The pilot strode past him to the console. “That doesn't matter now. This is going to be fast and rough. The winds are building.” Kara Jade coughed: a dark bruise was already swelling across her jaw. “The Dawn 's been injured. We were lucky, could have punctured the flight bladders, could have ignited them; and I think that may have been what he was trying for, but this Aerokin’s different, a new swifter breed. He struck too low and burst only one of the gas chambers. Still, we need to get to ground.”
Already the Dawn was listing to to the right.
David managed to get the belts around his waist. They clicked closed; he tightened them around his shoulders. A little wave of panic struck him. The Dawn dropped again, the belts tightened around his shoulders.
“We go down now, they’re going to get us,” David said. “You heard what he said, they’re not far behind, and he wasn't lying. I can feel them.”
“Would have helped if you had felt them a little sooner, don't you think? We don’t have any choice,” Kara snapped. “We don’t land now, we’ll fall. And if we fall, we will die for certain. The Dawn caught me, not just once, but twice today, and I won't let her suffer for it.”
The Dawn shuddered and jerked in the sky. Sky and earth were getting closer, the ground looking less an abstract proposition; more a disaster looming.
“Is it too late, already?” David asked.
“She’ll be all right,” Kara said. “She can just sense the ground, that’s all. We’re just a bit bruised, she and I.”
“How long will we need to stay down here?”
“A day or two at most. The gas chamber will heal quickly enough. We might need to jettison some material. The beds for one, but we’ll see.”
“They’ll hit us in the next twelve hours,” David said. “If we can’t flee, I’m going to have to fight.”
And all of a sudden, he felt a sense of purpose come over him. A focus that he'd never possessed, one that was more strategic, less desperate. He peered at the window, the one nearest him, not the broken one.
Down below, a thin ribbon of river gleamed, in the late afternoon light, rushing over a stony bed that worked its way between a series of low hills. It was a beaten landscape, hunched and ruined, and yet, in that light, it was beautiful. He could see possibilities, ways that the next forty-eight hours might play out.
“There,” David said, sounding at once more confident, almost in charge. Kara and Margaret looked at him oddly. “Don't look at me,” he said. “Look down. There, near the river, the Malcontent, if I remember correctly. Try and bring us down near the river and the hills.”
David coughed, the focus passed, panic filled its absence. There was nothing he wanted more than a nice calming dose of Carnival, but he needed Cadell. He knew he would have done better against Rupert if he'd let in more of Cadell’s mind.
“I’ll get you there,” Kara said.
And she did, in shuddering drops and starts, she and the Dawn made it down. The landing was hard, the Dawn 's flagella uncoiling yards away from the ground, and only marginally softening landfall. But they were down, and whole.
David unstrapped himself quickly, and almost sprinted to the doorifice. Not wanting them to see the fear on his face. The doorifice opened, and David looked out. Here on the ground the beauty of this place was gone, the sun passed behind clouds, the river darkened, the wind howled. It was just cold and wet. David couldn't see how he could leverage a victory here. It was death already.
“I've pistols in the rear cabinet,” Kara said. “Enough for the both of us. Margaret won't need ’em.”
David shook his head. “You can’t stay, Kara. I want you to fly north of here. Find some cover and let the Dawn heal. She's too much of a risk here. If we scratch out a victory but lose her or you, we may as well have not fought at all.”
“You saying that I'm not good in a scrap?” Standing there, one eye bloody, the other swollen shut; half her face a bruise, she looked as fierce a fighter as anyone could need.
David smiled. “You know I'm not.” David shook his head. “The Old Men are hunting me. The Dawn is hurt because of me. We need you whole. Stay, and I think we'll all die. Please, trust me on this.”
Kara walked to the gun cabinet, retrieved a pistol and handed it to him. “Don't know what good it will do.”
David tucked the weapon in his belt. “I can always club someone with it.”
He looked at Margaret.
“You can go with her, too,” he said.
Margaret laughed.
“Bring your guns,” David said. “Anything that fires shells.”
She was already hefting her bag onto her shoulder.
Kara handed David a flare. “Use this when they come. If there's anything that I can do, I'll see it done.”
David nodded, grabbed a blanket and Cadell’s umbrella. “For cover and cutting,” he said, yanking the blade free. He also snatched a dozen cans of food, and another couple for Margaret, stuffing them in a hessian bag. He rattled as he leapt from the doorifice.
He could see the scarring of the Aerokin, the place where the Dawn was bleeding. Kara followed him, winced, and smeared healing gel over the great black wound. “She'll be all right,” Kara said. “She'll survive.”
She ran back into the ship, and threw out two mattresses. “At least you will have something to sleep on.”
The Dawn lowered her two cannon to the earth, leaving only the lighter guns on her carapace.
Margaret touched the coiled conch-shaped cannon curiously, and David's hopes rose. Kara shook her head. “No good to you. Unless you're an Aerokin, can't be fired, all her weaponry's like that. And right now, even she can't use it.”
David glanced cautiously behind him. “You better be on your way.”
Kara nodded. “Good luck.”
The Dawn lifted into the sky. Shorn of the weight of the guns and two passengers, her flight seemed a little easier. She passed to the west and north, and was soon lost to sight beyond the ridge. The sun was edging beneath the ridge as well. The shadows lengthened.
“And now we wait,” David said. “They're hours away.”
Margaret dropped her bag at his feet. “Night's coming, we need to gather wood, build a fire.”
David looked at her, and she shrugged.
“They know we’re here. Might as well be warm when I die.”
CHAPTER 34
You can never be certain how things will end. There is very little that is logical in the functioning of the universe, and certainly not when it comes to the works of humanity, even when it has been stripped of its humanity. Surprises exist at every turn.
THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS 1520 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
David shook Margaret awake, dragged her from dreams of Tate. “Five minutes,” he said. “I thought it would be longer, but they’ve picked up pace. They want to get it over and done with, I guess.”
It was close to midnight, the air so cold it felt like it could cut her lungs. David had the fire out. The north wind howled down across the river. The air was bright with the twin moons, and expectant. She could see her breath plume before her. What weapon was best? Rime blade? Rifle? She’d substituted her endothermic shells for simple shot. You could blow a man’s face away with a direct hit with one of these, she thought — if you were lucky.
