Cut Off (36 page)

"Look at that," Sam said. "Wasn't sure my favorite shotguns would make it home."

Ke grinned. "And only down two rounds."

"Found this lying around, too." Tristan passed over the laser.

Sam eyed it. "One of these the trigger?"

"Both at once. Careful where you point it. That thing can turn a pile of rocks into a mini Kilauea."

She hefted it, feeling the weight of its battery. "Been a while since I had a new toy. How about intel? Bring me any of that?"

"I won't bother to try to convince you to leave," Tristan said. "But they've got a facility. I think they're developing new ways to kill us."

"Seems to me they blew their wad with the first try."

"Could be. But they don't seem to think so." She turned to go, then stopped. "Are you here to survive? Or would you fight?"

Sam squinted into the morning sun. "It would have to be a pretty good cause. What makes you ask?"

"Always useful to know when you might have an ally."

Back at Ke's, they gathered up medicine. Tore down his water filter and packed the material into two portable water coolers. Stacked small tubs of poi and dried fruit and fish. Collected the seeds Ke had stored in one of the sheds. Put together the ammunition they used and set aside what they didn't. They wouldn't have room for much more than they could carry, and they still hadn't touched Tristan's goods, but Ke showed no sentimentality nor mercy toward the goods he'd put together in his years in Hana. It was time to go, as simple as that. When Tristan went to her house that afternoon, she applied the same attitude toward her possessions, keeping an eye on the shore all the while.

She returned to Ke's house to spend the night. At first light, they headed down the stream to the canoe. As the sun poked from the sea, they launched into it, striking out for the island resting in the haze.

III:
NEW WORLDS

24

As the rain fell, they cupped their hands and licked up the drops, then swam back to the ship, where water was collecting in the bowls. In the morning, they sailed north along empty black coasts and dried lava flows, anchoring beside a beach the color of coal. A road switchbacked up through several dozen houses. As Ness and Sprite turned up oranges, cantaloupes, and three boxes of pasta that had managed to survive the years unscathed, Sebastian fished.

Ness had to wait until noon to figure out their precise location. He had intended to bring them straight in to Maui, home of the medical lab. Instead, they had barely passed within sight of the southern tip of the Big Island, more than a hundred miles off course.

"I almost killed us," he signed to Sebastian.

"Yet here we are," Sebastian replied. "So who is it that cares?"

Ness had to laugh. With a few days of food, and over a dozen gallons of fresh rain water, they set sail again, following the coast of the island and crossing the strait between it and Maui. They made anchor at a gravel beach fronting a bridge that had collapsed into a small ravine. The slopes were grassy and barren. A single green mountain rose and rose until it disappeared within a wreath of clouds. Rust-colored bluffs burst from the top of the wreath like an island in the sky. They made their way up the scrubby green terrain. Winding gulches creased the land to all sides.

"Where exactly are we going?" Ness signed.

"Not to the lab," Sebastian said.

"
Not
to it? We could have gone to a not-lab back in the Philippines."

"The lab is marked on the chart. If we wish, we can walk straight into the lab. Do you see the question?"

"Do we want to walk straight into the lab?"

Sebastian nodded deeply. "I think no."

"So we're looking for a crooked way in."

He clacked his claws. "Yes crooked. We shall be not as the canal but as the stream."

Ness frowned. "Because a canal can be spotted for miles," he tried, hands gaining speed as the idea unfolded. "But a stream follows the dirt, and thus is hidden within the shape of the land."

Sebastian bounced up and down. "You are the Way!"

Be that as it may, Ness was still surprised when Sebastian literally began following the serpentine gulch ahead of them. They zigzagged up the side of the mountain, stopping every few hundred feet to climb to high ground and search for any hints of alien presence. Looking downhill, the land to the left was grassy meadows, a few trees scattered around the draws and the old ranches down by the shore. To the right, the grass was interrupted by patches of gravel and bare earth, but whatever had been planned for these spots had never progressed beyond clearing the grounds. Above, clouds built against the bluffs. It was as desolate a place as Ness had ever seen.

After several hours of wandering up the gulches, Sebastian found what he was hunting for: a round cave bored through the side of a ravine. The entry was packed with silt. Twenty feet inside, rubbery orange matter carpeted the cave floor.

"Our crooked way," Sebastian signed. He touched his tentacles together in anticipation. "Remain with Sprite. I return when I return."

"You think you're going in there alone?"

"To bring you is the way of fools. If they see me, I am one of them; no questions. But you are one of the enemy."

Ness folded his arms, then gestured, "You must think I'm miles down the 'way of fools' if you think I'm letting my gutbrother go in there by himself. Aren't these Swimmers working with the ones who killed the Collective?
Our
gutbrothers?"

Sebastian was still for a moment. "That is the signs."

"Then you can't keep me back. You shouldn't
want
to."

"And now you have reminded me and I don't. We go together. As for Sprite?"

Ness glanced back over his shoulder at Sprite, who was watching the entrances to the gulch. "I'm sure he'll stay if I tell him to."

"No need." Sebastian opened and closed his claws in wryness. "Single human is the problem. Second human is a droplet to the sea."

"Great. I'll tell Sprite, then let's roll."

"First you must learn. This path is a stream and we do not walk on a stream as we walk on a road."

"Human it up a little for me?"

"This is no road. It is no standard. They set the path to grow as it will and it follows the simplest way. We don't need light or eyes to follow this path; we follow by feel. It carries us along like the stream. Do you see?"

Ness cocked his head. "You want us to climb up the tunnel blind?"

"That is how they do. If we do otherwise, they will know we are not Swimmers."

"And if we run into one of them?"

Sebastian spread three tentacles. "Then I speak while you go as still as rock. In the dark, if you are still, they are as blind as you are."

Ness rubbed his heavily-stubbled chin. "This is the best we've got? Wandering up some backwoods tunnel into the heart of their operations seems crazy stupid."

"We go someplace hostile. Thus all paths are hostile. This is as we have always done."

"Yeah, but we used to be backed up by a submarine bristling with rockets."

Sebastian stared down at him. "And so?"

"And so we're down to you, me, and some guy who thinks we're going to take down the world like..." He was going to say something about Luke Skywalker versus the first Death Star, but he had long ago given up attempting to explain such things to Sebastian. "We don't have much going for us, you know?"

"What would you do instead? Beginnings must begin somewhere."

Ness gazed into the hole in the wall of the short cliff. "How the hell should I know? I mean, what are we even doing here? Do
you
know?"

Sebastian drew himself up. "We are not gutbrothers."

Uncertain he had understood him, Ness asked Sebastian to repeat himself. The message was the same. "Sebastian, what are you talking about?"

"Gutbrothers trust gutbrothers. You do not."

"Come on, man. I can't question your decisions without losing my gutbrother status?"

"You can only question if you
listen
. You do not listen. Neither to your inside star, nor to gutbrothers who are your outside stars. Who should be to you as the stars you use at sea to guide you to your goals."

Ness glanced at Sprite, who had been watching the uphill and downhill approaches to the gully, but was now taking interest in their exaggerated gestures.

"You see?" Sebastian gestured. "You look to this man you do not know as if it is his mind that matters. Who
should
you look to?"

"You?"

"And?"

Ness shook his head slowly, then signed, "Me."

"Yes to you and to me. To the inside, where you dwell always, and to those stars outside that have always led you true. Do you see?"

"What I see is you trying to beat me into agreement!"

Sebastian's tentacles sagged. "Then we are not gutbrothers."

Ness clamped his eyes shut and jerked his hand back and forth. He reopened his eyes. "I'm sorry, Sebastian. Sometimes my inside star's a dark one. When it makes every path look bleak, it's tough for me to step onto any of them. Do you really think this is the best way forward?"

"I think," the alien signed slowly, "that we must pursue this place, no matter how much fool it feels to our darker stars."

"And as for the tunnel?"

"We may search for other doors if you do not trust this one. But look." Sebastian flicked his tentacle at the quiet, misty emptiness. "Do you see any sign of Swimmer threats?"

"It is about as isolated as it gets." Ness sighed through his nose, then gestured, "Let's give it a shot. Sorry for doubting you."

"Doubt is not the fault. Doubt prunes the garden, brings order. Too often, you trim until your tree is dead."

"Let's get a move on before all this wisdom starts leaking out my hears." Ness laughed wryly. "I'll tell Sprite the plan."

He did so, abbreviating much of what had gone into the decision to focus on the key facts: Sebastian thought the tunnel would take them to the lab, it was secluded, and they'd have to travel in perfect darkness.

"But he can see in the dark?" Sprite said.

"Sort of."

"Like only when he activates his Mystery Gift? Can he see or not?"

"Not with his eyes," Ness said. "He can sense motion. Like the detectors outside the slave camp in the Philippines. All we got to do is move when he says move and freeze when he says freeze."

"But he can't talk," Sprite said. "And we won't be able to see him gesture."

"We'll be holding his tentacles. If that's too creepy for you, you're welcome to stay out here."

Sprite's mouth fell open. He darted a look at Sebastian. "Are they...slimy?"

"You ever had a big ol' boa constrictor climb around on you? They feel like that. Wrapped in a toad's skin."

"How could I say no?"

With the afternoon getting on, they entered the tunnel mouth. The light faded fast. Just beyond its reach, the thick pad of alien grow-carpet began. Ness stepped onto it without hesitation. Sprite took a moment.

"You ready?" Ness said.

Sprite swore, the noise echoing in the rocky tube. "I don't know how one is ever 'ready' to stumble around in the darkness guided only by the touch of an alien invader. But if it's possible, then let's rock."

Ness gestured to Sebastian. A thin tentacle looped around his wrist, then his palm. Sprite inhaled sharply. Sebastian squeezed, indicating it was time to move forward. Ness walked after him. At first, he got inadvertently smacked by stray limbs, and trod on a trailing tentacle more than once, but between the tension on the one wrapped around his hand and Sebastian's steady shuffle, he soon learned to adjust to any shift in Sebastian's pace. Sprite did some initial stumbling, too, but got the hang of it about as fast as Ness.

Their feet scraped and sloughed over the matting. Ness' eyes felt ready to pop out of his head. His heart was going much faster than their walking speed strictly demanded. He reminded himself that Sebastian could see, sort of, and that the Swimmers had no idea they were coming.

In time, he quit freaking out about the uselessness of his eyes and began to focus on his other senses instead. Sound was pretty good. Particularly when you knew the ground ahead was smooth. If he were alone, with no one else around to make a bunch of racket, he thought he might be able to make the ascent while avoiding any approaching aliens—or to climb back down. That thought was beyond comforting.

"Don't suppose he knows how much further it is?" Sprite said after a half hour or so.

Ness realized the uselessness of his shrug mid-gesture. "Doubt he's got any better idea than we do."

"Next time I ask, will you please lie to me instead?"

He began to wish he'd been counting steps. Not that he could think of much call for it. But on the off chance they needed to figure out how far up the mountain the tunnel climbed, he could estimate by—

Sebastian squeezed his hand hard. Ness stopped cold. So did Sprite. Sebastian shuffled to the left of the path and stopped. Something scraped up the tunnel. Fine hairs stood up along Ness' spine. The steps neared within twenty feet, then ceased. He strained his ears and caught the barely perceptible swish of limbs. Ness shut his eyes, then wondered if the alien would be able to detect such a small motion. On the chance it could, he left them closed. Sebastian's grip on his wrist stayed tight.

Sebastian pressed closer to them, threatening to unbalance Ness. Steps plunked down the passage, receding away into the tunnel. Sebastian squeezed their wrists again and relaxed, then began to move on, drawing them behind him.

A minute later, Sprite whispered, "That was an alien, right?"

"Right."

"I hope their sense of smell is as bad as their hearing."

Ness had no desire to inquire what he meant by that. The encounter was the last bit of excitement for another fifteen minutes until Sebastian squeezed his wrist again, much more lightly than before. Ness stopped. Gently, Sebastian pulled him forward, extending Ness' arm. His fingers touched something pebbly and moist.