“Isn’t that a—?” Raffa started to ask.
“Yes. And it will work.” She looked at the charge level on the side; as she’d expected, it had held its charge. . . . The good ones did, and her dad had always provided them with good ones. Besides, she had the photocells to top it up with. “We can get help,” she said, and sat up cheerfully only to ram her head into the nest of thorns close above. Her eyes watered, and she held very still. It was the only way with these island briars: jerk away and she’d lose half her hair and part of her scalp. In the time it took Raffa to work her free, she was able to think why they couldn’t use the locator yet. There would be no easy rescue, any more than easy extrication from the briar.
“But if we could get to Bandon,” she said. “If we could steal their flitter, maybe, while they’re hunting the others . . . this will override anything.”
“There’s more of them on Bandon,” Raffa reminded her. “Hold still, yet. You’ve got a thorn right in your scalp. Do these things leave the husk in?”
“Sometimes, and it festers if they do. Get it all if you can.” She was a little surprised at how deft Raffa’s fingers were, and how calm she was staying. Was this the same Raffa who had seemed an obsessive worrier?
“There,” Raffa said finally. “I don’t think there are any husks, but if you’ll hand me that tube of gunk—thanks—I can put a dab on a few places . . . yes . . . they were bleeding a bit. Keep the flies off, eh?”
“How long has it been?” Bubbles asked, putting everything back in the box and latching it. They had left Petris and the others before noon, and she realized they had better think about where to spend the night. Light came to them between the stones, sideways; the slope below, on the west side of the island, would still be in daylight for awhile, but where would the hunters go? Up here, along the high trail? Along the slopes?
“Should we stay here?” Raffa asked, as if she were seeing the thoughts in Bubbles’s head. “We’re out of sight, but if they have any kind of sensors—”
“I don’t know a better place, not without time to look for it.” Bubbles peeked out the west side of the tangle; they were high enough that she could see out over the lower forest to the sea. The few clouds drifted past, their shadows sliding up the slope like vast hands caressing the trees. “The main thing is to keep well away from Petris and the others. . . . Someone has to get back. . . .”
“Oh . . .” Raffa’s breath came just as Bubbles realized one shadow wasn’t sliding upslope. . . . Small, regular, it moved swiftly against the wind, downslope to the south of them, and then ran along parallel to the ridge.
“Eyes down,” Bubbles said, taking her own advice. Now that it was upwind, they could hear the faint whine of the flitter. Surely the briar was thick enough—old, tangled, too dense for anyone to see through. But every freckle of light suggested it was as porous as a fishing net. She felt sure she had something shiny on her back, something that would glitter—she should take it off. But her arms had no strength; she lay, hardly breathing, trembling.
The flitter’s shadow passed over them, as if a cold hand lay on her back, and went somewhere else. She could hear the whine moving north, she thought, toward the tip of the island, but she dared not move.
“So,” Raffa said, hardly louder than a breath. “They’re here. And it’s not a game.”
“No.” Immediately below them, on the west slope, the rock nubbins were only sparsely covered. . . . They couldn’t count on reaching the cover below without being seen. They would have to stay here until the flitter landed somewhere. What if it didn’t? It had not occurred to her that the hunters might well keep someone aloft, especially in this emergency.
“How come people in entertainment cubes never need a bathroom?” asked Raffa.
“Mmm. You’re right.” Now that Raffa had brought it up, she felt the same desperate need. “We can’t leave cover now,” she said. She wriggled toward the north side of the briar, where its canopy lay along a lower stub of gray stone. Just beyond that was another hollow; she could see into it by risking another hair-pulling match with the briar’s canopy. This one had no handy roof; a small tree had died and collapsed, and the vines that covered it matted the ground.
“We should’ve found a place before we came in here,” Raffa said.
“You’re right,” Bubbles said, squeezing onward around the briar’s central stem and root complex. In the northeast corner of their thorny shelter, she found what she remembered, a niche in the big stone between them and the trail. Here the briar, reaching for light, lifted enough to allow someone to sit upright. And below was the other refinement of her childhood hiding place, a standard expedition one-man composting latrine unit, carefully dug into the soil. Her parents had been, she’d thought then, ridiculously fussy about pollution; one summer they’d all been yanked back to all-day lessons at the Big House for two weeks just because one set of cousins had dug a real latrine in a spurt of enthusiasm for historical authenticity. They had all had to memorize the list of diseases they could have given themselves, and the life cycles of innumerable disgusting parasites, before they could come back. They could have all the prefab units they wanted, her father had said, but they must use them. She scrabbled at the lid, said a brief prayer to some nameless deity that none of the more agile crawlers had gotten into it, and pulled it open. “But here,” she said triumphantly. “All the comforts of home, more or less. Deodorizing, too.” Since she was in place, she took the first turn, and felt much better. Raffa followed her, gave a sigh of relief, and latched the lid back down.
“Now if you could just excavate us a cave right here . . .”
“Nope. I tried hard enough, but it’s solid stone below a few inches of leaf-drift. And I think we’d better get what rest we can. Just at dusk we could move downslope, if we’re careful.”
Bubbles had not really expected to sleep, cramped under the briar in the hot, sweaty dimness, but she woke at the crunch of footsteps somewhere nearby. It was completely dark, and for a moment she could not think where she was. Then she remembered. The hand on her ankle, a grip hard enough to pinch, must be Raffa’s hand. She reached back and touched it, and Raffa gripped her hand instead. Her breath seemed trapped in her lungs. The footsteps came nearer, not hurrying. Panic clogged her ears with her own heartbeat; she could not tell how far away the sound was. A voice murmured something she could not distinguish. A faint crackle followed; her mind raced, suggesting that the crackle was a comunit, which meant the footsteps were a hunter’s. I knew that already, she argued back at her mind. Raffa’s fingers in hers were cold; she shivered, but forced herself to lie still. Another crunch, a boot on the rough path beyond the stone. She heard a scrape and a soft curse as someone found the space between the stones too narrow. Something shook that side of the briar, as if the hunter had taken a stick to it; the branches squeaked overhead. Raffa’s fingers tightened suddenly. Could she see something from her side of the briar? But the footsteps went away, the faint scrunching growing fainter. Raffa’s fingers relaxed but did not pull away.
Her breath came out all at once; she felt dizzy and faint even lying down. What if she’d been asleep . . . and dreaming . . . and had snored? Her first school roommates said she snored. Just when she thought it might be safe to murmur something to Raffa, she heard another sound. Not nearly so loud as the first, as if the feet wore something softer than boots. Three steps, a pause. Four, and another pause. Two . . . whoever it was was now just outside the cleft they’d come through. Bubbles held herself rigidly still, trying not to breathe.