Shockball (41 page)

When I was finished, the men pushed Shropana’s gurney out into the tunnel and we began following Hawk’s route to the western sewer system.

The tunnels were in bad shape. Loose rock had fallen everywhere, and the stone walls still shuddered with each new explosion. The closer we got to the sewers, the louder the booms grew. Dust and small rocks began raining down on us, and I held my case over Shropana’s chest to protect him. We edged around a couple of half-sprung traps until we got out of the interior tunnels and into the old conduit system.

We emerged into the main sewer line, and discovered all the lights had been knocked out. It was too dark to see what lay ahead. I sniffed the air, and smelled smoke.

Not fire
. I’d been badly burned in the past, first during a mercenary attack on the
Sunlace
, then repeatedly branded on Catopsa. As a result, I had an enduring and understandable case of pyrophobia.
Please, God, not another fire
.

“Wait.” I pulled an optical emitter from my medical case. “If memory serves me, we need to go left up here, then walk a hundred yards and turn right.”

It wasn’t easy to do any of that. The damage from the explosives was much worse out here, and the fragile concrete pipes had partially collapsed. Mounds of soil and rock created a labyrinth for us to wade through.

“Where are we?” I asked Reever.

“About forty feet from where the outcasts were hidden.”

I looked around. “There?” I pointed to a recessed area above the jumbled rubble that had been a processing station.

Reever nodded.

Small hills of debris blocked every possible approach to the recess. We could climb them, but there was no way Dhreen and Reever were going to be able to get the gurney through. “How can we get to them?”

“We get them to come to us.” Dhreen walked over to the pile of loose rock and climbed up until he reached the top. “I can see some light from behind it. Duncan, help me clear this stone away.”

An hour of moving rocks made enough of an opening for the outcasts to push through from the other side. To our disappointment, no one emerged.

“Maybe they’re farther down the other way?” I tried to see, but the emitter’s power cells were starting to fade.

“No, it has to be on this side.” Reever went around another hill and vanished. A moment later, he called back, “Over here.”

I helped Dhreen maneuver the gurney around the rubble. We had to wrench Shropana through a tight spot, and I held my breath as more rock slid down and pelted us.

The stench of something burning got worse.

I tried not to panic, not to allow my lungs to solidify from it. Sweat broke out all over me, and I started to shake. My throat was closing up. Soon I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

Images of the fire on board the
Sunlace
, when I’d lost Tonetka and very nearly the use of both of my hands, rushed into my mind. I hadn’t had a full-blown anxiety attack since leaving Catopsa, but I hadn’t been near any uncontrollable fires since then, either.

“Reever, what’s burning?” I looked for signs of flame shooting out of some hidden recess. “Is this because of the explosives?”

He helped me and Dhreen wrest Shropana’s gurney toward the next opening. “It is from the explosives. The League uses thermal detonator.”

That should have reassured me. It didn’t. “Maybe I should sit down for a minute.”

Reever climbed down and held out his hand. “Squilyp told us this would happen, and when it did, for you to confront it.”

“What does that Omorr know anyway?” I grumbled as I threaded my fingers through Reever’s. Fear had clamped around my neck like an invisible bonesetter, so I tried to focus on the men and the reason we were trying to kill ourselves. “Do you see them? Are they close?”

“There’s another one right up ahead. In there.” Dhreen pointed to a shadowy recess in a section of pipe a few feet away.

“Leave Shropana here,” Reever said. “We’ll come back for him.”

We had to climb and crawl over more rubble to get to the outcasts’ hiding place. I jerked a few times I felt something a little warmer than it should have been, but saw no fire. Which was a good thing. I think I would have started screaming hysterically if I’d spotted so much as a spark.

The recess had once housed some kind of pumping station, judging from the remnants of the equipment.

A crude door had been rigged and now stood jammed and inoperable.

I felt the metal door, which was cool, then put my mouth by the small open space. “Is anyone in there?”

A chorus of relieved voices answered me.

“Step back, Cherijo.” Reever nodded toward Dhreen, and the two of them grabbed the door and wrenched. Metal groaned, some loose rock fell, and then they pulled it out, far enough for the outcasts to fit through.

They started emerging, covered with dust and grinning. A few were injured, and I herded them to one side for a quick triage. Dhreen yelled and swept Ilona up in his arms the moment she appeared.

“It is good that you came to find us,” one of the men said.

“I’m sure you would have made your way out eventually. True love conquers all.” I watched Ilona cover Dhreen’s grinning face with kisses, and shook my head. “I can just imagine what kind of kids they’ll have. Short-tempered mercenaries. The universe may never be safe again.”

While I dealt with the minor injuries, Reever gathered the outcasts together and decided with them how to proceed.

“We have family on the surface who will help us travel to the Four Mountains reservation,” the oldest man said. “We have voted and decided to rejoin our Navajo clans.”

That must have been a tough decision to make, seeing as every one of the outcasts still had family members among the Night Horse.

“Weren’t these the same clans who were willing to let you crossbreeds be deported?” I mentioned.

“We have made contact with the tribal council. They never wished us to leave, and will not turn us over to the authorities. The chief deceived us.”

Another of Rico’s many sins. I finished wrapping a support around a sprained wrist and went over to the map Reever was scratching in the dirt.

“You’ll need to get past the League troops, and they’re probably all over the subway system.” I pointed to the place on the crude map where the outcasts had helped me take Reever to Joe’s underground facility. “There’s a surface access hatch here, right before you enter the lab. It leads to the back maintenance shed on the estate. I doubt the League is watching Joe’s grounds. I’d take that.”

“What about drones? As soon as they see us, we will be detained.”

I thought for a moment. “Is it October twelfth or thirteenth?”

Reever answered that one. “It is the twelfth.”

“Tell the drones you’re architectural students from the University of California. A group of them comes on the twelfth every year to take a tour of the estate. Thank the drone for its hospitality, and walk away.”

The outcast looked down at his dusty garments. “We do not resemble students.”

“On the contrary.” I smiled. “Native American fashion is the latest trend among young people. The drones won’t blip a sensor over your appearance.”

“What about him?” Dhreen jerked a thumb in Shropana’s direction. “They’re not going to think he’s a student.”

He had a point. “We’ll take him out another way.”

We led the outcasts back through the opening we’d created and a couple of the uninjured volunteered to carry Shropana. Then we slowly and cautiously made our way toward the subway tunnels.

“Stop,” Reever said as we reached the junction tunnel. “Be as silent as possible from here.”

We could hear the troops moving on the other side of the walls, and everyone made an effort to be quiet as we filed in. Dhreen, Ilona, and I ended up toward the rear of the group, and we were the first to hear the approaching steps behind us.

“Everyone, down!” I hissed as loudly as I dared, then shrank into the shadows. Beside me, Dhreen wrapped his arms around Ilona.

A detachment of soldiers passed through the tunnels, just where we had been standing only moments ago. I stared at Dhreen, knowing one word from him would bring the League troops running. He had nothing to worry about, he’d only be deported. Terrans didn’t even jail aliens—they considered it inhumane treatment of human prisoners.

He’d also get a hefty reward for turning me in— enough to give him and Ilona a start wherever they wanted.

As if he could read my thoughts, I saw Dhreen flash me a smile. And he didn’t make a peep.

The troops disappeared down the tunnel, and we all let out a collective sigh of relief.

“You’ve certainly changed,” I said to Dhreen.

“Maybe.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe not.”

“No more talking until we reach the surface,” Reever warned in a barely audible whisper.

We got the Night Horse out first, but Dhreen insisted on staying with us to help carry Shropana. Deliberately, we moved him to another access hatch on the other side of the estate, one I knew was regularly patrolled by security drones.

He was beginning to come out of the anesthetic as we hauled him up the ladder and out of the small portal behind the front gate station. Shropana saw me and struggled for a moment, until Reever clamped an arm around his shoulders and pinned him to the gur-ney. I knelt beside it, and spoke close to Shropana’s ear.

“All the details of your surgery and treatment are on the datapad beside you. Tell them to get you to a medical facility, as soon as possible.”

“You… did… this?”

“No thanks are necessary.”

He closed his eyes and didn’t make another sound. Apparently he thought so, too.

“I’ll stay with him,” Dhreen said. “I’ll point them in the wrong direction when they want to know where you are.”

Now he wanted me to trust him again. Funny, but I was inclined to do just that. To a certain extent. “You just want the reward for recovering him.”

He grinned. “I haven’t changed that much.” He looked at Reever. “Why don’t the two of you get out of here now, while you can?”

“I can’t go. Not until I treat the infected members of the tribe. Especially the hybrids—they may never see another doctor.”

“Still immolating yourself for your patients.”

“Sacrificing, and yes, that’s part of the job.”

He reached out as if to hug me, then thought better of it and offered his hand. “I’ll see you again, Doc.”

I took it. “You still owe me free passage. When I’m done here, we’re going to need to get off this planet in a hurry.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “I don’t have a ship.”

“So? When has that ever stopped you?” I took the Lok-Teel from my pocket and handed it to him. “Put on a happy Terran face, and go up there and steal one.”

There were no guards left inside the cave when Reever and I returned. Kegide, however, appeared before us and made some urgent gestures.

“Do you think the League will get this far?”

“Possibly.” Reever scanned the area. “The tribe took whatever they could carry, and all the food stores are gone.”

Kegide was hopping from foot to foot now and making the low, toneless sounds that indicated he was beyond agitated.

“We’d better go with him.”

Kegide led us past the emergency bunker, which was completely empty, and down a long, narrow corridor that ended in a passage up toward diffused light.

I hung back for a minute. The entire area above us was crawling with Joseph’s men. “I can’t go on the surface, Kegide.”

“I don’t think this goes to the surface, Cherijo. Wait here while I check.” Reever climbed up the ladder and had a look around, then descended again. “This leads to old maintenance tunnels under the city arena.”

I looked up. “You mean, the shockball arena is right over our heads?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful.” I shouldered my medical case and started climbing. “Nothing like hiding in plain view.”

“I doubt the officials even know these tunnels exist.” He climbed up before me, and we swung off the ladder into a pristine passage of whitewashed plascrete. “Wait here.”

Reever silently strode down the passage and disappeared. I stayed close to the hatch, in case I had to make a quick exit. A few minutes later he returned.

“They have occupied some of the old storage facilities at the other end of this passage.” Reever didn’t look happy. “Milass tells me the chief wishes to see you at once.”

“He isn’t happy that we stayed behind, right?”

“He is… disturbed.”

Great. Rico in a psychotic rage was no one to fool with. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can get out of this?”

“I will be with you.”

We went to the storage areas, where the Night Horse had set up a temporary camp, and Milass wordlessly led us to Rico. The chief was working on a computer console in front of an entire wall paved with vid screens. He hailed me as I walked in.

“Patcher! We thought we had lost you.”

There was expensive computer equipment crammed in the room, more than I’d seen even in Joe’s lab. I struggled to remain calm and keep my tone innocent. “I had to retrieve some medical supplies.” I held up my case for emphasis.

“Come here.”

I glanced at Reever, who nodded, then slowly approached Rico.

Rico. Jericho. My brother. Even after seeing the DNA strands, it was a little hard to believe. Then I saw what Reever had mentioned—same hair, same eyes, same bone structure. Even our noses made a matched set.

Is that the reason I can sense his feelings? The fabled mental connection between twins?

We’d never shared a womb, the physician in me immediately pointed out. And we weren’t really twins—I was at least four or five years younger than Rico. But perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe the connection was formed beyond gestation, in spite of distance and chronological age.

“You are nervous,” Rico said.

I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do, what to say to him. “Just a little unsettled. What’s up?”

“The Shaman has been busy.” He tapped the console, and an image of Joseph Grey Veil came up on the dusty screen.

Our creator
. “What does he want now?”