Laura Jo Phillips (31 page)

“Plug that cable back in,” Darck said to Lenny.

“This one down on the floor?” Lenny asked.

“It’s the only one there,” Darck snapped. 

“I thought you said it sucked up too much power,” Lenny said as he struggled to reach the cable on the floor beneath his feet.

“It does,” Darck replied.  “But now I want it back on so nobody sees us going into that town from this direction so plug it in and shut up.”

Garid fought back a sigh.  It was obvious to him that Darck had no idea how to use the damn camouflage system.  Nor could he seem to make up his mind whether he wanted it on or off.  He’d been going back and forth with the damn thing all morning.  If those women hadn’t spotted them appearing and disappearing as they trolled across the desert, it’d be a damn miracle.  Letting the hunted know they were being hunted was always a mistake.  Darck fastened his gaze on the mountains in the distance and held his tongue.

Chapter
36

“Grace, you’re going to have to go on ahead,” Hope said.  “I’ll stay here with Karma.”

“What the heck good is that going to do?” Grace demanded.  “I don’t know where to go, and you can’t fix her leg.”

“I can’t leave her here alone, either,” Hope said.  “You know how to take care of yourself.  You have experience hiking, you said so yourself.”

“What are you going to do?  Just sit here next to her until someone finds you?”

“No, as soon as you have time to get a few miles away, I’ll light a fire to draw those men looking for us.”

“Dammit Hope, you know darn good and well that Karma wouldn’t do that for either one of us.  This is her own damn fault.”

“No, I don’t know that,” Hope argued.  “And even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean I can leave her here to die.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you do this,” Grace said.  “I’ll stay here with you.”

“No, you need to get to that town and get some help for us,” Hope said.  “If you don’t do that, then none of us have a chance to get our lives back.”

“I think it would be better if you left me here and went on ahead yourself,” Grace said.  “You know where you’re going, and you are the one with a cousin who’s an Agent.  It makes sense, Hope, you know it does.”

“Maybe,” Hope replied.  “But that’s not what we’re going to do, Grace.  You’re going to go ahead to that town, and you are going to get help and bring them back for us.”

“Why?” Grace asked.  “Why are you insisting on staying here yourself?”

“Because I think you’d just as soon bash Karma in the head with a rock and be done with it,” Hope replied with a straight face.

“Okay, you got me there,” Grace said with a reluctant smile.  She took a deep breath and shook her head.  “I wouldn’t really do that, Hope.  I’d want to, I want to now, but I would never do it.”

“I know Grace,” Hope replied.  “But this is my idea, so I will stay here and wait for you to bring help.”

“No, you’re going to stay here and send up smoke signals for the bad guys,” Grace corrected. 

“She needs medical treatment, Grace,” Hope said.  “I don’t see any way around that.”

“You sure are stubborn,” Grace said.  “How about we use some of these blankets to make a stretcher for her, then we can carry her.”

“Grace, you are too small to carry half of Karma’s weight,” Hope said.  “Besides, I can’t imagine how much pain we would cause her by moving her leg around that much.  I don’t think she’d be able to stand it.”

“There goes my next suggestion then,” Grace said.

“Which was?” Hope asked curiously.

“Dragging her back to that place we camped last night.  That was a good spot.  It was safe, sheltered, lots of water and firewood.  You could stay there for days.”

“That’s true,” Hope replied.  “But it wouldn’t solve the problem of getting medical treatment for Karma.”

“All right, all right,” Grace said irritably.  “I got it.  You’re going to sacrifice yourself for this woman who wouldn’t do the same for you, me or anyone else.”

“Ouch,” Hope said softly.  “I’m not sure that was deserved, but if it’s the way you feel, I hope you feel better for saying it.”

“I’m sorry, Hope,” Grace said contritely.  “Really, I am.  I just hate this.  It’s not fair.”

“Fair?” Hope asked with a smile.  “Whenever I said that to my mother, she would say,
Child, what is fair to do with life?  Tò peproménon phygeîn adýnaton!”

“Which means what?” Grace asked.

"
It is impossible to escape from what is destined
,” Hope replied.

Grace shook her head.  She had no intention of arguing that one.  She looked at Karma for a moment, then to the northwest. 

“All right, here is what I think we should do,” she said.  “First, we use some of the extra sheets and blankets to set up a tent.  It will help camouflage you both, and provide some shelter from the sun.  We’ll fold a few blankets up to make a mat for Karma and move her onto it, and maybe we can try to straighten her leg a bit.  Once the two of you are set up, I’ll leave and go as fast as I can to that town, and then I’ll bring help right back here.  But I am going nowhere unless you promise to wait for me, Hope.  No fair calling in help from the bad guys.”

“All right, here is my counter offer,” Hope said.  “You help me get Karma moved, and then you leave.  I’ll set up camp here, and take care of Karma.  We can’t afford for you to take the time to help me, and I don’t have anything else to do anyway.  I’ll wait two days.  If you can’t get back here by noon, day after tomorrow, I’ll start a smoky fire to attract attention from whoever I can.”

Grace hesitated, but she couldn’t argue with Hope when, deep down, she knew that Hope was right.  “All right,” she said.

“Okay, let’s get this done,” Hope said.  She reached for the straps on Karma’s pack and began to work them off of her.  Grace dropped her own pack, pulled out her knife and simply cut them. 

“Its not like she’ll be carrying it any more,” she said. 

“That’s true,” Hope agreed.

Working together, Grace and Hope folded a couple of blankets into a narrow mat for Karma to lay on and moved her onto it.  They straightened her leg as much as they could, and went through all of the bags of fire wood searching for something long enough to use as a splint, but they had no luck with that.  The longest stick they had was only about a foot long, and it was a dry, brittle stick. 

Hope tossed the stick aside and looked up at Grace.  “Okay, get going,” she said.  “I can do the rest.”

Grace wanted to argue, but she knew there was no point to it.  She picked up her pack and shrugged into it, then bent to give Hope a hug.  “I’ll be back for you, Hope, count on it.”

Hope hugged Grace back.  “You are a great lady, Grace.  When this is all done, I want us to stay friends.”

“Absolutely,” Grace replied, squeezing Hope tightly once more before releasing her.  “Listen to me, Hope,” she said seriously.  “If I’m not back by the deadline, you light your signal fire.  But keep in mind that I will still be coming for you.  No matter how long it takes or what I have to do, I will be back for you.”

“Thanks, Grace,” Hope replied.  “Now, get going, and be careful out there on your own.”

“I will,” Grace promised.  She stared at Hope a moment longer, then turned and walked away.  She looked for the spot on the horizon that Hope had showed her and picked up her pace.  Now that she was on her own, she knew she could make much better time than the three of them together had been able to do. 

Karma was slow, though Grace had to admit that the other woman had tried hard to move at a steady pace and had not complained once.  The truth was, she just didn’t like Karma much.  Even so, she had to admit that Hope was correct in her decision to stay with the wounded woman.  Now it was all up to Grace.  If she didn’t get to that town and get help, she’d be letting a lot of people down who were counting on her.  She hitched her pack up a bit, checked her direction, then put her eyes on the ground before her and walked faster. 

Chapter
37

Ellicia was tired.  She had only slept a few hours the night before and had dozed fitfully on the transport from Virginia to Phoenix II, the huge military base at the edge of Glass Lake. 

Once a thriving city called Phoenix, the entire area was now a gigantic jungle of glass, interspersed with steel spires and myriad lumps and hills that had once been magnificent buildings called
sky-scrapers
.  It was, in its own strange way, beautiful.  Until you remembered the millions of people who had resided there at the time of the Bolkin Maser Bombardment that had turned it into a thirty square mile lake of bubbling steel, sand and concrete.  Ellicia found it chilling to look upon. 

“You ready?” Rob asked softly from just behind her.

“Yes,” Ellicia replied, turning to face the Bearens  “I’m very ready.  I’ve never seen anyone shift before.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Jackson said.  “Just don’t be afraid, all right?”

“No, I won’t be afraid,” Ellicia assured him.  In truth, she’d been looking forward to this ever since Jackson had mentioned on the transport that they needed to take some time to shift soon.  After they’d landed and been greeted by General LeJune, the base Commander, Jackson had explained their need and asked for a deserted area they could use.  The General had directed them here, warning them against going too close to Glass Lake. 

Ellicia watched carefully as Jackson seemed to shimmer in the bright sunshine for a moment before expanding quickly into an eighteen foot tall creature that, to Ellicia, looked very much like a bear.  That is, if a bear had foot long fangs, fifteen-inch razor sharp claws and a shiny coat of dense white fur, broken here and there with large patches of black.

Jackson lowered himself to all fours, which meant that Ellicia didn’t have to crane her neck quite so far back to see his familiar blue eyes.  He was still about nine feet tall at the shoulder, though.  She was amazed at the size of him and, when he walked slowly toward her, the masses of muscle that slid smoothly beneath the thick, shiny fur when he moved.  She reached out to touch him, smiling at the soft feel of his fur, though it was so dense she could barely run her fingers through it.  After a moment she lowered her hands and stepped back, noticing that Clark and Rob had shifted into their bearencas as well.

“All right guys,” she said, “go run now.”

Jackson tilted his head at her, and somehow she understood him.  “I’ve satisfied my curiosity, and I’m just fine right here.  Off with you.”

Jackson tilted his massive head in what could only be a nod, then turned around and raced away, moving so quickly that Ellicia couldn’t actually follow him with her eyes.  She laughed out loud as she watched, even clapping her hands together when Rob and Clark took off after their brother. 

Ellicia watched them run for a long time, unable to take her eyes off of them.  They were so beautiful, and so fast!  She laughed as she watched them wrestle with each other, though they were careful to stay a good distance away from her so that they didn’t accidently hurt her.  She couldn’t seem to get her fill of watching them, and was disappointed when they returned to her and transformed back to their human forms.

“That was magnificent!” she exclaimed.  “Thank you so much for letting me watch that.  I will never forget it.”

The Bearens seemed a little embarrassed by her praise, but she couldn’t help it.  She hadn’t had such fun in a very long time.

“If you think that was something, wait until you see your sister,” Jackson said. 

Ellicia’s eyes grew big.  “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said.  “I know she transforms into a dracon, but I am not really sure what that is.  What does she look like?”

“The Dracons are the largest, strongest, and wiliest of all the Clan animals,” Jackson said.  “When Princess Lariah transforms, her dracon is also very beautiful and graceful.  She is perhaps as long as I am tall in her dracon form, with a black and gold spotted coat.  I have heard her say that the dracon is much like a mythical Earth creature called a
dragon. 
She is strong and elegant in her dracon form, as she is delicate and beautiful in her human one.”

“I cannot tell you how much it means to me to know that, no matter what, no one can ever harm Lariah again,” Ellicia said, sudden tears stinging her eyes.  “She was hurt so badly, and it was all my fault.”

“Why do you feel guilty for what another did?” Clark asked, feeling both Ellicia’s sadness and her guilt.

“Because it was supposed to be me,” she said.  “Not Lariah.  She never did anything to deserve what happened to her.”

“Did you?” Jackson asked gently.

Ellicia looked at him with startled eyes.  “No, I don’t think so,” she said.  “But they were supposed to kidnap me, not Lari.  The man that had her thought she was me.”

Jackson placed one arm gently around Ellicia’s shoulders and urged her to begin walking with them back toward the base.  He felt how deep her guilt really went and was surprised that she was able to hide it as well as she did.

“Ellicia, if you had been kidnapped instead of your sister, would it have been possible for anyone to rescue you?” he asked.