Javas lowered the gun the rest of the way and tucked it into his belt. “Let’s go, then.”
Brendan turned his back to them without a word, and stepped into the brush in the same direction he’d started a few minutes earlier.
Can I trust you? Eric wondered, trying to sort out his feelings for Brendan. Surely you’re aware of how much my father hates you, and yet, you knew he wouldn’t fire the weapon; you knew he’d trust you to lead us to safety. How can you be so sure of human nature? Are you really the traitor you’ve been painted to be? “Just a moment, I know of a—” Eric began, unsure of how much to reveal. “I know of a place of safety, less than a kilometer up this path. Can we make it that far before they reach us?”
Brendan scanned the woods around him, listening carefully for several moments before shaking his head. “I don’t think so. But we can make good time through this section of the backwoods here,” he said, waving his arm to the east. “We’ll stay clear of the main trail, but I think we can join one of the secondary trail systems far enough down that we can get to a comm facility before they realize we’ve left the area.” He looked from Javas to Eric, then back to his father and added, his voice softer, “How is your arm, Sire? Will you be able to travel for a while before I take a look at it?”
“I think so.” He nodded in the direction Brendan had indicated. “This way, then?”
The three of them headed into the backwoods, tramping through the brush and speaking only occasionally to one another. Because of the relentless thickness of the undergrowth, their progress was slow, and Brendan was forced to stop more frequently than he would have liked to check their direction and compare notes with Eric on their surroundings. His father had said nothing at all, although Eric couldn’t be sure if his silence was due to his contempt for Brendan, or because of the pain he must be suffering. He cradled his arm constantly as he walked, holding it close in to his chest, and began sweating profusely with the effort of the hike. He held up the pace well, however, and they managed to cover a good deal of terrain before Brendan insisted on stopping long enough to tend to his wound.
“How did you know my integrator was being blocked?” his father asked matter-of-factly as Brendan finished bandaging his arm. Although there was little emotion in his words, it marked the first time the Emperor had addressed him directly since their confrontation back at the path.
“When I was your father’s personal medical attendant—How does that feel? Is it too tight?” Javas shook his head. “My implants were linked directly to his integrator,” he continued, “at exactly the same wavelength. Everything I did for his care—to stabilize medication levels, adjust his intensive-care equipment, even simply to monitor his condition—I channeled through him. When he died—”
The Emperor pulled his arm away suddenly, a look of cold anger sweeping across his features, and appeared about to say something but instead stared out through the trees.
Brendan shrugged, making no attempt to defend himself from Javas’ silent accusation, and began collecting his things, replacing them carefully, but hurriedly, in the medical kit as he spoke. “When he died, my implants became inactive. I could no longer access the Imperial systems any more than I could his medical files. But my implants are still there, still intact.” He closed the kit and stashed it in the backpack, then slipped it back on. “We’d better get moving.”
“Your implants are still functional?” Eric asked as he fell into step behind the other two.
“They are, Young Prince, and I am constantly aware of their presence, but they were tuned to operate only through your grandfather. Yesterday afternoon, at almost the exact moment your shuttle approached, I sensed a numbness in my head as if they had suddenly gone inoperative. There’s some kind of jamming signal covering this area”—he swept his arm around him to take in the entire backwoods—“like a heavy blanket.”
His father stopped in his tracks. “You were near the House when we crashed?” he asked suspiciously. “You’ve not been in service to House Valtane for nearly three years. Why were you in the vicinity?”
“Your intelligence information is very good. I did leave House Valtane when Reid reached eighteen.” Brendan kept his pace going, not bothering to turn back as he answered. “I live in the backwoods—I’m taking you to my home now.”
His father was about to ask another question, but at the mention of his brother’s name Javas fell silent once again. They continued on, finally reaching a narrow trail where their pace increased considerably on the smooth, growth-free surface. Sure of his surroundings now, Brendan no longer needed to reorient himself and they stopped only twice: once to check the dressing on Javas’ arm, and again when the sun was directly overhead.
Twenty-four hours, Eric thought, gazing up at the bright shafts of sunlight filtering down through the trees, with no sign of a search. Either there had been no occasion for anyone on the outside to contact Woodsgate, or—was it possible that contact had been attempted, and intercepted by whoever was responsible for wrecking the shuttle? Routine contact with the Imperial estate may have been met with faked responses, arousing no suspicion.
“I live just over this next ridge,” Brendan was saying, indicating a low, thickly wooded rise up ahead, then extended his arm to the right. “We’re paralleling the main trail right now, a little more than two hundred meters due south of here.”
Brendan’s house was easily visible once they cleared the rise, nestled between the ridge they’d just crossed and a longer, higher one that rose steadily to the north. Like most things on Earth, it was a mixture of Old World construction and modern technology. The main part of the house had been fashioned from brightly colored prefabricated panels and featured a wide, domed roof with large plastiglass skylights. A long extension made of logs—from the surrounding woods, Eric guessed—had been added, and consisted of a combination storage building or workshop and a small stable. There was a portable fusion generator at one side of the prefabbed section that supplied all the dwelling’s energy needs, and a receiving dish mounted on the roof. It was larger than Eric had expected, and neatly designed and constructed, the combination of plastic and wood not at all unpleasant to his eye.
Brendan let out a long, sharp whistle as they approached the house. The brush and smaller trees had been cleared in a wide circle around the house and he whistled again when they neared the edge of the grassy area a few dozen meters from the stable.
Not quite in the open, Brendan stopped abruptly and motioned them back with his hand. “Get down,” he hissed, dropping to one knee at the same time he slid the shotgun out of his holster and thumbed the safety off. Eric and his father drew their own weapons and remained in the thicker portion of the scrub just outside the cleared yard. “Stay here.” He sprinted across the yard, stopping briefly behind the cover of a thick tree before carefully crossing the remaining distance to the entrance of the log structure. The door was made in two parts that opened separately, one above the other. The top door was open and he crouched silently in front of the closed lower section, listening carefully for several moments before easing the bottom door ajar and slipping inside.
As his father kept his eyes trained on the house itself, Eric studied their surroundings. There was a well-worn narrow path on the far side of the property, below the house, that disappeared through the woods in a southeasterly direction, and Eric assumed it led to the main trail. He made a mental note of its location in case Brendan ran into trouble and the two of them had to make a run of it. Minutes passed uncomfortably and Eric was sure that something had happened to him when he appeared, oddly enough, at the front door of the prefabbed portion of the house. He came out onto the porch and looked nervously around, then sprinted back to their hiding place in the scrub.