Chapter 12
1629 Words
12
The path grew steeper the higher they climbed, and Scout doubted she would even know where to step if Daisy with her heavily augmented body weren’t blazing the trail. Gert was widening her bit of it enough for Shadow to follow delicately behind her, only occasionally getting buried under a loose drift that fell like a mini-landslide down the side of the rock face on either side of the trail.
At last, the path emerged from the fissure in the rock, ending on a much narrower cliff than the last one. Scout stayed close to the rock face that loomed ahead of them, but Daisy stepped out further to get a look below.
“What’s going on?” Scout asked, not wanting to venture out to look herself. She wasn’t afraid of heights, not after being tossed off a platform on Amatheon Orbiter 1 and surviving, but she wasn’t sure she knew enough about how snow behaved besides being cold, wet, and slippery.
She didn’t want to try combining the last of those qualities with the edge of a steep drop-off.
“They’re leaving the cabin,” Daisy said.
“Going back to town?” Scout asked.
“No, breaking into groups to follow us.”
“So they didn’t find our tracks?” Scout asked, but the quick shake of Daisy’s head killed her burgeoning hope.
“No, they did,” Daisy said. “They’re sending smaller groups out on other trails to see if they can cut us off, outflank us, find a good position for an ambush or long-range sniping—”
“I’ve got it,” Scout said. She didn’t need more stuff to worry about that she didn’t know how to defend against, although she guessed it was good that Daisy was listing it all inside her own head.
“Let’s press on,” Daisy said, stepping back from the cliff and looking around before choosing the next path further up.
“Press on to where?” Scout asked.
Daisy blinked. “I thought that was obvious. To the city.”
“We’ll be safe there?” Scout asked.
“No,” Daisy said, looking even more confused. “Shi Jian is there.”
“Oh,” Scout said.
If Shi Jian were there, Scout would rather be anywhere else.
But the Torreses and the McGillicuddys were also up there. If Shi Jian couldn’t get her hands on Scout, she might harm them instead.
Or they could also be on her hit list, being tangled up in the Tajaki trade dynasty court case just as much as Scout was.
“Do you know how to get there?” Scout asked as Daisy continued surveilling the options from the cliff they were huddled on.
“Up,” Daisy said.
“No, I mean, you seem to know where trails are,” Scout said.
“We’re not on trails,” Daisy said. “No one is crazy enough to walk up this mountain. But I studied the slope from above before I came down to the village. It’s climbable without gear. We’ll be fine.”
“We can’t get up there before dark,” Scout said. “It’s too far.”
“Way too far,” Daisy agreed. “We’ll be lucky to make it before dark tomorrow night. Probably won’t.”
“We can’t climb in the dark,” Scout said.
Daisy leaned closer to peer at Scout’s eyes through the reflective surface of her goggles. “Get your glasses on under those,” she ordered. “They have night vision.”
“Oh, yes,” Scout said, patting her pockets until she found her round-lensed glasses. She pulled off her goggles and hat, her entire body shivering instantly and intensely at the kiss of cold against the exposed skin of her head and neck. She pulled the frames around her ears and slammed the hat back down. Daisy helped her get the goggles settled over the glasses.
“Night vision,” Scout said, trying to sound casual. Warrior was the one who told her how to use technology, but Scout was reluctant to turn her on now. Daisy had all of the augments Clementine had had, maybe more. She would see Warrior the moment she appeared. It might be important later that Daisy didn’t know Scout had an AI with her.
But the glasses responded to her command and just like she had been able to see the walls on the tribunal enforcers’ ship, everything here shifted to green tones, the lines of the world around her suddenly sharply defined.
“Wow,” Scout said, looking around. “I hadn’t realized it had already gotten so dark. The days are short here.”
“Part of that is the storm,” Daisy told her. “But your glasses filter out the snowflakes so you can see the ground better. Try looking at a distance.”
Scout looked around, then crept just a bit closer to the edge of the cliff to look down.
Not only could she see every detail of the still-smoldering cabin on the plateau and the smaller one huddled above it; she could see every cabin in the village around the remains of the tramway platform. She could even tell where the doors were by the pinpricks of light that shone down on their stoops.
“Amazing,” Scout said, then felt her cheeks flush at how silly she sounded. Daisy had spent her whole life around far more impressive technology. Luckily the layers of her scarf concealed her embarrassment.
“This looks like the best option,” Daisy said, looking up another fissure through a rock face. “The others would be too steep for the dogs. At some point, we might end up carrying them, but they should pull their own weight as long as they’re able.”
Scout, who had once crossed a prairie with Gert on her back and Shadow in her arms, couldn’t argue with that. The dogs got heavy fast.
It was slow going, making sure each step was secure before putting their full weight on it, then moving the other foot and finding a grip on the rock under the loose snow. Gert seemed indefatigable, plowing through what little Daisy left behind. Shadow wasn’t happy about how cold any of it was but seemed to appreciate that it would be much worse without the two ahead of him getting the worst of it out of his way.
Scout brought up the rear, partly because Daisy was better at finding and creating their trail, but mostly because she wanted her dogs in front of her, where she could always see them.
She ignored the prickly feeling on the back of her neck, that feeling of being followed. They had a big head start on the assassins, and the snow was falling more and more thickly as the day drew on, covering their trail behind them. She doubted they’d lose the assassins entirely, but there were a lot of places where they might choose the wrong path and have to backtrack.
Or so Scout hoped. All she knew was when she looked back she saw no signs of pursuit.
But the climb was tiring. Scout was bathed in sweat under the layers of warm clothing, and her heart was beating way too fast. She panted to keep up with the girl, but a tickle in her throat had her coughing again and again. Was she getting ill?
That didn’t seem likely; they would have noticed it when doing her medical processing, surely. And yet, she didn’t feel right. She had spent days on end under the hot prairie sun pedaling up steep hillsides. She had never tired this quickly.
Another tickle of cough grew into a fit that forced her to stop climbing for a moment. When she at last had her breath back, she looked up to find she was quite alone. No sign of Daisy, no sign of her dogs.
They couldn’t have gotten too far away from her, but when Scout lifted her foot to take another step, she suddenly got very confused about where she was going. They were in less of a fissure at this point than a narrow runnel, and the runnel branched and branched again. Scout could see the indents forming over the top of the snow that showed where the runnels were, but they were all disturbed as if Daisy and the dogs had split up and plowed through everything.
Where had they gone?
Scout took another step forward but neglected to be sure of her footing before putting her weight forward, and her boot skidded off the rock face. She went down on one knee, hard. Her thick layers of clothing, the ones she was sweating like mad under, protected her kneecap from the worst of it, but she still had tears in her eyes.
She sat down in the snow, rubbing at her knee as she looked up the slope again. Where had they gone? Her dogs never lost sight of her if they could help it.
Had Daisy abducted them somehow? That didn’t seem likely, but Scout’s thoughts were a muddle.
She just needed a little rest and then she could find her dogs. But even sitting still she couldn’t slow her breath or her heartbeat. The frozen chill of the rock beneath her was penetrating her coat and pants, seeping into her bones, and her sweat-soaked inner clothing was clinging to her now-goosefleshed skin.
She started to shiver. And once she started, she couldn’t stop.
Somewhere in the back of her head she knew she should get up and get moving, but her muddled brain decided against it. She didn’t know which of the paths Daisy and the dogs had chosen. Perhaps the best thing would be to wait for them to circle back for her. To get her heart rate down to a place where it wasn’t beating so loudly in her ears.
She tucked her mittened hands into her armpits, hugging herself close as she waited.
Her rapid breathing began to slow to a hypnotic pace, and her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
She thought she heard something over the wind, someone calling her name. But was it Daisy or the assassins in pursuit, trying to trick her into revealing herself? Better to remain silent. Daisy knew how to find her.
She did wish she had her dogs beside her, though. The dogs always knew how to warm her.
Although maybe she didn’t need that anymore either, because she felt suddenly, strangely warm all over, like a cloud of magical warmth had settled down over her, a gift from the sky. It hugged her like an ephemeral blanket, so cozy.
Her bone-shaking shivers finally stopped.
She was so very warm.
- Writer
