head. "I won't lie to you. It won't quit hurting. Ever. No matter what you do or how long you live. And yet . . . you don't realize it, do you?"
"Realize what?" Tim asked. Now he was all teary too.
"Rapput is the one who negotiated the Treaty," Li explained. "A lot of the Artemu hate it almost as much as we do—they wanted to wipe us out and move on to the next conquest. Most of them wanted that, even. But they can't override Rapput and his vision of our two species working together." He sighed. "If we don't get your new uncle out of here alive somehow, well . . ." He shrugged. "It's not like the rocks aren't still out there just waiting to be dropped on us. You two may have saved the entire human race from extinction."
18
Three hours later I was a lot more worried about our extinction than that of the rest of the human race, and I suspect Li felt the same way. Not that he showed it; he simply plowed stoically along, head high and alert as he dragged Rapput on a travois behind him. I didn't like the travois because it left a trail a blind man could follow, and I'm pretty sure Li agreed with me. But we didn’t have a choice, Rapput being as big and heavy as he was.
Not that we were going to be that easy to follow; Li had led us almost half a mile downstream and into a rocky area where the stretcher-gadget left no traces before doubling back, this time carrying Rapput on his heavily-muscled back while Tim and I carried the travois. Then he kept right on going with Rapput on his back across solid ground for all of another mile upstream before taking a short break.
"Why upstream?" I finally asked while Li returned the alien to his improvised stretcher. "Dad says that if you want to find civilization, you should always go downstream."
"He's right," our teacher agreed. "But this is a special case. The bad guys know about walking downstream too, you see. Besides, the jetboat's gone. Since we were fighting the current on the trip up here, then most likely it's busy somewhere down that way. The last thing we want is to run into it by accident." He was huffing and puffing, so I opened up the pillowcase I was carrying and pulled out one of our bottles of water. We had eight, two factory-sealed and the rest refilled from the sink. This one was a refill.
Li smiled, opened the bottle, and drew a long draught. He'd taken the time to wolf down a few mouthfuls of Linda's poutine, while Tim and I'd been able to bring Rapput around long enough to swallow a few spoonfuls as well. Our coach was looking better by the minute, despite the incredible load he bore.
"So," Tim asked as he looked into the mountains that seemed to rise all around us, "if we're not headed for civilization, then what's the plan?"
Li took another drink before answering. "We're headed for the closest mountain I think we can climb." He pointed at one in the distance. It wasn't as close as some of the others, but a lot more rounded off. "That one, probably. Long ago, even before I knew your father, I was on another mission in mountains much like these." He frowned. "Perhaps those mountains weren't quite as high, but the natives were even more dangerous. At any rate, I was given a signal to use to identify myself in case I needed emergency evacuation. It was to be sent from a mountaintop and only a mountaintop, so that my friends wouldn't have so much territory to monitor."
I nodded. "And you hope they'll remember that signal?"
"They'll be studying my file," he answered. "They'll be looking." He climbed to his feet, back-muscles crackling from his recent workout. "Come on. The quicker we move, the sooner we'll get there."
It'd been afternoon when we hit Yukon on the head, and even later in the day before we'd gotten everything all packed up and ready to move. Then Li's backtrack ate up still more time, so it wasn’t long before it started getting dark. The bugs came out, and they bit—hard! Plus it was getting cold, and all Tim and I had were t-shirts and shorts. We wrapped ourselves in the comforters without stopping, and that helped some. But eventually our feet started to hurt too, and we dropped behind.
"I have a blister, I think," I finally admitted to Li. "I need to stop and do something about it, or it'll just get worse."
Our teacher turned around and scowled. Then he seemed to really see us for the first time in hours as we stood shivering under our cocklebur-covered comforters, our lips blue and blood running in streaks down our bare legs from where the flies had bitten us. Then he merely sighed and thought for a moment. "Can you make it another half-mile? I think we're about that far from the river."
"It'll be even colder there," Tim pointed out.
"So it will. Yet I expect it'll also be far safer." He repositioned Rapput's travois, and then without another word took off downhill toward the water.
I looked at Tim, who shrugged. So I shrugged back and we followed.
The brush grew thicker and thicker until it was so bad that all of us were forced to advance on hands and knees, guarding Rapput's face to make sure none of the lowest limbs scratched it.
"So," Li said as we proceeded. "One of my functions is to instruct you two in how to survive little difficulties like this one. I fear that so far I've been remiss. You already know why we're headed upstream instead of down. Now, can you tell me why I'm making camp in such an awful, inaccessible place?"
I thought about it as I crawled along, tearing up my knees on the sharper rocks and getting my hands and legs all chilly-wet. At least the question took my mind off of my misery, as was probably intended.
"You think they're following us, then?" Tim asked.
Li smiled. "They almost have to be, wouldn't you say? We left at least one unaccounted for. Plus, they're part of a larger organization. All we can really hope for is that they fell for our false trail and went the wrong way at first. In which case we won't see them until tomorrow around mid-morning at the earliest. But . . . what if they have access to a really good tracker? What then?"
"Pulling Rapput slows you down a lot," I said. "Not that you have any choice. So . . . they could be almost right behind us!"
"I believe that’s very likely the case," Li replied.
"They know we're armed and desperate," I continued. Then I felt my ears redden. "They may even figure out who killed Yukon, and possibly the other guard too."
"They'll also know what guns are missing," Tim observed. "Two shotguns, your assault pistol, and Rapput's .45." He frowned. "Why are you carrying a gun for him, anyway? He can't use it, and it's heavy."
Li smiled. "Because an honorable warrior is always armed in times of danger.” He nodded at my shotgun. "Robert, you did every bit as much as your brother to get us all out and were certainly just as brave. Yet, how did you feel before I gave you that gun?"
"Second-class," I answered, not hesitating at all. My eyes met Tim's. "Like a little kid."
Li nodded. "In some ways, Rapput is right about you two. You're indeed children of a warrior culture, though a far more muted and toned-down one than his own. Most human cultures are at least in some ways warrior-based, but you're closer to your violent tribal past than most. The frontier times weren't that long ago, and your culture reflects it." He smiled. "Now, how would Rapput feel if he were to come around again and find out that we thought so little of his fighting ability—and you might as well say 'thought so little of his manhood,' to his way of thinking—that we didn't even bother to pick up a weapon and bring it along for him?"
Tim and I pondered that for a long time as we crawled through the brush. The river was so close now that we could hear it trickle and rush. We came upon an opening, a sort of green-roofed cave amidst the vegetation, and Li smiled again before lying Rapput's travois down. Clearly, this was where we were to spend the night.
"When this is all over, he won't be insulted," Tim said, nodding. "Or at least he won't have been insulted by us."
"He'd have been really hurt," I added. "It would've made him look bad to his own kind, too. I can see how, now that you've explained it."
"Honor is the most important thing there is to an Artemu." Li shrugged. "That's part of why you two are armed as well. Not only would Rapput expect it, but you might as well start
to learn how to think that way yourselves. And it won't hurt your future at all if the other Artemesians are aware that you honorably bore arms in this crisis as well."
My face fell; I didn't like being reminded that I was still a hostage. "So why are we camping so near to the cold water, Mr. Li?" I crossed my arms and shivered to reinforce my point.
"You tell me," he answered. "Think it through for yourself—it's how we learn. But I'll give you a hint. We won't have a fire tonight either. Instead we'll all huddle with Rapput, who luckily for us has a body temperature higher than ours."
I frowned again, but it was Tim who came up with the right answer. "Night-vision gear," he said. "Starlight scopes. Infra-red detectors."
Li smiled. "Excellent, Tim!" He drew his assault pistol then returned it to its holster. "This is advanced military gear. While clearly they don't have an unlimited supply of the stuff, we have to assume they have imaging equipment. So—"
"—so we're camped in weeds so thick that they can't see any further than we can despite all the gadgets in the world," I finished. "Leaving both sides equally blind."
"Not equally," Li answered, reaching for Tim's pillowcase. It held most of the food, and I was pretty sure he wanted to dig back into the poutine. After all, he'd burned an awful lot of energy. "They'll have to make noise to get close. So in a pinch, we