Kayo doesn’t answer. The knife wobbles a little, but remains resolutely pointed at Nyah.

  “Don’t hurt her,” I say.

  “I won’t if she lets us go without a struggle,” Kayo says.

  I bite my lip. I was talking to Nyah. “I’m going to get up now,” I say. “Don’t either of you move.”

  Nyah gives a little cough which almost sets me off. I get up and stand beside Kayo. “Give me the knife,” I say, touching her arm.

  She pushes it into my hands, expelling a noisy breath of relief. I’m relieved, too, as I lower my arm, pointing the knife safely at the ground.

  “Is anyone else with you?” Nyah asks.

  “Yes! A whole division of armed guards!” Kayo says. “So you better just stand aside!” She looks at me and moves her arm, a little cue for me to brandish the knife threateningly. If we both had knives — which we do, except that I was too frozen to get mine out — Nyah could still disarm us in two seconds flat.

  “In that case, I think I’ll go back to bed,” Nyah says. “You two should get some sleep.”

  Kayo stares wide-eyed as the flap falls shut and reseals behind Nyah. “Well, that was easy,” she says.

  I hand her back her knife. “What were you thinking, coming here?”

  “I’m rescuing you.” She looks at me, like, isn’t it obvious? “So get dressed and let’s go.”

  I want to think of a way to say it that won’t completely deflate her, but there isn’t one, so I just tell her flat out, “The nearest estate is close to a hundred miles from here. She’ll get up in the morning and track us down before we’ve gone five.”

  “You’re giving up?”

  “No, I’m going to outsmart her.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” She glares at me. I’m obviously still here.

  “Better than the knife.” I sigh, trying not to let it show. “We can’t out-run her in the desert, Kayo.”

  She looks a little deflated, which makes me feel bad. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving!” she says.

  I get her some cold fried cactus and strips of dried snake flavored with something Nyah called desert salt.

  “What is it?” Kayo asks, chewing on a piece. “It’s not bad.”

  “I’ll tell you when you’re done. Tell me about the others. You found your group?”

  “Yeah, Kama’s leading them,” she mumbles around a mouthful. “I gave them the message and then came after you. What’d you do, run all the way here without stopping?”

  “Something like that. Do you know if the girls from our camp found the other four groups? They’re headed away from here, right?”

  “I saw Erity before I left. She asked me where you were going to lead — it’s Nyah, isn’t it? The desert girl?” I nod. “I told her, straight north, so she won’t lead them this way when she finds her group. And after I left my group I passed Kenja. Her group was arguing, it looked pretty intense. She asked where I was going so I told her. They were still arguing when I left. Probably trying to decide which estate was closest.” She swallows the last of the food and licks her fingers. “So what was it?”

  “Desert chicken.”

  ***

  “They’re not coming, are they?” Nyah asks in the morning while we’re eating breakfast. She looks like she hasn’t slept since Kayo woke us.

  Kayo opens her mouth to give her impression of a convincing lie. I save us all time: “Nope.”

  “I’m not the enemy,” Nyah says.

  “I believe you.” I realize as I say it that I do. “But you’re not a friend, either. There’s too much at stake for you.”

  She doesn’t deny it.

  “What did you want with us?” Kayo asks.

  “I wanted to protect you.”

  “But not get us home,” I say.

  “No.”

  “You were playing a double game. Hiding us from Out of the Desert, but hiding us from our estates, too. Were you going to use us as hostages, to get your sister freed?”

  “Time to go.” She stands up. “Grab your packs. You can leave the knives here.”

  “Where are we going?” I don’t stand up. Kayo, half-risen, sits down again.

  “To the settlement. The Select is waiting for you.” I watch her carefully as she says this. No sign she’s lying. I’m not as sure of that as I’d like to be, as Agatha would be, but I’m sure enough.

  “How far is that?”

  “Two…” she looks at Kayo. “Three days walk.”

  “We’ll need a tent. I’ll take mine down.”

  “We don’t have time. If they find you before I get you to Sven…”

  “We’re not any safer with Sven. Don’t play dumb. What the militants need are bodies, not hostages. And Sven and the Select will do just as well as a game of fifteen-year-olds.”

  “What are you talking about? What bodies?” Kayo’s voice cracks.

  “What we needed were hostages!”

  “Is that what they told you? And you believed them?” I don’t try to hide my disgust.

  “They didn’t bomb our leaders’ settlement.”

  “No. What they did was infuriate the powerful Kicho-Ryo-Tomiko triad, and kill a lot of helpless slaves. But you don’t care about that, do you? Well, I wonder how Matriarch Ryo got the coordinates for the settlement where your leaders just happened to be? The ones who don’t share Out of the Desert’s philosophy.”

  “Matriarch Ryo? Our family bombed the desert people?” Kayo looks from me to Nyah.

  “They were warned in time, Kayo. You warned them with the flare you set off. You saved their lives.” I don’t mention the ones who didn’t make it. Kayo couldn’t bear it. But I notice the way Nyah’s looking at Kayo now. Good. She owes us both.

  “Okay, let’s get moving.” Nyah starts walking toward the tent she’s been sleeping in to collect her stuff.

  “Where?” I still don’t budge.

  “Where you’ll be safe. Let’s move it!”

  I refuse to leave my tent. She can sleep outside with snakes and scorpions if she likes, but Kayo and I aren’t going to. I don’t ask, I just start taking it down, and Kayo helps me. We leave the rest of the tents up. If Out of the Desert finds them, they’ll think we were all here, and be looking for a large group.

  If anyone else finds them, they’ll think it’s Christmas.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Get down!” Nyah drops to the sand. “Down!” she hisses again as Kayo and I hesitate.

  I fall to my knees, and then my chest. No snakes, no scorpions, I’m thinking desperately, scrunching my arms and legs in close. “What is it?” I squint behind us, where she’s looking.

  “Eighteen-twenty people, following us.”

  I wait but she doesn’t elaborate. All I can see is burning sand and heat rippling in the air above it.

  “Come on, but stay down. There’s a dip in the sand ahead. We can get up after we reach it.”

  I look ahead. White on white as far as I can see. How does she know these things?

  She starts crawling through the sand. “Hurry!”

  “You okay, Kayo?” I ask over my shoulder.

  No answer. Then, “yes,” so quiet I barely hear it. I look back. Her face is nearly as white as the sand, but she nods at me.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I start crawling. Behind me I hear the movement of sand as she follows. No snakes, no scorpions, I think, glaring at the sand around me. I don’t see any nest holes. Snakes are attracted to movement, Norio said, but you can outrun them. I crawl faster. Where is that flickis dip?

  I look up, sweating, from my anxious inspection of the sand for scorpion nests, in time to see Nyah sink down into the sand ahead of me. Quicksand! For a moment I’m back on Malem. “Nyah!” I cry. Her head pops up.

  It’s the dip. Everything still looks white on white to me, but she is unmistakably lower than us. “It’s just ahead,” I call back to Kayo. “We’re almost there.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Kayo?” I look behind. She’s lying on the sand, gripping her forearm just below the elbow.

  “Kayo!” I scramble back to her. “What is it?”

  “Snake,” she says through gritted teeth, trying not to cry.

  “Nyah, Kayo’s been bitten!” I grab Kayo’s pack. “Where’s your antidote?”

  “D…don’t have any.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t have any? Everyone got some.” I’m pawing desperately through her pack when I remember. I got stung. She wanted me to drink her antidote, she opened it and put it to my lips, and when I told her to get my vial, she just dropped it and ran.

  “’Sokay, Idaro. Knew I’d die here,” Kayo stammers.

  “You’re not going to die here!” There has to be something in her pack. She’s like a walking med clinic.

  “D…don’t stay. G…go before they get here.” Her voice is getting weaker.

  “Here’s something!” I pull out a bottle. “What’s this?”

  “D…D-doc…” It’s just a pain block. It won’t stop the poison. “L… leave it…” She reaches a shaking arm out for it.

  One swallow is enough to stop your heart, Teacher said. I blink hard, but my face is damp when Nyah slides in next to me.

  She pushes me aside. There’s a knife in her hand. “Don’t!” I scream.

  “Be quiet! The desert carries sound! Get out of my way.” She shoves me again.

  I’m about to grab her but she’s not killing Kayo, she’s cutting away her sleeve. Then I notice what’s in her other hand: a limp white snake, minus its head and poison sack. She holds it just above the bite on Kayo’s arm, and squeezes. A squirt of pinky-white liquid falls into the wound.

  “The snake’s own blood contains an antidote,” she says, squeezing a few more drops out before tossing it aside. “Give me the D-doc juice.” I hand it over to her.

  “Kayo,” Nyah leans closer, right over Kayo’s face. “Can you hear me Kayo?”

  Kayo blinks. Her mouth parts, like she’s trying to say yes.

  “That’s good, Kayo. I’m going to give you two drops of D-doc juice. It won’t hurt you.” She motions me back, stopping my protest. “I need to slow down your heart, slow the dissemination of the poison, until the antidote can work. Can you open your mouth wider?” Carefully, she pours two drops into Kayo’s half-open mouth. “Swallow,” she says when Kayo doesn’t.

  The fear in Kayo’s eyes nearly undoes me. She closes her eyes and swallows.

  “You can sleep now,” Nyah tells her.

  I spread out the flexsheet I pulled out of Kayo’s pack when I was looking for her antidote. Nyah and I lift Kayo onto it and drag her on our knees over to the gully and down into it.

  Her face has a waxy sheen to it. I put my ear to her mouth. “She’s barely breathing.”

  “That’s okay. That’s normal.”

  Like any of this is normal. What kind of game is this? What kind of people would risk their own daughters? For what? For the right to keep slaves? For the right to gamble with the lives of people who aren’t their kin? I want to throw back my head and scream! I want to bomb them all into oblivion!

  I gasp. That’s not me. I don’t want more bodies, more red streaks across this harsh white planet. I don’t want anyone else to die. This is how it happens. You hurt me and I hurt you back and you hurt me back… That’s how it starts. How does it stop?

  If that’s what I’m here for, the Adept on Seraffa picked the wrong person. Whoever had that vision really messed up. Because I have not the tiniest idea how to undo a centuries-old bitterness.

  “We’ll have to wait for them here. Ambush them.” Nyah’s voice startles me.

  I squint out at the distant figures following us. “Won’t they see the dip? You did.”

  “They will too. But it curves there,” she points to the right. Now that I’m in the gully I can see the curve of its sides. “You two hide around the curve. Can you drag her there? I’ll wipe away your trail and make fresh tracks that way.” She points ahead, in the direction we were going. After a hundred yards or so the sand rises again. “Then I’ll backtrack and wait for them there.” She points to the left where the side of the gully protrudes a little.

  “Eighteen to twenty people?” Even she’s not that good, especially up against desert people like her. “What are you going to do when they get here?”

  “I’ll think of something then.”

  In other circumstances I’d laugh. I’m the one who usually says something like that. “That’s your plan? You’ll think of something?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I can’t even protect Kayo. You made us leave our knives behind.”

  “You’re safer without one. If whoever comes over that rise looks dangerous, don’t antagonize them.”

  I drag Kayo around behind the curve in the gully and sit beside her on a corner of the flexsheet, waiting for whoever’s coming after us. I can’t fight them, and I can’t run — not and leave Kayo here unconscious. That leaves surrender. And prayer, Agatha would add, if she were here. “A rescue team would be helpful anytime soon,” I mutter, just in case Agatha’s right about that.

  I look up at the sky. One of the groups must have reached an estate by now. You’d think they’d send an aircar out at least, when they heard their story. Unless they did, and they’ve been busy finding the other girls and taking them home. They could have done that by now, so why aren’t they here? Kayo told both Erity and Kenja where I was going.

  Okay, fine, I’m not one of theirs, but what about Kayo? I get mad again as I look at her, barely breathing beside me, fighting for her life against this desert’s poison.

  I stand up carefully and peek over the side of the gully. I can see them now. They’re not close enough for me to make out their faces, or even their clothes, just white shapes coming nearer through shifting sheets of heat and sunlight. I duck down again. Nyah’s right: resistance is useless. I hope she won’t try anyway, and get herself killed.

  And then there’s only waiting. Watching Kayo breathe, listening for the sound of footsteps muffled by sand, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart, wondering what Nyah’s thinking, what she’ll do, what they’ll do…

  They’re close enough I can hear their voices now. I strain to make out the words. They’re probably speaking the language of the desert people, though, a variation of an Old Earth language I don’t know.

  “Are you sure you saw something?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  No, they’re speaking Salarian. And they’re quarreling. I could work with that…

  They don’t say anything more. All I hear is the sound of the sand sifting under their feet as they get closer and closer.

  “Hey, there’s a dip here in the sand!”

  She’s almost on top of it. They can’t see any better than I can in this white desert. Not desert people, then?

  “The tracks go down into it and across to the other side.”

  I know that voice! And Nyah’s waiting to…

  “Stop!” I yell, jumping up. I startle Kama so much she slips, and slides down the side of the gully.

  I look from her, flat on her ass in the sand, up to the others, every fifteen from the Kicho-Ryo-Tomiko estate and half-a-dozen others.

  “What are you doing here?” I shout at them. I vaguely remember that that was the first thing I said to Kayo, too, when she showed up. So it’s not entirely a surprise when Kama stands up, brushes the sand off her butt, and says, “We’re here to rescue you!” She glares at Nyah.

  I take a second to send a silent message skyward: I was thinking of an aircar!

  To Kama I say, “You tried to poison me and now you’ve come to rescue me?”

  She looks embarrassed, steps closer and lowers her voice. “Don’t make a big deal of that. The first sting isn’t fatal. I knew you had the antidote. I just wanted you sent home so I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping you alive. It’s turning out to be a real pain in the butt.”

  Erity jumps down into the gully. “Where’s Kayo? Didn’t she find you?”

  “She got bitten by a snake.” I decide not to go into the rest of it. “Nyah’s taking us somewhere safe while she recovers, where Out of the Desert won’t find us.”

  They’re all in the gully by now. Kenja pushes to the front. “Where’s the Select?” She eyes Nyah suspiciously.

  Now it’s my turn to look embarrassed. “It was Nyah, in the Select’s robe.”

  “You lied to us? What’s going on?”

  “You wouldn’t have listened if I told you it was a desert girl,” I say. They frown, mostly at Nyah but also at me, now, which proves I’m right. “And the rest of it is true. Members of Out of the Desert are looking for us. We were afraid that’s who you were. Why didn’t you go to an estate where you’d be safe?”

  “Because none of us can go home without you and Kayo!” Kama shouts. “You know that! Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to leave you in the desert!”

  “You should have! I don’t need any back-up!”

  “You are the most ungrateful rescued person I know,” Erity says, stepping between us. “And you are the most bad-mannered hero,” she says to Kama. “I’m going to go see Kayo and hope for a better response.”

  “It isn’t true, you know,” Akako tells me as the others go to see Kayo. “Not everyone wanted to come, but Kama argued, shamed and bullied them into it. Even six girls who aren’t from our estate decided to come by the time she was through. She said no one who would let a team-mate in the desert game die without even trying to save her was worthy of being in a triad.” She looks down. “I wouldn’t have let you die, you know. From the sting.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I guess you do now.”

  I laugh despite myself. “What did you think you were going to do against a group of armed militants?”

  She shrugs. “The best we could. We would have had surprise on our side.”

  “No doubt about that.”

  When we get to Kayo, her eyes are open and she’s smiling.

  Not one of them understands the danger they’re in. This isn’t a game, I want to shout at them, but they wouldn’t understand me. They’ve been taught that everything’s a game, death is just one of the pieces. I go back to where Nyah’s standing, looking north over the desert.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27