Captives (40 page)

As she jogged down the sidewalks, glancing from window to window, something less obvious became clear: there was no real way to thoroughly scout the route to the park. Not when any one of the apartment buildings or department stores could hide an army. It was not a comforting thought.

The advance scouts returned from the meeting site: no sign of the Stars. Raina and Mauser conferred, then continued to the rendezvous. The park was silent, backstops and slides slowly rusting away, brown-red with a patina of green corrosion. The spring rains had revived the grass, but much had already died, leaving isolated tufts like the forelock of a balding man.

Mauser planted his hands on his hips, surveying the scene. "What now?"

"We wait," Raina said. She lifted her nose to the air, eyes slitting. Her eyes moved to the pale crescent of the moon hanging in the sky. "And I take advantage of their lateness."

Mauser looked over sharply. "To do what?"

"Mark my territory."

"Right. Maybe someone should go with you?"

Raina raised her eyebrows. "Are you volunteering to wipe my ass?"

He exhaled noisily and waved a hand, conceding the point. She trotted toward a grove of trees. Mauser peered through a pair of binoculars at the streets surrounding the park. Henna said something about securing the east side of the grounds and jogged off.

"Let's do some thinking," Mauser said. "Is there any good reason for them to be late to their own meeting?"

Jake shrugged; despite being shot two weeks earlier, he seemed to be recovering nicely. "Maybe the aliens ate them."

"Pretty sure they weren't eaten by aliens."

"Dude, you
know
they're still around."

"Yes, I believe you're correct. And I have it on good authority that they would have no interest in dining on the People of the Stars."

A short-lived argument took place. A minute into it, Mauser went pale. He glanced at his wrist, then at Mia. "How long has she been gone?"

"A few minutes," she said. "Five, tops."

He swore with toe-curling vehemence, glancing to the east side of the park. "Find her.
Now
."

Mia rocked forward and headed out. As she approached the copse of trees, she slowed, calling Raina's name. She padded through the trees, distracted by every wind-bounced branch. Seeing nothing, she hurried across the clearing past another overgrown grove.

This proved to be the boundary of the park. Dull concrete buildings ahead. Aimlessly, she ran on, scanning parking lots and doorways. Something told her not to call out. She reached the intersection and stopped next to the corner of a shoe store, listening.

The snort of a horse exploded through the stillness. Mia's heart lurched. Already knowing what she would find, she ran forward, drawing an arrow and fitting it to her bow.

25

"Carrie!" he shouted.

In the dimness of the tunnel, her face twisted, distorted by a host of battling emotions. "
Walt?
"

"Stay safe!" he said. The alien continued to drag him along, his heels scraping the floor. "I'll be back!"

"Know what?" The cheer in her voice was audible. "I believe you."

He shut up. There were other humans around and he didn't want any of them to put two and two together. Though really, unless one of the servants was in bed with their off-world masters and engaging in work-related pillow talk, connecting him to
the
Walt would be a shade trickier than basic arithmetic. More like figuring out the speed of light by asking it.

Even so, no need to push his luck. He knew where she was and that she wouldn't be going anywhere soon. All he had to do was work out a way to get her loose.

The alien led him through a number of turns and side tunnels. It diverted to a dark room, returning a moment later with a middle-aged man who looked like a wire garbage tie with the paper stripped off. The man eyed Walt but said nothing. After another turn, the alien gestured over its pad and showed it to the man. He nodded. The alien scuttled away down the hall.

"Come on," the man said, a sigh in his voice. "Thanks for adding to my day, pal."

Walt frowned. "What are we doing?"

"You heard the man. It doesn't want you here."

"It doesn't
want
me?" Walt glanced over his shoulder down the tunnel, but the alien was gone. "Did it say why?"

"Nope." The man shook his head, but couldn't dislodge the funny look from his face. "It wants you to be freed."

That was unexpected enough that Walt didn't have to try to hold his tongue as they marched along a tunnel, crossed through an open airlock, and descended into a wide tube. It immediately grew cooler, the air even moister; they'd left the ship and were walking along whatever was connecting it to the shore. After a lengthy walk, the man stopped Walt to blindfold him again. Then came the same foolishness as before: climbing up to a sandy surface, presumably a beach; waiting around for a horse to clop up; getting stuffed into a wagon or carriage of some kind and then being carted around for roughly three hours. Finally, after a climb up a long grade and a brief stop, the door swung open and Walt was let outside. The man removed the blindfold from his eyes. Swaying trees, a sparkling lake, the unpainted wooden buildings. He was back in the Heart.

"So," he said, lifting his right leg until the fetter went taut. "How about we snip this?"

The wiry man smiled. "How about you get back to work?"

"Aren't you forgetting our crustaceous friend back there? It wanted me to go free."

"Then it's about time it learned the first law of physics: we don't always get what we want."

Walt argued until the man threatened to beat him, which only took about three more sentences, then relented. He'd already spotted Harry plucking weeds from a field of young green shoots. He trudged over to join him, his rubbery tether snagging on grass and dandelions, leaving a wake of puffy white seeds swirling behind him.

Once Harry noticed, he stood up with a jolt, something like panic in his eyes. "You're… back."

Walt grabbed a pair of gloves from the little cart of tools Harry had brought to the field. "Is it that surprising?"

"I heard they sent you to Zone Zero.
No
one comes back from Zone Zero."

"Guess I make a shitty slave."

Harry bent over his work, extracting a yellow-flowered weed from the orderly row of crops. "Did they say why they sent you there in the first place?"

Walt hid his smirk. "Nope. Guess they mistook me for someone with potential."

"Didn't take long for them to rule you out," Harry muttered. "Well, I'm glad we've got another set of hands. Lots of work ahead of us."

"They got big plans for this crop or something?"

"Nope. We've got to spiff the place up to impress our guests." He pointed across the field to the path running to the lake, where a man in a navy blue track suit was walking toward the waters in the company of two men and a woman. "Contingent up north. Serious players. It's our job to make ourselves look scarier than we are before the rest of them get here."

"Up north?" Walt tossed a weed to the side. "You don't mean Abyss, do you?"

"You know 'em?"

"Only by reputation."

He probably should have pumped Harry for more, but there was no sense prying info from his celly when a representative of Abyss was on the scene. Walt spent the next hour and a half maneuvering for a chance to talk with the man in the track suit. Opportunity arrived when the man's Anson-provided entourage peeled away, leaving the man to enjoy a view of the lake. With his wheelbarrow of weeds nearly full, Walt pushed it toward the midden heap, taking a somewhat looping route that would lead him past the lake.

And within twenty feet of the man. There, Walt stopped, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "You're with Abyss?"

The man turned, an eager-to-please smile on his face. He saw that Walt was the help and his smile shrank. "Correct."

"Is Liss here?"

"She is not."

"Too bad," Walt said. "Because I know where her kids are."

The man's brows jerked up his forehead. "She is not here this moment. But she will be in two days."

"Name's Walt. I live in that splendid manor over there." He pointed to the shack. "Once she's here, we've got a lot to discuss."

He nodded once. "I am sure she will feel the same."

Walt went on his way, careful not to glance over at the field where Harry toiled in the sunlight.

The next two days weren't his favorite in the history of his existence. A whole lot of hedge-trimming and flower-tending. Shoving a push mower across the lawns of Anson's demesne. The work had the feeling of a giant waste of time, but he supposed that was the point: to show Abyss the Stars had so much manpower that they could throw it away making their lawns look pretty.

Abyss' formal arrival came as promised. The delegation of six was escorted inside the gate by a troop of men in white capes—the Sworn's formal garb, he gathered—and to the accompaniment of actual horns. Walt and all the other slaves were out in the fields, presumably as a display of the People of the Stars' power. As Abyss' people were led down the path around the lake, the field hands stood to watch. Walt had positioned himself in the field not fifty yards from the trail. As Liss walked past, in sullen conversation with a much more animated Anson, her gaze snagged on Walt. He nodded fractionally.

She and her people were taken to the buildings across the lake. Walt resumed work. That afternoon, he ambled to the shack to eat and wash his hands. He stooped before the water jug.

"Enjoying yourself?" a woman said behind him.

He swore, jolting upright. Liss watched him with folded arms. For the occasion, her blond hair had been styled into spikes.

"Absolutely," he said. "It's great to finally be able to put my college degree to use."

"I don't have a lot of time. Del says you know where Serah and Ethan are."

"Carrie's in the ship. Zone Zero. Can you get her out?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"None of your fucking business."

He squinted at her, shaking water from his hands. "We're talking about your kids here."

"And if I spill, maybe you cut out the middleman and go straight for your woman." Liss thumbed the corner of her jaw. "That ship is stuffed with people I sent here. Including some friendlies. If I wanted, I could smuggle an elephant out of it."

"Fair enough. When do we do this?"

"Anson's working with a funny schedule. Something's come up; two days from now, he's going out on maneuvers. It'll be quiet here. While the cats are out, I'm to be housed down the hill, but we can use Del as a go-between."

"Once you've got Carrie out, I can have the young ones in half an hour."

She eyed the structures lining the lake. "They're here, aren't they? I should have known."

"Thinking about cutting out the middleman?"

Liss drummed her fingers on her thigh. "Do you swear that you can get them out safely?"

"My wife's life is riding on it."

"Then we have a deal."

"I'm going to need a few things," Walt said. "Your dirty clothes. And something I dropped outside in the bushes."

He returned to the fields. She returned to the palace. He wondered if it could be this simple.

The next day, complaining of sunburns, he lobbied their foreman for work at the Sworn's housing. There were palms to be tended, walks to be swept. At one house, a doll had been left in the back yard. He brought it inside and handed it off to the maid, chatting with her a minute before returning to his duties. As he walked outside, a small round face watched him from an upstairs window.

The day after that, as he worked the field, a procession of troops in white headed toward the gate. Many were mounted. All carried weapons. He spied Anson among them, speaking with an old man who had a military bearing and a grouchy look. At the gates, Anson and the Sworn rode forth. The grouchy old man turned around, accompanied by a servant or squire. Walt went back to work.

The rest of the day passed like any other. He washed up, ate, fiddled around, went to bed. He didn't close his eyes. As soon as Harry began to snore, he sat up.

It was two hours before he heard the scratching: two short, two long. Quiet enough to be a stray cat burying its feces in the dirt. It repeated. Walt swung out of bed and tip-toed outside.

Del stood beneath the porch, a silhouette in the moonlight. He held out a lumpy sack and something that resembled a petite cordless drill. Walt swung the sack of laundry over his back and inspected the laser. He wasn't certain it would function after sitting in the dew for weeks, but it had been built for use by amphibious creatures. He doubted a little water would do it in.

"Is Carrie here?" Walt said.

The man nodded. "Just down the hill. As soon as you get the kids, we can make the swap."

"What's her middle name?"

"Carrie's? How would I know that?"

"You wouldn't. That's why you're going to go ask her, then come back and tell me."

Del's brows pushed together. "Her middle name? What does this have to do with anything?"

"It proves you have her," Walt said. "And that I'm not going to walk out of here with Liss' little darlings and discover I've been played for a chump."

"Are you insane? She's
here
. You'll see."

He leaned against the closed door. "I think I'd rather go back to bed."

Del's teeth flashed in the moonlight. "You idiot. You're risking everything."

"And you're yelling at me when you could be running off to get her name. If Liss
does
have Carrie, and you walk away without Serah and Ethan, what do you think she'll do to you?"

The messenger shook his head. "Stay right here."

Del left at a swift walk. Walt stopped himself from pacing around the porch. Snatching the kids without being certain Liss had Carrie would have been a risk, but so was sending Del on an extra trip through the gates. With the bulk of the Stars' soldiers gone, the remaining security might be extra sensitive to irregularities. Particularly the one Walt was about to present them with.