Mischa remembered Jan Hikaru.
Adrenalin pushed energy into her tired body. She got to her knees. The creature squatted before her, in the midst of the crystals, impervious to them. He was barely recognizable as human, his body wide and flat, hunched over short, bowed legs, his head hardly distinct from his shoulders. His eyes protruded. He raised his hands—his claws—and clicked horny digits together. Only his thumbs were distinct; all his other fingers were fused into one. His skin was thick and scaly.
'I have to get to Jan,' Mischa said, projecting the image, hoping he would understand. He backed up to the mouth of the tunnel and slid out of sight.
Sliding her hands, Mischa crept forward. The tunnel was warm enough to see, and the crystal gardens above and beneath were cooler, darker, black-shattered waiting spears. The broken bits soaked up heat and blended into the floor, unshadowed. When her fingers brushed sharp edges, evoking the cruel and toneless music, she stopped, braced her feet against the stone, and jumped.
She cleared the treacherous crystal growths, twisted, landed awkwardly in deep sand. The underground person huddled beside Jan.
Blood glowed scarlet, and Jan's mind was very quiet. Mischa touched one of the bits of glass against her tongue. The taste was like acid, sour and sharp. She spat it out: no natural compound, mineral, insoluble, but one of the chemical wastes that leaked from Center's industrial processes.
Jan's jacket tore as she bared the long slashes down his shoulders. The blood flowed freely, prevented from clotting; in a less extensive wound that would have been good, but Mischa could already see the difference in Jan's body temperature. Probing carefully, she found an unyielding shape. As though Jan had been snakebitten, she leaned down and sucked until the
crystal point emerged. She spat it out.
The creature hovered, projecting worry and regret that he could not help.
'Is there anyone else down here? Is there anyone you could bring?'
The creature scuttled a few steps into the exit tunnel, and back. Mischa bent down again. She could not take time to explain.
Jan's blood salty against her lips, Mischa could feel his hammering pulse as she worked, and she did not think she would get the poison out in time.
'Crab?'
Mischa looked up, startled by the voice. A blue glow of bioluminescence flowed around her. She made out two people beyond it. They stopped: a slight and fragile-looking red-haired woman, a taller, heavier, bearded man. They wore leather, spider-silk, and weapons. They stared at Mischa. She stared back.
The creature scuttled toward them, clicking his claws. The woman reached for him, but he evaded her. He returned to Mischa and touched her hand and Jan's hair.
'He fell through crystals,' Mischa said, hoping they would understand. 'I have to get them out.'
They came toward her. She flinched when the shaggy, ferocious man reached toward her. He knelt down. The woman stood farther back, but moved slowly closer. Mischa saw her more clearly and reached instinctively for Chris's knife, then let her hand fall again, with no idea why she had, for an instant, been so afraid.
'We will help,' the woman said.
Jan remained unconscious, but Mischa and the underground people could find no more of the sharp bits. Mischa sat back on her heels and lowered her head, nauseated by the poison she had not been able to avoid swallowing. She did not want to consider the dose Jan must be fighting.
Now, having done as much as they could to save her friend, the underground people watched her. In the blue light, they looked like ghouls, black with blood. Mischa wiped her own face; her sleeve came away smeared. She closed her eyes, shuddering. The misshapen little creature who had found her touched her hand. She grasped his claw and was comforted.
'Come,' the red-haired woman said. 'We'll take him to a better place.'
The huge man picked Jan up easily and gently, and started out of the cave. Mischa stood, and stumbled.
'Wait, Simon.' The red-haired woman steadied and helped her; Simon stopped for them.
'Thank you,' Mischa said. 'Who are you?'
'I am Val.'
Mischa was lightheaded and sick; Val and Simon seemed more immune to the poison. She wanted to ask more questions, but had to lean on Val and use all her own energy for walking.
A dry, dimly illuminated chamber contained Val and Simon and Crab's possessions—few enough, Mischa thought, to carry away all at once. They had a blanket, which they wrapped around Jan. Mischa sat down, grateful to be able to stop, but frightened by Jan's pallor and the silence of his mind.
'Do you think he'll be all right?'
Val glanced at her quickly, lowered her gaze, looked to Simon; she seemed to withdraw.
'He still might die,' Simon said.
Previously, he had not spoken. The relief and gratitude in Val's expression gave a reason for the breaking of his silence, but no clue to the keeping of it. His voice was low and pleasant; his teeth were sharp. His fingernails too, were sharp, by nature or by artifice, but they were also very thick, like claws, and he could extend them like an animal's. His hands seemed to Mischa an insufficient reason for banishment.
'We'll do all we can,' Val said, easier now.
'He doesn't deserve this,' Mischa said. 'He's down here because of me.' Before, Jan had had no terrors, but Mischa had hurt him now, thrice over. She had pulled him into isolation, and introduced him to pain, and taken away whatever beliefs he might have had about death. She never would have said a thing to him about the last minutes of Chris's life, not a thing, had she known what she was saying. She knew him too well to hope he might have dismissed her words as the meaningless product of nightmare.
Crab nestled in the sand near Mischa's knee, half-burying himself, waving one claw contentedly, taking her hand in the other, drawing her from guilt and depression with his welcome.
'Come here, Crab,' Val said. 'Leave her alone.'
'He's all right,' Mischa said. 'I looked for people in the underground. I never saw anyone before.'
'We stay very deep. We keep watch. We only come up for the children.'
'I knew you were here. I could feel you were afraid.'
Val frowned and looked away again; Mischa saw she was annoyed by the mention of their fear, though Mischa had not meant it as a criticism. 'You're lucky Crab found you,' Val said; a defense, a change of subject. 'He never found anyone before.'
'It wasn't luck.'
'What do you mean?'
'He can hear me. Or sense me. My mind, I mean.'
Simon had moved back into shadow against the wall, but Mischa could see his skeptical expression. Val leaned forward eagerly. 'But how?'
'He must be just a couple years younger than I am. He was abandoned when he was born, and he doesn't remember it too well, but he must be my brother.'
'I don't understand.'
Mischa shrugged. 'I don't know how we do it. I could sense one of my other brothers almost as well, and one of my sisters better. Most people are a lot dimmer. and sort of smeary, but they're there.'
'Is that why you were driven out? Because this ability was discovered?'
'No. not exactly.' Mischa told Val what had happened in Center, and as much as she remembered of their flight.
'I see,' Val said. She looked disturbed, but not quite angry. 'You are one of us, but you are not.'
'I guess so.'
'And people may be chasing you?'
'They were, I know that, but they stopped. They must have been afraid of the tube.'
'What about him?' Val nodded toward Jan.
'He can't go back either. Not for a while.'
'There isn't anything wrong with him. He isn't one of us.'
