Eventually Dash expended its energy, and looked to Zack.
“Ah, one of my favorite books is Huckleberry Finn,” Zack said.
Makali got it first, clapping her hands. “A raft!”
“With what?” Valya said.
Zack pointed back at the shed. “With that.”
Zack turned to Dash again. The Sentry had been watching the human antics with its usual stolidity. “If we get across the habitat, is there a way out?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Dash said, with what Zack took to be impatience. “Escape. Transit. Reboot.” As if to say, Are you idiots? What have I been telling you!
Dale was the first to respond. “Fuck it, let’s build a raft.”
HARLEY
“Just tell us what happened.”
Nayar, Weldon, Harley, and Sasha had taken Chitran first to find her baby. Then, with great difficulty, they had gotten her to accompany them to Lake Ganges.
They’d had to bring three of the Bangalore women along, for support and for translation. Nayar could have handled it and would provide a second voice…but Chitran was literally clinging to the women.
They’d also had to promise her that they were actively looking for Camilla and would arrest her the moment they found her.
“Assuming her story makes sense,” Weldon said to Harley, as they stood alone on the shore. Nayar and Sasha were helping Chitran retrace her steps from yesterday morning. “I still don’t see how a nine-year-old girl overcomes and kills a grown woman.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Harley said.
“Really?” Weldon said. “I’m trying to think of any event since Venture touched down that hasn’t been bugfuck weird. I’d be hard-pressed to pick a number one.”
“Oh, no challenge,” Harley said. “Dead people coming back to life, that’s easily number one through five—”
“—Out of five hundred strange things. I hear you.” Weldon was silent for a moment. “I keep feeling as though we just learned something really significant, like discovering fire. And haven’t had time to think about it.”
“We’re not in a place where we can afford the luxury,” Harley said. He, too, had been mentally buffeted by meeting aliens, being hauled from the Earth to a NEO, then trying to survive.
But finding proof that there was life beyond death—however temporary. That there was something more to a human being than blood, bone, and brain…some spirit or soul or bioelectric field that could be recorded, stored, uploaded…yeah, that was fairly important.
Weldon said, “I suppose we can always fall back on the excuse that NASA didn’t hire philosophers.”
“Or theologians.”
“NASA didn’t hire many police investigators, either,” Weldon said, nodding toward the “crime scene,” where Nayar and Sasha were trying, with some difficulty, to get Chitran to restage her death.
“I still can’t get my head around the mechanics of this resurrection,” Harley said. “The principle, yeah. But how do you find a soul in the big empty universe—a specific one. And why? Why Megan Stewart? Why Camilla?” He pointed to Chitran. “And why her?”
“Stewart said something about them being communicators. Messengers.”
“Same thing as angels, if you know your Bible.”
“And, since I don’t, I’ll take your word for it.”
Sasha disengaged from the crime scene investigation and walked toward them, shaking her head. “Not going as planned?” Weldon said.
“She says the Architects are talking to her.”
“So I heard,” Harley said. “But what are they telling her?”
“Apparently…find Camilla.”
Weldon groaned. “Yeah, yeah. And why would they do that? Wasn’t she one of the Revenants?”
“I hope you don’t expect me to have those answers,” Sasha said.
Harley added, “Me, neither.”
“I just want to be sure we get them.”
Now Nayar approached. He looked as unhappy at Sasha.
“She says she was kneeling by the water, washing a shirt, when she got pushed down from behind. The assailant was on top of her, her hands around her throat. She fought, realized that the hands were small—”
“And so didn’t get away because?” Weldon said.
“She got hit with a rock.”
“Thrown or held in the same small hand?” Harley said.
“Yes. She was stunned, fell into the water, and died there.”
“Still from the broken neck?” Harley said.
“She’s not really sure,” Sasha said. “And I wish you guys would cut her a little slack. She was killed. God only knows what it’s like to go through that Revenant process. I mean, she’s still not quite right.”
“The language barrier isn’t helping,” Nayar said.
“She doesn’t speak Hindi?”
“Yes, but it’s not her first language. She grew up with Urdu, and none of us are good at it.”
“I thought the two languages were kissin’ cousins,” Harley said. At least, that was what he’d heard in the past few days.
“At a higher social level,” Nayar said. “In the technical world, or the political.” He frowned. “Chitran was a maid.”
“There are almost certainly native speakers in the rest of the Bangalore population,” Sasha said.
“Then we should get one of them to speak with her, stat,” Weldon said.
“We won’t learn much more,” Nayar said. “But conversation might be…more productive.” He was looking past Harley.
“Vikram, are you satisfied with her, uh, testimony?”
“Yes. Implausible as it might sound…I believe her.”
“A nine-year-old girl, yay high,” Weldon said, holding his hand out not much above his waist, “takes out a grown woman.”
“Come on, Shane!” Sasha said. “Chitran barely comes up to my shoulder. She’s weak, she’s distracted—”
“And children can be savage,” Nayar said.
“Especially children who are Revenants?” Harley said. He hadn’t permitted himself to class the reborn humans as Something Other Than…but the sample was smalclass="underline" a bit of anecdotal evidence about Megan Stewart and even less about Pogo Downey; Chitran, who wasn’t proving to be especially useful yet…and Camilla, largely untested or examined. “Where did she get to?”
No one had seen her for hours. “We’re looking,” Weldon said.
“Sure you don’t want some burly men to help with the fugitive?” Sasha said, not hiding the sarcasm.
“Anyone who wants to help is welcome,” Weldon said, his tone even.
“Before you go,” Nayar said, “one thing, and I don’t know if it’s significant.” He seemed reluctant to say it aloud. Finally: “It goes to this language issue. Chitran is not saying ‘Camilla killed me.’ It turns out that what’s she’s saying is, ‘Camilla killed us.’”
“Does it make a difference?” Weldon said.
“Well, yes,” Sasha said. “Remember what’s in Chitran’s head right now…images and terms from the Architect. That could be a warning…that Camilla’s actions were aimed at everyone.”
“And possibly not just humans,” Nayar said. “Perhaps every living thing on Keanu.”
He knew he was growing petulant—understandable, given the fatigue and the stress. A good leader doesn’t allow that, he told himself.
And answered himself: Who said you were a good leader?
Well, at the moment, through no fault of his own, Harley Drake was the best leader the HBs had. And he needed to act the part even though he didn’t feel the part. It had worked for presidents and prime ministers…why not him?
He said as much to Nayar, when the Bangalore leader caught up to him. “Sorry I was so short.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Nayar said. “I am more concerned about the Temple.” Oh, what now? Harley thought. “Did you happen to look at the Woggle-Bug terrarium before you left for the lake?”