“My cousin Boethea Evangeline,” said Raffa. “My brother Archibald Ferdinand.”
“Right. Well, Mother had finally come over to fashion, after reasonably naming Gari and Tighe; Buttons got stuck with Bertram Harold Scaevola. I really think they made a mistake there: Scaevola doesn’t sound British to me, but Mother said it was an important name in history somewhere. Then I came along. You promise you won’t tell?”
“Tell whom? The hunters? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“All right. Brunnhilde Charlotte.”
Raffa smothered an obvious bleat of laughter. “What!” Bubbles felt her face go hot.
“Brunnhilde Charlotte. You don’t have to make a production out of it. Anyway,” she hurried on, “Buttons is only two years older, and when they told him he had a baby sister named Brunnhilde, he could only say ‘Buhbuh.’ My mother thought it was cute. . . . She liked the idea of a little girl called Bubbles. Then I turned out blonde, and ‘Champagne Bubbles’ became the family form of Brunnhilde Charlotte. They all thought it was cute. . . . I was only a baby, Raffa. I didn’t know what they were setting me up for.”
“So you sort of lived out the Bubbles persona, hmmm? Like Dr. Fisher-Wong in psych class says happens.”
That cut too near the bone. “Some children are naturally cheerful and . . . and . . .”
“Bubbly. I know. But you’re not the fluffhead you act like sometimes.” Raffa softened that with a grin. “And you haven’t been acting like a pile of bubbles on this little jaunt.”
“No. Well . . . to be honest . . . I’ve been getting tired of Bubbles myself. But look at the alternative. Brunnhilde? What kind of name is that?”
“Brunn isn’t bad, as a short form. Wonder what it meant.”
“For all I know, Brunnhilde is the Old Earth equivalent of bubblehead. But it sounds better and better the more people snicker at Bubbles. I should’ve changed years ago, but my cousin Kell—the one who had this cave—was just the sort to make nasty jokes. He gave me so much grief about Bubbles I pretended to like it, just to blunt the point.”
“You could use Charlotte. Chara . . . that’s not bad. Or Brun.”
“Well.” Bubbles shrugged. “That decision won’t matter if we don’t survive, and we won’t survive without water, so I think the next step is to check it out.”
“With your portable chemistry kit, of course,” said Raffa.
“With Kell’s portable chemistry kit,” Bubbles said sweetly. “The one on the shelf that you didn’t recognize.” But the little bottles and tubes were all empty, their contents no more than a few dried grains of unrecognizable grit. “With our brains,” Bubbles said, when she discovered that. “We can think it out. It’s safe for the cave fish; they’re alive.”
“Alive now.”
“Yes. And that’s all we can go on. They’re swimming normally, not gasping or floating. And that means—”
“We still don’t know. Look—whatever it was had to be pretty quick—not more than a day—because Petris told us they’d never bothered the water. That flyover could’ve dropped the poison, or set someone down to do it afoot. So if one of us drinks here . . . and nothing happens in a day . . . then this water is safe.”
“I’ll drink. It’s my island.” Bubbles scooped up a handful of water and sucked it quickly. It tasted of nothing but water. “I won’t drink much,” she went on, “just in case. Maybe if it’s only a little, it’ll put me to sleep or something.”
“Or only make you throw up once. You are a gutsy wench, and you shouldn’t be stuck with Bubbles one day longer. Take your pick: Brun or Chara.”
Bubbles sat back on her heels. “I’m used to the B. . . . Let’s try Brun. If I hate it tomorrow, no one ever needs to know.” If she died of poison no one ever would know. . . . She shoved that thought away.
“Good for you, Brun. Now . . . how can we do the hunters the most harm?”
Ronnie could not tell whether the pounding in his head was from the concussion or excitement. The too-regular uneven footsteps came nearer, and he could just hear George trying to breathe quietly. Then the footsteps turned back toward the little creek; he heard a rock turn, and splash noisily, and a muffled curse. One of the red—and-yellow amphibians gave a tiny bark, and several more answered. George’s breath came hot and wet against his ear.
“I told you,” George murmured. “We should’ve put our trap on the creek itself.”
He wanted to say “Shut up” but the person at the creek might hear. Instead, he touched George’s wrist, a sharp tap. He could hear the walker, moving upstream, occasionally tipping a rock, and then the squelch of wet boots on mud.
“Let’s follow,” George said, tickling his ear again. “Maybe we can take him.”
Maybe we can get killed very easily, Ronnie thought. If the hunter had night goggles, if he had a fully equipped night-hunting rifle, they would be easy prey. “Wait,” he breathed, as quietly as he could. “The spring’s not that far away. . . . He may come back and spring the trap.”
Another splash, some ways upstream, and the sound of something large moving through brittle brush. “He ought to be more careful,” George said.
“We too,” Ronnie said pointedly. George subsided, though his sigh was louder than Ronnie approved. After an interminable period, they heard sounds returning. The same hunter? Another whose planned route had crossed his? One of Petris’s men? Ronnie didn’t know. His neck prickled; he felt that someone was looking at him, that he was outlined by a spotlight. He blinked, hard. . . . No spotlight, nothing but darkness. Whoever it was coming downslope stayed in the water, for the most part. . . . They could hear the rocks grinding and turning under his boots, and occasional splashes. He moved faster, as most people do going downhill, and as if he could see his way.
He passed their position, still moving downstream, and did not turn aside along his former path. Apparently he was going to follow the stream all the way down.
“This is stupid,” George said in Ronnie’s ear, all hissing s’s. “If we stay here . . .”
Ronnie’s control broke; he grabbed George’s mouth and dug his fingernails into his lips. “The idea is to stay alive,” he muttered. “Be quiet.” He let go as quickly as he’d grabbed, and they spent the remaining hours of darkness in icy silence, both furious. An occasional shot rang out at a distance; they heard no cries, nor anything that let them know what was happening.
In the first faint light of dawn, when Ronnie realized he could see his hand in front of his face again, the peaceful gurgle of the creek off to their left seemed to mock their fears. Not even the amphibians were making their usual racket . . . no sound but the faint sigh of a breeze in the leaves far overhead, and the water in the creek, and the sound of waves below, borne on the wind. He had heard no shots for a long time. His head ached dully, an ache he was almost used to now. His eyes burned. He felt stiff, dirty, sore . . . but alive. He looked at George, who had fallen asleep leaning against a tree. Perhaps he should let George sleep a little longer? But as he thought it, George produced a faint noise that ripened into a snore, and woke up, almost falling.
“We survived,” Ronnie said, trying for cheerfulness. The sound of his own voice woke painful echoes in his head.
“Survived!” George rubbed his eyes, looking disgusted but still dapper. When he brushed at a smudge on his sleeve, it actually vanished. “We should have gone after that fellow. . . . We haven’t done anything useful yet.” He gave their trap an angry glance. Even in that early light, the leaves they had cut to conceal it drooped and no longer matched the greenery around them. Ronnie hadn’t realized that they’d wilt in only twelve hours or so.