Two of the members of the peloton were musicians. At a certain point one of them began to beat a drum that was harnessed to his midsection, and another began to play a melody on a shiny horn. Ty was convinced he’d heard it in the Epic somewhere, but it took Bard to place it.
“‘Bread of Heaven,’” he said. “It’s what Rufus and company were singing when they welded themselves in.”
“Also known as ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,’ or in the original Welsh, ‘Cwm Rhondda,’” added Sonar Taxlaw.
“Fuck, these people are good!” Ty exclaimed.
“How long do you suppose they’ve been preparing this?” Bard asked.
“They have been way ahead of us for months. Maybe years,” Ty said. “But having said that, there’s little in what we’re seeing that couldn’t have been thrown together in a few hours.”
“Confirmed,” said Beled. He had let Kath gently to the ground, where she now lay in a fetal position curled about his shin. He was looking at the procession through optics. “The ring at the top of the standard? It is an exercise hoop covered in silver tape. The white flag? A bedsheet.”
“Do we even need to bother watching how this goes?” Bard asked.
And then he looked to Ty to give the answer. It had not been a rhetorical question. He was awaiting orders.
Beled Tomov looked at him too.
“How is she?” Ty asked. “Pulse, respiration okay?”
“I think it is the usual,” Beled said with a nod. Meaning that abrupt hormone shifts in Kath’s system were giving her something akin to morning sickness. Her microbiome—the ecosystem of bacteria that lived in her gut and on her skin—had been thrown into disarray, and she was being colonized by any old germs, including ones from the Diggers that had never been exposed to a Moiran body.
“Can you put her on your back or something?”
Beled nodded and dropped to one knee. He had been carrying a pack on his back. He emptied its contents on the ground and began slashing leg holes in its bottom corners so that Kath could just be inserted into it, like an infant into a carrier.
“We can’t rule out that our guys will show up in force,” Ty said, referring to Blue military. He looked south over the mountains, but didn’t see anything coming. Nor would he, of course; anything headed their way from Qayaq would be running dark. “Have you been in touch with them?”
“Yes,” Bard said. During this little pause he had been rooting a multitool out of his belt. He approached Ty, who held out the broken stake. Bard got his tool clamped around the head of the bolt and began to twist it out.
Ty nodded wearily. On one level, he had just asked a stupid question. But the Diggers’ attack—hell, for that matter, their existence—had taken them by surprise, and since then he’d been preoccupied with being a prisoner under conditions so primitive as to verge on slapstick. He ought to have been thinking about the larger picture.
Blue might bomb this whole valley into the Stone Age. But probably not. It was already in the Stone Age.
Bard and Beled had gotten a message up to Denali, which was the closest major Teklan military habitat to 166 Thirty. Everyone of consequence in Blue would now be aware that the Diggers existed, that the initial contact had been botched, and that there was a hostage situation. The Thor would have made it clear that Red was a step ahead of them. The descent of those drop pods, a few minutes ago, would have made it clearer. The brilliant pool of light in which the Red delegation moved was as much for the benefit of long-lensed video cameras peering down from orbit as for the Diggers.
It was a fait accompli that Red would make formal contact, in about thirty seconds, with the Diggers, and that it would go a lot better than yesterday. Ariane would have prepped them, told them what to say: Yes, of course we accept your claim to the Earth’s surface. Its justice is self-evident. We have plenty of room in orbit. No need for habitations on the planet. Of course, as you’ve already learned firsthand, you can’t trust those people from Blue. We might be persuaded to install a discreet military presence just to keep them from encroaching on your territory. As long as we’re there, some cultural exchange programs might be in order. We could offer medicine. Dental care. Technical advice in rebuilding your civilization. How may we be of assistance?
“Blue isn’t coming tonight,” Ty said. “It would just play into their hands.” He nodded down at the procession, which was only a few meters away from making first contact with an equally sized group of Diggers. “But some members of that peloton might come after us. They’d look like heroes if they could march us back into camp in shackles.”
“Or carry our heads in on spikes,” Bard suggested in a casual tone.
“Shh!” Ty said, with a glance toward the newest member of their band. But the Cyc looked unconcerned.
“Sonar,” Ty said, “we are going to have to move. Get away from any patrols those guys might send out, while it’s still dark. Can you do that? Move rapidly over rough terrain, in the dark?”