Escape (32 page)

Kieran nodded absently.

“You gonna make me guess?”

“Guess what?”

“Yer name. I think I’ll call ya spacebug, asin ya still a little spacey. Hee hee.”

Kieran gave the Lystra a funny look.
I’m not the only one who’s a little spacey
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
“Kieran Hawker.”

The old man's eyes widened and his merry expression faded abruptly.

“What?”

Lystra Deswin shook his head quickly and smiled. “No, nothin. Jus' thought I 'eard somthin 's all. What’s the last thing ya ‘member?”

“I remember the battle
 
.
 
.
 
.
I was flying around it in a ship
 
.
 
.
 
.
my ship, trying to get to the planet. And then
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Kieran shook his head and frowned. “I'm not sure what happened after that.”

“Well, ya dun made it, son.” The old man spread his hands palm up to the sky and looked around. “Ain it perty?

Kieran frowned, and took an absent sip from his mug
—

He promptly
spat the bitter gruel out. It was definitely not perk. “What
is
this?”

“Riscus tea. My own secret recipe. Ya shud drink it. It's suppos’ ta promote heightened mental states, among other things.” Lystra grinned and lifted his mug as if to make a toast before taking another sip.

“It's the
other
things I'm worried about.” Kieran was staring into his mug, finding suspicious clumps of who-knew-what floating in the dark green liquid.

Someone groaned.

Kieran saw Dimmi move a hand. His eyes settled on her. She was blinking up at the dark sky. His eyes flicked back to the old man. “You have any weapons?”

“A’course. I dun want to get eaten up by wolvins.”

“Good. Keep at least one of them trained on her.” Kieran pointed to Dimmi. “She tried to steal my ship.”

Dimmi sat up and looked straight at him. “Are you going to listen to a rapist?”

Kieran blinked in shock, but not from her accusation. Were it not for the pervasive gloom, he could have sworn Dimmi's eyes were red. And her skin was very pale, almost sickly.
A trick of the light.

“Rapist?” Suddenly the old man had a rifle pointed at him and was sighting down the barrel of it. The weapon looked ancient. His mug of gruel lay overturned and forgotten in the grass beside him. “Maybe you dun better leave, son. I dun hold with rapists an’ such.”

For a long moment Kieran had no idea what to say to that, then he appealed to Dimmi. “Nothing happened. I woke up in that cabin the same as you, with no memory of how I'd come to be there.”

Liar,
she thought.

“I'm not lying.”

Dimmi blinked, her jaw slack with surprise. Then she recovered, her mouth closing into a frown. It was just a coincidence. He hadn't actually read her mind.

“Prove it.”

Kieran shrugged. “I can't.”

Dimmi shook her head disgustedly. Lystra Deswin was looking from Kieran to Dimmi and back again. His aim wavered. “I think ya
both
dun better leave.”

Kieran turned to him. “How far to the nearest city?”

“Round 50 miley-astroms to Crater City. Start walkin.”

Kieran nodded to the horizon. “As soon as day breaks.”

The old man laughed. “It's dun broken. This here's the middle of the day.” Lystra looked dreamily up at the sky and remarked, “Ain it perty
 
.
 
.
 
.
?”

Kieran blinked, thinking there was definitely something strange in the old man's tea. Nevertheless, he joined Lystra in looking up at the dark blue sky. He should have known. With the nebula surrounding the planet, sunlight would have a difficult time getting to the surface.

“I'm not going anywhere with you,” Dimmi said.

Another howl cut through the whistling wind at just the right moment, and Kieran turned to her. “There's strength in numbers.”

“I'll take my chances.” Dimmi crossed her arms over her chest. “I'd sooner kill you than travel with you.”

“What's the last thing you remember?” Kieran asked.

Dimmi hesitated, but eventually she said: “I fell asleep in the brig, before I could finish locking those two up.” She jerked her head sideways to Ferrel and Jilly.

“So how did you end up here? Where is Brathus? It looks like he stole the ship and dumped you here so he wouldn't have to share it with anyone.”

Dimmi's eyes slid away from his, and she gazed quietly at the dark, misty line of the horizon.

Kieran went on: “If you could be that wrong about Brathus, maybe you're wrong about me, too.”

She gave no reply.

In the corner of his eye, Kieran saw Lystra Deswin slowly lowering his rifle. A rustle of movement drew their attention to one side. Jilly was awake, and she was looking at him like she'd seen a ghost.

“Where am I? What did you do to me?”

Kieran started toward her with a bemused frown. “Calm down, Jilly.”

“Stay away from me!” She scuttled desperately away from him.

Kieran stopped, and his brow furrowed. “Jilly
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

Dimmi smiled at the developing confrontation. “I guess I'm not the only one who doesn't trust you.”

“Calm down, Jilly. What are you so afraid of? It's me, Kieran.”

Jilly's eyebrows knitted together. “I
 
.
 
.
 
.
I
 
.
 
.
 
.
” she looked around wildly. “I think I had a bad dream. You weren't you. You did something to me.”

“Sounds like a dream I had,” Dimmi said.

Jilly looked at her strangely. “What are you doing here? Where
is
here?”

It took a while before the questions stopped. They answered her as best they could. Her memories seemed hazy. She remembered Dimmi falling asleep inside the cell. After that, she could only recall brief, confused snippets. She mentioned going to the cockpit and finding Kieran behind the controls, with no sign of Brathus.

“You couldn't have seen me in the cockpit,” Kieran said. “I was stunned, remember?”

“But it all seemed so real!”

Dimmi shook her head. “Whatever put me to sleep, obviously did the same to you. If I had to guess, I'd say Brathus gassed us so he could steal the ship. I'm going to kill the defalita.”

“First things first,” Kieran said. “We need to get to one of the cities.” He turned to Lystra Deswin. “Could you guide us there?”

The old man shrugged. “I guess I dun better with all the wolvins about.”

Kieran nodded. “We'll pay you when we get to the city.”

The old man waved a dismissive hand. “No need.”

Kieran held his gaze. “Nevertheless.”

Dimmi was still frowning, but no longer objecting.

“What about him?” Jilly pointed to Ferrel.

“We'll go a soon as he wakes up,” Kieran replied.

They had to wait five minutes for him to wake up. He had a lot of questions too, but it was familiar ground for all of them. They answered as quickly and calmly as they could. Then there was nothing but the whistling wind and the crackling fire to disturb the silence. They sat warming themselves around the fire, with Lystra Deswin studying each of them intently.

“We should get going,” Kieran said, his joints cracking as he stood up from his crosslegged position around the fire.

The others joined him in standing, all looking to Lystra Deswin who appeared to be in no hurry. “Yer all sure you wan ta go right now?”

“Is there a better time?” Jilly asked.

The old man shrugged as if what he was about to say were of no importance. “It's jus that I notice y'all are lookin' a lil pale
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
And yer eyes are red. Ya might want to rest a while before we go.”

Kieran shot a glance at Dimmi, who looked the palest of them all. And her eyes were so red they were almost glowing. “Well,
I
feel fine,” he said.

“Better than fine,” Dimmi added, responding to Kieran's scrutiny with a scowl.

Jilly and Ferrel nodded their agreement.

Lystra Deswin's eyes narrowed thoughtfully and skipped to each of them in turn, studying their faces. His next question came as a whisper, addressed to Kieran: “Yer
 
.
 
.
 
.
sure
bout that?”

Kieran frowned. “Quite sure.”

The old man shrugged, and his expression abruptly cleared. He spent a moment checking his rifle. Then, satisfied that it was working properly, he slung it over one shoulder, packed his and Kieran's mugs into a coarsely-woven green backpack
—
which looked as though it might have been made from grass
—
and then slung it over his other shoulder.

Without a word to any of them, he stood and began walking up the rise of the nearby hill. They trailed after him. Dimmi insisted on keeping the rearmost position. Ostensibly, so she could guard their backs. Actually, because she wanted the others where she could see them.

The mournful howling began only a few minutes later, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

“Keep close,” Lystra said. “They like ta eat the stragglers. Hee hee.”

“Creepy old man,” Dimmi whispered.

They clustered around, walking as close as they could without bumping into him.

“They'll shadow us all the way to Crater City. If ya see one, make sure he knows ya've seen ‘im. They dun like that. Wolvins prefer ta ambush their prey.”

“You mean they won't attack if they know they've been spotted?” Jilly asked.

“I didn’ say that. I jus' said they dun like to.”

“Oh.”

Jilly looked around, trying to pierce the gloom with her eyes. The rolling hills and waist-high grass made it hard to see very far. The horizon was always disappearing over a hill, and who knew what was hiding in the grass
.
 
.
 
.
 
.

“How big is a wolvin?” Jilly asked. “What do they look like?”

“Oh, bout as big as me
—
if I was twice as big.”

Jilly's eyes grew wide.

Lystra noticed and his wrinkly face split into a grin. “Dun worry
—
” He slapped his rifle noisily. “
—
I'll protect ya.”

Dimmi raised an eyebrow doubtfully and kept a wary eye to her unprotected flank and rear.

“So they wouldn't be able to hide in the grass?” Jilly asked, anxiously eyeing an unbroken stretch of it to her left.

“I wuden say that. They ken if they crawl on ther bellies.”

She saw the dense, dark green blades wave in a zagging line toward her, and her breath caught in her throat. Her heart began to pound, and a cold sweat prickled her skin.

Then she felt the cool air slap her in the face. It was just the breeze.

She let out her breath in a long sigh that crystallized as soon as it left her lips.

They came to the top of a rocky knoll. Looking down the other side of it, they saw the terrain disappear steeply into a thick, white layer of mist. Lystra kept going without hesitation, but Kieran grabbed him by the arm to stop him.

“You think we should go down there?”

“I dun see why not. There ain no other way to Crater City.”

“We're not going to be able to see our hands in front of our faces in that mist. How are we going to see wolvins?”

“Ya'll hear ‘em sneakin’ about. If not, ya'll smell ‘em. Maledicted filthy cretchures.” With that, Lystra tugged his arm free and continued down the slope toward the misty bottom.

They all hesitated at the top of the knoll, watching Lystra go. He began whistling, though he was certainly tone deaf, since he kept repeating the same three shrill notes over and over again.

Dimmi reached down to her ankles, rolled up her masser hide pant legs and withdrew a pair of wicked-looking daggers, one for each hand. Kieran took a hasty step back, worried for a moment what she intended to do with those daggers. But she began marching down the hill after their guide.