The Prodigal Sun (11 page)

“If there is a point to all of this,” said Roche, “then I wish you’d get to it.”

Roche interrupted. “So you’re saying that the flyer was a DAOC Enforcement vessel?”

“You’re sure?”

Roche’s tired sigh was lost to a flurry of scalding wind that skittered off across the plain, raising a cloud of orange dust in its wake. “And you couldn’t have just
told
me that?”

of
that culture.>

Roche shook her head. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might be relevant to us here and now?”

“They definitely landed at the wreck.” Cane’s words distracted Roche from the voice in her head. She faced him again, saw him squinting into the distance. “I can make out their downdraft swirling the smoke.”

“You can see that?” Once again Roche was amazed at his abilities. She was beginning to wonder if there was anything he couldn’t do better than she. “I don’t suppose you can make out how many there are of them, can you?” she added wryly.

The humor seemed lost on Cane. “No. I’d need some binoculars to discern anything more at this distance.”

She leapt on the word instantly: “Binoculars? You remember using them before the capsule?”

His eyes met hers evenly. “No. But I know what they are.”

“Just like you knew how to splint my arm?”

“That was Veden’s doing.” Cane shrugged. “I merely assisted him.”

Roche sighed. If he was lying about how much he remembered, then she could trap him—unless, of course, he was better at lying, too. In the hours she had known him, he had demonstrated nothing but trustworthiness in her presence—and had, in fact, saved her life once already. She wasn’t sure whether that bothered her more or less than if he hadn’t.

said Maii.

“Tell him we’re on our way.” Roche mentally prepared herself for the descent into the ravine. Her shoulder ached right down to the bone, the pain reaching from her neck to the tips of her fingers. The secure-cuffing around her wrist had left yellow-black bruises where she had hit the ground after the explosion of the lander, but the Box looked little the worse for wear. Its outer casing had been scarred quite badly from the explosion, but was otherwise intact. The handle still slotted into her hand perfectly, even though she was unable to bear its weight with her left arm.

As she clambered back down the slope into the ravine, she took one last look around at the surface of Sciacca’s World. An arid moonscape, plus an atmosphere. Not a pleasant place to live by any means. But for its mineral content, it would probably never have been settled in the first place.

She failed to see why anyone would
want
to come here...

Veden and Maii were waiting for them at the bottom of the ravine. Barely had they regained their wind before the Eckandi headed off up the ragged slope, toward the foothills.

Roche took a deep breath and followed. Cane stayed with her, considerate of her weakness rather than of his own strength. She had no doubt that he could outperform the Eckandi easily, in both speed and endurance.

“Has he said anything?” she asked him, not loud enough for the other two to hear.

“About what?”

“About why he’s here.”

Cane shook his head. “No, but he is impatient to get to wherever it is he wants to go. That much is obvious.”

“Patently.” She spat a mixture of saliva and dust into the rocks. The spittle was stained red. “But why? What does he expect to find here?”

Cane shrugged. “Exercise?”

Maii’s silent voice was barely audible above Roche’s own thoughts.

Roche glanced ahead. The set of the Surin’s narrow shoulders told her that the message had been intended for her alone.

“On a prison planet?” Roche mumbled to herself.

Cane turned to her. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” she said, and kept on walking.

* * *

The day darkened, paradoxically, as the sun rode higher into the sky. Once, the flyer passed overhead again, but this time didn’t turn immediately back. Her mind was fogged by exhaustion, and she could only vaguely guess that their intentions were to intensify their search by looking farther from the wreckage. Not that it mattered. With the wind lifting the dust the way it was, in another hour or so the people in the flyer were going to have a visibility factor of about zero.

To while away the time, and to distract herself from the constant pain, she tried to talk to the Box. Something more substantial—even access to a basic medical .database, accessible by the contact pad in her quarters—would have been preferable, but the Box was all she had. It could add little to what she had already learned from Cane: that the lander had exploded shortly after landing, as planned; that Maii and Veden had made it to shelter in time, but that she and Cane had taken a touch of heat-flash, in addition to Roche’s dislocated shoulder and bruised ribs; that she had been carried on Cane’s back away from the burning wreckage like a sack of potatoes; that Cane hadn’t wanted to move her at all until she had regained consciousness and had agreed to do so only after Veden had threatened to leave them behind.

Among the supplies Roche had managed to rescue from the lander were a sack containing five survival suits and two basic ration packs. There was no medical kit, no painkillers to numb the aching, and as their trek continued her discomfort worsened. Despite her Armada biofeedback training, it was all she could do to keep her eyes focused on the ground ahead. Only when the Box finally complained that she had asked the same question three times in five minutes did she stop talking altogether and concentrate solely on walking.

Then, as the sun reached a position corresponding to late afternoon, she could take it no longer.

“Stop,” she gasped, clutching at Cane for support as she staggered to halt. Pain from her shoulder and ribs made her head spin. Only with difficulty did she fight nausea back down. “I have to rest.”

“No,” Veden spat, his tone a whiplash of irritation. “We must keep moving until nightfall.”

“I can’t. Please. Just five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

“No.” Without looking back, Veden kept walking.

Roche was unable to prevent the collapse of her thigh muscles. Cane made sure she was stable and went to follow the Eckandi.

“Let him go, Cane.” That she had to raise her voice to be heard made her realize just how much the wind had risen in the last hour.

“We should stick together,” asserted Cane. “Separated, we will be more vulnerable.”

“If he wants to risk an ambush, let him.” Roche felt only contempt for the old Eckandi, but the overriding emotion was one of despair at her own fading strength. It would come as something of a relief, she noted with alarm, to be captured. At least the wait, and the walk, would be over.

She shook her head firmly, denying the thoughts. Yes, the
Midnight
had been destroyed with all hands; yes, she was trapped on an unfamiliar planet, being pursued by a hostile security force; and yes, she was in a great deal of pain—but that was no reason to give in. Her passage into COE Intelligence had taught her that hard work and sheer determination could take a great deal of the edge off fate’s sometimes cruel sting.

But the feeling wouldn’t dissipate, no matter how she tried.

Biting down on the sense of hopelessness, she forced herself to smile up at Cane. “We’ll catch up. You’ll see. They’ll stop when night falls, and—”

“Wait.” Cane’s head cocked; his eyes darted along the edges of the ravine.

Roche glanced upward, startled. The sky had grown dark without warning. As she watched, it darkened even further to a deep ochre mottled with grey. Small sprays of dirt leapt from one wall of the ravine to the other, occasionally showering down on them.

Then she heard it: a rumble, distant at first but growing louder with every second. The low-frequency sound reminded her of a heavy-armor tank, or an unusually large ground-effect vehicle.

“What is it?”

Cane shook his head. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

Roche’s despair abruptly deepened, and she found herself fighting an overwhelming urge to cry. She cursed herself. She had never experienced anything quite like this before. Why was she feeling it now? Her entire body trembled with the intensity of the emotion.

She reached out to steady herself on the nearest wall, but withdrew the hand as a tiny spark arced from her fingertips to the stone.

“What—?”

Suddenly, Cane took her by her good arm and flattened her against the wall of the ravine. “Cover your face!” he hissed, his voice nearly drowned under the now-deafening sound.

She stared at him, too surprised to move. When she failed to obey him immediately, he reached behind her head for the hood of her survival suit. Tugging it over her face, he did the same with his own, holding the edges closed with one hand. Only his eyes stared at her, unblinking and frighteningly rational.

“What the—?”

“Close your eyes,” he shouted. “Now!”

Roche blinked, delayed a second longer than he. At that moment, something roared across the top of the ravine—a dark, swirling mass of dust traveling at an awesome speed. The air in the ravine, sucked by the low pressure of the front, exploded upward. The turbulence created a partial vacuum, which in turn rolled a layer of dense air at the bottom of the front down into the ravine, instantly filling it with swirling clouds of choking dust.

Roche gasped, then coughed, doubling up into Cane’s wind-shadow. Her one good hand flew to her face in a belated attempt to seal her nose. Her ears rang with the sound of tortured, screaming air. Only Cane’s hand on her back prevented her from toppling forward. Even as she struggled to breathe, she finally understood what was happening:

A dust storm had struck them, one more violent than any she had previously encountered. That explained her sudden mood swing and the spark of static electricity: the charge in the air, rolling ahead of the storm, pervading everything.

After half a minute of the onslaught, Cane knelt beside her to bring his mouth close to her head.

“The front will be the most turbulent!” he shouted. “If we can hold on for a moment longer, it should ease slightly!”

She wanted to yell back—
How do you know
?—but her throat only rasped, irritated by dust and dry air. She concentrated on holding herself still, waiting for the tumult to release her.

Then, over the howling wind, came the reave’s voice:

Roche opened her eyes, and was instantly stung by a thousand particles of dust. There was no denying the urgency in the voice. But—how did one reply to a reave?

“What’s wrong?” she shouted back.

She was unsure whether the Surin had heard her call, but a reply came nonetheless:

“
Who
are here?”

“Listen!” Cane had his head cocked again. “Gunshots.”

This time even Roche could hear the discharge of weapons over the storm. “We have to help them,” she said, trying in vain to climb to her feet.

“No.” He pressed her back. “I’ll go.” He opened his suit and slipped her pistol and Veden’s makeshift laser from the pockets of his uniform. Handing her the pistol, he glanced around him, eyes narrowed to slits. In the darkness of the storm, little could be seen but swirling, dust-filled air. The mouth of the ravine showed as a faint lightening in the air above them. Apart from that, Roche was blind.

“Could be Veden’s friends,” Cane said. “But then again—”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“Exactly. Stay here.” With one smooth movement he ducked away from her and was swallowed by the storm. Roche leaned back against the wall of the ravine, clutching the pistol to her chest while protecting her eyes as best she could.

Moments later, a sharp rattle of projectile weapons issued from farther up the ravine. Voices followed, shouting in confusion. With the sounds came the realization that she was hearing more clearly; the fury of the storm front had indeed abated slightly.

Maii said nothing more, however, and Roche couldn’t stand aside when help might be needed. The wind allowed her to reach a standing position; from there, with the hand holding the pistol on the ravine wall, keeping her upright, she made her way cautiously across the ragged rock face.

Another round of shouting and gunshots broke the silence, followed by the sharp hiss of an energy weapon discharging through the atmosphere. Then the muffled thump of impact. She flinched instinctively but continued forward.

The voices ceased in the wake of the explosion, but the exchange of gunfire continued in ragged bursts. Roche pressed on as fast as she could, but the ravine seemed endless. Her breath burned in her chest as though her rib cage was on fire.

Then, almost before she realized it, she stumbled into a shallow section of the ravine. The rock walls stood barely chest-high, with open ground to either side. The wind was stronger here, and the dust more dense. A projectile whined past her, sent rock fragments flying a meter from her shoulder. She dropped instantly to a crouch and leveled the pistol in the direction from which she felt the weapon had been discharged.