Paradox (9 page)

Realizing she’s come to a complete standstill, Ana turns and looks for the others, expecting to have been left behind. Instead, all three are standing equally motionless near her, mouths agape.

“Hey,” she says. When there’s no change, no response at all to her call, she yells again, “HEY!”

Like a rubber band snapping, the others come out of their stupor. It’s obviously an effort, but Ysa turns away from the
worm and back to the slope, with the rest following close behind. Chen leapfrogs over a boulder, gesturing as he mutters to Ysa beside him. Ysa is nodding frantically as her breath comes in loud puffs. Only Todd pulls off to the side for a moment, fumbling with his circlet as if he’s trying to check something on it.

“Come on,” Ana says. The grinding is growing louder by the second.

He nods and waves her on. He might feel the need to double-check the path, but with the worm this close, she’s willing to chance that Chen knows where he’s going. Still …

“This cave,” Ana calls up between breaths. “Is it much farther?”

“Nah,” Chen yells back over the worm’s noise. “Not far at all. See up there?”

Ana scans the slope ahead and almost doesn’t see the opening, nestled as it is in a cluster of undergrowth and rugged-looking boulders. It’s small, too, not more than a couple feet across.

“That’s perfect!” She’s panting around every word, but doesn’t slow her pace. “There’s no way the worm will be able to get in after us.”

“A-plus for the obvious, Anagram,” Chen crows, and Ana would have thrown him a dirty look if she could have spared the time and energy. She does look back for Todd and he’s moving again, only a few paces back.

Chen’s version of
not far
takes them nearly ten minutes of
flat-out climbing, with the worm gaining at an alarming rate. By the time Ysa yells and tears through the dark, shadowed entrance, Chen is just a few strides behind her, Todd is panting right beside Ana, and the worm’s breath is a hot wind at their backs.

The ground is shaking like an earthquake, and all around them rocks tremble loose and careen down the hill.

“Come on!” Chen yells back as he runs. “Hurry it up!”

Ignoring the tearing in her side, Ana puts on a burst of speed and shoots ahead of Todd. Ysa has vanished inside the cave. Chen reaches the entrance next. He darts through, but skids to a stop right in the entrance, spinning around and looking back toward Ana and Todd, chest heaving with exertion.

Then his mouth drops open and his eyes go wide. “No!” he yells.

Ana’s legs are shaking so hard it’s all she can do to control them. She shoots through the opening like a sprung arrow, then collapses against the wall, panting, trying to regain her breath.

“Todd!” she hears Chen yell. “Get up, man!”

She can barely hear Chen over the worm’s cacophony, but the horror in his voice is unmistakable. A jolt of adrenaline courses through her as she pushes herself up from the wall and darts over to the cave’s mouth. Chen is leaning out, staring back behind them at …

Todd.

He’s sprawled on the ground just outside the cave, his
backpack askew. He seems to have fallen, but he’s not getting up.
Why isn’t he getting up?

The worm is right behind him, and Ana could swear she sees hunger and blood and death roiling in its bottomless eyes. It grinds slowly over the rocky ground, almost as if savoring this final approach.

“Todd!” Chen screams again, and Todd turns back in their direction. An uncertain look crosses his face and he climbs slowly to his feet. But then he half turns again and glances back at the worm.

A spasm of fear crosses his face. He freezes.

Chen is still yelling, and Ana joins him, but it’s no use. Nothing seems to be able to break through the worm’s din this time to reach Todd. He’s just standing there motionless, staring up at the worm.

Suddenly Ana can’t stand it.
I’ve got to
do
something!

She charges out of the cave and crashes straight into Todd. The impact sends him careening into the shrubbery off to the side, out of the worm’s path. Ana dives after him, but thrown off balance by the shift in weight, she skids and topples to the ground herself. Now she’s the one in front of the worm, gasping at the sudden tearing pain in her shoulder.

The worm stretches its jaws wide.

She thought its breath would smell like death, but it doesn’t. It smells like chamomile, like comfort, like peace. Is this what Todd felt a few seconds ago? Is this what kept him frozen in place?

Fighting the fog in her mind and the horrible din in her ears, Ana drags herself off to the side, out of the worm’s direct path, but there’s little point. All the monster has to do is turn its head, angle its gaping mouth in her direction, and she will be finished.

Ana closes her eyes and waits as the ground around her ripples and rolls.

And then …

Nothing happens.

She opens her eyes and sees the giant scaly body of the worm grinding on past her, continuing toward the cave entrance.

What?

There’s a yank on her pack and she is propelled backward into the bushes.

“You’re insane, you know that?” Todd hisses in her ear, gripping her shoulders, and it doesn’t even matter that Ana wants to scream in pain as he jostles her injury, because she’s alive—
alive!
She’s safe. Todd’s safe. And inside the cave, Ysa and Chen are going to be all right, too.

“Come on,” Todd says. “Let’s get moving before that thing wises up and comes to sniff us out.”

“Get moving where?”

“There’s another cave we can get to; the opening’s just a little higher up.”

Todd grabs her hand and together they push through the undergrowth, skirting around to the rear of the worm’s massive
body, the roars filling the space behind them. The pressure of Todd’s grip fills Ana with a heady sort of strength.

With one hand in Todd’s
, she thinks,
I might be able to do anything on this crazy planet. Survive the worm and live to fight another day and everything
.

The thought is ridiculous enough to bring a blush to her cheeks.

But she doesn’t let go of his hand.

Together they double back and start up the slope again while below them the worm pounds its great head against the mountain face over and over and over.

Long minutes later, with the worm’s noise still grinding around them, they arrive at a clearing. Right at its heart is a tiny opening, so small it looks like the burrow of a woodland animal.

“We’ll have to push our packs in front of us,” Todd says.

Ana looks doubtfully at the opening. “You think the passage opens up inside?”

“Definitely,” Todd says. He gestures toward the slope. “Look at the size of this mountain. How could it not?”

He has a point, and she doesn’t have a better idea. Sheer luck might have saved her last time, or maybe the worm’s lack of peripheral vision, but she’s not going to push it by staying out in the open while that thing is anywhere nearby.

Suddenly the adrenaline that’s been churning through her seems to disappear all at once and her knees buckle. “What happened back there?”

Todd grabs her arm to steady her. “You saved my life, that’s what happened.”

Ana shakes her head, but somehow her eyes are full of tears. She leans toward Todd, drops her head on his shoulder, and cries. Only for a few seconds, then she sniffs and rubs her nose. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“Hey,” says Todd, “you can muddy up my jumpsuit anytime, Ana. You own me.”

She looks into his eyes and is surprised again at how blue they are, sketched in full color against the dull undergrowth. The worm’s rage echoes off the rocks, yet it could be in another world altogether.

Ana opens her mouth to speak, but Todd breaks her gaze and looks down. “We’d better get into that cave.”

Ana swallows. “Yeah,” she says. “Anyway, we’re even. You saved me last time. It’s only fair.”

Todd gives her a half grin. “I did, didn’t I?” He looks at her shoulder. “How’s your arm holding up?”

“Fine.” There’s some pain when she moves, but it’s nothing she can’t manage. The important thing right now is getting out of the worm’s reach.

With a nod, Todd drops his pack and pushes it into the opening, then shimmies through after it. Ana feels as if she shouldn’t be staring quite so obviously at the way the fabric of Todd’s jumpsuit moves over his thighs and the backs of his legs.

But she doesn’t look away.

Then it’s her turn. Pushing her pack before her, she crawls into the cave. The sound of rocks crumbling in the distance, the worm continuing its assault on the mountain, fades behind her. Beyond the opening the cave widens, just as Todd predicted. Not much light makes it through the small entrance, and Ana runs her hands along the nearby wall for support as she climbs to her feet.

“Todd?”

“Shhhhh.”

“Where are you? I can’t—”

“Here,” he says, and she feels his hand grip her arm.

Ana gropes around for her pack and shoulders it. With one hand holding Todd’s and the other still trailing the cave wall, she follows Todd deeper and deeper into the darkness. Finally, they come to a stop. Ana drops her backpack and collapses against the wall.

She glances at her circlet and its glowing numbers. Barely sixteen hours left, and they have a whole mountain to cross—and who knows what after that.

“How long can we afford to stay in here, do you think?” she asks.

“I’ll check in a half hour or so,” Todd says out of the darkness. “See whether the worm’s gone, then find the others.”

Ana yawns. She can’t help it. She’s been pushing for hours, and that last run squeezed out her final drops of energy. She thinks she could happily sit here in the darkness, holding Todd’s hand, for the rest of her life.

Wait … holding Todd’s hand?
Still?

Cheeks flaming, she slides her fingers out of his.

She hears Todd settling on the ground next to her and keeps expecting her eyes to adjust to the dark, thinks she’ll start seeing the faint shapes and outlines of the things around her. But there’s nothing. Not even the faint glow from her circlet can penetrate the gloom. It’s like being part of the night sky. She could easily bring up the map and get some light that way, but there doesn’t seem to be any point. It’s warm in here, too.

Weariness sweeps over her in a rush and she’s sleepy—so sleepy—

“Take this.” Todd’s whisper is gentle and low. “You should eat something.”

“What?” she mumbles. “Not …” He’s sliding something at her, but she can’t think about that right now. She feels him press a package into one of her jumpsuit pockets. She’s in a hammock, hung between two stars. She’s lying on a comet. She is the night sky.

“Hope the others got away safely, that they aren’t—” A yawn swallows the rest of her words.

Funny how this darkness works. In the silence she can hear Todd’s face wrinkle into a smile. She smiles in return and wonders if he can hear her, too.

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

How did she ever think it was dark in here? She can’t see the moon, but the stars are more than bright enough. The
nearest one is just a leap away. If she stands just so—she leans her foot way back, and
jumps
.

She looks around her. What she’s landed on isn’t a star at all; it’s a planet, a small red planet with a wide yellow ring around it. No … not a ring but a worm, circling the planet, with gnashing, slavering jaws. Then her feet are disappearing into the ground and the stars overhead are getting closer and she’s being swallowed up by light.

And then even that is gone.

Ana opens her eyes. She closes them. She opens them again.

For a second panic courses through her. She reaches her hands out to either side, half expecting to feel the plush velvet cushions of her rocket. It couldn’t be—

It isn’t.

Her left hand smacks into a stone wall and she gasps. Where is she? Then it all comes back.

“Todd!” she says. The word echoes around her, a hollow, empty sound. “Todd?”

Ana fumbles for her right wrist and activates her circlet. The rocky room—a small alcove, tucked just off a wider chamber—fills with the map’s glow. Blinking, she looks at the countdown.