“Yeah.”
She had volunteered to stand guard through the ‚rst six hours of the night because tomorrow she would stay behind as the men hiked the rest of the way up without her. She would be safe down here. They knew there was no one else below the barrier, whereas the islands above might hold any number of threats.
Ruth had spent three hours in darkness before she woke Cam, three hours with the bugs and the wind. Her head was crowded with fear and loss and distance, poised on this invisible border with thousands of miles of dead zone below them and tiny safe areas above that might not be safe after all.
She didn’t know how to say good-bye.
She owed Cam her life. She should have been able to give him the response he wanted, even if she hadn’t felt an honest attraction. She was tempted. She had become too self-conscious of her backpack whenever she reached into it for water or food or a clean face mask, being very careful to let neither man see the glossy purple box of condoms. She needed comfort and warmth, and yet Cam still frightened her. It wasn’t only the capacity for violence that she saw in him, but his own wretched hunger. She was afraid to get too near because she couldn’t predict how he would react, so she was quiet, sitting beside him in the whispering night.
There was another danger that Ruth had kept to herself. She didn’t want to rush Cam and Newcombe. Her science team had not incorporated the hypobaric fuse into the vaccine, so that it wouldn’t self-destruct like the plague, but the vaccine was also unlike the plague in another way. It was able to replicate only by attacking and breaking down a single target — its rival. Every minute they spent above the barrier was a new danger, because without its ongoing war against the plague, the vaccine had no way to maintain its own numbers. In fact, if they stayed too long they might become trapped like anyone else after sweating it out, exhaling it, losing it by the millions each time they went to the bathroom.
After sixteen days within the invisible sea, their bodies must be thick with it. Too thick. That might explain her headaches and it might explain the discomfort in her gut. Those things might simply be the result of constant strain and bad food, but it wasn’t impossible that the vaccine would hurt people, too, catching and clotting in the bloodstream, rupturing capillaries, increasing the odds of stroke and arrhythmia. They didn’t know. It had never been tested.
Ruth wanted to believe they’d have days or even weeks before their immunity faded to dangerous levels, but if they had to run…If there were soldiers waiting…They had already been near ten thousand feet for more than eight hours and Ruth couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t be a problem.
The men were just as apprehensive. Newcombe had prepared her for the chance that he and Cam wouldn’t return. He broke down their packs and reassembled one for her to carry herself if necessary, mostly food and a bedroll. He carefully showed her how to use the radio and he made her demonstrate again that she knew how to ‚re and load her pistol, as if she’d last through a gun battle by herself.
Ruth knew she couldn’t go with them but she hated the price on her skills and education, like she was some goddamned princess in a tower, too precious to be let out — so at last she forced herself to stir in the cold.
“I’m sorry,” she told him.
“Me, too,” Cam said. He was always surprising her.
Ruth shook her head. “Why would, no, you’ve been…”
“Maybe we should have done it Newcombe’s way,” Cam said. “He’s got training I could never…I shouldn’t have pushed so hard to hike it. Maybe you would have perfected the nanotech by now.”
“Cam, no. It was my idea. Remember? I’m the one who insisted on coming here.”
Still sitting in his blankets, Cam shifted once, as if containing an argument inside himself.
“Please be careful,” she said.
11
Cam slipped easily across the rough terrain of granite and sparse forest. He’d dropped his pack this morning but kept his pistol and a canteen — and he knew this environment well, if not this particular mountain. The whitebark pines and junipers were a familiar world, the chokecherry brambles and wild grass.
There was a †utter of grasshoppers to his right. The insects scattered as Newcombe loped over with his ri†e in hand and they hunched together behind a tangle of boulders.
They’d heard voices above them distantly. Someone up there liked to yell to his friends, a boy, alternately impatient or happy, his young voice carrying across the open sky. It seemed like a good sign, but maybe the kid was only excited because Leadville troops had recently arrived.
“What do you think?” Newcombe whispered.
Cam only shrugged. In many ways their relationship reminded him of his bond with Albert Sawyer, the man who’d taken them to the lab in Sacramento. His friendship with Sawyer had been loaded with mistrust and need and ‚erce loyalty all at the same time. He wanted things to be better with Newcombe. He wanted to save his energy, instead of always trying to keep one eye behind him, so he tried again to make peace. “I think you’re right,” he said.
“The layout here might be as good as it gets,” Newcombe said, tipping his chin up at the ridges. “Let’s map this drainage before we work any farther north.”
“Yeah.” Cam reached for his binoculars as Newcombe took a small notepad from his pocket and quickly added to his sketches. The Special Forces soldier had his own shorthand that was detailed and accurate, but Cam paused with his binoculars lifted halfway, reaching out with his ears and other senses instead, measuring the wind and the early afternoon sun. The dust-and-pine smell of the mountain. He could still feel Ruth’s hand on his arm.
He itched to take off his goggles and mask, but the day was warm and clear. Without a barometer, Cam had to assume they were still in danger. The nicest weather typically came with high pressure fronts, which lifted the invisible sea of nanotech. On their maps, the nearest benchmarks read 9,985 and 10,160 feet, but Cam had learned to hold his pessimism close. They were still at least two hundred yards below the tallest peaks.
So far they hadn’t been able to get a look at whoever was up there. They had a bad height disadvantage. This archipelago of high points was like a string of castles. Each of the small islands sat above a sheer, ragged band of lava. If there were soldiers, if they were forced to shoot it out, they would be very exposed.
“Stay here,” Newcombe said.
“We’ll go together.”
“No. We can’t leave her alone, and if I’m coming back in a hurry I’ll need you to cover me.”
Cam nodded. Mark Newcombe was a good man, despite all their disagreements. Newcombe had helped him every day with his hand, cleaning and rebandaging the wound, and Newcombe had continued to haul the largest pack even after Cam took possession of the radios.
“We’ll go together,” Cam said. “At least as far as the ridge. That’s a better place for us to stay in sight of each other, and sooner or later…You know they’ll spot us. The longer we sneak around, the more likely it’ll happen.”
“Yeah. Stay here.”
“You don’t understand,” Cam said. “Even if there are no soldiers up there, those people will be…different. They could be dangerous.”
Newcombe glanced brie†y at the ravine again, then studied Cam for a much longer time. Newcombe’s expression was hidden in his mask and goggles, but his posture was intent. For once Cam was glad to be wrapped in his own gear. He still had one secret and he meant to keep it, especially from Ruth.
“It’s better if it’s both of us,” Cam said, ‚nding his voice again. “Not just for the show of strength. I’ll know what to say to them but you’re proof that it really works, the nanotech. That could make all the difference.”
