The Mountain Cage (41 page)

Andrew stared at his friend. It seemed obvious and simple, now that he had explained. “They might just wander back to your house,” he murmured as he shifted his gaze to the cages.

“Not these cats. They’re kind of wild. They’ll stay out here for at least a day or two.” He opened one cage and removed a Siamese. The cat meowed and tried to scratch. Silas stroked it tenderly. “Hold him.” Andrew held the animal as Silas removed his Bond and put it around the cat’s neck, adjusting it. The cat jumped from Andrew’s arms and scampered away. “Now yours.”

Andrew backed away. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t do it.” His mouth was dry. He would be cut off from the world without his Bond; he had never removed it except when it was being readjusted.

“Coward. I know what’s going to happen to you. You’re going to run home, and your mother and father’ll make sure their little precious doesn’t run away again. And you’ll stay there forever. You’ll be a hundred years old, and you’ll still be there, and you’ll never do anything. And you’ll always be afraid, just like them.”

Andrew swallowed. He took off the Bond while Silas held the other cat. He fumbled with the bracelet and dropped it. “Here, hold the cat,” Silas said, sighing. He picked up the Bond and attached it himself, then put the cat on the ground. The creature began to lick a paw.

Andrew was numb. He blinked. Silas pushed him, and he almost fell. “We have to go, Andrew. Another kobold’ll be here soon.”

Late that afternoon, they reached a deserted town. Weeds had grown through the cracks in the road. The wooden structures were wrecks. A few had become only piles of lumber; others still stood, brown boards showing through the worn-away paint. Broken windows revealed empty rooms.

They walked slowly through the town. A sudden gust of wind swayed a weeping willow, and Andrew thought he heard a sigh. He shivered and walked more quickly.

A stone house stood at the edge of the town. A low wall surrounded it; the metal gate was open. Silas lingered at the gate, then went through it. The broken pavement leading to the front door was a narrow trail through weeds and tall grass. Andrew followed his friend up the steps. Silas tried the door knob, pushing at the dark wood with his other hand until the door creaked open.

The hallway was empty; dust covered the floor. Andrew sneezed. The floorboards creaked under their feet.

Cobwebs shimmered in the corners. They turned to the right and crept into the next room.

Andrew sniffed. “Are we going to stay here? We’ll choke.” His voice was small and hollow.

Silas glanced around the empty room, then walked over to a tall window facing the front yard. “We can sleep here. If we open the window, we’ll have air.”

“Maybe we’d better leave it closed.” Andrew wondered whether he would prefer a closed window and a dusty room to an open window in the dark. Silas did not seem to hear him; he stared through the filmy windowpane for a moment, then pushed at the window, straining against it until it squeaked open.

“Come here,” he said to Andrew. He wandered to the window and peered out over Silas’s shoulder. “Look.”

“At what?”

Silas pushed his arm. “Don’t you see anything, Andrew? Look at the town. It’s like it’s still alive.”

He saw it. The tall grass hid the piles of lumber; only the standing houses were visible, colored by the orange glow of the setting sun. He could walk back to the town and find people preparing supper or gathering in the street. He sighed and backed away, making tracks in the dust as he slid his feet along the floor.

Silas took a shirt out of his knapsack and swept a spot clean. When he was finished, Andrew sat down. Now that he was safe, Andrew felt a little better. He had seen none of the terrible things his parents had warned him against, only old roads, forest, and a deserted town. He said, “I thought it would be worse.”

“What?” Silas removed food and water from his knapsack.

“I thought it would be more—I don’t know—more dangerous.” He shrugged out of his knapsack and stretched.

Silas shook his head. “You listen to your parents too much. Besides, there aren’t that many people around here; it’s too far north.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“You know. Maybe you don’t, because you never went anywhere. They don’t like seasons, most of them. They like places where it’s always the same. Here, the fall comes, and plants die.” Silas said the word
die
harshly, defiantly at Andrew. “They don’t like to see that.”

Andrew accepted food from his friend, opening his package of stew and letting it heat up for a few moments. Silas smacked his lips as he ate. “Sometimes I hate them,” he went on. “They don’t do anything. I don’t want to be like that.” He paused. “Once my father had this party, when we were living in Antigua, and this guy came, I forget his name. Everybody was just sitting around, showing off what languages they knew or flirting. And some of them were making fun of this man in a real quiet way, but he knew they were doing it; he wasn’t that dumb.”

“Why were they making fun of him?”

“Because he couldn’t play their stupid little word games. This one woman started saying that there were people who just weren’t very smart, and you could tell who they were because they couldn’t learn very much even with a long life and plenty of time, that they just couldn’t keep up. She was saying it to this other man, but she knew that other guy heard her, she said it right in front of him.”

“What did he do?” Andrew asked.

“Nothing.” Silas shrugged. “He looked sad. He left a little later, and I had to go to bed anyway. Know what happened?” He leaned forward. “He went up in this little plane a couple of days later, and he went into a dive and smacked into this house down the road. You should have seen it blow up.”

Andrew was too shocked to speak.

“Luckily, nobody was home. The man died, though. Some people said it was an accident, but I don’t think most of them believed it. That man knew how to fly. He went diving right in there.” Silas slapped his right hand against his left palm.

Andrew shook his head. “That’s awful.” He looked enviously at his friend, wishing that he too had witnessed such an event.

“At least he did something.”

Andrew lifted his head. “But that’s terrible.” He thought guiltily about his own foray onto the roof outside his window.

“So what? It’s terrible. Everybody said so, but it was almost all they ever talked about afterwards. I know for a fact that a lot of them watched the whole thing on their screens later on. A woman was out with her holo equipment just by luck, and she got the whole thing and put it in the system. That’s the point, Andrew. He did something, and everybody knew it, and for a while he was the most important guy around.”

“And he was so important you forgot his name.”

“I was little. Anyway, that’s why my father came here. He decided he didn’t want to be around a lot of people after that. He kept saying it could have been our house.” Silas threw his empty container into the corner and leaned back against the wall, smiling. “That would have been something, if it had been our house. Old Ben wouldn’t have ever gotten over it. I’ll bet he would have moved us underground.”

Andrew pulled up his legs and wrapped his arms around them, imagining a plane streaking through the sky. The room seemed cozy now; the thought of danger beyond made it seem even cozier. Antigua, of course, was safely distant. He looked admiringly at his friend. Silas had seen danger, and nothing had happened to him; Andrew would be safe with his friend.

Andrew was awake in the darkness. The knapsack under his head was bumpy, and the floor was hard. His muscles ached. He thought of his bed at home.

He supposed he must have slept a little. It had still been light outside when he had gone to sleep. He listened; Silas was breathing unevenly. He felt a movement near him and realized his friend was awake. He was about to speak when he heard a click.

The front door was opening. He stiffened and held his breath. The door creaked. He heard footsteps in the hall, and his ears began to pound.

He wanted to make for the window and get outside, but he could not move. Silas had stopped breathing. The footsteps were coming toward them. He tried to press his back against the floor, as if he could sink between the boards and hide.

A beam of light shot through the darkness, sweeping toward them in an arc. Andrew sat up. The light struck him, and he threw up an arm. He tried to cry out, but let out only a sigh. Silas shouted.

Someone laughed. Andrew blinked, blinded by the light. The footsteps came closer and the light dimmed. The shadowy figure holding it leaned over, set the slender pocket light on the floor, and sat down.

The intruder’s face was now illuminated by the light. It was a girl with curly shoulder-length hair. She said, “Who are you?”

Andrew glanced at Silas. “I’m Silas, this is Andrew. We aren’t doing anything.”

“I can see that. Hold out your arms.”

Andrew hesitated.

“Hold them out.” Her voice was hard. The boys extended their arms. “You’re not wearing Bonds. Good. I don’t want a signal going out.” She had one hand at her waist; Andrew wondered if she was hurt. Then she withdrew it, and he saw a metal wand. She was armed. He lowered his arms slowly and clutched his elbows.

“We’re exploring,” Silas said.

“You mean you’re running away. I’m running away, too. My name’s Thérèse. Who are you running away from?”

“Our parents.”

“Why?”

“I told you, we just want to look around.”

“Then they’re looking for you.”

Silas shook his head. “We threw them off the track. If they’re looking, they won’t look here.” Andrew was hoping that his friend was wrong. “Do your parents live around here?”

“I’m not running away from parents.” The girl brushed a curl from her forehead. “Where are you from?”

“Oh, a long way from here,” Silas answered. “It took us all day to get here. There’s only three houses where we’re from; there’s just Andrew’s parents and my father and one woman who’s practically never there. So you don’t have to worry.” Andrew suspected that the other boy was as frightened as he was.

“I’m not worried.” Thérèse reached for the light, then stood up. “I’m going to sleep in the hall. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

The boards groaned under her feet as she left; Andrew heard her close the door. He moved closer to Silas. “We can still go out the window,” he whispered.

“What if she comes after us?”

“We can wait until she’s asleep.”

Silas was silent for a few moments. “Why bother? She’s running away, too. We might be safer with her anyway. She has a weapon.”

“She might be dangerous.”

“I don’t know. She’s just another kid. If she was really dangerous, she could have lased us right here.”

Andrew shuddered. “Maybe we should go home.”

“That’s all you can think about, isn’t it, running home to Joan and Dao.” Silas paused. “Something interesting’s going on, and you want to hide. Look, if we have to, we can always get away later. All we have to do is go to the nearest house and send out a message, and somebody’ll come. Let’s go to sleep.”

Andrew stretched out on the floor. Silas might be scared, but he would never admit it. Andrew considered escaping by himself, but the thought of traveling alone in the night kept him at Silas’s side.

They shared some dried fruit and water with Thérèse in the morning. Andrew realized that they would run out of food sooner if they divided it three ways. They would have to go home then. That nodon cheered him a bit as they set out from town.

In the early morning light, Thérèse did not seem as frightening. He guessed that she was about twelve. She was taller than he was, but her long legs and thin arms were gangly, and her chest was flat. Her cheeks were round and pink; strands of reddish-brown hair kept drifting across her face, causing her to shake her head periodically. She carried nothing except her weapon and her light, both tucked in her belt. Her shirt and slacks were dirty, and there were holes in her pants near her knees.

Andrew was on the girl’s left; Silas walked at her right. Silas also seemed more at ease. He had joked with Thérèse as they ate, finally eliciting a smile. Thérèse was reserved; Andrew wondered if all girls were like that or only this one. He remembered the girls he had spoken with over the holo and the way a couple of them often looked at him scornfully, as if he were still a little child.

“Why did you run away?” she asked abruptly.

“I told you,” Silas answered.

“I mean the real reason. Are your parents cruel, or is it just that they don’t seem to care?”

“My father’s all right.”

“What about your mother?”

“I don’t have one, they used stored ova for me.”

“What about you?” she said to Andrew.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Silas was going, so I went with him.”

“That’s not a good reason. Don’t you like your home?”

“I like it fine.”

“You shouldn’t have left it, then.”