Demeter (17 page)

Just then Pinoke came back through on the bug. “I have your answers, and some additional answers to go with those answers.”

“Oh goodie, an enigma wrapped in a riddle, surrounded by a mystery,” Ryder replied.

“Are you being snarky? Quoting one of your statesmen when I rose from my long deserved rest to help you?” Pinoke responded in kind.

“Sorry. What did you find out?” Ryder asked as he paused mid stride.

“Vander Portmaster, also known as Shooter, and Ednon Winger and Curran Newbold.”

“So what’s the rest of the story?” Ryder asked.

“You asked me to crosscheck for Singer or Stinger and Harold. After listening to the recording, with this information, I’m sure the one name was Winger. I am also more than fifty percent confident that the other name was not Harold, but Newbold. I think you have the kidnappers identified.”

Ryder heard someone tapping on the window. “I think I better sign off for now. Thanks for the great work! Go get some more sleep. Good-bye.” Ryder sat down and started talking with Hondo and Margaret about rafts and how they worked. They carried on the conversation for three or four minutes, trying not to look at the screen door.

Rather than Aster and Steerman, Randy burst through the door. “They’re leaving!”

“What?” Ryder jumped to his feet.

“I tried to get your attention. You said to let you know if they were approaching the lodge or the flyer. Well, they ambled back up stream, and when they reached the landing, Steerman started holding his hand to his ear. I think he was getting a message of some sort. Anyway, after that they quickly marched back to the flyer.”

As the word
flyer
was spoken, Ryder had reached the porch and watched as the ship rose out of sight and accelerated through the canyon headed down river.

“Now what do we do?” Randy asked solemnly.

Ryder made several attempts to reach Aster through his bug, but with no response.  He hesitated, then tried to reach Steerman as well.

“Get Joel and Athena back here. I guess we’ll have to hitchhike out of here.”

Ryder turned back to Hondo. “You said you didn’t know why, but you had a good idea of where. What did you mean by that?”

Hondo leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “That gang has been here a few times in the last year. They asked me to run them on downstream below the falls. That seemed a bit odd to me. Most folks, after the adrenalin rush from the plunge, are ready to come back to the lodge. Plus there ain’t much to see for close to a hundred miles after the falls. Light rapids—not worth the trouble—barren landscape, hardly a tree in sight. The first time wasn’t a big deal, but then two more times after that? Didn’t make a lot of sense. The third time I paid a little more attention to what they were doing. Several of them seemed more interested in the cavern accesses than the river or the canyon. I’m pretty sure they were taking pictures with their sub-computers. That wouldn’t seem strange perhaps, but it reminded me more of old reconnaissance missions than tourist pictures. I’m pretty sure we’ll find them about ten miles below the falls, left side, about two hundred yards above the river. That or fourteen miles down the river on the same side, at about the same elevation.”

Ryder grasped the old man’s arm. “How fast can you get me there?”

Debbie was listening at the door when she whispered, “They’re coming.” All three girls shifted to their pre-planned positions. Debbie and Cynthia chatted. Becky pretended to be asleep. The raft had made another sharp turn, and then plunged downward. There had been a notable splash when the raft entered the water. They had determined that they were probably above Kuu’aali Falls on the same river, but not sure how far.

Miss Li slid the door open again, summoning the girls out of their box. The raft was lashed ashore at a makeshift landing. It was well past dawn, but without her computer, Cynthia was not sure what time it was. She didn’t recognize the landscape, but even if she had been on this part of the river, she wasn’t sure she would know it. It seemed desolate. She couldn’t see trees in any direction, and the canyon walls rose on both sides steeply.

Miss Li pointed up the rock face about two hundred yards toward an opening that was well sheltered from above, with a hard rock protrusion jutting out twenty to thirty feet above the entrance. “Your ad hoc accommodations,” Miss Li stated. Newbold and Winger stood on either side of Miss Li with pistols that looked ridiculously small for their hands, but the deadly menace of the weapons was still clear. Shifting their bags to backpack mode, the girls began to climb, with Winger leading the way.

“Shooter, get back down as soon as you hide the raft,” Newbold called behind him.

The climb was challenging, with jutting rocks in all directions. Some of the stone surfaces sprang ten to fifteen feet into the air. On their side of the river, most of the rocks were a heavy combination of quartz mingled with ore. The climb was steep, and everyone slipped more than once as they tried to navigate between narrow openings and gravelly surfaces.

Cynthia was getting tired, even in the reduced gravity, and felt that they had probably climbed the better part of a mile, but they were still only about halfway to the cavern entrance. Newbold slipped, and Miss Li tried to grab his arm, resulting in both of them losing their balance and sliding about twenty feet down the gravel. Debbie immediately took off to the left. Cynthia nudged Becky, and they ran to the right. They were hidden by rock outcroppings before Winger even knew they were gone.

“Get them!” Cynthia heard Newbold scream.

“Okay, Becky. Like we planned!” Cynthia huffed. Cynthia turned up and away at the first fork of rocks, and Becky turned down toward the river. According to the plan, they would each run to the count of one hundred, and then toss an item, any item, out of their backpacks. They would repeat this process, tossing the items in different directions each time. Once they ran out of items to toss, if they were still free, they were to try to find a good hiding place after the count of one thousand, being sure to take as many twists away from where they tossed their last items as possible.

Cynthia had just tossed her sixth item, a hairbrush, as far as she could to the left when she heard something zip past her ear and explode several feet in front of her shattering rock.

“The next one is in your back!” It sounded like Winger. Cynthia stopped, put her arms in the air, and waited.

“I’ve got the Flores girl,” Winger shouted at the top of his lungs.

For a moment, Cynthia considered taking a quick twist and race for the next rock formation that was only ten feet in front of her. She thought that Debbie would probably try that sort of thing. But the plan was straightforward. “Don’t be stupid. When they catch you, surrender.” As she turned, she was glad she hadn’t tried to dodge. Winger looked mad enough to shoot. He pointed with the tiny pistol, and she raised her head and marched past him.

Several minutes passed, and Cynthia started to worry. “Had they killed the other girls?” It didn’t seem likely that the other two could have gotten away. But she kept hoping. Then she heard the sound she least wanted to hear, a shot, then a second shot, and then a third and fourth exploding in the distance to her left. “Debbie,” she muttered under her breath. Debbie had been her chief concern in the plan. She did not want Debbie’s blood on her hands, and if Debbie didn’t surrender, it was likely she would be killed.

Seconds passed, but they seemed like hours. Finally from above, Debbie, Miss Li, and Newbold appeared. “Where’s the other girl?” Winger asked.

“Apparently we guessed wrong,” Miss Li observed. “We thought two went left and one went right. With the trail they left, I’m guessing we’ll spot some discarded items from Rebecca to the right. Am I correct, Miss Flores?”

Cynthia wanted to respond with something really smart, but the tone of respect that Miss Li had provided felt like she had just earned an A on one of Miss Li’s famous tests,.“I can’t say,” was all she got out.

“Well, she can’t get anywhere anytime soon. We’re probably a three to four day walk from the lodge in this terrain. And I’ve no idea how she’d ever get up the falls,” Newbold stated. “But we’ve got to get her back. Time for reinforcements.” Cynthia noticed that he turned and made a call, but wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Her guess was Aster and Steerman.

It was another thirty minutes of strenuous climbing before they finally reached the entrance of the cavern. Newman and Winger escorted the girls the rest of the way. Miss Li broke off in search of Rebecca. “If I can’t find her, I should be able to narrow things down when Steerman arrives,” she volunteered.

“Yeah, Steerman should be a lot of help,” Winger said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Debbie looked scraped up a bit. Her knees and left hand were bloody from the jagged rocks, but was otherwise unhurt. She had the same triumphant expression on her face she got when she had just gotten under Ryder’s skin. Cynthia was worried that Debbie would make another break for it, and the look of death that their escorts displayed made it clear that another break was not a good idea. She took Debbie’s hand and kept a firm grip.

The entrance to the cavern was wide open. Cynthia had been spelunking two years earlier with some friends. One of her friends had gotten stuck in a narrow space, and the group had to call for help. A search and rescue unit had been able to pull her friend out. Since then, Cynthia had decided spelunking was not for her. She braced herself for yet another bad experience.

Inside the cavern, they followed a passageway that was cracked and narrow, but also tall and dry. The tunnel proceeded about twenty yards, and then opened into a large, natural lighted, open room about fifty yards across that was filled with giant shadows of scorched rocks and boulders, and tall natural outcroppings. It looked like a great place to play hide-and-seek, or even better, it would have been wonderful for a game of tag. Near the center of the room was a rectangular rock about five feet high, three feet wide, and eight feet long. The slab of rock looked like a table. As if to confirm this, several metal stools surrounded the rock, and open containers of food were spread across the surface. In a ringed area off to one side were a number of cots with sleeping bags done up military style at the foot of each bed.

The girls were escorted toward the far end of the room, and Cynthia noticed three exits. They were all dark, whereas the large room they were in was well lighted. There was indirect light coming from a crevice somewhere above, but the ceiling was over fifty feet high, so she couldn’t see the source. The party approached the far right opening. “In you go,” Newbold said briskly, but not unkindly.

Entering the den, Cynthia saw another stone table, and a variety of supplies, mostly for eating, including several plates, utensils, and a couple of pots and pans. The mismatch nature of the equipment reminded her of camping with her family. Two things her family did not have on their camping trips were the battery operated grill and refrigerator that sat next to the makeshift table. She also noticed at the back of the chamber a construction site outhouse. On the table was a box of standard issue light sticks. Light sticks were actually made of the self-eliminating quartz like material that was found in many parts of Demeter. The sticks were about two inches square and six to eight inches long. Cynthia also saw numerous sconces two to three feet above her head.

“Welcome home,” Newbold said as he closed a cell-like door. Cynthia could hear the locks click shut.

***

Becky had never been that athletic, so she was very surprised to find herself still running when she heard a loud echoing sound, then a second, third, and fourth—loud cracks echoing through the rocks. Obviously, Debbie was done. She had earlier heard a shout that indicated Cynthia was out as well. That left her. What should she do? She made one last toss, her backpack itself, then paused. “Up or down?” Once she got to the river, the movement would be more manageable, but she’d be easier to spot. She decided on up and back. She had no vain hopes of walking out of the canyon. Her best hope was to be of some assistance if the opportunity arose. She wished that she’d saved that last energy bar she’d tossed away, and considered going back for it. She counted to a thousand, then started looking for somewhere to hide. She found a ring of boulders and managed to squeeze into a small alcove between the rocks.

Nearly an hour later, Becky could hear the sounds of a flyer echoing in the canyon. Looking upward, she saw the flyer pass by her location, and then slow to near hovering as it gradually lifted toward the top of the canyon. As flyers were typically the property of Cryellians, she wasn’t excited by the new arrival, and crouched up closer to the rock she was hugging.

“Can’t this crate go any faster?” Ryder asked impatiently.

“Never saw anybody so eager to go to their own funeral,” Hondo spat.

“We’ve talked about getting one of those new raft models. I understand that their cruising speed is fifty miles per hour, and actually can be cranked up to sixty,” Margaret informed everyone.

“Don't know why they had to tinker with a perfectly fine  Perv design.  They go fast enough already,” Hondo complained.

“The Pervs?” Joel asked. “Don’t you mean the Slicks?”

“The Pervs invented the rafts. I’m trying to remember who it was that took the design back to Earth, Rockefeller? Edison? Maybe it was Carnegie. Anyway, one of those early crackpots that decided Earth was a better place to retire. Bah!”

“Remember that young Gates fellow? He was always so polite?” Margaret reminisced.

“He and his buddy, what was his name? Works or something like that. They were always tearing my computers apart, trying to figure out what made them tick. I remember they never came back after their second tour. Useless gadflies if you ask me. I suspect they came to no good end,” Hondo said.

“Anyway,” he continued, “when the Slicks took Demeter back, it wasn’t pretty. It was like an ongoing Civil War inside Demeter for decades. The remnants of the Perv forces holed up here in the canyons for over a hundred years. Anyway, the Slicks stole the design from the Pervs, and the Terrans stole it from the Slicks. We do that a lot.” Hondo laughed. “The rafts were the primary means of transportation between locations within Demeter for centuries before we arrived, and for several years after Maggie and I got here, but then some Johnny-come-lately decided that they weren’t fast enough, so they devised the hopper technology. Frankly, I’m not sure why the dang hurry. The place is only so big.”

“That’s one of the reasons we know the caverns so well,” Maggie interjected. “It used to be part of standard training sixty years ago to help understand the Perv culture. When we were young—”

“Younger,” Hondo interjected.

“When we were younger,” Margaret continued, “we went through dozens of the old Perv Rebel caverns. Their last bastion was below the falls, and there are hundreds of interconnected caverns through the area. There are some who think there are passageways all the way to the surface.”

“Bah! That’s a myth,” Hondo spat. I fought and lost friends in the caverns when I was young. Those Pervs sure could fight.” He looked away. “But in any case, those catacombs will be the undoing of your Cryellian friends. If they’d bothered to ask, I could have told them all about the network of passageways, but they were trying to be a little too”—Hondo paused, then got a big smile on his face—“trying to be a little too Slick.” He chuckled.

Athena simply said, “That’s a dumb joke.”

Hondo scowled and didn’t say anything for most of the next hour until they reached Juu’Juu Falls.

Ryder reflected on the options and decisions ahead. Hondo told them that Steerman and his friends most likely had the girls at one of the two caverns he had described earlier.

“They make a fantastic hideout. In fact, they did for the last hundred years that the Pervs were here. Steerman and his thugs probably read some of the histories of Demeter to figure that one out. But they didn’t bother with details. At least that’s my guess. And they didn’t bother to ask someone who knew about them. I can get you in and out of those caverns from a dozen entry points, and there is no way they’ve had time to explore enough to realize what they really have there.”

Before leaving Shimmer’s Head, Ryder led a planning meeting that lasted less than an hour. They came up with three strategies and abandoned all of them. Ryder considered the first plan the best. They would leave Randy, Joel, and Athena at the lodge. Ryder would accompany Hondo and Margaret to the caverns, and they would slip in from any of several entrances that Hondo and Maggie knew about and look for an opportunity to get the girls out, preferably with no bloodshed. Randy, Joel, and Athena had vetoed that idea outright. Interestingly enough, Athena was the most vehement about going. “You will not leave this poor, wimpy girl”—she emphasized the words “wimpy girl”—“behind, or have big strong Randy and Joel stay behind to protect her.”

“It’s not that. We need someone who can call in the marines if this doesn’t work,” Ryder defended, even though she was partially correct. Ryder did not consider Athena a wimp. He suspected that if it came down to a brawl, she could take him. But she’d been emotional to the point of irrational too many times in the last few hours. The die was cast when neither Randy nor Joel were willing to stay behind. Regardless of his feelings about the matter, he had no intention of leaving Athena alone at the lodge.

Athena had suggested that they leave Ryder behind. She reiterated the obvious value he provided to the kidnappers. He was likely a target himself. He was also the least fit of the entire group, including the senior citizens. This would have devolved into an arm wrestle with Athena, but Ryder managed to avoid further entanglements on this notion by saying, “We don’t have time for this.”

They had considered calling in Mr. Small, but Ryder was still unsure of whether or not he could trust him. And if he couldn’t trust the head of the DDF security team, could he trust any of them? Plus, Ryder liked the idea of creeping into the cavern and pulling the girls out without anyone getting hurt.

An interesting fight ensued between Hondo and Margaret. Until this time, Ryder had always noticed their fights had seemed in jest. But Hondo was with Ryder on this, indicating that he wouldn’t trust the DDF security team any further than he could throw them. Ryder suspected Hondo could throw them quite a distance, but decided not to share that thought. Margaret was insistent that the security team was the safest way to get the girls back. The fight ended in an apparent draw.

They had finally decided that everyone would come. Athena did agree that she would stand watch once the rest of the group entered the cavern and call in DDF security if Ryder’s team didn’t return in a set amount of time, depending on where they finally landed.

The next problem was how to overpower six armed kidnappers if they came to a confrontation. Ryder had never fired a weapon, not even a BB Gun. Randy and Joel both had been training in the robot units, but they had no robot units to work with, and the computerized systems of those units gave them no preparation for using a hand weapon. Joel suggested they take swords from Hondo’s collection. Hondo scoffed. “You might as well throw rocks. You don’t know how to use them.” Nevertheless, he pulled down a scabbard holding a short, curved, thick blade, pulled the blade out, and swished it back and forth a few times, showing a menacing smile as he did so.

The final disposition of weapons was an odd mixture. Margaret and Hondo each carried pistols. Hondo’s pistol was a Colt .45. It looked natural and appropriate in his hand. “You should see those bullets fly in this lower gravity,” he almost gushed. Hondo also wore his scabbard that he carried his saber in. He looked more like a pirate than a cowboy with the combination.

Margaret pulled out an elegant handgun and turned toward Hondo. It was compact, and as Margaret explained, “Semi-automatic and more bullets than in that piece of iron you haul around.” By then Hondo was strapping a gun belt filled with two dozen extra bullets.

Margaret outfitted Ryder and Joel with something that looked like a tuning fork.

“What are we supposed to do with this?” Ryder looked incredulous.

“Oh, right, you probably don’t have these back on Earth yet. Slow decade for technology thieves,” Hondo responded.

“You’ve not heard of these on Earth, but they’re called Tasers,” Margaret volunteered. “Just point at your target and press the handle here,” She pointed at a safety-covered button. “You slide the safety up like this, and then you can press the button, aiming the prongs at your target. It’s not fatal, but it sends an electrical charge that totally disables your opponent.”

“Shoots about eighty thousand volts,” Hondo added.

“What’s wrong?” Margaret looked at the grins on Ryder and Joel’s faces.

“We’ve had Tasers on Earth for several years. The police use them all the time instead of guns.”

Hondo scowled. “Yup, danged techno thieves. We got to stop letting those Terran pups come up here.”

Ryder apologetically added, “They’re not nearly as cool as these are though.”

Margaret warned, “Be sure of what you’re shooting at. You only get one shot with that. We’ll take you out back to try it before we go. You can recharge them while we’re flying.”

Hondo looked long and hard at Randy. “You know those computer simulations with those robot units make killing seem easy and even fun sometimes. I don’t have any robot units, but if you think you can actually kill someone with one of these”—he pulled down a long, sharp knife with a curved edge along with a case that could slide onto a belt—“I’ll let you take Uncle Bowie. Be warned, killing somebody with a knife is not easy, and it is not fun. You think you have the stomach for it?”

Randy swallowed hard. “I really don’t know. But I’d still like to bring it just in case. If we’re desperate, maybe I can.”

“So be it.” Hondo gave Randy a hard smile, but Margaret looked unsettled.

***

Hondo was flying high, near the top of the canyon, and slowed considerably, quieting the near silent engine. “We’ll creep near the ridge from here. I’m not sure which cavern they chose, and we may be able to get some hints before we descend. If we choose wrong, it will be a long search before getting to the right section.

Everyone was watching for some sign of life, or even disturbance below. Ryder was suffering from dizziness as he peered over the side of the raft and realized there was nothing else keeping him from falling several hundred feet to rocks below. They were passing over their first area of interest, when Athena, looking out from near the rear of the raft, asked them to go back. “I think I saw something.”

Turning around and dropping a hundred feet, and now nearly dead still, Randy whispered from the front, “I see it.” Joel and Athena shifted too rapidly to get a look, and the raft started to wobble back and forth.

“Would you stop that!” Ryder called out, hanging firmly onto a security rope laced around the interior of the raft.

Hondo handed Randy his ancient-looking binoculars. “I see something. Looks like a backpack on top of that rock.”

It took Randy several tries to get the binoculars to hone in on the bag.

“That is definitely a backpack. Athena, can you ease up here and take a look?”

Athena moved to the front and took the binoculars. “That is Becky’s backpack.”

“Are you sure?” Margaret asked.

“Absolutely!”

Hondo looked pensive. “Seems like an awful waste to go to all the trouble to hide in the canyons then leave big flags everywhere saying, ‘Here I am, come and get me.’”

Athena added, “I see more stuff. In fact, back that way, on top of that rock, I can see Cynthia’s hairbrush.”

“Where?” Ryder asked, taking a sudden interest. Leaning forward, he almost lost his balance, and his interest. “Never mind, I believe you.”

Hondo started to move the rudder back, and the raft began to rise. “Well we know where they are, but I still can’t figure out why they would have left such a clear sign. Might be a trap.”

As they approached the area where Hondo wanted to land the raft, Margaret called out, “You might want to move it over to that next rock cropping.”

“Margaret, I’m an old man. I don’t want to walk an extra half mile in this terrain,” Hondo complained.

“But I’d like this thing to be here when we get back,” Maggie scoffed. “About fifty yards beyond the entrance is one of those new rafts I was telling you about, and a flyer. They’re concealed pretty well for a cursory search, but pretty easy to pick out from here if you have a trained eye.”

Hondo relented and moved the raft to the far side of the rock cropping Margaret had preferred. “We better rethink this,” Hondo exclaimed.

“Do you think they found the entrance?” Athena asked.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so, but we’ll know when we get there. What I’m concerned about is leaving you alone when we know they’re parked right over the ridge.”

Randy stepped forward. “I think we have the right plan, at least if we can’t trust Mr. Small. I doubt I’m going to be much help in a firefight. I’ll stay here with Athena. If a knife can come in handy, I imagine it would be here.”

“Not so sure about that,” Hondo said, “but it makes sense. Worst case scenario, you could distract them long enough to be sure that Athena got the message off.”

Half an hour later, with a lot of huffing and puffing over the rocky terrain, they arrived at the entrance to the cavern. Hondo laughed. “Idiot younglings! I can see where they went down over the edge, repelling. Joel, come here and lend a hand.” Together they shifted a rock that half hid an entrance into a tunnel. “I prefer an easier path.”

Margaret passed out some light sticks at the mouth of the small opening.

Hondo asked everyone to wait as he walked back to the edge of the cliff. He sliced partway through each of the three dangling ropes. “They’re in for a surprise if they try to get back out this way.” He chuckled. He returned and led the party into the darkness of the tunnel.