“I can’t believe it,” Cecelia said. “Hunting people—he wouldn’t do that. I know you hate what he did to you—what he tried to do to your crew in battle—but he couldn’t be crazy enough to think he’d get away with . . . with this. Not right under Bunny’s nose.”
Staring ahead, trying to see what she knew she could not see—how the assault was going—she did her best to answer. “He would think that made it better. More . . . sporting. A risk for him, other than the risk from the people he hunted.” Had he given them weapons? Had the young people had weapons? “I told you, he once commented that he considered most hunting demeaning, because it wasn’t dangerous enough—that the proper game for a real man was man.”
Cecelia considered this silently as their flitter dropped steadily toward the Bandon field, now occupied by the two militia flitters. Heris appreciated the silence, but knew it wouldn’t last. She knew her employer too well. “I don’t think,” Cecelia said at last, in the remote and formal tone Heris had not heard for weeks, “that I want to know this person. A disgrace to his uniform.”
“Yes.” Heris braced herself for landing. The militia squads already down had vanished except for a single soul waving them in. Then they were down safely, onto a quiet field with no sign of conflict. Heris did not need the squad leader’s warning; she knew that silence was deceptive.
The medical squad went through a low-voiced routine of some sort; she supposed they were reminding each other what equipment was in whose pack or something. The air smelled fresh and wet, heavy with fragrances completely different from the woods and fields near the Main House. A comunit squawked, and Heris jumped. She didn’t understand; she hated not knowing the local codes, not knowing anything, not having a place in this. The medical squad scrambled back into the supply flitter, and the squad leader said, “They’ve found the kid; he’s hurt,” just as the flitter lurched into the air again. Cecelia gasped; Heris grabbed her hand and squeezed until the older woman’s color returned.
“George,” she reminded her. “It has to be George they mean. He’s the one on this island.”
At the lodge proper, the supply flitter crowded the parking area; the medics poured out and Heris and Cecelia followed. No one stopped them; Heris saw no sign of trouble until they came to the room where George lay with a medic already working on him. One dead body sprawled across the control board of the communications shack; someone else gasped noisily from another clump of medics. Cecelia leaned against the wall, but pushed Heris forward. “Find out,” she said. “For his father.”
Heris had no interest in George’s father. She picked her way across the floor, blood-spattered and already littered with the detritus of emergency medical care, to a point where she could see George without interfering. He was alive, breathing on his own, with one IV line in. He looked dirty, and pale, and both older and younger than she remembered him. She knew that look, from the youngsters she’d seen in her own ship’s sickbay; being flat on their backs in clean pajamas made them look like children, but what they had been through aged them.
“What happened to him?” she asked quietly.
“Caught in crossfire,” one of the medics said, without looking up. “Small caliber in the abdomen, missed the big stuff.” Which didn’t mean it felt good, or even that he would recover, just that he was likely to make it back to a hospital without dying on the way. Caught in crossfire . . . maybe, she thought, and maybe not. Perhaps someone wanted to get rid of witnesses. There must be more than one traitor in Bunny’s pay. Heris watched the medics, who seemed to go about their business as quickly and competently as any she’d seen, then met George’s gaze.
“Captain . . . where’s Ronnie?”
“On the other island, I presume. Militia went there; he’ll be fine.” He might not be, but George needed to hear the best chance, not the worst.
“Don’t talk,” said a medic, and put a warning hand on George’s shoulder. “You need to lie still.”
“Cave,” said George, struggling now, his eyes locked on Heris’s. “Might be in the cave . . . Bubbles said . . .” and then a groan he tried to bite back, as the medics did something that hurt even more.
“I understand,” Heris said, as much to reassure him as because she did. “Bubbles knew about a cave, and they might be in it. All of them?”
“No—Ronnie—hurt—”
The medic’s angry face looked up at Heris. “He shouldn’t talk; don’t bother him. He’s got other injuries, too.” Heris glanced down and saw that they’d cut George’s shirt away now, revealing the deep bruises along his side; broken ribs, maybe.
“He—shot me,” George said, struggling against the medic’s hands. “He—”
“It’s all right, George,” she said again. Time enough later to find out which he George meant. From the glazed look in his eyes, they had given him some drug, and he wouldn’t be thinking clearly now. She hoped he had been right about the cave. “Everything will be fine.” The medics lifted George onto a stretcher, and rolled him away. He lay quiet, eyes already closed. Her mind raced. A cave—a cave Bubbles knew about. Did Lepescu? Ronnie hurt, and not in the cave. What kind of hurt? If Ronnie was hurt, why hadn’t he been captured? And again: did Lepescu know about the cave? Did the others being hunted? Did the militia captain know about that cave, and if so—
She went back to Cecelia, who looked less pale than when she’d come in. “George has a gunshot wound he should survive, assuming Bunny’s got a good trauma center in his hospital.”
“Very good,” Cecelia said. “Riding horses at speed is hardly a safe hobby.” Her voice was a shade brittle, but under control.
“He hasn’t lost anything vital yet,” Heris said. “Could you hear what he said?”
“No—not really.”
“There’s a cave on the island where the others are; Bubbles knew about it, and George thinks the others might be hiding in it.” She waited to make sure Cecelia understood that. Then she went on, “Would the militia captain know about it? Did you ever hear of it?”
“A cave . . . no. I didn’t. I don’t know if anyone else would, besides the children who camped there. A big cave?”
“George didn’t know, I suspect. But the militia captain needs to. If there’s a cave, anyone might be in it: the youngsters, or the hunters, or whoever they’re hunting.” Heris looked around. Someone had dragged the corpse away, and the other wounded man, whoever he was, and one medic was stuffing medical trash in a sack. “We can’t just comcall the militia commander; Lepescu would overhear it. If that’s where the youngsters are hiding—”
“We’ll go tell him,” Cecelia said, and pushed away from the wall.
“Yes, but—” Heris stifled her doubts. They’d been told to stay here, safely out of trouble, and she’d agreed to that. She looked around for the person in charge.
The person in charge, busily arranging transport to a hospital for George and the other wounded man, was in no mood to listen. Heris had no idea what the insignia on his collar meant but he was acting like a harried sergeant.
“The captain said you were to stay here,” he said. “And here you’ll stay. You don’t even know where this cave is, or if the kids are in it, or if anyone else knows about it.”