Rising Tide (25 page)

“My reputation has traveled,” I say.

Lewis waves a hand. “I've canceled them,” he says. He holds up a piece of paper. “Can you read?”

The guard shakes his head.

“Then you're going to have to take my word. You know who I am. I have a signed declaration here from the Council. An order saying this ship is to be released at once and given over to this man.”

The guard doesn't look happy, but he takes the paper. He can't read the writing, but he obviously recognizes the seal that's on the paper. And he steps aside. Which is a relief but makes me wonder how easy it would be to stage a coup on Tamoanchan. I know that Lewis is taking a risk, but he's taking it for his own benefit. I'm also aware of how this whole thing could blow up in our faces.

Lewis turns to me. “You sure you know what you're doing?”

“That's funny,” I say. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Lewis turns to look at my copilot. Diego still looks beat up, but he's here. And I still don't know if that's a good thing or a bad one. It was his idea. As we were laying out the plan, three things became apparent—(1) the
Dumah
made a great dirigible to use, as she could get close without being seen and we could use her cameras to help spy out what was going on, but (2) she didn't have enough cargo capacity or space in the gondola to take on the number of people we were talking about. So that meant another ship. A passenger or freight one. Diego immediately suggested the
Osprey
. But (3) I needed a copilot. I couldn't run everything myself on the
Dumah
.

Of course Lewis's plan meant that we couldn't really appropriate any ship captains or ships from the island—that could be made to look like they were weakening the island's defenses—so that left me and Diego, seeing as he'd been relieved of his duties.

Miranda of course wanted to come with me, but Lewis crushed that idea. “I need you here working on the virus,” he said. “Getting things ready for the others if Ben is successful.”

That “if” seemed to make her flinch.

I knew she was angry, but the fact was I had to agree with Lewis. Her place was on the island, working on her cure. It wasn't that I didn't want her with me—of course I did—but she was most valuable doing what she did best. And I could get along better in a fight without having to worry about her.

Still, things feel strange with her. We spent the last night in front of the stove again, but things were different. We kissed and touched but . . . she felt distant. I hope that she's just worried about the boffins.

As we lay there, next to one another, shoulder to shoulder, Miranda asked me, “Ben, why didn't you ever tell me your middle name?”

I sighed. “I was hoping you would forget that.”

“You know me better than that.” She looked at me, all concern for a moment. “It's not . . .
Cherub
, is it?”

I gave her my most wounded expression. “It's still too soon for those kinds of comments.”

She placed a hand over her heart. “I am terribly sorry. So . . . middle name?”

I shrug. “I never . . . the way my father told it is that my mother picked it.”

Miranda was silent. I rarely talked about my mother.

“She chose it. And I didn't really have anything left from her. So . . . I guess I grew up thinking it was something special. And secret.” Unconsciously I reached up to my chest, where I used to wear my dad's Star of David. That star was gone, but I'd gotten a replacement, the one currently pinned to my coat. “I suppose you want to know what it is.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean yes. I do. But not now.”

I looked at her, all questions.

She placed a hand on the side of my face. “Come back to me with all my people, and then you can tell me, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Then I pulled her to me and held her in my arms until we both fell asleep.

But I woke up alone again.

“Ben?”

I snap back to Lewis, only just realizing that I had been lost in my thoughts. “Yeah.”

“You ready?”

I nod.

Lewis stares me down. “Don't fuck this up.”

“I'll get them back,” I say. “But not for you.”

Lewis turns to Diego as if appealing to him for help, but Diego just pulls me toward the
Dumah
. “That's the ship you stole?” he asks.

“Sure is.”

Diego whistles. “That old friend of yours must be out of his mind with anger.”

I smile. “Yeah,” I say, and I feel a twinge of something. More conflicted feelings. I know Mal was ready to kill me, but once more I had a part in that. Ben Gold, always fouling the water.

“Technically, Miranda stole it,” I add.

“Oh, well that's all right then.”

We board the
Dumah
and I briefly show Diego the layout of the controls, covering both the flight controls and the controls that deal with the bank of monitors. Then I settle into the pilot's seat and start up all the engines and rotors. A hum goes through the ship, and I feel a slight vibration. A purr, almost. Everything looks good, so I release the anchor and let us rise.

“She's quiet,” Diego says.

“Sure is,” I say. “That's one of the reasons I wanted her.”

Diego lays out the set of maps we brought with us. Using the information from Tess, we've managed to trace our route east, though we'll need to check out the landmarks when we get to the right place.

I push the engines to full, turning us back toward the mainland. Even with full power it will probably take us a few hours.

Enough time to chat with Diego about why he's really there. “You didn't need to come,” I say.

“Yes I did. You said that you needed someone else to fly this thing.”

“I know. But it didn't have to be you. You trying to prove something?”

“No.” He shakes his head and turns back to the monitors, examining the controls. “I wanted to help. And I needed to do something. I've been stuck in that house for too many days.”

I turn the chair to him and cross my arms. “And this has nothing to do with you showing everyone that you can still do this? That Gastown didn't damage you that bad?”

His expression darkens and he sets his jaw. I realize I might be entering dangerous territory. He places both hands on the console. “I think you're the one with something to prove,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

“Remember, Ben, Rosie and I were the ones who told you about the Gastown raiders coming for Miranda's people. I saw you light out of there, desperate to save your friends. Only you didn't.”

A wave, cold and angry, rises through me. “I did what I could to fight the raiders. I was outnumbered and outgunned.”

“Do you really think that?” he asks. “That you did everything you could?”

I become conscious of my heart beating hard in my chest, and I stand up from my chair. “Are you trying to imply something?”

He meets my eyes, his face expressionless. “Ben, I don't need to imply anything. Are you telling me you don't feel guilty about that?”

And of course as he brings it up, I do feel it resurface, that feeling that maybe I could have done more, could have tried more. The fear that maybe the old survival instinct got the better of me. And yet . . .

“I think you have me beat on the guilty-feelings front,” I say.

“What?”

“You're practically wearing a sign around your neck that says, ‘I broke.'”

His eyes get wide. “You weren't there. You don't know—”

“That they tortured you? That they took you apart? It was pretty obvious.”

“Ben . . .”

“Fine. They broke you. They would have broken any of us. Me, you, Brana, Rosie—”

“Ben!” He slaps both hands down on the console, and the sound reverberates around us. His neck is rigid, the tendons visible.

I freeze.

He closes his eyes. When he speaks his voice is tight. “It's not that I broke. You're right. Anyone would've. It's that I got caught in the first place.” He shakes his head, then rubs a hand over his head. “I asked too many questions, or maybe I asked the wrong questions, or—”

“Diego,” I say. “Jesus. That's what you're upset about?”

He levels me with a stare that practically staggers me.

I shake my head. “Who knows what tipped them off? Maybe they were on alert because of what we did with Miranda and the lab. Maybe they just got lucky. You saw how it was up there. A bunch of psychotic, bloodthirsty madmen with a bunch of cruel, insanely intelligent scientists behind them. We were all outclassed.”

He looks down.

The moment sits like that for a minute or so. Then I say, “I think the ultimate moral of this tale is that next time you and I should stick together and Miranda can stay with Rosie.”

“Rosie's certainly not going to stick with you,” he says, the hint of a smile on his face.

I shake my head. “Diego, your sister scares me.”

He nods again. “I know.”

I laugh. I can't help myself.

He shrugs. “You'll work it out. You'll have to.”

“Really?” I ask.

He shrugs again. “You'll either work it out, or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or she'll probably end up kicking your ass.”

I resolve to myself to try to work it out.

When Tess had told me about a prison camp, I hadn't imagined an actual camp. I thought they might take shelter in a school or an old office building. Someplace where they would have hard walls between them and Ferals. Someplace where they would have a roof, or multiple roofs, between them and the air. I figured they took scientists for a reason and that they'd have to do experiments or analyze data or something. A school would seem ideal.

But no, the Cabal for whatever reason has created an actual camp. Not for the first time, I find I can't fathom what they're doing or why. Below us, as shown on the monitors, is a series of tents and other temporary structures. A thick-wire fence surrounds these, topped with barbed wire. Mostly good against Ferals, but not completely safe. I've seen Ferals climb, and I've seen some shrug off serious wounds when in the grips of hunger. That's why they've constructed another fence on the inside, with a series of spikes or sharpened poles or whatever inside that ring. If a Feral manages to climb over the outer fence, he's going to have a hard time getting through that inner layer. And I'm sure there are traps as well. A couple of gates allow access inside and out. I'd guess a guard is stationed in front of it at all times, but I can't really make one out at this resolution.

“I'm amazed at how open it is,” I say to Diego. He's bent over the screens, taking it all in. The sun is setting and we have only a few moments to get a clear look at the structure.

“Lucky for us,” he says.

“Yeah.” I shake my head.

“Maybe it's a cut-and-run operation,” he says. “They're not valuable enough. If something goes wrong, they get out and leave your friends on their own.”

“Maybe,” I say. The boffins are fairly capable people, but a group of them on their own in the open would make easy targets for anyone.

I make a quick sketch of the layout on the edge of one of the maps so I can remember. I look out the gondola and see the last of the sun's orange glow slip beneath the horizon. “Okay,” I say. “Hit that switch.”

Diego does, and the infrared monitor springs to life. This is why I insisted we take the
Dumah
in addition to the
Osprey
. We've seen the structure, now we need to see who's inside it.

Outlined on the screen are the red, yellow, and green glowing blobs of the heat down below us. The people are easy to see, thin slashes of color. Larger blobs appear to be fires.

“Good God,” Diego says. “This is incredible.”

“I know,” I say. Perhaps the most impressive of the
Dumah
's many eyes.

As expected, in front of the gate is a guard, and what I take to be several others move around inside the fence. I mark them as guards because of their movements, within a certain area, back and forth. Stopping here and there. By far, though, the majority of the heat blobs are scattered among where I'd seen several of the tents earlier. As we watch, one blob moves to each of the tents, and then all the blobs inside move out into the center of the compound, line up into two orderly lines, then move into the largest tent, where they all settle into their own spaces and stay there.

“Makes sense,” I say. “It's dark. They probably want to preserve whatever energy they have. Solar, I'd guess.”

“Maybe feeding time,” Diego says.

I nod. Obviously the boffins are valuable enough to feed. It's generally accepted that the three most valuable resources are food, fuel or power, and ammunition. The boffins have to be worth something for the Cabal to spend so much food on them on a regular basis. It maybe explains why they are where they are and this place seems lightly guarded. They're already expending enough resources on them. They can't spare more.