of my pants and throw it around Finn’s shoulders and upper arms. I pull the rope and Finn falls to the ground.
I quickly fall on him, covering his body with mine as a shield against Damian who has managed
to free himself from Daphne’s stranglehold. Damian swears when he sees me. He slips and falls as
Daphne grabs his legs. Damian lands on the ground next to me and Finn. His breathing is hot and
irregular in my ear. His face is bloody, his hair a total mess. He stares in my eyes for a long moment, then gets up and reaches for his backpack.
Finn’s body is in pain, I can feel his anguish underneath me and I am grateful that he has stopped
fighting my rope, that he stays where he is.
“Let’s go,” Damian says to the Saviors and starts walking back. I notice that he has a slight limp.
I slowly get off Finn and scan his injuries. I don’t think anything’s broken. He has a bloody nose
and a split lip. “You will be fine,” I tell him. “Let’s go with Damian now, it’s time.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Tick,” he whispers. “You go. I’ll come and find
you in the mountains when I have seen with my own eyes what’s going on.”
“Finn, I beg you,” I say, my eyes welling with tears. I already know it’s of no use, once he
makes up his mind, nothing can change it.
“I’ll stay,” Nya says with an indifferent voice.
“Me, too”, Rabbit says.
One by one, the Saviors line up next to Finn: Tilly, Scout, Biscuit.
That leaves Theo, Zoe, Doc and me in need to make a decision.
“I’m sorry,” Theo says, “it’s all my fault. I must have done something wrong when I linked to the
satellite. They must have noticed my attempts to send messages as Plantation-4. I don’t know. All I
know is something’s gone wrong. I can’t let Damian down again. It’s me you should all be mad at.”
We are too tired and shocked to tell him what we think, that it’s not his fault, that he is the
reason we have accomplished so much as a team. Without his tech knowledge and genius, we’d just
be fighting with knives.
Doc sides with Theo and he’s probably relieved that he didn’t have to be the first one to follow
Damian. Doc will always be faithful to Damian. I know that now. Zoe is torn between her loyalty to
Theo and Damian and her friendship with Daphne. In the end, she decides to follow Damian.
The four of them are now looking at me and I don’t know why I stay silent. The decision isn’t an
easy one but it was made before the issue even arose. My decision was made the day I first saw Finn.
What’s keeping me then from putting an end to the waiting and declare my loyalty to Finn?
I want to go back in time, I tell myself, but that’s not possible. I can’t retrace my steps until I get to the moment when Finn decided to rebel and challenge Damian, the moment when he and Daphne
started to get close. I can’t make it all go away. So I look at Damian and tell him that I’m sorry.
He shakes his head, he says he hopes he’ll see us all soon, safe and sound, but that he can’t take
part in this madness, he can’t condone mutiny.
Doc comes to me and hands me a tube with some ointment.
“For Finn,” he says. “Apply it on the bruises and lesions every two to three hours. It will give
him relief.”
My heart breaks as Damian walks away with Doc, Theo and Zoe. Deep down I know that
Damian’s right. As Finn was right when he told me that freedom comes with rules and
responsibilities.
“Let’s take a two-minute break,” Finn says breathlessly, “and then we’ll be off south.”
He takes my hand and leads me to sit with him behind a tree away from everyone’s eyes. “You
don’t have to stay on my behalf,” he whispers. “Do what you believe is right. You have to stay true to yourself, remember?”
“Bug off, Finn. Are you staying true to yourself right now? Is this what you’re doing?” I take the
tube out of my pocket and start applying the ointment to his injuries.
“It might not look that way, but yes, absolutely,” he replies.
I pull him by the collar, bring his face close to mine and look straight into his green eyes. “What
were you doing with that box last night?”
My question catches him unawares and he can’t come up with anything to say for a while. He
stares at me puzzled and shocked.
“You followed me?” he says finally.
“I was worried about you.”
I can see my words have somehow brought back the burden of that box. “Let it go,” he says.
“You don’t have to follow me around and you don’t have to know about everything I do.”
“Well, isn’t that a joke?” I say frustrated. “Everything? I barely know anything about the things
you do anymore.”
“You are in no position to judge, Freya. Do you think this is easy for me?”
“Do you want to know what I think, Finn? Honestly? I think you were wrong about attacking the
ship and you’re wrong about checking on the Sliman. And both times you defied Damian just to be
wrong.”
“If that’s what you think, why did you stay?” he says irritated.
“Because you are everything to me and I can’t live without you,” I say and try to run off but he is
stronger than me. He forces me to sit back down.
“It will be alright,” he says as he closes me in his arms and places his lips on my face, on the
spot between my cheek and my mouth. I turn my head slightly and the corners of our mouths touch
each other. I can feel the cut on his upper lip and the warmth of his bruised skin. I feel like crying. We stay like this for what seems like an eternity until we hear Daphne calling Finn’s name.
“We’re right here,” he says and the magic is gone.
Daphne shows up, nervous and disheveled but in control of herself again.
“We have to go, Finn,” she says. She takes a side look at me. “Unless you’ve changed your
mind.”
“Finn is hurt,” I say.
“I know, but there’s nothing to be done about it right now. The kids are getting restless and
antsy. Finn, there’s no time for breaks. Let’s do this and get the hell out of here.”
Finn gets up and so do I. “Gather everybody up,” he says. “We’re heading east before turning
south.”
The way to the camp is hard and we’re exhausted. We’ve barely slept in the last twenty-four
hours. We’re frustrated and worried, but we keep on walking, we keep checking our touchpad screens
for sensors and cameras, we keep silent and stay focused. We are companions and we are rebels. We
are the Saviors. Beaten down, separated, torn but determined.
We have to go in a circle, first east, then southeast, so we can eventually reach the camp from
the south.
I can’t stop thinking about Damian, Theo, Zoe and Doc. I want to believe that we will see them
again soon, that the conflict between Damian and Finn will be resolved and everything will return to
normal.
I want to believe that we will restore harmony within our group and work to achieve our goals
even if we have to start all over. It’s a shock to me that I should think like that, since I am the one who sees doom in everything, as Damian so aptly put it.
What I want the most is to g
et Finn to talk to me once we are safe, get him to trust me again, go
to the library with me, chat, train and laugh with me.
I’m worried about him. He’s injured and he has to be a leader to us all. His own feelings and
needs don’t matter anymore. I know him. He’ll never complain. I don’t think he’s even aware of his
limitations. He’d never give in to Damian during a fight even though he knows that Damian is the
superior fighter, that he could crush a bear with his hands.
We reach the hills to the south two hours later. Finn points to the hill closest to the camp. We
reach the top within ten minutes. The view is overwhelming. My heart sinks at the sight of the
abandoned facilities 500 feet below us overrun by Sliman. There’s maybe thirty of them and although
we don’t have a view of the camp in the forest, it’s clear to us there must be more Sliman there.
Tilly spots two aliens outside the Armory. I take out my binoculars and watch them. It looks like
they are in charge of the operation, giving instructions to the Sliman. They are dressed in the long
black and red capes of the directors of the Plantations – every Plantation has five Directors, each one in charge of a different section. The aliens have protective glasses on. They don’t like the sunlight, it makes their vision even less effective. The longer they stay on Earth, the weaker they become, which
is why they are replaced every year or two. Even the planet is trying to get rid of them.
“We’re dead meat,” Biscuit whispers.
“If we’re meat, we’re already dead,” Rabbit says.
“Shut up, both of you,” Tilly says.
We move backwards and downhill a bit so that we cannot be seen from below. We all look to
Finn with questioning eyes.
“Should we retreat?” Daphne asks him. “Join the others in the mountains? We could be there by
nightfall.”
Finn tightens his fists. His mind is on overload.
“Daphne is right,” I say. “Let’s go, Finn. We’ve seen all we needed to see.”
Finn turns to Tilly and asks, “Can you hear anything that the aliens say?”
Tilly shakes her head. “I can’t make anything out. It’s all mumbled, more like a noise than actual
speech. I was never really good at understanding them anyway. Not when they talk their gibberish.”
[scifan] plantation - books one to three Page 11