The Travels of Scout Shannon Books 1-3

Chapter 6

6

Ebba went back up to the cockpit and soon the rover was back in motion, jogging side to side as the wheels rolled in and out of ruts. Scout still held on to both of the dogs’ collars. Unusually, it was Girl who was still growling low in her throat, an almost subsonic sound. Shadow stayed close to Scout’s side, tipping his head as if trying to hear what was upsetting Girl. It didn’t seem to be Ruth that she was growling at, but the little girl. The little girl didn’t seem afraid, she just stood in the middle of the rover, hands clasped together, watching Scout and the dogs in a disinterested way.

Ebba came back down the ladder and shut the hatch to the cockpit behind her. “Bad news,” she said. “The comms are down. We can’t reach any of the cities. I’m sorry, I’m sure you wanted to be able to call your father and tell him you’re safe.”

“That’s kind of you. Our comms were down as well, I guess because of the storm, but I thank you for checking,” Ruth said. She wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes, and Scout had a feeling she wasn’t exactly upset she couldn’t talk to her father.

“Who’s the kid?” Ottilie asked.

“Her name is Clementine,” Ruth said. “She’s a foundling I’ve been taking care of. She doesn’t speak. No one knows what happened to her family, but she’s been living with my father and I for a while now.”

Clementine was still staring at Scout and the dogs without even blinking. Scout didn’t blame Girl for growling; the girl was giving her the creeps as well.

“So, what were you and your foundling doing out in the middle of nowhere in a town car? Were you kidnapped and taken out of the city?” Ottilie asked.

Ruth gave a nervous laugh. Her eyes moved from one of them to the other as if hoping to find an ally. “Um,” she said, then laughed again.

“I don’t think we need to grill her on that,” Warrior said, “not unless we all want to explain what we were doing out here.”

“Well, it’s not like we don’t have the time,” Ottilie said.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not say,” Ruth said, nervous laughter gone.

“State secret?” Ottilie asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Warrior said. “We’re all in this now. This storm is going to last for a couple of days, no need to find reasons to hate each other just yet.”

“You mean reasons like the fact that she is a Space Farer?” Ruth asked, pointing to Ebba.

Scout was impressed. It’d taken her much longer to notice. But then Ruth, being the daughter of the governor, had much more experience with Space Farers.

“Yes, exactly,” Warrior said. “Right now we all have the same mission: getting through this storm alive. Ruth, we’re on our way to a beacon that appears to be underground. We don’t know what we’ll find when we get there, but it’s our best chance. Unless you know something better?”

“No,” Ruth said. “I don’t know of any shelters this far out from the cities.”

Girl’s growling slowly slid up to a higher pitch. Shadow’s body was incredibly tense and his eyes never left Clementine. “Hey, new girl,” Scout said. “Can you stop staring at my dogs?”

Clementine said nothing. Ruth reached out a hand to grasp her shoulder and she turned to look at her benefactor.

“Are you thirsty? Or maybe hungry?” Ebba asked. “We have some water and some biscuits here. Were you trapped in that town car long? It must have been stifling in there.”

“We still had power to run the climate control,” Ruth said.

Clementine sat down at the table and helped herself to the remains of Scout’s biscuit, rapidly putting piece after piece into her mouth while staring fixedly at each of the others in turn.

“There’s something unsettling about a kid who won’t talk,” Ottilie said.

“She’s no stranger than the rest of you,” Ruth said. “You two dress alike, but I can see you fought on opposite sides of the war. And you,” she said, turning to Warrior, “well, you’re not from around here, are you?”

Warrior shrugged.

“And what’s with that kid with the dogs?” Ruth asked.

“Nothing weird about a kid having dogs,” Warrior said.

“Why does that one dog not stop growling?” Ruth asked.

“She doesn’t like to be stared at,” Scout said, glaring at Clementine, who was in fact once more staring at the dogs even as she kept shoveling biscuit into her mouth. “Have you been starving her?”

“Of course not,” Ruth said. “She’s had a hard childhood. Like I said, we found her on the streets. She couldn’t talk, she had no one to take care of her, and she was eating whatever she could find. I don’t need to tell you, that wasn’t much. I think she’s still trying to catch back up.”

Scout glared back at Clementine. She had little sympathy. She had been on her own without anyone to take care of her since she was younger than Clementine, and she never had a rich benefactor. She was thin, but not as thin as other kids who lived on the streets. Scout knew many kids in much worse shape, kids who didn’t go around glaring at people.

Scout felt someone else looking at her and glanced over at Warrior. It was hard to tell with the reflective lenses, but Scout felt like she was being chastised. She supposed she was being judgy, and maybe that was unfair.

But then why was Girl still growling? She touched the back of the dog’s neck, leaning forward to whisper comforting words into her ear. After a moment, Girl finally stopped growling, flopping down between Scout’s legs but keeping her chin on Scout’s knee so she could keep watching the new girl.

“So,” Ottilie said with exaggerated casualness. “Your daddy has had quite a lot to say recently. Likes to talk big, doesn’t he?” Scout didn’t know what she was referring to, but then Scout tuned out most political talk. In truth, any of it that didn’t mention the rebels she just let flow past her.

“It’s complicated,” Ruth said shortly.

“But you can’t say it’s not our business,” Ottilie said. “You’re stirring up a political s**t storm. We’re all going to get swept up in it.”

“I think I know a little bit more about that than you do,” Ruth said.

“About war? I don’t think so,” Ottilie scoffed. “Because war? That’s where this whole mess is going to end.”

“What are you worried about?” Ruth asked. “You’re too old to be conscripted again.”

Ottilie’s hands curled into fists, but Ebba put her own hand on Ottilie’s forearm and left it there until she relaxed them.

“Since we’re all trapped together inside this box,” Warrior said, “perhaps we should keep our conversation to neutral matters like the weather.”

“Oh, the weather,” Ottilie said with a sharp laugh. “On this planet, nothing is more political than the weather.”

Warrior clicked her tongue against the inside of her teeth. “Okay, I’ll give. How is the weather political?”

“Not so much the weather,” Ebba said, “but storms like this one.”

“Oh,” Scout said as the meaning dawned on her.

“Explain, Scout,” Warrior said.

“The magnetic shield that’s supposed to protect us from solar flares—it’s generated by satellites. Satellites in space,” Scout said. “Space, where Planet Dwellers never go. Where the Space Farers control everything.”

“I see,” Warrior said. “Yes, that does sound political.”

“It’s obviously more complicated than that,” Ruth said.

“Obviously,” Warrior said. “It always is.”

The rocking back and forth of the rover slowed to a stop and the engine cut off. Ebba turned and opened the hatch to the cockpit, Ottilie and Warrior following close behind as she climbed back up in the driver’s seat. “We’re there,” Ebba said, “but I don’t see a thing.”

She and Ottilie looked at all the panels while Warrior looked through the narrow band of windows, slowly turning in a circle. Scout really wished there were other windows in the rover so she could see out as well. Ruth slid onto the bench across from Clementine, her back to Scout. Scout wondered what her story was. It’d been a few days since she’d been into a city for more than a minute, which wasn’t long enough to hear any news. Why would the governor’s daughter go missing? How had she ended up out in the middle of nowhere alone with her ward?

“There,” Warrior said, pointing through one of the windows. “Do you see? There’s a little hill, and something in the side of the hill. See it?”

“I’ll pull up closer,” Ebba said, bringing the engines back to life. She made little nudges on the controls, and the rover rolled slowly forward. Then they stopped once more.

“Nice work,” Warrior said. “You lined that up perfectly with the door.”

“Lined what up?” Scout asked as Warrior came back down the ladder.

“Hard to say,” Warrior said. “Help me get into this suit.”

“You only have two suits,” Ruth noted.

“It’ll be enough,” Warrior said. “I’m going out alone first, to see what’s out there.”

“You’re leaving us?” Ruth asked.

“Of course not,” Warrior said. “In fact, I’ll be in contact with Scout the entire time.”

“You will?” Scout said.

“Yes,” Warrior said, taking something else off her belt and pressing it into Scout’s hands.

“What’s this?” Scout asked. It looked like a pair of glasses, only when she put them on she couldn’t see a thing.

“I’ll activate the link in a minute,” Warrior said as she pulled the suit up over her arms. “You’ll see what I see, and you’ll hear what I say. And vice versa.”

“I was hoping for an opening big enough to just drive the rover right inside,” Ottilie said.

“Yeah, me too,” Warrior said, zipping the suit up and reaching for the helmet. “It seemed logical, with the beacon and all. But it’s been a few years, sometimes things get buried by time.”

“And if there’s nothing here but a beacon?” Ottilie asked.

“We can worry about that when I get back,” Warrior said. “Step back from the door, the storm is more intense than before. I’ll be quick, be prepared to seal this after me very quickly.”

“How are we going to get out of here one by one with the other suit? The last person to go is going to already be baked by all this opening and closing of the door,” Ruth said.

“One thing at a time,” Warrior said, then signaled for Ottilie and Ebba to help her. They opened the door just enough for her to slip outside, then slammed it shut behind her.

“Easy for her to say,” Ruth said bitterly. “She’s the one who is going to be wearing a suit the entire time, not us. And look at her. She probably has implants or nanites or something—none of this even hurts her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Scout said. “If that were true, she wouldn’t be using a suit.” Although she too wondered. There was just something about Warrior that made you doubt she was entirely human.

“Can you see anything?” Ottilie asked.

Scout dropped the glasses back down over her eyes, keeping one arm around each dog. She didn’t like being blind to the room she was in, but she was scarcely going to turn down the trust that Warrior had just put in her. For a moment her vision was still black, then there was a crackling sound in her ears and a blinding light in her eyes.

“Aah!” Scout cried but fought the urge to rip the glasses off her face.

“Sorry about that,” Warrior said. “It’s a bit brighter out here than inside the rover.”

“It must be nearly noon,” Scout said.

“You’re getting my raw data feed,” Warrior said. “Sorry, I can’t adjust that.”

“This isn’t what you see?”

“I have some filters in place.”

“To adjust for the sun?”

“Among other things. For instance, someone is out here with me.”

“I don’t see anything,” Scout said. Her eyes were adjusting to the bright light, but there was nothing around but dirt and scrubby grass. They had left the grainfields behind and were really out in the sticks now. She saw a small hill that Warrior was walking towards, only a few steps away, but no sign of a person.

“There’s an opening in the hill,” Warrior said.

“Where?”

“It’s quite small.”

Scout’s stomach gave a sickening lurch as Warrior suddenly dropped to the ground and began crawling forward. Scout saw Warrior’s gloved hands moving over reddish dirt as the dazzling brightness of the day gave way to the murky darkness of the hole she was crawling into.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Scout asked. “You just said there was a person in there. How do you know they’re friendly?”

“Like I said, kid. We’re on the same mission here.”

“Surviving the storm,” Scout said.

“Exactly.”

“What does she see?” Ottilie asked in a harsh whisper.

“Nothing yet,” Scout said. She was looking at darkness, but it was darkness with a certain pattern to it. When Warrior got back to her feet, Scout could tell by the way the darkness swirled down.

Then she was blinded again, but not by warm sunlight. This was a cold, artificial light. And someone was shining it deliberately right into Warrior’s eyes.