Bertran groaned.
Fringe knelt beside them once more. Bertran’s eyes flickered open. He smiled. “I dreamed,” he whispered. “Oh, I dreamed I was swimming….” His eyes shut again, he winced with pain. The dream had been wonderful, painless, weightless. He longed to go back to it.
“What did you dream?” Fringe asked.
“Nothing,” he murmured. “Nothing.” And it was nothing, vanishing, as dreams always did. “It’s gone. Where are we?”
“In a cave,” Fringe answered. “In a damned hole.”
“I can’t breathe,” complained Nela. “Can you sit up, Berty?”
He struggled to do so, the two of them edging themselves up against the low shelf. They leaned against it as though after a long race, breathing heavily.
“Thirsty,” he murmured from a dry mouth. He licked his lips and panted.
“We haven’t a cup,” said Fringe, scooping water from the stream and offering it in her cupped hands. “Forgive my skin, Bertran, but it’s the best I can do.”
He drank greedily, emptying her hands several times.
“This seems fairly hopeless,” he commented, wiping his wet mouth on his sleeve. “Doesn’t it?”
“Too soon to say,” murmured Fringe. “Actually, the place isn’t as bad as it could be. There’s light. There’s water. It’s fairly warm. There’s nothing threatening to kill us just at the moment.” Dismayed by the pallid gray of Bertran’s skin, the liquid pain in Nela’s eyes, she set herself to be as comforting as possible.
Bertran tried to smile, unsuccessfully. “A pity we could not save your Destiny Machine, oracle. We might find out what’s going to happen to us.”
“We don’t need the Destiny Machine for that,” said Nela in a weak, pained voice. “We do need to lie down. When they grabbed us, they messed us up.”
“I’ll help you.” Fringe helped them lie back on the furry ledge, tucked their own coats and her robe around them to keep them warm, and stood watching as their eyes closed, as their breathing eased slightly, an old familiar feeling possessing her, of helplessness, of grief, of concern. So she had felt about Souile, sometimes. About Nada, sometimes. She had learned to shut those feelings off, not to care because there was nothing she could do. But this was Nela, once again her friend. This was Nela’s brother. Both, both her friends, come to this through no fault of their own. They were not Enforcers. They shouldn’t have shared Enforcers’ risks. They should be somewhere on a well-lit platform, joking and doing magic tricks. They should not be here. Whoever … whatever had done this was an evil person, an evil thing, and she, Fringe, would have to do whatever she could to set matters right, diversity be damned!
She looked the place over more carefully, examining it inch by inch. Though in far better physical shape than the twins, she felt as weary as they. It had been a long day, maybe more than one, since she had slept. The recent unconsciousness had not been sleep, for it had not left her rested. All the tumult of Derbeck was still roiling about inside her mind, the terror at Chimi-ahm, the fear for the girl, the apprehension of betrayal at Curvis’s hands—or Danivon’s.
And along with all that, a longing for Danivon so great that it made her want to weep. She had heard him cry her name when they had been seized up. It had had the sound of someone who cared, the sound of a lover crying warning and woe. She had heard fear in his voice, fear for her! Moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes, tears she would not let fall, as she quartered the cave, again and again. Nothing. No way out. No place to hide. They were well and truly caught.
When she was sure of it, she sat cross-legged against the ledge, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Thus far their captors had not shown themselves. Itself. No point in remaining awake or on guard. Undoubtedly it or they would show up when they felt like it. Meantime, she would conserve her energies.
She focused her mind upon one of the relaxation exercises she had learned at the Academy, a soothing recitation to quiet her mind, relax her body, soften her terror into something manageable, make her ready for whatever was to happen. Eventually, she slept.
11
Most of those aboard the Dove had gone below; the captain to lie sleepless, wondering if the gavers that had attacked the ship were gone or only lying low; Cafferty and Latibor and Asner to murmur with one another in fruitless speculation; Danivon to curse and stamp about, unable to hide his feelings from Curvis, who, if the truth were known, thought good riddance to Fringe and the twins both. The long middle hours of horrid night had passed but morning had not yet come as Jory stood at the railing with her oldest friend.
“I stayed too long in Derbeck” he said silently, in her mind, as he had always spoken to her. “I should have been here, with the ship. Perhaps I could have prevented …”
Jory shook her head. She didn’t need to speak. He knew what she thought, that he could have done nothing. Perhaps none of them could do anything.
“I left it too late,” she said aloud. “I thought in usual terms. Human perversity. If one could identify it, one could fix it. But there’s something here beyond our power to fix, old friend. Something immune to reason, I think.”
“Your friends upriver could fix it.”
“My friends upriver.” She laughed, a pained laugh. “Someone once told me they are too good to be any good. Or words to that effect.”
Silence, then, “You’re right. The ones
