Downtime (34 page)

“She
should be here,” Marmion said as the footpath to Red Rocks came into view.

“She’ll
find us,” Jason said turning back into the trees.

They
could not use the trail, and he didn’t even want to stay parallel to it. It was
too easily seen from Mahdi’s low-flying craft.

In
the grove beyond the Amber Forest, Arria stepped out of a clump of bushes. Her
hair was braided and fastened with strands of grass, her bush pants stained
from days of continuous wear.

“How’s
Calla?” Jason asked.

“Comfortable,”
Arria said. “This way.” She turned to lead them away from the grove. “Quickly,”
she hissed. “There’s a foot patrol ahead.”

Jason
shifted the pack: The sharp edges of the explosives’ casings bit harder into
his back; the cocoon gave him no protection. Silently he followed Arria.

The
route was serpentine, leading to the backside of the ridge wherein Red Rocks
was burrowed. “They must have guards back here,” Jason whispered.

“They
do,” Arria whispered back. “But there’s more cover here. We can use the animal
path to the lake. They haven’t realized it’s there.”

“It’s
almost dawn,” Marmion said. “It may be better to wait for nightfall.”

“No!”
Arria said sharply. “I mean, Calla says tonight.”

“Where
is Calla?”

“Out
of sight,” Arria replied.

Shortly,
Jason realized he was following a trail of sorts. If they crouched, and they
did, the shrubs and boulders covered them from eyes they could not even see.

At
the top of the ridge, Arria held them up with her hand. Jason mopped his brow
with a piece of cocoon. Below them, on the lakeside, he heard footsteps. He
could see nothing. They waited quietly for a long time.

“There’s
a laser cannon on the south side up in the rocks, and they’re using infrared
scanners,” Arria said, “but not everyplace is covered. The rocks that the danae
used to sit on offer some protection, until you get into the water.”

“We’ll
have to swim fast,” Jason said.

“Stay
under is what Calla told me to tell you,” Arria said.

He
nodded. “All right, let’s get on with it.”

“Jason,”
Marmion said. “Jason . . . what we talked about.”

“We
agreed . . .”

“I
know, but . . .”

“Our
people are in the shuttles,” Arria said, speaking to their thoughts, “D’Omaha
and Stairnon are below with Mahdi, but the rest are safe. He took them out as
soon as he could. He replaced everyone in the fab with his own people.”

“Thank
the Timekeeper,” Marmion said, sounding greatly relieved. “I won’t have any
trouble blowing up Mahdi and D’Omaha, though I still find it hard to believe D’Omaha
would betray us.”

“For
Stairnon,” Arria said, sounding disgusted. “He needed elixir for her.”

Jason
stared at her, momentarily shocked. “I should have guessed. She kept getting
stronger and more radiant . . . sharing wouldn’t have been
enough.”

“I
would have
known
,” Arria said. “If
you just would have let me do what I’m good at doing, he couldn’t have hidden
it from me for two years.”

“Him?
Just D’Omaha? But it was Stairnon who was afraid of you.”

“He
never told her; just gave it to her. She guessed what was happening to her, but
not how he got it. She thought he was stealing it for her and was afraid to
confront him. And she was afraid of me because I might learn her suspicions.
The truth was as bad as her wildest surmise.”

Jason
didn’t speak. Something had changed Arria in these last few days. He had seen
it begin when they were still in the cave, and he thought he had been pleased
then. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“I’m
sorry,” she whispered. “It’s really just as much my fault as yours. I could
have told you to go to Timekeeper’s hell long ago.”

“Stop
it, you two. We have work to do,” Marmion said.

“Let’s
get on with it.”

Arria
gave him a last reproachful look, then started crawling down the slope. Jason
followed and tried not to think of how he would have reacted if Arria had
refused to heed his caution about eavesdropping in people’s minds. Had he
really believed she was nothing more than a mixed-up psi who didn’t have the
skills to understand what she was hearing? Or had he deliberately tried to make
her think she was confused so that he would not have to confront his own
feelings about her? It wouldn’t have mattered, he thought firmly. I still would
have put her off.
I still would have said
no to you, Arria
. And D’Omaha would have been found out, he thought
dismally.

“Hurry,”
Arria whispered when they reached the water’s edge.

Quickly
Jason and Marmion pulled off their boots and crawled into the water, submerging
themselves as fast as the slope permitted. The water was icy and the pack
buoyant, and Jason had to stroke hard to stay under. He hoped Marmion was doing
better. At least it wasn’t a long swim. He needed only one breath between the
shore and the caisson.

The
lid had been sealed with a jack-light; Jason knew there was no hope of prying
it open, but the explosives could be placed on the outside. When Marmion
surfaced beside him, they emptied the packs and dove. It was dark but the
caisson was easy to feel, and they clamped the explosives along the base. Jason
made a final dive to set the timer in place, then he and Marmion swam to shore.
Arria was waiting in the shallows, signaling for silence. They waited, still
lying down in the water, keeping their heads up with their elbows.

Jason
looked at his watch. Only three minutes until dawn, another two beyond that
until the detonator discharged. He touched Arria’s thin wrist to indicate time
was running out. She shook her head silently.

First
light brightened the sky behind them, and finally Arria crawled out of the
water. They followed her up the slope, passing from boulder to tree, hoping to
reach the top before the explosion.

“Where’s
Calla?” he asked in a hoarse whisper when Arria came abreast of him. “Is she
well away from the basin?”

Arria
stared at him, eyes wide and tearful, then lunged ahead. Jason grabbed her by
the shoulder and pulled her back, instantly suspicious. “Where is she?” he said
gruffly.

Arria’s
face screwed up in anguish and she shook her head. Her lashes, matted and wet,
blinked rapidly while fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “She’s below,” Arria
said.

“Captured!”
Jason said. He turned in horror, mentally measuring the distance between where
he was standing and the charges on the caisson. But even as he started to
return, Marmion’s strong arms grabbed him and pulled him back.

“Not
captured,” Arria said. “She gave herself up to save the others. She couldn’t go
through with it if they had been down there. She was going to bargain with
Mahdi to get them out, even if just for a little while.”

“No!
You said they were in the shuttles.”

“They
are,” Arria said miserably. “But I didn’t know that until she went below.
Jason, they don’t even have guards on them. They’re just all sleeping, and I
couldn’t get anything from that.”

“You
should have stopped her,” Jason said, crying now, because he knew that nothing
could have stopped Calla once she made up her mind, and that now, nothing could
prevent all of Red Rocks from being flooded. He clenched his fist and pounded
the rocks beneath his hand in frustration.

“We’ve
got to go now, Jason,” Marmion said.

“Go,”
he said. “Let me be.”

But
the perfection engineer grabbed him and dragged him until Jason realized he
wouldn’t leave him behind, no matter what the risk. Docilely, Jason put his
feet to the slope and moved. The tears wouldn’t stop. Then he felt the ground
tremble beneath him and he knew he could go no further. He sank down and turned.

The
lake swelled, much less than Jason would have expected, overrunning its shore
by meters before the swell burst like a giant pod spewing watery streamers that
fell like rope. The water, wavy and rough, started swirling, slowly at first,
then with a definite vortex in the middle as it emptied into the caverns below.
Soon the old trees that he had watched the water cover two years ago stood
again, limbs naked and darkened, but some still standing like skeletons.

“We
must have breached the fault,” Marmion said, sounding awed. “Look how fast it’s
going.”

Jason
shook his head and turned away. He couldn’t look any more. He found Arria on
the ground beside him, weeping.

“I
can just imagine what’s going on in her head right now,” Marmion said pulling
the girl up. “Glad it’s not mine. Come on, Jason. We’ve got to get her away
while those guards and patrols are still confused.”

“The
screams,” Arria said staring nowhere with horror-filled eyes. “The screams!”
She put her hands to her ears to shut out sounds only she could hear.

“Come
on, man. Help me!”

He
didn’t want to help. He didn’t want to comfort Arria. He just wanted to die.
But again he sensed that Marmion would not leave him behind. He grabbed the
sobbing, half-hysterical girl and, permitting Marmion to choose the way, helped
him along with Arria.

***

Marmion left him and Arria in a cover of rock and bowery,
then went away. Jason didn’t care where or why. Then Arria recovered somewhat
from her shocked stupor, and she left him, too. He felt he should have tried to
stop her, uncertain as he was of how well she was doing, but he didn’t. He let
her go and lay staring at the blue sky until the sun came straight up and
forced him to close his eyes.

The
sound of cold-jets roaring in the distance stirred him in the late afternoon.
Mahdi’s patrols and troops who had been on the surface were abandoning Mutare.
There was nothing left for them here, nothing anywhere. They would return to
their orbiting troopships. Some navigator would take them somewhere. But where?
There was nowhere that they could regain what had been lost on Mutare this day.
And nowhere that Jason could go to regain what he had lost. He felt hot tears
running down his cheeks and heard horrible sobs, sounds too terrible to be
coming from him, but there was no one else around.

He
felt hands on his chest. Gentle hands and the awful tickle of cerecloth. He sat
up with a start. It was night but the little bowery was lighted with artificial
light. Men and women in ranger fatigues were kneeling beside him. They had a
stretcher.

“It’s
all right, sir. You’re going to be just fine. We have the medical kits from the
shuttles.
Compania
’s raiders are
keeping guard.” It was one of his own rangers. Not a medic, yet his hands were
gentle and steady as they pressed Jason’s limbs, looking for injury.

Jason
pushed him aside. “I’m not hurt.” He felt ridiculous, contemptible. “Where did
you come from?”

“The
shuttles, sir. They put us in German-sleep. Chief Marmion let us out. The
medics are tending those wounded in the battle yester . . . three
days ago.”

“Where’s
Marmion now?”

“At
Round House with a burial detail. There’s a new river from the tunnel-ramp
entrance. It gives up bodies from below.”

Jason
nodded. “Has . . . Commander Calla’s body been recovered?”

“Not
that I know of, sir. I . . . we all heard what she did. She was
very brave.”

“Yeah.”
Someone handed him a stellerator. He almost refused it until he realized that
these rangers were waiting for him to tell them what to do next. “Are there
guards on those shuttles?”

“Yes,
sir. And on the burial detail, too. So far we’ve found no stragglers. It looks
as if they all left.”

“There
were laser cannons on the south end of the terrace lake. Go see if they left
any behind that we can use to cremate the bodies.”

“Yes,
sir!”

Jason
watched them go, then started along the ridge. He came on the trail to Round
House at the very place he had carved steps and put in a railing for Calla to
hold. He walked down them slowly, holding the railing as she had done. It was
cold to the touch.

The
barriers to the ramp-tunnel entrance had given way from the explosion, and now
water cascaded over the lip in a wide, cold sheet and ran down the slope in
crazy streams that were already forming confluences to a common downward path.
Several rows of bodies, all with Praetorian crimson showing at the facings,
were stacked like logs on the higher ground. It would be grim work disposing of
so many, even with a laser cannon.

He
saw Marmion amidst a cluster of medical rangers near the entrance, and when the
perfection engineer saw him, he quickly walked toward Jason.

“How
are you?” Marmion asked gruffly.

“I’m
all right,” Jason said, then shook his head. “Sorry, I . . . “

“No
need to explain,” Marmion said. “And I’m sorry as hell to put you through it
again, but we’ve found her.” As Jason’s head jerked up, Marmion grabbed his arm
and spoke rapidly. “She’s not dead.” The grip tightened like a vice to restrain
him from running. “But her neck’s broken and she’s dying. You know there’s
nothing they can do for her, Jason. If they pump her full of stay-drugs, it
will kill her even if they can get her to
Compania
’
s
clinic. If she survived that . . .
“

“All
right,” Jason said, half-shouting in renewed anguish. “I understand. Is she
conscious?”

“No.
She’s not even conscious.” Marmion took a deep breath. “She was on the gallows.
It held through the flood . . . well, part of it anyhow. Some of
the guards who were there with her are alive, too. They’ll make it.”

“Mahdi?
D’Omaha?”

Marmion
shook his head. “We’ve found Stairnon’s body. Not the others.”

“All
right. Let me see Calla now.”

Marmion
released the grip on Jason’s arm and led him to where the medics were kneeling
beside a stretcher on which Calla lay. She was still wet, her coppery hair all
awry. The medics saw Jason and one of them backed away immediately. The senior
man looked up at Jason. “I can’t . . .”