Reading the Wind (Silver Ship) (37 page)

The eight of us gathered near the steam plume, tiny droplets clinging to everyone’s eyelashes and hair. I watched the others instead of the steam. The captain looked curious. The strongs mostly watched the captain. The four that had joined us seemed to have most of their attention elsewhere. Which was probably right—I would bet they were Wind Readers. Ghita watched me, her brow furrowed. Her eyes were hard and dark and cold. Water from the steam dripped down her face.

I had to decide. It was time. And there wasn’t a clear answer. Why didn’t these people just jump up and down and declare themselves evil or good? I laughed inwardly at the thought, watching Ghita back, trying to read her face, her body language. No good. Time to be
braver, risk telling these people I knew more than I should. “Why are you really here? You’re not recording the things I’m showing you; you’re not really interested.” I turned my gaze to the captain, wanting my answer from her.

The captain returned my gaze, her eyes as hard and unyielding as Ghita’s. After a moment they softened a little, and I thought it might be pity that flashed through them before she turned a little away. “We have work to do here.”

“What work?”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.” She sounded so sure of herself, so condescending. And worse, unyielding. There was no warmth in the way she looked at me. “We have a mission that matters more than anything on this planet.”

I swallowed hard.

I had to bet for Artistos.

I gestured up-trail and took the next step, the one that I knew in my heart committed me to start a fight, that meant I had taken the choice away from Artistos and made it for them. I glanced at my chrono. It was a few moments after thirteen hundred. Liam and Kayleen would see that we were still moving up.

I began to listen for the dogs, for the sound of rustling brush or of padded feet stalking us. Let them come for us soon. Would they succeed? Would the dogs attack no matter what any of us did? Would I live through it?

If the dogs didn’t come, the captain and Ghita were away from the ship. That, too, was good for our fist.

The valley narrowed, and I picked a path between two thin trees. Ghita glanced up the two ridges that came together to make the neck of the valley. She leaned toward the captain, and I heard her whisper, although I couldn’t make out her words.

I called to them, loudly, hoping Kayleen and Liam could hear. “Come on! We’ll be near a waterfall soon.”

Ghita glanced at me, then back up at the ridges. Something creased her brow. Distrust? The captain put a hand on her arm and said something soothing. The others noticed, and looked around.

One of the big dogs bayed.

The sound came from in front of us, not too near. But I knew how
fast they moved. I sniffed the air, felt the cold heart of prey as the predators neared us.

Ghita stopped. “What is that?”

I smiled at her, trying to look as if the deep wail didn’t turn my knees to water. “It’s just a wild dog. It’s okay.”

Ghita looked at the captain. “We should leave. Now.”

“They won’t hurt you,” I said, my voice a bit too high, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. I had no particular protection that they didn’t—just foreknowledge. And two people out there who would be trying to protect me.

The dogs could kill me, too.

A dog bayed again, a little closer. Then another. Ghita and the captain stood together, the strongs next to them. Kaal looked over at me, accusation in her eyes. And danger. She was strong enough to break my back with her bare hands. I stepped back, looking around.

A jumble of rocks, two small stands of low windswept trees; slight cover at best. One of the men, Moran, glanced at me. He and his team began to move—he and the woman, Kuipul, stopping a few meters on either side of the captain, Ghita, and the strongs. The other two jogged slowly outward, scanning the area, suddenly engaged in the moment. They hadn’t spoken before the move in unison—so they were Wind Readers, using the data web to relay information. Were they tuning a piece of their web to the dogs now? Was Kayleen there, waiting for them? Or had she used the little boxes that disrupted data?

Thankfully, the dogs remained silent.

The captain gestured for me to come stand with them. Her eyes were wide, rimmed a little in fear, but insistent. Ghita reached for her belt and unclipped a small black box.

A dog glided between two small trees, the reddish-brown hair on its back sticking up straight. It smelled like raw meat and anger.

A streak of brown movement gave away another dog’s position.

Ghita stayed at Lushia’s side, glaring at me. Her hand went to her belt and came away full of something small and black.

The pack circled us, the first movement in the dance between demon dog and prey. I bolted. I needed to be outside their circle, to appear faster and stronger and harder to catch than the people still inside. Tree branches whipped my right leg and a rock snatched skin
from my knee. I ran up, toward their den, getting above the dogs, and circled them myself from the ridge, looking down.

I ducked and moved slowly, keeping rocks and trees between me and the mercenaries. I prayed they’d stay grouped for safety and leave me for later.

A human scream rose from the ridges, bouncing back and forth between them, echoing from rock to tree to rock. The voice of a stranger, not Kayleen or Liam. One of their Wind Readers.

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t stop the humans from shooting me, but I could keep from getting killed by the dogs. Further away now, I straightened and raced uphill, rocks sliding under my feet, heading up one of the ridges for a bit and turning, keeping to high ground.

Nothing seemed to be following me. Luck, or skill, or something Liam or Kayleen did. Maybe the strangers let me go. I didn’t care.

My heart pounded. Because of my choice, at least one person was probably dead. I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t think about others maybe dying, too.

Another dog bayed behind me. Not close, with the group. Its natural sound cut off, switching to a scream of pain. Well, the mercenaries were fighters. Maybe they’d kill the dogs.

I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. I hadn’t stopped them from attacking Artistos. I knew that. Maybe I’d slowed them down. My breath came so sharp that my chest hurt.

A skimmer whined overhead, heading toward the captain, her First, and the dogs.

I slowed a little, heading downhill, running almost in the open but off the path we’d come up.

Where were Liam and Kayleen?

A
s I neared the
Dawnforce
, a skimmer took off, engines straining, arrowing in the same direction as the one that had just flown over me, toward the Captain and the dogs. I ducked down behind a rock, hoping the occupants wouldn’t see me.

A sharp crack split the air. The skimmer shuddered. Something big fell to the ground, shiny as it flipped. Maybe a stubby wing? Then the whole machine fell out of the sky, a large dead bird. It smashed nose-down just past me, flipping over on its back. Oily black smoke billowed up from its broken body. The grass around it burst into flames.

I stood up and kept going. Three people came toward me up the path and I knelt under a scraggly bush, poised to run if they saw me.

They didn’t. Two men and a woman, moving at least as fast as we three could run. Maybe faster. Each of them carried something small in their hands. Probably a weapon.

A second skimmer flew in from the sea. It circled the
Dawnforce
, and the carnage of its wrecked brethren, and the fire beginning to spread out across the dry grasses in the direction of the
Dawnforce
. It headed off the way the downed skimmer had been going.

As soon as it was out of sight I stood again, racing toward
Dawnforce
, heart pounding. Acrid smoke seared my lungs and stung my eyes, turning the air a muddy brown.

A loud bang sounded from near the
Dawnforce
, followed by screams of pain.

Please let it not be Liam or Kayleen.

Near the bottom of the path I spotted a rock with three smaller rocks piled on top of it. A sign for me. I pulled a pack from behind the rock, heavy with two crazy-balls. I took one out, setting it down carefully while I shrugged the pack with the other one still inside it onto my back. I picked up the one I had set down, a silver sphere just big enough to cradle in my two hands, heavier than it looked like it should be. I held it in front of me gingerly, slowing my pace now that I was closer, looking for a target.

The area around the ship was a chaos of smoke and running figures. Here and there I heard voices, but most of the crew were like the three who had passed me, silent and intent. Wind Readers, or using some quiet communication.

I stopped behind one of the buildings near the Burning Void, searching for Kayleen or Liam.

Nothing.

The
Dawnforce
’s main door had opened. More crew members jogged toward the fire near the downed skimmer, this time carrying large cylinders. A man raced by me, glancing my way, his lips moving. Probably telling someone where I was. Just as I twisted away to head in the other direction, I glimpsed Liam racing toward the Burning Void, his hands empty. Kayleen followed behind him, looking around, probably trying to spot me.

I was afraid to call out.

The loud engines of incoming skimmers preparing to land filled the sky. The captain, coming back. I lobbed the crazy-ball toward the open place I figured they wanted to land and ran toward the
Burning Void.

Kayleen and Liam must already be there. Our ship stood alone behind the two buildings, the ramp down. It had been closed when I saw it on my way in. I bolted up the ramp. It closed halfway behind me as I tumbled inside.

Liam, leaning over me, a huge grin on his face, his eyes alight with adrenaline. “Do you have any more crazy-balls?”

I peeled off my pack. “One.”

He dug it out of the backpack, calling over his shoulder. “Kayleen. Take off.”

The skimmer’s engines came to life, humming. Liam leaned out the partly-open door, holding the crazy-ball. Burning Void lifted. Kayleen banked us in a tight circle, flying toward the looming Dawnforce. Just before the door came into view, Liam threw the ball, then slapped the controls, shutting the ship tightly before we heard the muffled bang of the explosion. “Did you get it inside?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. We can’t stay around to find out.”

The
Burning Void
rose, tilting first one way and then the other, gathering speed.

“I don’t believe we’re all alive,” I said.

He touched my cheek. “Me either. They won’t underestimate us again.”

We joined Kayleen in the main cabin. She sat in the back seat, eyes closed, communing with the little ship. “I can’t believe they got her free for us.”

“They didn’t,” he said. “Kayleen had to break a code to get in.” The screen showed Islandia’s seacoast rushing by beneath us.

“Are we going home?” I asked.

“Home?” He shook his head. “She’s going to get Windy.”

I bit my tongue. This would be our only chance, and Windy had kept us alive with her warnings more than once. We owed it to her. She was family

K
ayleen kept us flying low and fast, turning up the valley. We landed in the last possible spot before the path into West Home, turned for take off. The Burning Void lay in the open, completely unprotected. We had to depend on speed.

We ran up the path, all together in a bunch, leaping from rock to rock, somehow all managing to keep on our feet.

Liam stopped at the top, then screamed, “No!” as he kept going. We followed.

The roof of our house had holes punctured in the top. One side of the greenhouse billowed out in the wind, some of the hard plastic actually torn off and lying meters away.

Liam hesitated, searching for any sign of whoever had done this. I put a hand on his shoulder, anger making me tremble. “A skimmer flew back from this direction, just after you brought that first one down. I bet they did this.”

A piteous cry came from the corral. “Windy!” Kayleen raced past us. Windy lay in the dirt, her coat blackened along one side of her neck, blood pouring out from a wound where her neck met her shoulder. She lifted her head and cried out.

I knelt down next to the wounded hebra and her best friend. My best friend. More now, even than that. I wanted to scream for Kayleen’s sake.

Windy’s breath rattled shallowly in her throat. I reached out to stroke her fur. She tried to lift her head and failed, and her eyes rolled
back and she moaned. Something big and powerful had ripped muscle away from bone near her shoulder.

So cruel.

She cried again, softer and weaker, a long high call which skewered my heart.

Kayleen lay flat behind Windy on the dusty, dry ground, her belly to the hebra’s backbone, Windy’s head cradled in her arms. The evening light painted highlights in Kayleen’s dark hair as it mingled with the mixed green of Windy’s ear tufts. Kayleen’s hand pushed down on Windy’s neck where the blood welled out, coating Kayleen’s long fingers dark red.

Liam approached slowly.

Kayleen looked up at him, tears in her wide eyes. “She’s not going to be okay, is she?”

Liam shook his head, swallowing hard. As he looked down at us, dampness filled his eyes, too. “I should …We should…”

Kayleen reached a hand up and stroked Windy’s nose. She buried her face between the hebra’s long ears for a moment, then looked up at Liam. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and still. “Bring me one of the long sticks—the rifles. You know where they are.”

He turned and walked away, and I shifted to sit beside her. I knew what had to happen. We couldn’t leave her like this.

I stroked Kayleen’s shoulder, softly, even though nothing could comfort her in that moment.