14)
They were in a canter down Main Street, the horses and their riders. A glorious sun presided over them, casting short shadows on the concrete road below. At the hour of noon the downtown was nearly deserted, all occupants having returned inside for catnaps or lunch. No face lingering on the sidewalk was familiar to Jas Dumes. The town drifted behind them without a voice, as a silent parade when only the sound of buzzing flies, the clopping of horse hooves and the occasional rustle of garbage in the street was all that could be heard. They passed the ramshackle buildings on the outskirts of the town, and even in the powerful sun the insides were nests for invisible nocturnal creatures, arachnids and desert rats. The straggling end of Glenview faded away behind them, and all that was left was the open field of the elevated desert. It was a strange land, lush only in dry dirt, and the number of cattle easily outnumbered the humans. The rain last night had done the arid countryside very little good. Any slight breeze brought with it the top layer of earthly grime. It settled in a fine film of grit on anything the wind touched, a pollen of dirt.
Zeta casted a sidelong peer at Ro. She was looking out to her right, away from him, to the gently brushed rangeland and occasional butte or dip in the formation, like an elf's mountain. "Ro," he said and she flipped around, her hair sweeping back as she did so. "I'm proud of you."
"What'd I do?"
"You were very--" he tried to think of the right word, "sweet to Mrs. Gwennie."
"Was I?" She lofted an eyebrow to doubt him. But he would not take the bait, he rarely did, because he did not often understand she meant to imply a harmless argumentativeness.
Jas just watched Ro and Zeta, in contemplations of his own as to Ro's behavior that afternoon. She had been sweet, at times even verging on polite and shy. Mrs. Gwennie had that affect on people. "Hey, Zee?"
Zeta lifted his head over his shoulder to see Jas's eyes hidden behind dark glasses.
"Who is Dr. Selig?"
"My creator," Zeta answered and immediately turned back around. He wanted to dismiss the topic.
Jas, however, didn't relent. He had the youthful mind that benefited from others' obstinacy from the ability to remain in sustained curiosity. "Do you really think Mrs. Gwennie was telling the truth, that she does know someone from Cryobin?"
"I think she was, yes. People do not lie about Cryobin."
Ro threw in coolly: "Cryobin wouldn't stand for it."
She furrowed her brow and shot a look at Jas as if to disable his questions. Jas cowered in the saddle. He hadn't meant to be so nosy, but Ro supposed he could not help it. She and Zeta did made for quite the freak show, really, and she had to look at their existence from an outside viewpoint. She knew she'd be curious if a girl and a synthoid showed up, who appeared to be searching for someone they couldn't find, who they thought might be dead. Ro twitched her lip and fought off the image that she and Zeta were always sinking deeper into dangerous waters they should no longer probe. Now, however, it wasn't up to them.
"Ro," Zeta began. His train of thought had not been far from the same track as Ro's.
"What?" Ro shifted the reins a little, liking the feel of the pliable leather sitting in her hands and the tickle of Tippen's long wiry mane on the tips of her fingers.
"It seems I remember you saying how you don't believe in fate."
Ro grunted. Her shoulders lifted. "So?"
"Well," Zeta watched her, in his best speculation mode, "what do you think now? Do you still disbelieve fate, after all this?"
"Zee," she said as she sighed, "if that's fate than fate is pretty fickle, and fate is not for me. Real fate, any good and decent fate, would've let me find relatives in Mrs. Gwennie's pictures. Real fate wouldn't keep letting you down."
"That's not fate." Zeta finally found something to argue. "That's just good luck. You can't conveniently interchange the two whenever you feel."
"Oh?" Ro responded, now rising to the challenge. She liked this part of Zee, the side that pried into the human minds with almost a callousness. "I still think that life is what you make of it. I don't think that everything's made up and I have no say in anything."
"Of course you have say. But it's the decisions you make that pedestal you to fate."
Ro snickered and color rose in her cheeks. Jas noticed while wondering if this was typical behavior between Ro and Zeta. He'd never seen it, not in the day he'd known them. He felt uncomfortable. "Come on, you two. Knock it off. I'll show you the short cut home across the fields." He tugged sharply at Presto's reins, dipped in the saddle so the horse stepped to the right.
"He knows I don't mean it, Jas," Ro provided. She felt no guilt for goading Zee along. As she met Zeta's eyes, he broke out into a smile, naïve, credulous and forgiving. "See, he forgives me. Must be all that compassion." Ro looked away from Zee, tapped the reins so Tippen followed Presto off the road and into the empty land. She'd said the last words in fervent derision, and hadn't really meant to. But she could not apologize without explanation, and that was something she could not do; it was too embarrassing, even for Ro. She rode on, allowing Zee and Jasper to take a long lead. Now that they were on their way back to the Dumes', she and Zeta had to think of a way to get out of town, a way that wouldn't evoke the NSA to hunt them down and tear the town to shreds looking for them. But somehow they always knew. How did they do it?
A buzzing through the air began, just as she was thinking those last few words. She recognized that noise. It wasn't a bug, a bird, an animal or anything natural. It was the sound of a cruiser ship. "Like the kind the NSA has," Ro thought to herself. She looked up to find that Zeta had already stopped his horse, and was looking to the sky, trying to detect the source of the familiar hum. Then he stared at Ro a moment, giving that look that melted defenses, that "I'm so sorry I did this to you" look. He wasn't to blame. She told him, over the growing noise of the ship, "They're after me, too, Zee. It isn't just you they want."
But what Zeta knew though he did not verbalize was how the NSA would be sated capturing only him, and letting Ro go.
Jas's horse pranced, and Jas himself would've pranced if he wasn't confided to the saddle. "What do we do?" he asked, expecting an answer from one.
Zeta scanned about, his desperation for escape apparent. But there was nothing. They were out in the middle of nowhere, in rangeland. His mind abruptly flashed in photographic memories stored from three days earlier, when he and Ro had been walking at night in the woods, then in the corn. And he thought about how far away that corn seemed, how far away the woods were, and wished there was something, anything, like that close, when Ro needed it and he needed it for Ro. Zeta observed Jas, then Ro, when he said, "Race you home." He quickly commanded the horse into a gallop, and the other two were faced with no choice but to follow, allowing their horses to break into the same fast step.
They were separated, the three of them, by a great distance, especially the nearer the cruiser came. The droning of the hovership scared the horses nearly senseless, and they were feeling the panic of their riders as well. Jas was close enough to Ro to say one thing. And over the pounding of the twelve hooves against the earth, Ro could barely understand him. "You've really got to do something with Zee's sense of humor, Ro!" She waved a bothered arm at him, and rose up higher in the saddle. At the same time she tried to look over her shoulder to see how close the cruiser was, behind the cloud of dust that rose from Tippen's speedy legs. The ship was some fifty feet behind her, gaining faster than the horses could run. It zoomed over the top of them, a shadow it cast fell across them, like a creature dark and alive that would soon swallow them whole.
The hovership flew around a second time, then a third, and at each turn it made Zeta would look up and observe the strange craft, waiting, scanning. At the fourth pass, Zeta slowed down his horse. Jas stopped beside the synthoid, his expression frantic.
"Wait, Zee," Jas said, clearly apologetic and confused, "that's just--just my uncle."
Ro trotted to him in time to hear his declaration. She tried to keep in and quietly destroy her anger. "Just your uncle?" She filled the question with enough annoyance and distaste that it satisfied her.
"Yes," Jas said. "I didn't know he was coming in town. Well, he never tells us when he is." He tried to laugh over the uncomfortable tension between himself and Ro, but it failed when she was so clearly upset. Zeta was not as calm as usual, either. "I didn't know it was him when I first saw the ship, too. I swear! But the third time he passed over, I checked the tail number, and that's his ship. I'm sorry. I should've thought of it sooner, but you guys were so wrapped up in--I don't know." He slapped the reins and Presto wandered off. "Don't worry," he told his friends over his shoulder, "my uncle isn't dangerous."
"Well, thanks for that little bit of comfort," Ro shouted as the kid rode on ahead. She waited with Zeta. "You okay, Zee?"
Zeta nodded. "I was really afraid."
"I know. I was afraid, too."
The mere idea that he could possibly fail to protect Ro disturbed Zeta. "Out here in the middle of nowhere, where would you go?"
"I would've found a way. I'm very resourceful. They won't take me without a kick and a scream, and, maybe, an explosion." The attempt at humor was unable to alter Zeta from his present morose manner. He would be more content when they were finally able to leave Glenview, and move on to some other town, again strangers, belonging to no one but each other. It seemed to be the only way.
They began to canter toward the farm, where the hovership had landed. Not far from the barn jovial voices could be heard among the Dumes' and their new guest. Zeta was fearful of meeting someone else, especially after the scare he'd just had, and his worry was more for Ro than for himself. But Ro was not afraid; she marched right up to the grounded cruiser, where the Dumes' had gathered to greet Warren's elder brother. Zeta followed her steadily, and would not allow Ro to be more than ten feet from him. At ten feet he could do a lot of good to protect her, but still stay out of her way. Anything further than ten feet was not enough time for reaction if something should suddenly happen, and any closer than ten feet Ro would feel he was perched like a fly that wouldn't leave her alone.
Jas greeted his uncle with a hug. His uncle swatted Jas atop his head, swirling around the teen's thick, unruly hair.
"I heard you had an adventure, young man."
Jas flushed. "I did, but it was a good adventure, even if it means I have to spend the rest of my childhood grounded. Uncle, these are my friends, Ro and Zee Smith."
The powerful, virile middle-aged uncle tilted toward Ro for the premiere handshake. "I'm Alistair Murphy Dumes, Miss Ro. A great pleasure to meet you." She was a cute thing, but with an serrated edge that was so visible it made him take a harder look. There was a turbulence in her, a fire. In a way, she reminded him of his own daughter, who was more spoiled than plain headstrong. "You're a sprightly thing, aren't you?"
"I have more sprightly moments than you can imagine, more than Tinkerbell," Ro answered, and shook his hand. She didn't know what to think of Alistair Dumes, but she wanted to like him. There was something so engaging in his attitude. He was like a caricature of himself, and knew it, then played up to it even more. "This is Zee," she said, "my cousin."
Alistair greeted Zeta in the same manner as Ro, but omitted the sprite comment and added in its place: "You're not a farming man, I wager."
Julie answered for her guests. "They're scientists taking a holiday." She felt the need to cover for them, and offer an explanation when no other would do. "They found Jas out in the woods and brought him back home."
"I heard. Well," the chipper uncle said to Zee and Ro, "the Dumes' are obliged to you, and I am, too." He brushed back his silver hair, and smoothed out with his fingers a bushy mustache in the same shade of gray. "I saw Jas out in the field with a couple people on horses. Must've been you two. You're pretty good riders for not being from the country. Warren was telling me that you're--" he paused to recollect the story, "following the trail of your ancestors?"
Zeta recalled the story and filled in the details Warren had unintentionally left out. The synthoid was less on his guard now that he was back at the farm and assured that Alistair Dumes was no threat to the safety of himself or Ro. While the Dumes' traveled on ahead, to lift themselves into the house, Zeta halted his steps for a moment, a thought in his mind developing.
"Zee?" Ro asked, having spotted the robots peculiar, dead stop, and he stood so still that it mesmerized her. "What's your problem?"
"Ro," he said, tilting his head at a slight angle, the human inexperience again apparent, "I'm starting to understand how frightening it really is."
"What?"
"Running," he said. "Running for your life."
Ro rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. "You're too serious! Lighten up! It was just a hovership belonging to a nice guy who has a lot of money to spend on luxury transportation. Don't read so much into it."
Zee was skeptical.
"Trust me on this one, okay? Besides, if I'm nice enough, maybe he'll take us with him when he leaves."
He remained unaffected.
"Well," Ro said, trying to find another way, "you're just upset with yourself because you made a mistake. Ha!" she interjected, and pointed at him, a snicker tickling her lips and mockery skipping in her eyes. "Admit it. You made a mistake!" She laughed again, throwing herself into the rare moment of humor.
Zeta forced a smile, but it came out listless and wrong. His best smiles were the smiles he didn't know he was making. "I gladly admit that I made a mistake."
Ro danced, twirling around and lifting her arms loosely. She was chanting in rhythm with the moves she made: "Zee made a mistake! Zee made a mistake!"
He smacked her on the back of the head, lifting her corn-yellow hair wildly out of place, as he stepped by to enter the house, leaving Ro to her tribal moves. But once she had annoyed him beyond his threshold, or he had just become bored with her, she stopped the harassment and followed him. Julie and Boom-Boom were in the foyer to greet her. Boom-Boom was recovering from the obligatory growl he'd given Zeta, and met Ro with a wet nose and a lick to her hand that she brushed away on her pants leg. Julie greeted her as warmly, without the wet nose, and asked what happened with batty Mrs. Gwennie. Ro told her that nothing really had, and soon she and Zeta would be leaving Glenview. Julie was miffed at her own feeling of strong disappointment when she heard the news. But, somehow, she understood. Ro and Zeta were not stray animals that one just takes in, cleans up, loves, adopts. They were on a quest, some kind of quest, and running from a government that would not let them be.
"Ro," Julie said, and stopped before entering the family room from the kitchen, where they'd been talking privately, like cousins or sisters, "I want to give you something. Here, follow me."
They ended up in Julie's pink and white room, the epitome of sixteen-year-old femininity. Ro watched the fish in the tank, as they had a calming presence to even the most rigid and anxious eye. Ro leaned back from the redolent aerated fish water when Julie came to her side. Her hand was full of money.
"No," Ro said, even without a second thought. "I won't take it. And you know Zee wouldn't approve."
"I think Zee would approve of anything that would help you, Ro. Take it, and don't ever think about it again. What do I need it for? It's just been collecting dust." Julie shrugged. Ro wasn't yet convinced, but Julie knew she was closing in on the small victory. "So I'll live without one more designer outfit for the school year. So what? I'm happier giving it to you and Zee. It's not that much, just a little. It should be enough to get you out of town."
Ro finally gave in. Trying to find a way to argue with Julie would take more time than it was worth. And what Julie said was true, about Zeta doing whatever he could to help. Ro just didn't want to believe it was true when it came to taking money from friends. "Do you think your uncle would give us a lift? When's he leaving?"
"Oh!" Julie's eyes brightened. "Now there's an idea, Ro! He'll probably leave after supper. He lives in Seapoint now, after the government bought back his tobacco land, and he comes by for a visit every now and then. He can take you back to Seapoint with him, I'm sure. You could catch an EHT from there to just about anywhere." While she spoke, Julie busied herself around her room, to fetch a few more things for Ro, including the clothes she had borrowed the other night, no longer soiled with mud but clean and fresh. She handed the black jacket to Ro. "It's going to get cold soon, so you'll need this."
Ro accepted it and cradled the jacket over hear arm.
"Will you be able to stay in touch, let me know what happens?" Julie already suspected the answer, and was not surprised when Ro's reply came, delivered in a tender way.
"No, it's better if we don't. That way--they can't trace us as easily. And they'll leave you alone. They will if they don't find you out."
"I think you must be very brave, Ro." Julie had said it in sentimentality. She meant it. She'd never met a real hero before, someone battling against the forces of good and evil as blatantly and forcefully as Ro and Zeta. At least, those were the types of images she'd placed in her mind. And, in a way, perhaps truth was found there.
They'd been edging toward the door to join the others downstairs, but Ro stopped and looked Julie square in her wholesome brown irises, and deep into the black pupils. "You know, I'm one of those people who always thought that there was a very fine line between bravery and plain stupidity. Some days you're the knight, and other days you're the knave."
Julie giggled, and Ro's mentality lifted from the pessimistic to the hopeful. She returned to being the knight. The costume of the knave was left behind. She thought it didn't become her very well, anyway.
--
Note
Seapoint
Otherwise known as Seattle. Except smaller and more south.