Star Road (47 page)

Is he trying to stir the mob to violence?

The voice had been familiar, but Ivan couldn’t place it. Finally, the crowd parted, and a single figure, dark in silhouette, stepped forward.

Edgar Cullen.

An old crewmate, with the Runners from the beginning.

As much as a leader,
Ivan thought,
as I am.

“Cullen,” Ivan said. A trusty warrior, too. They had fought together since the founding of the Runners, often side by side.

Cullen was afraid of nothing.

“Ivan, what makes you think you can trust them? The World Council?”

He spat onto the ground.

At least he didn’t spit at me,
Ivan thought.

“They gave their word.”

“You trust that?” Cullen shouted.

“And you have
my
word. Full amnesty for everyone who turns themselves in. You keep your road vehicles. You keep your weapons. The hunt ends.”

Another, louder murmur spread through the crowd; but all eyes were on Ivan and Edgar Cullen.

Delicate,
Ivan thought.
Could go either way.

In the time he’d been in jail, Ivan could see the effects his brother’s rule had had on the Runners. Such high levels of hostility ... and maybe a sense of persecution and frustration that could only lead to more senseless violence.

Got to tamp it down now, now or never,
Ivan told himself.

“You know me, Cullen. We fought side by side for years, and more than once I saved your ass, and you saved mine.”

“True,” Cullen said, nodding his approval. “That was then, before you became a prisoner. Before you worked for the World Council.”

A roar of laughter from the crowd.

“I won’t deny it.”

“It’s nothing but a World Council trick,” someone suddenly yelled.

“They’ll want our ships, our guns!” someone else shouted.

Another voice: “We can’t trust you!”

Ivan watched as Cullen moved closer, standing close to the foot of the platform. He might not be a natural-born leader, but he had strength and charisma ... and influence.

If he could persuade Cullen, Ivan knew he had a chance to sway the rest of them.

“Listen to me. I have it in writing from the Director of the World Council himself. I met with him!”

“Prove it!”

“Show us the paper!”

“To hell with the World Council!”

I’m losing them,
Ivan thought, and he looked down at Cullen, who seemed determined to hold back and let the other Runners have their say.

“I can’t—I
won’t
tell all of you what to do.” Ivan had to shout to be heard above the noisy crowd. “But your freedom—freedom on the Road—is here for the taking.”

He shook his head. His words seemed useless in the face of the mob mentality here.

Useless,
he thought.

He started to leave the stage, prepared to be harangued, insulted ... even attacked.

And then a voice boomed out as loud as a cannon.

“Hold on! We’re not done.”

Ahah. The moment of truth.

“Yes we are,” Ivan said, facing Cullen for a long, tense moment. “At least I am.”

Cullen’s face was grim, expressionless as he gripped the edge of the stage and vaulted up onto it.

Placing his massive hand on Ivan’s shoulder, he stopped him in his tracks. Ivan turned, ready to face this man who might be the new leader of the Runners.

Cullen just looked, nodding, a savage glint in his eyes as he held Ivan still.

Ivan had his gun at his side. Jordan and the others were out there watching. They could shoot it out, but what purpose would that serve?

Except I’ll go down firing!

Ivan looked from Cullen to the crowd of Runners.

The old warrior stared at Ivan for a long moment, and then a faint smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

He cleared his throat, turned, and faced the crowd.

“Many of us have known Ivan for a lot of years,” he said. “Some of you new recruits only know him by reputation. But I’ve fought and run with him across half the universe.”

He paused.

Not a sound came from the crowd.

And then: “Ivan’s always been a good leader—a man of his word.”

A pause, a deep breath by this bear of a man. “I trust him. Let’s make peace now while we still have our hides. I say we accept this amnesty!”

Stunned, Ivan looked at Cullen as his grin widened, exposing a row of brownish, irregular teeth that still somehow caught the flickering torchlight.

Silence.

And then, slowly, like a swell moving through a sea, the first cheers, then more until the wild cheers exploded from the crowd, and a name bellowed out and became a chant.

“Ivan! Ivan! Ivan!”

~ * ~

Dawn came fast to Omega Nine.

SRV-66 gleamed in the strange green glow of the rising sun as Ivan, freshly washed and wearing clean clothes for the first time in many days, emerged from one of the Runners’ cabins.

He noted activity around the SRV, and walked over to see what was going on.

Annie stood up on one of the cowlings, furiously scrubbing the deionized filters clean.

“Leaving soon, huh?” Ivan said, squinting and looking up at her. She was a dark silhouette against the green sky.

Annie wiped her hair from her forehead with the back of her hand and said, “That’s the plan. So are you, I hear.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

Annie smiled but said nothing. Ivan guessed maybe a Runner or two had booked passage with her, back to Earth.

They were free now. Free to live, to roam the Road—or to return to Earth.

“How’s Jordan doing? Any better?”

Annie put down her scrubber and looked down at him.

“The wound doesn’t look infected. Rodriguez says he’ll be fine. Just out of commission for a while. You can imagine how he’s taking that.

Ivan laughed. “Yes, I can.”

“Ruth’s been tending him for the past twenty-four hours.”

Ruth.

Annie’s words stung, but she didn’t show any sign that she knew Ivan had grown to care.

And Ivan wasn’t going to say anything now. He wouldn’t let it show.

As if on cue, the SRV hatch opened, and Jordan appeared in the doorway, leaning on Ruth, who smiled faintly as she looked at Ivan.

Her arm was wrapped tightly around Jordan’s waist.

“Speak of the devil,” Ivan said. “How you doing there, gunner?”

He addressed Jordan, but he couldn’t stop staring at Ruth. She looked translucent in the green glow of the planet’s early-morning sunlight.

Radiant and beautiful.

Funny how things creep up on you.

And then you’re just a bit too late.

They started down the ramp, side by side. Rodriguez hovered in the doorway.

“So,” Ivan said, still not looking away from Ruth.

How could he?

She looked amazing.

“So?” Jordan said. “What are your plans now?”

Ivan nodded back at the Runners’ camp.

“After we get organized here and send message pods back to the World Council accepting their offer, I think I’ll see what’s out there.” He looked up. “It’s a big universe.”

Jordan asked a question that Ivan kept thinking about: “And what if Kyros is still alive?”

Kyros. Buried alive.

But buried with those things inside him.

Is he really dead... or is he trapped under that mountain, sealed away like an insane Egyptian pharaoh?

Ivan said, “I’ll worry about that when—
if-
—he shows up.” He gestured toward the mountain. “He’s got a lot of rock to claw through.”

“And a lot of technology we don’t understand at his disposal,” Jordan said.

“If he’s alive.”

“Big if.”

Ruth took a few steps forward but then stopped. As much as it pained him to do so, Ivan had to say something to her.

“And how about you, Ruth? Have you had enough
seeking
for the time being?”

She started to say something but then stopped. He could clearly see something warring inside her.

What is it?

Does she
still
want to find the Builders after all she’s been through?

“I was thinking”—her voice faded, but then she braced her shoulders and continued—”hoping I could go with you.”

Ivan froze.

What?

Had he heard correctly? And he was all set to head out solo.

On his own.

Like always.

“What do you mean?” he asked, surprised that he didn’t stammer.

Ruth turned and nodded at Jordan, who was holding on to the ramp railing for support.

“Now that I know my brother’s going to be all right, I thought maybe I... that you and I could—” She shrugged, but a single word echoed in Ivan’s head.

Brother?

Ivan thought:
I must be so dense.

Her voice faded away, and she ended with another shrug before saying, “That is, if you want me with you.”

Even then, Ivan knew that it would take him a long time ... maybe the rest of his life ... to try to describe what her simple words meant to him at that moment.

Been alone for a long time.

Now—imagine not being alone.

He tried not to let his confusion show.

“Your brother? Jordan is your
brother?”

Ruth bit down on her lower lip and nodded.

“Yeah. We’ve been distant. Same family, but so different.”

“A gunner. And a Seeker. Different isn’t quite the word.”

“Right. But after all this I’m glad I got to see and know who he really is.”

“You, too,” Jordan said, managing a smile.

With that, Ruth strode down the ramp and came to a stop in front of Ivan, facing him.

She watched, amazed, as he raised his arms and took hold of both of her shoulders, now staring right into those blue-green eyes.

A man could get used to them,
he thought.

Jordan interrupted. “Don’t you think you’d better send out a message pod to Mom and Dad first?”

Ruth turned to her brother. “You’re going back to Earth with Annie. You can tell them yourself.”

Then she turned to Ivan again and said, “Well... do you want me to come along?”

“What? Yeah. Of course I do.”

~ * ~

“So—” Ruth said later that day after she’d packed, and they all said their farewells.

She settled into the seat of the small SRV Ivan had commandeered from the Runners and pulled the safety harness taut.

“Where are we off to first?”

Ivan smiled as he reached into his pocket and produced a small chip.

“Wait a second. Is that a chip?”

Ivan nodded.

“You don’t mean—”

Ivan’s smile widened.

“Sinjira’s,” he said. “A copy.”

“From the cave? When Kyros displayed the Star Road map?”

Ivan nodded.

“She recorded the whole thing.”

“And now ... now you have it all.”

“As much as there was on the chip. A lot of Road to explore. Who knows what’s out there?”

“But, won’t you need—

“The Road Operating System? Got that, too.”

“Wait a second. You mean you have Nahara’s data crystal? I thought it was illegal to ...”

“It is,” Ivan said. He was now smiling so hard it hurt as he shook his head. “It’s a World Council felony. But I
did
manage to make a copy of it.”

“You are ... something else.”

“And now I—
we
—have a whole new map of Star Roads no one, no one human, anyway, has ever traveled.”

She stared at him like she still wasn’t sure about him.

“I figure,” he said, “if you’re gonna be an outlaw, you might as well really
be
an outlaw.”

“So you’re not fully reformed,” Ruth said.

But then she broke into a smile ... and then she laughed.

“I can’t believe it. I’m running away with an outlaw!”

“What good is a Star Road map if you’re not going to use it, right?”

And by the expression on her face, he knew that Ruth was obviously just beginning to realize the possibilities, the infinite possibilities that lay out there ahead of them.

Soon, Omega Nine would be a distant memory.

And Ivan—for one—couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

The portals ahead, the strange worlds, the civilizations—living and dead.