Higher Ground (28 page)

“No, I’m not okay. I just had to watch the ship I should be on picking up other people and flying off again. So I’m kind of pissed, okay?”

Adam withdrew from him a little but spoke sympathetically. “I know. Hard to watch.”

“Why the hell did those idiots turn back anyway?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Truth is,
he
couldn’t cut it, right?” He gestured ahead of them at Zach. “He’s not a real leader, is he? He’s an amateur.”

“It fell to him, that’s all. I think he’s done okay.”

“Yeah? Tell that to the families of the thousand people he couldn’t even persuade to leave Arius.”

“He did his…” Adam stopped himself. “You weren’t there, okay?”

He walked faster, away from Glyn, until he almost caught up with Zach. At the last moment, he didn’t move to walk at his side but stayed a couple of meters behind. Close enough so if Zach stumbled Adam would catch him.

He glanced back at Glyn, who had a surly look on his face and was looking daggers at Zach. Or maybe at Adam. Maybe at both of them. Had his rejection last night upset Glyn enough to make him so snappy? Or was it only the sight of the ship? The sight of it leaving?

But still, screw him. It hadn’t been Zach’s fault the group split. He’d begged them to stay. Like he’d begged the rest of the population to leave Arius. Not his fault they’d stayed and died. Zach had done fine. He might not be a natural leader, but he was smart, and he’d done what a smart man did when he saw a gap in his abilities—brought in others to help him. Some of those others had gone, but he still had Adam and Simon. Simon was a rock, calm and reliable, and Adam knew he should try to be the same. Zach needed him. If not in his bed, he needed him at his side as his morale officer and advisor. To let him down because of their personal issues would make Adam a child.

Simon must be suffering, he thought, parted from his wife and daughter, but he never complained. He got on and did the job he’d taken on. So did Zach. Adam had to do the same. He’d give it 100 percent. No, 110 percent. That would make up for the rest of his life, when he’d never given anything more than 90 percent.

“Adam.” Glyn caught up and walked beside him, voice low enough Zach wouldn’t hear him. “Sorry about snapping at you. I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m sure Zach’s tried his best, no matter how badly things have turned out. I’m sure he meant well.”

Adam glanced across to him, seeing a look of remorse on his face. But in his eyes he had something of the hunger he’d demonstrated last night.

“Apology accepted,” Adam said. Glyn opened his mouth to speak again, but Adam cut him off. “Excuse me, I have to see Simon about something.” He turned away. Screw Glyn. Last night and moments ago, Adam had seen other sides to the man and didn’t like them much. After hearing such heartfelt bitterness in Glyn’s words about Zach, this sudden contrition and apology rang hollow. Adam didn’t trust it.

He put Glyn out of his mind and thought instead about what he’d do when they stopped for the night. He had to clear the air with Zach and make up. This was just a stupid fight. He’d had some spectacular fights with boyfriends in the past and been loved up and cozy again a day later. It could be that way with Zach. Even if the crazy situation had made them move too fast in the relationship, it didn’t mean they had to rush headlong to the breakup. They had to do as they’d said they would. Assess things once they were away from here and could be more normal.

Zach looked back over his shoulder and caught Adam’s eye. Adam smiled at him. An encouraging smile. If they made up tonight and made love, would that be in the same spirit of encouragement? A pity fuck? Oh hell, no way. Sex with Zach was damn good. It wouldn’t stop being good if they weren’t madly in love. Adam had slept with plenty of guys who weren’t in love with him. He hadn’t kicked any of them out of bed and told them to take their blowjobs elsewhere. Sex was sex. Would Zach feel the same way?

Many people would assume someone as intellectual as Zach lived too much in his head to be deeply interested in sex, but Zach approached his work and his personal life with the same passion. The same principles too. He’d shown that in refusing to make a bogus prediction about the rate of the sinking. It hadn’t been needed in the end. People had slowed for a while but were moving at full speed again. Watching the ship leaving again had done it. They knew it would be a day and a half at least before it came back, and if they sat and waited for it and it
didn’t
come back when they expected, they’d eventually be running with the water at their heels and no time to stop for food or sleep.

“Hi, Adam,” Simon said, interrupting his thoughts.

“Hi. How’s it going?”

“Great. My feet are ready to fall off. My legs feel like someone set them on fire, and a very strong man appears to be smashing a sledgehammer into my back. But other than that, I’m great.”

“Tell me about it. Why did I ever do this for fun? I must have been crazy.”

“I was thinking about Barbara’s group. It was about the same size as ours, and that was the same ship, which means they can’t all have gotten aboard.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same.” How much harder had it been to find volunteers or to choose people with the water so much closer?

“Barbara will have stayed behind,” Simon said in a tone suggesting anyone arguing with that assertion must be a fool. Adam agreed. “I would hope Jones would have the decency to as well.”

“He’d better have.” Though Torres might not want him in her group. If the man who’d talked them into turning back and walking
toward
danger had escaped before all the rest of his companions, it would offend Adam’s sense of natural justice.

“They could be catching up to us faster,” Adam said. “Like we’ve moved faster without the kids and…” He stopped. “Sorry. I know you must be missing Ami and Visha.”

“I’d rather know they’re safe than have them with me in danger if that’s the choice. Vish only went because of Ami, you know. She’d have stayed otherwise.”

Adam nodded. He knew it. “You’re a lucky guy. She’s amazing.”

“I know I—”

He stopped as they heard the rumbling all around them. The group faltered to a halt, and everyone dropped to the ground. The dogs howled as usual, and though there was none of the screaming and crying there had been when they had the children with them, the faces around him were full of fear. Simon looked gray and sick. As the shaking started, he grabbed hold of outcropping rocks on the ground, as if they could help. Instinct, Adam knew, doing the same himself. And useless. When the ground itself trembled, what did you have to hang on to?

“Adam.” Zach’s voice, and Adam looked over to see him doing the same as them, hanging on to the shaking ground, grim-faced, frightened. What did he want to say? Nothing apparently. He didn’t say anything else after calling Adam’s name. Did he only want to see his face? Adam smiled, the kind of reassuring smile he used on the scared kids during a quake. Zach smiled back, and warmth suffused through Adam, rising up his back, down his legs. Oh yes, they’d definitely make up tonight. Maybe before then. Yes. As soon as this quake ended, he’d talk to Zach and get this crap sorted out.

“Aw hell!” Simon cried, voice unusually panicky as the shaking intensified. Adam’s teeth rattled in his head. The rumbling grew louder and became a roar. Shit, this was a big one, and it wasn’t stopping. An urge overtook Adam. One he could no more ignore than the urge to breathe. He wanted to get to Zach. Moving with the ground bucking under him like a bronco was crazy, a view Simon expressed when Adam shed his backpack and began to crawl toward Zach. But Adam had to get to Zach. He stayed on his belly, found a rock to push against with his foot sometimes, but otherwise pulled himself along with his hands, blood warm on his skin when the rock cut and scratched them.

He almost made it. Close. Only three meters separated them. Then two. Then…only centimeters from Adam’s face the ground cracked.

Time slowed as the crack widened. Adam flung out an arm, desperate to grab any part of Zach, who did the same, reaching for Adam. But they were too far apart to have a chance of connecting. Screams came from all around Adam as the ground opened up and fell away. People scrambled away from the edge, some almost falling before others hauled them to safety. But Adam couldn’t reach Zach to do the same. The piece of mountain Zach lay on slid away and fell, taking him away from Adam.

“Zach!” Adam screamed as the chunk of rock and Zach vanished from sight. “Zach! Zach!” He crawled toward the edge, trying to see over it. Someone grabbed his ankle, and he looked back to see Simon hanging on to him.

“Come back from the edge, for God’s sake!” Simon yelled. “You’ll go over too!”

He didn’t care. He wanted to go over, climb down, find Zach. But Simon hung on and, with a strength he must have only when life and death were at stake, dragged Adam back from the edge, far enough to grab him around the waist and pin him down.

Adam fought him, thrashing as violently as the ground, but Simon was heavier and stronger so held him, jaw set, grim-faced, like he would with Amina when she threw a tantrum. Fight all you like, the grim look said. I’ll just hold you until you’re tired.

The shaking began to ease, and Adam did the same, knowing he was hysterical and he couldn’t help Zach like this. Control, he thought. Regain control and figure it out. Zach is alive. Assume that until you’re sure otherwise. Until then,
Zach is alive
. The unholy terror diminished, replaced by an icy determination, already making plans. He had rope in his pack. He could climb down, see what condition Zach was in. The others could start on building a stretcher. He’d have Glyn climb down to administer first aid.

The quake finally ended, the noise and shaking dying away, the quiet broken by moans and crying from the group. How many of them had seen Zach fall? How many were simply terrified by the worst quake they’d experienced so far and had yet to realize they’d lost their leader? Simon’s head dropped onto Adam’s chest, and he sighed with relief for the end of the quake, then looked up.

“Adam, I’m so sorry.”

Adam wasted no time arguing about it.
Zach is alive
. He scrambled out of Simon’s arms and crawled to the edge of the new cliff. The slope had partly collapsed, forming a new ravine.

“Zach!” Adam called. “Zach, can you hear me?” He searched desperately and then gasped. “There! There he is!”

Zach lay on a piece of flat rock perhaps twenty meters down. It might be the very piece of mountain he’d been lying on up here. Simon came up beside Adam, also on hands and knees, cautious of the edge.

“That’s a long way down.”

Did he mean too far for Zach to have survived? The stricken look he had suggested that. But Adam refused to think that way.
Zach is alive.

“I have a long rope.”

“Adam, that would be—”

Adam looked at him, and he shut up. Perhaps he could read the question in Adam’s eyes. What if it was Visha or Amina down there? He’d be looking for the rope already.

They moved back from the edge, Adam hating not being able to see Zach anymore. But he had to get at his pack to get his climbing rope out. He could rappel down there easily enough. He’d need a few of the strapping fellows up here to play the rope out for him. They had the muscle and the numbers to haul Zach out of there.

“Is he…okay?” Jan asked. People stared at Adam, shocked and frightened. Glyn was busy bandaging a guy with a nasty cut to the head. A few others were nursing minor injuries.

“I can see him, He’s about twenty meters down. I’m going to climb down to him while the rest of you get to work on a stretcher. First to hoist him up, then to carry him. Use hiking poles, tent canvas. Use whatever you have to.” He knelt by his pack and rummaged in it for his rope.

“Um, is he definitely alive?” someone asked. He heard the disbelief in their voice, and his back stiffened. He stood, holding the coil of rope.

“I don’t know until I get to him. Glyn, I’m going to need you down there too.”

“What?” Glyn shot to his feet and stared at Adam. “Are you joking?”

“Joking? Of course I’m not joking. He’s probably hurt—”

“He’s probably dead. Hell, he
is
dead or soon will be.”

“It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“We’ll
all
be dead if we stop to pull him out of there. And do you know how slow we’ll go carrying him? We’ll never stay ahead of the water.”

“Not if we don’t hurry up and get on with it.” Adam started fashioning a harness with the rope. He’d need his gloves, or he’d burn his hands. “I’ll go down first. If he’s… If I don’t need you, you don’t need to come down.”

“Are you listening to me? I’m not going down there.”

Adam froze as everything Glyn said finally sank in, delayed as it was behind his single-minded determination to get down there and get to Zach. He simply couldn’t conceive of anything else happening.

“What did you say?”

“I’m not waiting here for you to go down there either. I’m going on, before there’s another quake like the last one and we all fall down the mountain.” He turned to the group. “Anyone smart will come with me.”

“You can’t go.” Adam couldn’t believe it. “You’re a medic, and you have a patient who needs you.”

“He’s already dead.” Glyn looked around at the group again. “You’re all thinking the same thing.”

“We should find out first,” Simon said. “We owe him.”

“He saved your lives,” Adam shouted, suddenly terrified because he could see some of the group were nodding when Glyn spoke, agreeing with him. “You can’t just leave him.”

“If we don’t, then we’ll all die, and he’ll have failed,” Glyn said. He put on—definitely put on, definitely fake—a pitying expression. “Your loyalty is admirable, Adam, but you know I’m right.”

“Shut up, you bastard. I’ve had enough of you trying to play me.” The group stirred. Glyn adopted another fake expression, wounded and unjustifiably berated for telling the truth. It didn’t fool Adam. “The rest of you know he’d climb down for any one of you if the situation was reversed. Show some gratitude to the man who saved your lives by saving his.”