CHAPTER 20
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
Once when I was still a kid, before battle school, I went with Father to a corporate function. The staff told me I was going to a party and they dressed me in a formal suit that matched his, down to the ties and patterned hose. For three hours I stood by his side greeting other executives, unable to have a drink, food, or even go to the latrine, wondering when the party was going to start and being befuddled that we left before it ever started. That’s how I feel about áine’s tour of the ice cave. I expected to see a strategic area, and it turned out to be a setting for a romantic interlude.
For hours afterward I walk the subterranean roads, learning the lay of the land and getting a good feel for our territory, while running the argument with áine through my mind. Did I lead her on? I’m still asking myself hours after I return to quarters, when Maeve knocks on the door and calls out.
“Breakfast!”
“Breakfast!” It takes Jenkins less than three seconds to jump out of his cot, pull on his suit and boots, and make a mad, stumbling dash for the door. It takes him an additional six seconds and a flattened nose to realize that said door is closed and that the lock mechanism requires him to lift the handle, not pull on it. I know because he’s disturbing my morning prayer, and because I’m timing him.
“Oy, Jenks!” groans Fuse, who rolls off his cot and hits the floor with a boney thump. “Give a jack a tinker’s minute to shimmy on his skivvies, no? What’s the rush?”
“My belly’s empty, and this carking door’s fig-jammed.”
“Lift,” Vienne says. She’s sitting in the lotus position next to me in the corner of the room, our backs to the room. An altar is open before us, and our quarters are full of the sharp odor of burning incense. Twice each day she has prayer and meditation. In the morning I join her for the meditation. It calms me. Clears my mind. Helps me focus.
“Huh?” Jenkins says. I can hear him scratching his head.
“Lift the handle,” Vienne says. Her voice is like still water.
“Got it! Last one to the table’s a rotter!”
“You lot coming along for breakfast?” Fuse says after he’s dressed.
“Soon,” I answer.
“Right, then.”
He leaves. Air blows into the room, sending the incense swirling toward the ceiling. My eyes stay with it, watching as it dissipates. A sure sign that I have lost concentration.
“You’re uneasy,” Vienne says, eyes closed, hands resting on her crossed legs, fingers forming an O.
“Tired.”
“But there’s something else?”
How can I tell her, I woke up last night and you weren’t here, so I went to look for you and was shanghaied by a suzy who first tried to jump me, then wanted to slug me. And that now, as I feel you next to me, your head held just so, your eyes closed, your lips slightly parted, I have trouble holding my breath, much less holding my chi.
“Just tired,” I say.
“Ah.” She says, and lets my lie hang in the air, like burned incense.
But the moment is interrupted by the feral sound coming from the mouth of Spiner, his eyes wide in stark terror as he bangs on our open door. “Chief! Come quick!”
“What is it?” I call to him.
He falls to his knees, gasping, his breath spent from running. “Dr?u! In the tunnels. Scouting party. Headed for. Crazy Town.”
Damn it! Too soon. The demolition crews haven’t closed those tunnels yet. “Mimi, do a scan. Fast.” I haul Spiner to his feet. “How many are there?”
“Too many,” he says, gasping. “Chasing a tram.”
“A tram? Who took out a tram?”
Spiner shakes his head. “Don’t know.”
“Lock down the Cross,” I tell him. “Keep everybody inside.”
“But—” he says.
“Don’t argue! Keep everybody inside and arm them with anything you’ve got. This might be just a scouting party, but we can’t take chances.”
There’s a shout, and when I look over my shoulder, áine is running toward me with a spanner wrench in hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I say.
“Going with you,” she says, running past me. “I’ve got a score to settle, and now’s as good a time as any to do it.”