Panther and Catalya glanced quickly at each other, then at the AV roof and then back at Owl. “Forget it,” Panther said. “Ain’t no one there.”
Everyone stared at him in silence.
SEVENTEEN
I T WAS A PARTICULARLY SHARP JOLT that threw Sparrow from the roof of the Lightning AV. The sudden lurch of the vehicle as it ripped across the mist-shrouded terrain was so severe that even though she was holding on with everything she had, it still wasn’t enough. In truth, at the moment her hold on the roof railing failed, she was looking at something else and might have lost a fraction of the concentration she needed to stay aboard. It was easy to second-guess herself afterward, when it was over and done with and she was lying in the dirt, the wind knocked from her, the Parkhan Spray lost, and the AV rumbling off into the haze. She was so disoriented that for a moment she just lay there, badly shaken, staring up at the impenetrable fog and waiting for her head to clear.
When she regained her senses she scrambled to her feet, thinking she might still catch up with the AV. But her legs were wobbly, and a fresh dizziness overwhelmed her so completely that she dropped back to her knees and retched. By the time she had gotten past that, the Lightning had disappeared and she knew she couldn’t have caught it if she’d tried. She wasn’t even sure by then which way it had gone. The best she could hope for now was that someone would notice she was missing. But she didn’t hold out much hope.
Still, her luck hadn’t deserted her entirely. She spotted the Parkhan Spray lying not six feet from where she knelt, its barrel a dull gleam against the dusty soil. She climbed to her feet, walked over, and picked it up. Undamaged, she decided, testing the weapon’s mechanisms to be certain they still worked, hearing all the familiar clicks and scrapes from the loading and firing chambers. At least she was armed.
She was also lost.
She looked around at the haze, a thick blanket that spread away in all directions. She had only a general idea of where her companions had gone, and they might change direction at any time. She could no longer hear the AV’s engine, no longer hear anything but the silence. Even the sounds of pursuit from the militia had disappeared. Or at least become muffled. It felt as if she were completely alone in the world.
She experienced a moment of panic, but fought back against it and forced it down. She was her mother’s child, she reminded herself. Her warrior mother’s child. Panic was not allowed.
She ran her fingers through her short-cropped blond hair, slung the Parkhan Spray over one shoulder, and started searching the ground for tire tracks. She found them almost at once. There, she thought, no need to worry. She ran through a litany of responses to possible threats that would keep her safe. If she saw fires, she would move away from them. If she heard noises, the same thing. Unless she decided they were from the Ghosts. If she saw movement, freeze. Stay clear of everything until it got light again, and then she could orient herself and find her way. She knew in general where she was going and what she was looking for. She had been lost before in places much more dangerous than this, and she had been much younger when it had happened. This was just another variation on a familiar experience. She would be all right.
But a small voice warned her to be careful. Just before she had fallen off the roof of the AV, she had spotted something strange. A huge, misshapen thing had appeared out of the fog, something vaguely human-shaped. It had shambled into view momentarily, walking up-right like a man, but much larger, and then it was gone again. She had lost her concentration and in the next moment she had fallen. She still didn’t know if what she had seen was real or not. But it had felt real, and that was enough to trouble her now.
She had no idea at this point where it was, and she did not think she wanted to find out.
A sudden boom sounded off to her right, too far away to be a threat or even to be identified. She glanced in the general direction of the sound, but didn’t see anything. She kept walking, doing her best to keep a straight line, following the tracks of the AV, which were plain enough to see in the soft earth, even in the mist and darkness. She gained back a measure of lost confidence as she progressed, her uneasiness over her situation steadying, her determination hardening. It would take worse than this to throw her off stride, she told herself. A lot worse.
She found herself thinking back to the conversation she had overheard the night before between Hawk and Tessa. A baby. They were going to have a baby. It made her smile. To her way of thinking, it was the giving back of a life for the loss of Squirrel. She would have a new child, a new little boy or girl to care for. Tessa would let her help; she was sure of it. She would read to this baby in the same way she had read to Squirrel and Candle. She would look after it when Tessa was too busy. She would make sure it was kept safe.