The Travels of Scout Shannon Books 1-3

Chapter 12

12

A hush fell over the room. Warrior moved to stand at the head of the table, opposite Liv. Scout followed, Shadow close at her side. Ebba clasped Ottilie’s hand and Ottilie squeezed back. Clementine’s eyes moved around the table from one of them to the next, but her face was inscrutable. Was she looking for allies for herself and Ruth, or was she looking to change loyalties, to find a new patron to protect her? When her gaze fell on Scout, she just stared back, trying to put all her disdain into her eyes. Clementine smirked ever so slightly, then looked briefly at Liv at the end of the table.

Liv was leaning forward, elbows resting on the arms of her chair and fingers steepled under her chin, waiting with rapt attention for Ruth to speak.

Viola remained standing just behind Ruth, towering over her with her arms crossed. Ruth seemed to have collapsed in on herself, her entire body shaking as if she had caught a chill.

“Please,” she said, her teeth all but chattering. “Please, you don’t understand.”

“What don’t we understand?” Ottilie asked.

“You were right,” Ruth said, dropping her hands to look directly at Ottilie. “You’re right that war is coming. You’re right that my father wants to see it happen. All of this ‘Planet Dwellers first’ talk? He knows that’s going to lead to war.”

“I’ve heard that same talk from you,” Ottilie said.

“I had to play along,” Ruth said earnestly. “Don’t you remember what happened to my brother?”

“The official word was that he was resting,” Ottilie said. It was clear from how she stressed that last word what she thought of that explanation.

“He’s under house arrest, at our family ranch way out west,” Ruth said, her voice cracking. “I haven’t seen him in years. For all I know, he’s already dead.”

“Why are they looking for you now?” Scout asked.

“I . . . took some things. Information. Intelligence.”

“So you are a spy,” Viola said almost smugly.

“Yes, maybe, but not for the Space Farers.”

“You were going to give it to the rebels,” Scout guessed.

“I was going to talk to them,” Ruth said. “I’ve been in communication with them for some time now, but I’m not sure they can be trusted. I have important information, and I want to stop the war, but I’m not sure who to turn to. The Space Farers I’ve spoken with say all the right things, but there’s just something in their eyes. I’m afraid they want war as much as my father does. The rebels don’t want war, but I’m not sure what they do want. I just came here to talk to them.” Then she gave a humorless laugh. “Bad timing.”

“Maybe we should see what you have,” Ottilie said.

“No,” Ruth said, shaking her head repeatedly.

“How can we judge whether or not to trust you if we don’t see what you have?” Ottilie persisted.

“Please,” Ruth pleaded.

“Perhaps we should look at this from another angle,” Warrior said.

“What do you mean?” Viola asked.

“Reporting Ruth would mean bringing government officials here, in the middle of the storm. Is that something everyone here is cool with?” Her reflective lenses bore down on them all.

“She might have a point,” Ottilie said reluctantly.

“Damn right she’s got a point,” Viola said. “I don’t need more people in here.”

“I promise you, nothing I have is going to draw danger down on any of you,” Ruth said.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Viola said. “They’re still going to be looking for you once the flare passes. I imagine they’ll follow you here.”

“I’ll be out the door the minute it’s safe to go outside,” Ruth promised. “I just need a little head start.”

“If you want to report her, tip them off and get your reward—can you wait until the flare passes? Give the rest of us a head start too,” Ottilie said.

“Who said anything about a reward?” Viola asked.

“There’s always a reward,” Ottilie said. Viola just chuckled.

“So we’re agreed?” Warrior said.

Ottilie and Ebba readily nodded. Viola waved a hand dismissively. Clementine was as silent as ever, but then she was hardly likely to raise an alarm, was she? Scout nodded when Warrior turned those lenses on her. Only Liv seemed still pensive, chin resting on her fingertips.

“Liv?” Warrior asked.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. No need for authorities if you’re all so jumpy about it,” Liv said, but she still seemed lost in her thoughts. Scout wondered if she was just deflecting, pretending to defer to the others as if it didn’t matter to her. How had she gotten out here, all alone in a hover chair, and why?

“Thank you,” Ruth said. “You’ll all understand later what this means. I truly believe by letting me go you’re saving lives, not just on the planet but also up in orbit.”

As if needing to prove herself useful, she pushed away from the table and began gathering dishes to carry back to the kitchen. Ebba got up to help her, and Scout reached for the bread basket.

“Do we bed down here?” Ottilie asked, looking around the room. There was certainly room enough for each of them to spread out a bed roll or curl up in a blanket.

“Can do,” Viola said, “but you’d be more comfortable in the barracks, I think.”

“That does sound more comfortable,” Ottilie agreed.

Scout brought the bread basket into the kitchen and set it on one of the counters. Ruth was loading dishes into a washer and Ebba was scraping the last of the soup into a storage container. Scout looked longingly at the refrigerator, but it was the complete wrong time of day for jolo. If she had one now she’d be up all night. And she was feeling worn out. She had biked only a fraction of the distance she did in a normal day, but pedaling at full speed with Warrior’s weight as well as her own had taken its toll. She didn’t want jolo alertness now; she wanted deep, restful sleep.

The others were trickling out of the kitchen, following a lighted path past the communications room to a long, narrow room lined with bunks.

“What is this place, really?” Scout asked, pausing in the middle room to look over all the screens. There were cameras posted at several entrances, and a blank screen over the door Ottilie had blown open with the mining charge that Scout guessed was from a camera. Another screen was charting the coronal mass ejection with even greater detail than Warrior’s little device. Scout leaned in to read some of the text. “You’re getting feeds from space?”

“Yeah,” Viola said. “My equipment predates the war, and no one bothered to lock me out of anything. I’m not sure if they even know I’m down here. This was a way station for the early explorers. The entrance to the hangar for rover storage is buried now, but everything still works.”

“We followed your beacon. It’s still signaling,” Scout said.

“My grandparents stayed on here after the city domes were completed. This wasn’t really needed as a way station for explorers anymore, but it became a supply post for those sorts who aren’t really town-living folks. My parents kept it up, and now me. Not too many customers these days, but enough to get by.”

“Where’s Ebba?” Ottilie asked, poking her head into the communications room from the barracks.

“Still in the kitchen, maybe?” Scout said, looking back into the main room. Warrior was still there, running her hands over the cat. Girl was sitting up, ears all cockeyed as she blinked sleepily at the activity around her.

“Can Tubbins be moved?” Viola asked, brushing past Scout to get to the bar.

“I should think so,” Warrior said. “He’s going to sleep pretty deeply until the nanite is done working, and he’ll be groggy for a bit after that. But no reason you can’t keep him near you.” Warrior scooped up the sleeping cat and poured him into Viola’s waiting arms.

“I’m so sorry for this,” Scout said, but Viola just nodded, clutching her cat close to her chest and passing through the communications room and barracks to her private space beyond. “Come on, Girl,” she said, and Girl got clumsily to her feet.

Ebba and Ottilie were packed together in one narrow bunk near the door. Ruth was getting Clementine settled on the opposite side of the room one bed further on. Liv had moved herself from her chair to the bottom bunk two beds down from Ebba and Ottilie and was using a handheld device to direct her chair to park itself at the open space near the closed door to Viola’s room.

Scout frowned at the zigzag pattern of the taken beds. Clearly no one wanted to be right next to anyone else, but there were no more open beds a bunk apart from the others. She was going to be annoying somebody, whatever her choice.

“You should take a top bunk,” Warrior said from behind where she was hesitating in the doorway.

“With the dogs?”

“Precisely. We need to be sure they don’t go wandering about looking for more trouble. If they try to get down from up there, they’ll wake you doing it.”

Scout could see this was true. Shadow could make such a jump, but Girl would likely break something. She picked up Shadow first and put him up on the bunk near the door, across from Ebba and Ottilie, but once she was up in it they’d be out of sight from each other. Warrior helped her hoist the squirming Girl up, then Scout pulled herself up after.

“Where are you going to be?” she asked Warrior.

“I don’t sleep much,” Warrior said. “I’ll probably pass the time in the communications room, watching information flow.”

“And standing guard?” Scout guessed.

“That too.”

They were both distracted by a soft whining sound that turned out to be coming from Clementine; it seemed she didn’t want Ruth to leave her even to move to the bed directly across the corridor. Ruth gave in with a sigh, lying down at the very edge of the bed. She didn’t look comfortable, and Scout doubted she’d get much sleep while balancing like that. Ottilie and Ebba were tucked in together like spoons and seemed to be already fast asleep. But Scout couldn’t fault Ruth for not wanting to cuddle up to that strange little girl.

“Good night,” Warrior said, patting Scout’s knee before turning to head back into the communications room. Scout took off her boots and set them on a shelf that ran alongside the bunk, built into the wall of the room. She put her hat next to it, then slipped off her father’s shirt and wadded it up before stuffing it on the shelf too. Shadow was already pawing at the blanket and sheet, wanting to get under the covers. Girl was not so picky. She waited for Scout to get herself and Shadow situated in the bedding, then flopped down at the foot of the bunk, her head on Scout’s ankle. She seemed to be looking into the communications room, the light from the screens reflecting off her eyes.

A moment later, now that everyone had gone still, the barracks light shut off with a soft click and the greenish glow from those screens was the only light in the room. Scout tucked an arm under her head.

She had slept in caves before, but never so far underground. She tried to guess how deep they were, remembering the sloping corridor that had taken them down this way, then the spiral staircase. But it was hard to judge; the land here was still rolling hills, and the entrance they had found had been at the top of one of those hills. If they weren’t under a hill now, they might not be all that deep.

Surely there’d be more time for exploring in the morning, especially now that Viola was bending and even becoming welcoming. Perhaps there’d even be jolo.

Scout slipped into a restful sleep, her hand on Shadow’s warm belly feeling the soft rise and fall as he breathed.

Then there was a thump, and the air was full of screams.