"I reckon they're rebels of some sort, at war with the Styx," Chester said defensively. "You know, freedom fighters."
"Yeah, right."
"They could be," Chester maintained, then looked less certain. "Why don't you ask them, Will?"
"Why don't you ask them yourself?" Will snapped.
He was getting more and more furious. Coming on top of Cal's accident, the traumatic way in which they had been grabbed was really the last straw. He fell into a brooding silence and began to formulate a plan of action in which they would fight their way out and make a run for it. He was just about to inform Chester what he thought their next move should be when Drake appeared at the threshold. He leaned against the doorjamb, eating something. It was Will's favorite — a Milky Way. He and Cal had bought several candy bars in the Topsoil supermarket, and he'd been carefully saving them for a special occasion.
"What are these?" Drake asked, indicating a pair of dun-colored rocks the size of large marbles, which he was cradling in the palm of his hand. He shook them as though they were dice, and then closed his hand and began to grind them, one against the other.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Will told Drake.
"Why not?"
"It's bad for your eyesight," Will said, the corners of his lips curling with the hint of a vindictive smirk as the man continued to rattle the stone together. They were the remaining node stones that Tam had given Will, and Drake had evidently found them in Will's backpack. If broken, they became incandescent, releasing a blinding white light. "They'll go off in your face," Will warned.
Drake glanced at Will, unsure whether the boy was being serious. However, taking a large bite of the Milky Way bar, he now held the stones still as he continued to examine them.
Will was incensed. "Enjoying that, are you?" he fumed.
"Yes," Drake answered unequivocally, tucking the last of the chocolate into his mouth. "Look at it as a small price to pay for rescuing you."
"And that gives you the right to help yourself to my things, does it?" Will rose to his feet, his arms bunched at his sides, his face rigid with anger. 'Besides, we didn't need to be rescued."
"Oh, really?" Drake responded casually, his mouth still full. "Look at the two of you. You're a mess."
"We were doing just fine before you came along," Will retorted.
"Oh, really. So, tell me, what happened to this Cal you mentioned? I don't see him anywhere." Drake shot his eyes around the room, then raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Where's he hiding, I wonder."
"My brother… he… he…" Will started belligerently, but suddenly all the bluster deserted him and he slumped back down onto the bed.
"He's dead," Chester spoke up.
"How?" Drake asked, swallowing the last of the candy bar.
"There was this cave… and…" Will's voice faltered.
"What sort of cave?" Drake asked immediately, his voice deadly serious.
Chester took over. "It smelled sort of sweet and there were strange plant things… They bit him or something, and then all this stuff—"
"A sugar trap," Drake interrupted, moving in from the doorway and looking quickly from one boy to the other. "And what did you do? You didn't just leave him there?"
"He wasn't breathing," Chester said.
"He died," Will added disconsolately.
"Where and when was this?" Drake pressed them.
Will and Chester shot glances at each other.
"Come on," Drake urged.
"Two or so days ago… I suppose," Will said.
"Yes, it was by the first canal we came to," Chester confirmed.
"Then there may still be a chance," Drake said, moving toward the doorway. "A slim one."
"What do you mean?" Will asked.
"We have to go," Drake snapped.
"Huh?" Will gasped, not able to comprehend what he was hearing.
But Drake was already striding purposefully down the corridor. "Follow me! We'll need to take some rations," he yelled back to them. Elliott! Saddle up! Break out the weapons!"
He halted by their backpacks, where all their belongings had been stacked into ordered piles.
"Take that, that, and that," Drake pointed at the various piles of food. "Should be enough. We'll carry some extra water. Elliott! Water!" he shouted as he turned to them. They were standing rather dumbly as they watched him, confused as to what exactly they were meant to be doing, and why. "Hurry up and stow that stuff… that's if you want to save your brother."
"I don't understand," Will said, kneeling and hurriedly shoving food into his rucksack as Drake had instructed. "Cal wasn't breathing. He's dead."
"No time to explain now," Drake barked as Elliott appeared from another doorway. Her shemagh was still around her head and her rifle slung across her back. She handed Drake two bladderlike containers that slopped with the sound of water.
"Take these," Drake said, shoving them at the boys.
"What's up?" Elliott asked calmly as she began to pass further items to Drake.
"There were three of them. The third wandered into a sugar trap," he answered, casting his eyes in the boys' direction as he took a bundle of cylinders from Elliott, some six inches or so in length. He opened his jacket and slotted them inside it one by one. Then he clipped a pad with shorter versions of the cylinders — each like a thick pencil housed in its own loop — onto his belt and secured it by means of a short cord tied around his thigh.
"What are those?" Will inquired.
"Precautions," Drake answered abstractedly. "We'll be taking a direct route across the plain. We don't have time for subtlety."
He buttoned up his jacket and flicked the weird contraption over his eye again. "Ready?" he said to Elliott.
"Ready," she confirmed.
23
Later that evening, Sarah was in her room, poring over the map the Styx had given her. She was sitting cross-legged with it spread open on the floor before her, familiarizing herself with the various place names.
"Crevice Town," she repeated several times, then switched her attention to the northern reaches of the Great Plain, where reports were coming in of recent renegade activity. She wondered if Will was somehow tied up in it — given his past record, she wouldn't have been surprised if he was already causing trouble in the Deeps.
She was distracted by heavy, even steps in the corridor outside. Going to the door, she opened it as softly as she could and saw the massive, unmistakable form lumbering down the corridor.
"Joseph," she called quietly.
He turned and came back to her, tucking some neatly folded towels under his arm.
"I didn't want to intrude," he said, glancing through the partially open door and past Sarah to the floor, where the map was laid out.
"You should have come in. I'm so glad you're back." She smiled at him. "I was… um…" she began, then fell silent.
"If there's anything I can do for you, you only have to ask," Joseph offered.
"I don't think I'll be here much longer," she told him, then hesitated. "There is something I wanted to do before I go."
"Anything," he reiterated. "You know I'm here for you." He beamed at her, delighted that she felt she could trust him.
"I want you to get me out of here," Sarah said in a low voice.
Moving like a shadow, Sarah kept close to the wall. She'd already avoided several Colonist policemen making the rounds of the surrounding streets and didn't want to get caught now. Ducking into a recess behind an ancient drinking fountain with a tarnished brass spout, she crouched down and checked the darkened entrance on the other side of the street.
She lifted her head and gazed at the tall, windowless walls of he outer ring of buildings. It had been from this very spot that, so many years ago, she had seen those buildings through her child's eyes. Then, as now, they gave the impression that they hadn't put up much of a fight against the ravages of time. The walls were shot through with ominous-looking cracks, and there were numerous huge and yawning hollows where the facing stones had simply crumbled away. The masonry appeared to be in such an appalling state of repair that at any moment the whole development might come tumbling down on some hapless passerby.