“I don’t know,” Leo said, but he did.
Owen, disliking Kindred since the moment they’d landed, more and more lumping all natives together as “the enemy,” calling them “Kinnies” in that tone of utter contempt. Owen refusing to even consider training Kindred cops as force multiplication. Owen’s paranoia about the camp made a hundred times worse by popbite. Owen clinging to the mission, which was to protect the Terrans and get them home no matter what, not letting anything or anyone deter him from that. Even if, in dawning psychosis, it meant making sure that as few Kindred as possible survived to interfere. The Ranger’s creed said I will complete the mission, though I be the lone survivor.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen this before. In Brazil, a guy in his unit had gone crackers, started shooting up their camp one night, raving about voodoo and demons and Armageddon. He’d been doing popbite, too, but it hadn’t needed that. Sullivan had been a little nuts even before he snapped. When he did, he’d managed to murder three Marines right in their own camp. There were always guys like that, couldn’t take the strain, but …
Not Rangers.
Not Owen. Owen might strain but he didn’t snap.
It still didn’t make sense. There had to be more. Owen hadn’t decided to go after Claire Patel until Dr. Jenner talked about that thing on the ship, the virophage thingy, that might save Kindred who breathed it in. Okay, so Owen was going for the call-back device so he could bring back the Kindred ship and help save the natives, long odds or no. But if that was true, then why steal the vaccines that had been the scientists’ best shot at saving Kindred lives until Dr. Jenner came up with this new science? Why?
Unless Owen wanted not to recover the call-back device, but to destroy it. Unless he really wanted all the Kindred dead. Unless that had been his reason for coming on this mission in the first place.
No. Stupid idea, ridiculous, disloyal.
Why had Owen stolen the vaccines?
Leo scoured his brain for anything else he knew about Owen, any scrap of information. There wasn’t much. Parents dead, raised by his grandmother Judith, liked the Pittsburgh Steelers, declined once to go to a bar with Leo and some guys because Owen had some sort of meeting to go to, a meeting he’d been secretive about …
The government would have vetted Owen for this mission. Looked into every nook and cranny of Owen’s past. Only … look how many nooks and crannies they had missed about Leo’s past. And Zoe’s, too, from stuff she’d told him.
Not Owen. Leo wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.
But if he were right …
The box of stolen vaccines was still in his hand.
Leo put it down, opened his own lockbox, and began adding everything in it to the gear he already wore. Isabelle was still talking to him, but he wasn’t listening until she stood in the doorway, trying to bar him from leaving. “Are you going after them? Lamont and Berman? What is he going to do? It’s the call-back device, isn’t it? He wasn’t interested in going after Claire and Austin until we told him Austin had that in the mountains and … No. He still wasn’t interested, not until Marianne told him about the virophage. Leo—what is going on?”
“Get out of my way.”
“Wait till I get dressed—I’m coming with you!”
Leo said, “You’re not. You’d slow me down, give away my position, and distract me with keeping you safe. Isabelle, if you follow me, I’ll disable you with a shot to the foot. Do you understand?”
Her eyes widened. She saw that he meant it. Leo lifted her by the waist and set her aside so he could pass through the doorway. Over his shoulder he said, “Don’t tell Kandiss that I’ve gone, if he asks you. Go back to bed and pretend you never saw me.”
She didn’t answer. Leo let himself out the kitchen door, scaled the garden wall, and followed Zoe and Owen’s tracks toward the mountains.
The sky turned orange and red.
* * *
Leo lay flat behind a slight rise. The Rangers weren’t in any hurry, and catching up to them had been easy. Periodically Zoe scanned behind them but she wasn’t expecting to be followed—certainly not by Leo—and keeping out of sight wasn’t difficult even in this relatively open country.
How far was Owen willing to go? Leo had a pretty good idea of how Owen would breach the supposedly impregnable mountain fortress, but depending on the setup inside, it might kill the Terrans as well, including Dr. Patel, who was one of Owen’s protectees. And if Zoe objected—?
Zoe would not object. She was a Ranger: superbly trained, completely loyal to her unit, honed for just this kind of quick raid. I will complete the mission, though I be the lone survivor. A good creed—except when somebody’s mission wasn’t what everyone else’s was.
Was that why Owen had pulled strings to get Leo on this mission? It had never really made sense to transfer Leo to the Friendship at the last minute; the Rangers had their own snipers. Had Owen thought that Leo wouldn’t cross him, no more than Zoe or Kandiss would? If Leo was right and Owen was some kind of Army infiltrator from a xenophobic cult, if Owen had kept his hatred of the Kindred secret for years, then Owen was even smarter than Leo thought. Smarter than Leo, who’d spent years not thinking.
He would have to think now.
Owen had more knowledge, popbite, fanaticism, Zoe.
Leo had surprise.
They were moving again, hiking toward the mountains. As the terrain got rougher, it was easier for Leo to get closer to them and still stay hidden. If they talked, he couldn’t hear it. Well, duh—they had left their wristers behind. One of the Terrans who’d designed this survivalist bunker was a physicist; who knew what he could detect with monitors inside.
Leo buried his wrister. He began to scan carefully for cameras, motion detectors, maybe drones.
At least nobody here had surveillance satellites in orbit.
In Brazil, Leo had shot Sullivan straight in the face.
* * *
Austin slept on a pallet in the middle of the central cave, along with Graa^lok, Tony, and Beyon-mak. The nine women had taken all the curtains and strung them together to make a new alcove, with all the best pallets. Austin had been pleased to see that Kayla had perked up a little with the arrival of Claire and the other women, even though she could talk only to Claire.
A noise woke him. At first he thought it was part of a dream, but then he came fully awake and the loud pinging continued. Graa^lok snored loudly. Beyon-mak was shaking Tony’s shoulder.
“Get up, Tony. They’re here.”
Tony was on his feet so fast that his knees cracked. Austin sat up in the dim biotorch light. “Who’s here?”
Neither man answered him. They went to the “monitor”; Beyon-mak did something; the pinging stopped. Austin moved quietly—maybe they wouldn’t notice him—to stand behind them.
The screen, normally a flat blank rectangle set into a big wooden box, showed a picture. It was … it was the outside of the cave! Austin blurted out, “How did you do that?”
They ignored him. Beyon-mak was fiddling with knobs and muttering, “Fucking primitive system…”
Austin stared, fascinated. A word from his mother’s laments for Terra jumped into his mind: television. But Kayla had described moving stories on television, not something real, right outside Haven. Austin looked at Beyon-mak with awe, which immediately changed to anger. Did Graa^lok understand this technology but not tell Austin that it even existed?
The picture went away in a flurry of white dots and another appeared: two Rangers walking toward Haven. The images were blurry, but Austin recognized both their walks: Lieutenant Lamont and Ranger Berman.
He said, “They want Claire!”
Tony half turned. To Austin’s surprise, Tony grinned. “They won’t get her.”
“But … they’re Rangers!”
“Who have no idea what we have here. Nada. Zilch. Haven is both impregnable and weaponized. Now be a good kid and go wake Graylock in case Nate needs him. And then keep t
he women away from here; they’ll only get in the way.”
“How do I—”
The grin vanished. “Any way you can!”
“Okay, yes,” Austin said, although he didn’t think he could keep Claire away from anywhere she wanted to go. And maybe not Graa^lok’s oldest sister, either. He remembered her from when he’d played at their lahk as a child. Sher^llaa was sort of an Isabelle, and she had never seemed to like Austin much.
He went to wake Graa^lok.
* * *
Leo lay flat, camouflaged with brush he’d cut with his knife, studying the situation. He had circled around Owen and Zoe, moving faster, and was now between them and an abruptly rising, big, forty-five-degree hill. Or maybe it was a small mountain. It was where the tracks stopped, in front of dense brush fringing the base of the mountain. Through his scope, Leo could see the churned-up mud where people had gone into the brush and, he presumed, into a cave. Austin’s “fort.” Leo lay above the entrance and to the south.
Zoe and Owen had stopped to confer five hundred yards from the mountain base. No pipe gun could reach that far. But the two rogue Terrans had been inside for a long time, bringing in all kinds of equipment, and Beyon was some sort of fucking genius or something. They could have anything in there. Owen would know that. Also, the cave entrance would be fortified and maybe small. Zoe could maybe breach it, but not enter without being picked off like a rat in a barrel.
They were moving again. Zoe went south, Owen north, and they began to climb. Scoping out the terrain, or searching for a second entrance … No. Leo knew what they were doing.
Zoe climbed toward him. Silently, Leo slid in the other direction, careful not to dislodge any small stones. A few yards away was a shallow crevasse. Leo wriggled into it, pulling brush over him. He held his breath, rifle pointed upward between twigs, and waited.
He heard her boots on the rock.
She muttered, “Fuck.”
Her shadow fell over him. If she looked down carefully enough, she’d see him. If she stepped wrong, her foot would go through the brush and she’d land on top of him. But she was testing each step carefully with her boot before shifting her weight, not taking her eyes off the terrain but not looking down, either …
Shit! Her boot felt the edge of the crevasse and her head swiveled …
Leo leaped up from his crouch and grabbed her. She wasn’t ready, and he was. She yelled, “Enemy here!” which was right because now Leo was the enemy, but she had no radio and Owen was too far away to hear her. Zoe fought like the warrior she was, but Leo was stronger and he had the advantage of surprise. Still, no way he was going to win this quickly unless he either killed her or …
When he had the chance, he kicked her in the belly and she slumped to the ground, eyes rolled back in her head. He cuffed her hands behind her and barely had time to tie her ankles together before she was bucking and kicking with both legs together, her eyes furious and accusatory. She shouted loud enough to wake the dead.
He sat on her long enough to tape her mouth. Then, much more gently, he rolled her into the crevasse.
“Sorry, Zo. I have to stop Owen. He’s going to destroy the planet.”
Zoe shook her head, her mouth working under the tape. Leo could imagine what she was calling him. But there was no time to explain, and his nose ached and shed blood from where she’d gotten in a good blow. He dumped the brush on top of Zoe and stalked Owen, on the other side of the mountain.
Something exploded.
* * *
“Tony Schrupp. This is Lieutenant Lamont, US Army. Can you hear me?”
Austin stood ten feet from the flat TV window. He held out his arms on both sides to keep anyone else from going closer, but not only would this have been futile, it wasn’t necessary. Austin’s mother and the women of Graa^lok’s lahk stood in a semicircle behind him, still as rocks, watching. Graa^lok stood beside Beyon-mak and Tony. Claire had circled to the side, and only Austin noticed that she had a kitchen knife in her hand. But what was she going to do with it? Austin had no idea, and he suspected Claire didn’t, either.
Directly behind Austin was Graa^lok’s youngest cousin, Nan^hal, just Austin’s age. They’d had a long talk alone—well, almost alone—in a corner of the cave, because she’d wanted to know everything about him. He hoped that Nan^hal noticed how Tony was relying on Austin now.
“Tony Schrupp. This is Lieutenant Lamont, US Army. Can you hear me?”
This time Tony answered. Austin, who hadn’t known there was radio to the outside, either, watched the television window. Lamont wasn’t on it. Then he was, standing beside a low gray metal structure. An air shaft, not yet sealed against the spore cloud.
“I hear you,” Tony said. “Don’t touch that air shaft. Go away.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
“You won’t,” Tony said. He jerked on a lever.
Then, all at once, the cave exploded into sound and the TV window into dirt and flying rocks. Austin went numb for a moment until he realized no one inside was hurt because the explosive had gone off outside.
Tony said to Beyon-mak, “Did you get him?”
“I don’t know yet. He was standing pretty close to the shaft and the bomb had to be farther away so as not to—”
A gunshot. A few seconds later, something dropped through the air and then the loudest noise and brightest light Austin had never imagined and he couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, was dying …
He wasn’t dead. Smoke choked him and sparkly light blinded him but he wasn’t dead. “Mom!” he cried, groping around the cave floor for Kayla. He didn’t find her until a fan switched on and the smoke blew away and he could see everyone: not dead, not even injured, just some terrified and some furious, and Beyon-mak, weirdly, smiling at his equipment. Smiling!
“That was a flashbang,” Lamont said. “Next down is a smoke bomb. I could smoke you out and pick you off one by one, but that’s not what I want.”
Tony’s face was so nearly purple that he looked like a leelee. Austin had seen that look before. Tony was not going to back down, not ever. Tony said, “You can’t have Dr. Patel. She’s with us now.”
“I’m not!” Claire shouted.
“I don’t want Dr. Patel,” Lamont said. “I want the call-back device. Send someone out the cave entrance with it and my squad and I will go away.”
“The what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Schrupp. You know what I mean. Pyramid-shaped device to call back the infected colony ship. Send one person out with it, alone, and I won’t drop explosive charges down this airshaft or bomb both your entrances till rockfall seals you in.”
Beyon-mak whispered, “Both entrances. He doesn’t know about the third, or the—”
“Shut up,” Tony said, which shocked Austin almost more than anything else that had happened. Tony telling Beyon-mak to shut up!
Austin suddenly felt as if it were his head that contained explosives. Other entrances, flashbangs, Tony’s bombs and Lamont’s bombs, a call-back device …
Tony said, “Lamont, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
Austin said, “I do.”
* * *
Leo strained to hear the radio conversation, or whatever it was. He couldn’t see the transmitter-receiver and he was just far away from Owen that only words or parts of sentences were clear. “Dr. Patel.… both entrances … call-back device…”
Nothing he hadn’t already guessed, except that he doubted Owen would just take the call-back device and go meekly away. He’d have to kill all the hostages in the cave and call it collateral damage. Did Schrupp know that? Probably, but as far as Leo could see, Schrupp didn’t have a lot of choices. Unless there was more to the cave than Owen figured.
Certainly there was more to Owen than Schrupp figured.
Leo’s guts roiled. He didn’t let it interfere.
More words he couldn’t hear. Then Owen said, “Okay. Now.” Owen started moving in a wide circle away f
rom the airshaft, away from Leo, down the mountain. His head moved constantly, scanning the ground for more explosives and the rest of the terrain for, presumably, Zoe. As he drew closer, Leo saw that Owen’s left arm hung limply at his side; the blast had torn his shoulder to ribbons. His rifle was back in its sling and he carried his Beretta in his right hand. “Berman!” he shouted.
No answer.
I could do it now. But there was always the chance that Leo was wrong. He could be wrong about Owen, he’d never wanted anything so much in his life as he wanted to be wrong. He had to know, for sure. This was Owen.
Owen vanished behind the rise of rock. They descended the mountain in parallel, Leo south of Owen. Leo stopped just above and to the right of the cave entrance and took a position behind a boulder. Owen kept going, onto the flatter land below, then far enough away to be within shouting distance but out of weapons range, unless the entire fucking plain was booby-trapped.
Leo waited. Who would it be? He was pretty sure he knew, but maybe he was wrong.
He hoped he was wrong.
* * *
“You knew about this, too, Graylock, and didn’t say a thing?” Tony said. “Not a fucking thing?”
“I didn’t know what it was!” Graa^lok said. Tears filled his big dark eyes, squeezed out onto plump cheeks. “I didn’t!”
Austin had retrieved the pyramidal call-back device—was that really what it was?—from the sand in the small cave beyond the fallen rocks. The rocks had fallen more, and for a sickening second he’d been afraid that either Beyon-mak’s bomb or Lamont’s flashbang had destabilized the whole cave and the roof would fall on him. Or that the rockfall had buried the device deeper. Or something. But the pyramid was there, and he shook the sand off it and clambered back over the rocks, their sharp edges cutting his hands and covering him with silt.
The call-back sat on the floor of the central cave while they all stared at it. Then, as fast as a diving bird on fish, Beyon-mak swooped down to run his hands over it, put his face close, lift it as delicately as if it hadn’t been shaken by earthquakes and rattled by rockfalls and scraped along by Austin.