The Prodigal Sun (13 page)

“At least
she
trusts you,” observed the Mbatan. “But that doesn’t help us. You can’t carry her.”

“I know. Just give me a moment.” Roche soothed the girl, stroking the fine hair of her cheeks and ears, feeling the grainy texture of the skin beneath it. Slowly Maii quietened, nestling into Roche as a small child might to its mother. When the girl was completely relaxed, Roche let Emmerik come closer and place his enormous arms in a clumsy embrace around her own. Then she slowly slipped aside.

The Surin stiffened for a moment, then seemed to accept the situation. With barely a grunt of effort, Emmerik slung her across his back. She clutched him tightly, looking like a rag doll tossed over the shoulder of a giant child.

“I won’t be long,” said the Mbatan. Tossing the chemical flare to her, he began the steady, careful climb up the ladder. The rope, although it stretched slightly, didn’t break under their combined weight.

Shortly afterward, Emmerik called back down for Veden to follow. He did so, facing Roche briefly in the fading light of the flare. For a second she felt he was about to say something, but in the end he simply fixed her with a cold glare and scurried up the ladder.

Watching after him, she suddenly found herself smiling at the Eckandi’s enmity toward her. His reluctance to have her and Cane along was understandable: after all, Enforcement was after
her
, not him. DAOC might not even be aware that he had escaped the
Midnight.
If he could get rid of her, he would be free to do whatever he had come to Sciacca’s World to do. If, however, he stayed with her, the chances increased that he would be captured.

She could follow Veden’s logic, but she didn’t like it. Emmerik’s uncomplicated way of thinking mirrored her own. She and Cane had saved the Eckandi’s life twice now; that should have counted for something. But the Eckandar Trade Axis was renowned for its pragmatism in both business and life. The borders of its trading empire were far-flung, and its influence, in concert with the Commerce Artel, all-pervasive. Sharklike, the members of the Eckandar Caste had little room for sentiment or other emotions that she took for granted. In order to win his support, she would have to demonstrate her material worth to him: she had to prove that she offered more than her presence risked.

The answer to that, she suspected, lay in Veden’s mission. Whatever that was.

A quiet murmur of voices broke the silence and her train of thought. She listened to them for a few minutes, following the rise and fall of inflection rather than the words themselves, which were mostly inaudible. They seemed to be arguing about something. Maybe Veden was trying to convince Emmerik to leave her behind again.

No. The voices were coming from behind her, from the tunnel, not from above.

She immediately smothered the chemical flare and moved away from the dull cone of radiance into the security of the shadows. The light from above was relatively dim, not bright enough to travel too far along the tunnel, but still a concern.

She fought the urge to warn Emmerik and the others, knowing that her voice would carry to whoever approached as surely as theirs had carried to her.

The voices grew louder: a woman talking into a radio, the static-dampened responses not reaching Roche clearly. There was no way of telling exactly how many approached, or how close they were. The echoes of voice and, faintly, footsteps might have traveled hundreds of meters through the stone tunnel or not very far at all.

As she watched, a faint glimmer of light appeared in the depths of the tunnel: an electric torch tracing their path in the dirt.

The movement of the ladder in the dim light startled her momentarily; she glanced up and saw Emmerik descending from the hole. When his night-sensitive eyes saw her in the shadows, he opened his mouth to say something, but Roche was quick to raise a hand and gesture him to silence. When she had his attention, she pointed along the tunnel.

He instantly realized what she meant. “Quick,” he said softly, reaching out with his arm. “No time for a harness. Put your arm about my neck.”

She did so, and Emmerik grunted with effort as he straightened, lifting her off the ground. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on holding onto his coverall as he slowly climbed upward. The ladder strained under their weight but held nonetheless. Awkwardly, they moved up and out of the cavern, swaying slowly from side to side as Emmerik constantly shifted his balance.

“How many?” Emmerik whispered as they slipped through the narrow opening and into the confined space that led to the surface.

“Too far away to tell,” said Roche. The calm of his voice surprised her. “But I think at least two—maybe the two from the ambush. They were talking to someone on a radio.”

“Great,” Emmerik muttered.

The footsteps from below grew steadily louder; the opening above them seemed impossibly distant.

The Mbatan fumbled a handhold and grunted under his breath. Roche gasped as they swung for a second from his other hand, until he regained his grip and took another step upward.

“Almost there...” His tone reflected her own doubts.

The voices from the tunnel took on an urgent note as the Enforcers came near enough to make out the dancing base of the ladder. The sturdy Mbatan began to move faster, muscles bunching in his back as he moved his hands from rung to rung. His lungs wheezed with the effort.

Then the ladder shook violently as one of the Enforcers grabbed the lowest rung and began to pull, shouting for them to halt. The extra load proved too much for the already straining material. With a stomach-wrenching lurch, one of the ropes snapped, sending Emmerik and Roche swinging into the stone wall of the chimney. Her hand bit into the Mbatan’s neck as she fought to hold on. Dizziness swept her senses; pain flared through her injured shoulder. Flashing lights and shouting voices broke her concentration.

Her hand slipped at the same moment Cane reached down from above and grabbed the Mbatan’s right hand. Emmerik grabbed her with his left and held as she scrambled to regain her grip.

Above her, the glare from another flare.

“Veden!” she called out as he threw it into the shaft, then felt it deflect off the valise strapped to her back. She glanced down to see it drop, its light illuminating the shaft as it fell. Below she could make out two figures scattering for cover.

Cane hauled on Emmerik’s arm, pulling them upward, while the Mbatan’s feet dug into the walls of the chimney. Clear of the opening, Cane dropped the Mbatan and Roche onto the dry, hard ground. In a single, smooth motion he moved back over the hole, reached in, and snapped the remaining strands of rope.

Three bursts of energy fire sounded from below; Roche watched in awe as Cane easily avoided the bolts that hissed from the opening, arcing harmlessly toward the sky. Then, with no sense of urgency, he was at her side, helping her to her feet and guiding her up a slope of tumbled rocks where Veden and Maii waited.

Raised voices issued from the shaft, and a quick patter of gunfire. Roche looked back to see Emmerik raise a device no larger than his fist and hurl it into the mouth of the shaft.

The gunfire ceased abruptly. A moment later, a muffled
crump
lifted the earth beneath them and sent a cloud of dust shooting out of the hole in the ground.

“And then there were none,” said Emmerik without smiling. He grasped Roche’s arm, indicating for her to move.

“If others heard the explosion...” Veden began.

“I know,” Emmerik said. “We must hurry.”

The Mbatan led them up a rough slope into a narrow valley between two low foothills. The ground was littered with grey stones, a rough shale that had flaked from the hills over thousands of seasons. The sandstorm had dissipated, but still the air was murky with dust; an erratic wind tugged and squeezed it into a series of small twisters that slid across the landscape before dissolving again into the larger mass.

Ahead, looming over them like the end of the world, were the mountains. The sun had almost set behind them, and the sky had deepened to the color of blood, darkened by the last tatters of the storm. The yellow-silver arc of the Soul bisected the sky like an enormous bow, taut with strain, its bright glow visible through the clouds.

They ran until the sun set, with Emmerik constantly casting glances behind them and at the sky, expecting pursuit to appear at any moment. When, as darkness fell, the distinctive buzzsaw of a flyer broke the twilight, he tugged them under an overhanging shelf of rock, where they hid from view.

Roche took the opportunity to catch her breath, nursing her bruised ribs. The painkiller had worn off, and every mouthful of air burned through her throat and chest. Fighting her pride, she asked Emmerik for another painkiller, which he freely gave.

“We’ll have to stay here for the night,” said the Mbatan gloomily. His breathing was labored, as though he had found the run more wearying than he was prepared to admit. After quaffing from the flask, he passed it around for the others. “They’ll be sweeping the area with infrared from now on, so it would be best if we just stayed put.”

Roche dealt with the pain as best she could and forced herself to talk. “The survival suit,” she wheezed to Cane, who stood nearby. He seemed none the worse for the exertion, perhaps even healthier than he had been before—more
alive.
“... I brought five... out of the lander?”

“That’s right. Maii has the other, in one of the pockets of her own.”

“Good.” She turned to Emmerik.

“I’m too big,” he said, understanding what she was about to suggest.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Cane. “It’ll block IR. Any cover will help, just as long as we can keep on moving.”

“That’s right,” added Roche. “As much as I’d like to rest... I don’t think we can afford to.”

He nodded. Veden calmed Maii while Cane rummaged through the Surin’s pockets for the suit. The one-piece garment unfolded from a parcel scarcely larger than her hand. Roche showed the Mbatan how to activate the chameleon circuits and moisture reclaimer. The processor in the belt would do the rest. IR opacity was standard in all Armada survival suits; the heat would be absorbed to hold the desert chill at bay through the night.

Emmerik managed to get his arms into the elastic fabric, but had no luck with his legs. The rest of the suit, where it couldn’t be tied into place, flapped from his body like an overcoat.

“Better than nothing,” he said, the gruffness of his voice offset by the look of gratitude he directed at Roche. Leaning out from the overhang, he listened for a moment. “They’ve moved on, and so should we. The others will be waiting for us at the Cross.”

“The Cross?” asked Cane.

“Houghton’s Cross is the town we’re heading for,” said Emmerik. “And if we can get there by dawn, then we’ll be able to rest.”

“How far?” asked Cane.

“Four hours’ walk, at a steady pace.”

“Night here is how long?”

“This time of year, about eleven hours.”

“Okay,” said Cane. “Morgan? Are you sure you’re up to it?”

Roche glanced at Cane. This was the first time he had used her first name; she supposed he had earned the right. “I’ll manage,” she said, “once this painkiller takes effect.”

Cane smiled. “And maybe we can rustle up something to eat on the way. Anything edible in these hills, Emmerik?”

The Mbatan smiled. “Depends what you regard as edible,” he said. “We should be able to find some vintu buds, and choss roots are closer to the surface at night. If you’re really lucky we may be able to find some rapeworm-infected animal. It’s a parasite indigenous to Sciacca. It paralyzes the host and injects the eggs into the animal’s gut. Two weeks later, the young emerge. If you get the larvae on about the eight or ninth day, the meat can be quite delicious...”

Roche listened with only half an ear as she performed brief stretching exercises to ease her aching muscles. Feeling confined under the shelf of rock, she stepped out to look at the stars. Despite a fine haze of lingering dust, it was a beautiful sight.

The sun, although it had set, was still shining on the Soul. At the eastern horizon, the band of moonlets twinkled a dull silver; above her, it brightened considerably, colored by the coppery light that filtered through the thin lens of the planet’s atmosphere; to the west, it was brighter still, catching the full, unrefracted light of the sun. Occasionally, one of the larger moonlets would reflect the light, making it twinkle. Otherwise the belt was a solid band—a long, glowing cloud on fire with the colors of sunset.

She didn’t hear the conversation behind her cease, or the Mbatan move to her shoulder, until his voice boomed in her ear. “Heartwarming, isn’t it?”

She started slightly, then nodded. “Yes, very.” When she turned to look at him, his face was beaming with an emotion almost like pride: pleased both by the sight and by her appreciation of it. “Small compensation, though, for being condemned here forever.”

“Perhaps.” The Mbatan returned her gaze steadily, and she wondered what crime he had committed to warrant transportation. Murder, perhaps; he’d certainly disposed of the two Enforcers in the tunnel easily enough. Yet he seemed so trustworthy, so at peace with himself, that she found it hard to imagine him committing a crime of passion. Maybe he had learned temperance, not achieved it naturally.

As though reading her mind, he said, “I was born here, you know.”

Roche stared at him. “But you—I assumed—”

“My parents were transportees. I was conceived illegally, and should have been shipped back to Vasos when I came of age. Of course, I was an outcast by birth, and couldn’t return, even if I wanted to.” He shrugged his huge shoulders. “Regardless, I wouldn’t have let them take me.
This
is my home.” He paused again before saying, “I suppose it’s hard for you to understand that anyone could feel genuine affection for a prison planet.”

“Well, yes,” she said slowly. She did find it difficult to believe, even though the proof was standing before her. “Are there many like you?”

“A few. We tend to stick together, away from the port, although we have our differences. You’ll meet them soon enough.”