Chapter Two
Farewell to Old Comrades, Hello to a New Friend
Malcolm Reed
Fortunately for us, the Sonora Desert is a bit of a largish place, and not over-endowed with large centres of population. We have to skirt one or two, but it turns out that putting down on the QT within a couple of kilometres of the charmingly-named 'Rainbow Wells' is by no means difficult. Even I am reasonably confident as the shuttle settles onto the sand that there is nobody near enough to notice our arrival.
It's harder than I expected, saying goodbye to Rostov and Hess. It's not as though we interacted all that often, apart from my briefings with Michael on the new ships and tech that had been developed during my long months out of commission, and I know that Hess in particular was very suspicious of me for a very long time – entirely justifiably, in the circumstances. But oddly, it feels as though they're the last link to a life that ... well, I'd hesitate to say we were 'living the dream', but we were definitely living in some kind of dream world. And now the dream is over, and we're waking to ugly reality.
We'll probably never see either of them again, unless by some chance we catch an imperial broadcast bragging about the capture of one of Tucker's renegade co-conspirators. That said, the same can apply of us to them. We all look at each other, a bit grim and dismal as the door opens. Then hugs and kisses are exchanged (Rostov and I are the exception to the latter, it hardly needs saying, though we do share a warm handshake and an earnest look) and Liz and I step down onto the rough surface of the desert and retreat to a safe distance. Lingering is not safe, for us or for the shuttle, and as soon as we're clear it lifts off and arrows away southward.
It's late. The moon must have set, and the desert is dark and empty. Its darkness and emptiness reflect my feelings; for a while – just a very short while – I'd genuinely found a sense of purpose in the work I was doing, a purpose other than to try to lose myself in hatred of the world and everyone in it. Now the only purpose I have is to protect the woman beside me, and I have no idea how I'm going to do it. Everything I was familiar with has been taken away from me. My feeling of powerlessness wars with the awareness of the magnitude of the responsibility I have taken on, inducing a feeling almost of panic; but I am a survivor, and I swear to myself silently as Liz's cold little hand slips into mine that I will not fail her.
...Fail my wife.
A thought that right now is so strange and so enormous it's more than I can deal with, so I don't try.
We haven't been able to bring much; the more we carry, the more likely we are to be attacked and robbed. I have a small phase pistol, but I put more faith in the various knives I have secreted about my person. Energy discharge is always a risk when you're trying to be unobserved, and I flatter myself I'm pretty damn good with a blade even now.
Liz carries a medical scanner and a general-purpose scanner – the former was on her person when the warning came through and the latter came from the Bunker's stores. The medical scanner serves only one purpose, and frankly it's extra weight and wasted space because I trust Liz's judgment a lot more than a box of circuitry; but if having it on hand makes her feel more confident and eases her transition into our new life as fugitives, then I'm happy for her to carry it. The general-purpose scanner has a range of only a metre or two, making it useless to scan the route ahead of us. It can detect life signs, but not in time to warn us of a potential threat or alert us to a possible meal; and it can identify all known types of radiation and tell us if something is harmful, but again, owing to the short range, if we encounter anything really dangerous, we could easily receive a lethal dose before we get an accurate reading. Its most useful function overall is to identify the chemical composition of things, so if we find ourselves having to forage for food, we'll know which plants and fruits are edible and which will make us sick.
Of course, the continuing utility of both the phase pistol and the scanners depends upon our ability to keep them charged. Charging them (when we find a power source) may require revealing them to strangers. Revealing them to strangers may, again, set us up to be robbed or (if the strangers recognise them as military issue) to be arrested. So, whatever usefulness our electronic items may have, it's limited by our circumstances.
Of all the things we carry, the most valuable thing we have now in the world – and I'm not sure whether it makes me want to laugh or cry – is a bloody cat. And even being with us is a risk to her; there are plenty of people out there who'd quite deliberately torture and kill anything they thought was of importance to either of us if we were caught.
Still. At least she has the capacity to recharge herself.
Survival in a desert is a perilous art. I can imagine that if we let her loose, she'd fall prey pretty damn soon to one of the predators hereabouts: a coyote or maybe a snake. And yet, at least that way she'd have some chance. If the terrain illuminated by the hard, bright starlight was more like the area surrounding the Bunker, I'd probably release her here and now; but this is unfamiliar territory to all of us. At the very least, she'll need somewhere to hide up during the heat of the day and the bitter cold of the night, and she'll need water. She'll stand a better chance if she can at least start out with the support of humans providing those basic needs until she's acquainted with her new habitat and the available prey.
Of course, to support her, we'll need to provide for ourselves, too. Not much of an ask in a desert, then.
"Over that way." Liz has been consulting her PADD. "A couple of kilometres."
I settle the carrier's strap more comfortably across my shoulders. In ordinary conditions a couple of kilometres is nothing to write home about, but in a desert, with poor lighting conditions and rough terrain, it's not going to be easy.
"Poor little Beans. We'll find you a home somewhere," coos my fair companion, doubtless hearing the grumble of an angry cat finding this latest adjustment of her comfortless conditions disagreeable.
'Beans'. What a name for a bloody cat! If we hadn't got her out of the Bunker she'd probably have been baked Beans by now. The thought that she isn't cheers me up a bit as we begin to walk.
Still think it's a bloody stupid name, though.
=/\=
I think Liz's 'couple of kilometres' is a tad optimistic, or maybe it's just that I haven't recovered quite as well as I might have hoped from the experience of being turned into an incubator, and more recently jabbed in the guts with an unfriendly filleting knife. And though I don't grudge the effort involved, Beans is a grown cat and not a lightweight carried over a long distance. I have to be very discreet about shifting the weight of the strap, because if Liz spots me doing it too often she'll want to take it off me, and I'm not having that.
I don't know at what point I turned into a gentleman, but there are times when I think it wasn't one of my better tactical manoeuvres.
However, just as I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to call a halt, if only to take a swig from my water-bottle and try to shift the carrier strap onto my other shoulder without it being noticed, she stops and points to what I'd taken for some heaps of half-rotted old dry timbers abandoned in the lee of a rocky outcrop, a fair distance away from what might with some imagination be described as the road.
"That's it?" I ask doubtfully.
"I'm sure of it."
Personally I'm not, but I follow her anyway. The ground there rises a bit, and we'll be able to get a better view of our surroundings; and if I'm right and it is just an old bit of wreckage, at least it'll provide us with shelter while we have a bit of a rest. For preference we should find somewhere to hole up in as soon as we can – in this treeless area we're dangerously visible over a long distance during daylight, and though according to the schedules that we can access, the scanning satellite passed overhead shortly before the shuttle set down, we need to be out of view before dawn. My chronometer suggests this isn't that far off, and maybe I can persuade her to make camp here till the evening. Perhaps we can even use some of the timber to build a small fire; it's probably down in the mid-teens, not brutally cold, but chilly enough that I can expect my joints to stiffen up and start aching once we've rested a bit, and it would be nice to take the chill off. I don't see any water, but we have enough for a while if we're sparing with it and I remember enough from my survival training to be able to construct a pit-style solar still if the worst comes to the worst.
However, as we get nearer the supposed wreckage takes on a slightly less haphazard appearance. Some of it's certainly old lumps of timber, probably salvaged from rails nobody bothered to repair, but some of it does appear to be properly shaped pieces of wood. It's been carefully placed to take advantage of the outcrop, which partially shelters it and seems to constitute one of its sides. There are three distinct piles which seem to form a domestic hovel and a couple of outbuildings, and a fenced-in area attached to one of the outbuildings seems to mark it as a possible stable.
It's nobody's idea of a luxury residence. Holes (of which there are many) are plugged with whatever seems to have come to hand at the time, and the one window might well have been a fortuitous accident. But there are signs of human occupation: a rush basket is set to one side of the doorway, with pieces of wind-shaped driftwood in it, and a white rose straggles in a corner of what looks like an attempt at a garden.
OK. Call me a suspicious bastard, but I'm long past the day when I'd stroll up to an unknown house and knock on the door. I set down the cat-carrier and make sure my longest knife is easily to hand before I ghost up to the window. No glass in it, just a crazy-paving of broken bits of clear plastic with a rolled up piece of hide that can be tied down over it – probably for extra protection during wind-storms.
"Most folks find it easier to come in by the door."
The voice nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I whip around to see that the excuse for a door is slightly open, and someone is looking at me through the gap.
Old habits die too hard. The knife is in my hand before I know my fingers have dived for the hilt.
"No need of that, young man. Nobody goin' to hurt you here. Put the death out of your eyes and you and your woman come in out of the night."
She speaks of death – the voice is that of a woman – but her tone is placid. She draws the door wider, so that I see a smear of light behind her, illuminating a room that combines extreme poverty with odd touches of beauty like the skeleton of a whorled seashell that dangles from one of the rafters. I don't miss the soft click of an ancient revolver hammer being gently lowered or the weight of it hanging in the pocket of her skirt, but I can hardly fault her for her caution. Quite the contrary, I heartily approve. She may intend us no harm, but she won't allow us the opportunity to harm her either. It's quite a reasonable position to take for anyone living in such isolation, especially when she has apparently already agreed to shelter two fugitives months before we went on the lam.
Then Liz steps into the light, and the old woman's face breaks into an incredibly wrinkly, delighted smile.
"Grandmother!" Liz cries joyfully, so that the woman turns to her, and the two of them embrace.
"Little Miss Eighty-Three. Knowed I'd be seein' you again sooner or later. Welcome, child, welcome." She looks at me again, with a dry, knowing smile. "You got yourself a young man then." Her eyes narrow and I feel her looking into me. "One of the fellows you was with last time I seed you, if I'm not mistaken. The one who hugged you after we all said goodbye to Maria."
I'm still wary, but I have to learn to trust Liz's judgement. And the truth is, we need whatever help we can get. I slip the knife back into the sheath, take a deep breath, and step into the dwelling.
And so, for the first time since that long-ago experience I had of helping to dole out Trip's pilfered charity to the needy, I meet Grandmother again.
=/\=
As Grandmother bustles about stirring up the fire and making what appears to be some sort of tea and Liz opens the cage for Beans, who – despite her earlier protests – now refuses to come out, I take my time looking the place over. The first things I notice, because I'm looking for them, are an antique double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun and two equally ancient rifles – a .30.06 and a .22, unless I miss my guess, though honestly, it's not a guess – in a gun rack by the door. I'll make a point to verify they're both in working order and kept fully loaded later, but it probably wouldn't be polite to ask before we've had our tea. If there's an etiquette to this sort of thing, I'm not quite sure of the rules as I've never had to be concerned with them in the past.
In the next five seconds, I clock the east- and west-facing windows large enough for a man to climb through (escape routes if ever they're needed), open access to the space up in the rafters (a potential hiding space), a chest shoved into the space under the bed in the corner (not leaving enough room to hide there), and a solid table, a fridge and a dry sink, and some haphazardly piled boxes, barrels and crates in the corner opposite the bed (potential cover in a fire fight). If we were going to stay here very long, I might cut a hole in the back wall and make a tunnel through the rocky outcropping, then cover it up with a piece of furniture like a wardrobe with a false back or something, like a passageway to bloody Narnia.
But we won't be here long enough to build it, so hopefully we won't need it. If we ever do, that will be just too fucking bad, I suppose, but that's life on the run for you.
Once I've marked my escape routes and hiding places, I can take in the furnishings properly, like a normal person. For all its shabby exterior and Spartan furnishings, the hovel is surprisingly cosy. The interior walls have been whitewashed to reflect as much light as possible from the fireplace and the one fixture holding six oil lamps that hangs from the rafters in the centre of the room. A cheerful crazy quilt of brightly-coloured fabric scraps covers a neatly-made bed in the corner, and another lamp sits on a lace doily on a bedside table, which has two shelves crammed full of antique paper books. A large hoop wrapped in leather criss-crossed with some sort of cord in a spider-web pattern hangs over the bed like a protective charm. Brightly coloured beads or polished stones decorate the web and feathers dangle by thin cords from the four cardinal compass points of the hoop.
The big fireplace is clearly the heart of the home with a large oven set in the stones above the flames to take advantage of the rising heat and an array of tools of undetermined purpose, familiar utensils, heavy, black cast iron pots and pans hanging from hooks that appear to have been set in the mortar as the stones were laid. There's no proper mantel, which is just as well as anything placed on it would be in the way of the oven doors, but on either side of the fire, well out of the way of the oven, are two pairs of shelves. On the upper right is a set of eight stoneware covered jars that remind me of the canisters my mother used to have for flour, sugar, coffee and tea, but I've no idea what the other four might hold. Below the jars is what appears to be a dinner service for four consisting of large plates, dessert plates, and bowls, with cups hanging from hooks attached to the underside of the shelf. The upper left shelf holds an impressive array of neatly stacked boxes, jars and tins – herbs and spices, I imagine, though they're too far away for me to read the labels; and on the lower left shelf are what appear to be some sort of coffee pot, a kettle, something that might be a grinder and a jar with a fabric cover tied over it.
There is a dry sink under the east-facing window with some potted plants in the windowsill and a black electrical cord snaking in from behind the shade to power a small refrigerator, the only electrical appliance I can see in the house. To the right of the sink is a tall cupboard with no doors containing jars full of brightly coloured fruits and vegetables and boxes and bags that I can only imagine are filled with more foodstuffs. On top of the cupboard are more dishes, a mismatched set (which makes me think the service for four is Grandmother's 'good' china), and the odds and ends are her everyday dishware. Onions and garlic bulbs, braided together by the tops, hang from hooks attached to the top edge of the cupboard along with several strings of different varieties of peppers.
Under the west-facing window – the one that might or might not have been a happy accident – there is a small table with a little rocking chair beside it, another oil lamp and what appears to be a sewing box and a basket of mending on top of it, and a large basket of yarn tucked in underneath. A yellow and white blanket, probably hand-knitted, drapes over the back of the rocker, the seat and back of which are lined with matching cushions.
A yellow-and-white checked cloth covers the table, which is graced by a small arrangement of vibrant yellow and orange dried flowers. Bundles of herbs dangle from the rafters around the fireplace and potted plants hang in semi-circles around the two windows where they can best catch the morning and evening light. Amongst the herbs and plants, bits of beautiful detritus whirl and spin on the air currents – the seashell I spotted earlier, a bundle of iridescent blue feathers, an interestingly shaped stick, colourful strings of polished pebbles – I recognize rose quartz, turquoise, lapis lazuli, jade and coral (ok, I know, not a stone), but there are at least half a dozen more that are not familiar. Cheerful rag rugs by the bed, the dry sink and the sewing area brighten the hard-packed earthen floor, and a broom and dustpan, a feather duster, and a stepladder hang in the corner by the door behind a tall bench with a pitcher and washbasin sitting on it, apparently for freshening up when one comes in from work. In the back corner opposite Grandmother's bed are stacked crates, baskets, boxes and barrels which I can only imagine are spare provisions. Up in the rafters, mysterious baskets and bundles of stuff sit atop poles and planks that have been laid across them to form an ingenious, improvised modular storage space.
"Take a load off, boy! Quit gawkin' round, and come sit at the table," Grandmother squawks at me.
At a smile and a wave from Liz, I do as ordered and have a seat while Grandmother shuffles over to the cupboard and brings out a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. From another shelf, she takes out a cutting board, and pulls a long, serrated knife out of the drawer in the dry sink.
"I'll have two slices, about a finger thick, child," she tells me as she places the items in front of me. "You two take as much as you want. There's another loaf in the cupboard for morning." Taking one of the tools that's hanging around the fireplace, a long handle with two wire grates joined by a couple of hinges on the end, she tells Liz, "I would like mine toasted, please, Miss Eighty-three. Golden brown."
While Liz and I work on the toast – the grate is big enough for six slices, so I cut two for each of us – Grandmother makes several trips back and forth from the cupboard and fridge to the table. By the time the water for our tea is boiling, she has set out plates and mugs from the mismatched collection; a small jug of milk; a ball of butter on a small plate; a larger plate of dried, sliced meat, a slightly nutty-smelling cheese, and a sharp, deep yellow cheese that might be cheddar; some dried apricots, figs, and apple rings; a little bottle of some kind of dark syrup; and a strange little dish, which is actually three separate dishes around a shared handle, with a lid on each dish that has a slot for a spoon.
"The orange is wolfberry jam, the purple is prickly pear fruit, and the red is sweet pepper jelly," she informs us.
By the time I have my plate filled and a steaming mug of tea beside it, I realise that I'm hungry for the first time since before Austin Burnell told me to take Liz, Mike and Anna and flee the station. In fact, I'm not just hungry, I'm ravenous, so much so that even as the memories of the past day and a half crowd in on me, even they can't put me off my meal.
For all her apparent poverty, Grandmother has found a way to eat well, if simply, and the fact that all of these delicacies were open and ready to use rather than stored in the back of the cupboard for a special occasion tells me they're her typical fare. The tea is not a familiar blend to me; more than likely, it's a mix of local herbs and weeds that Grandmother gathered and dried herself, though there's definitely ginger in it, which is warming from the inside out. The meat, too, is a bit of a mystery with a touch of the familiar; it's incredibly lean, a bit dry and chewy, but with a familiar smoky-spicy flavour reminiscent of the summer sausages Trip's chef used to slice down and place on the charcuterie board for his morning meetings. The nutty cheese has the familiar flavour of a nice gruyère that complements the meat beautifully while the yellow cheese – I'm almost sure it's cheddar – goes perfectly with the sweet dried fruits and the sweet-tart flavours of the jams.
We eat mostly in silence, except for the few polite words needed to facilitate the passing of dishes and the occasional hum of pleasure from Liz. Grandmother smiles kindly every time she expresses her appreciation, and nudges another dish of delectables towards her or pours her another drop of tea. Not wanting to appear ungrateful, I sigh contentedly as I finish my last bite and push my plate slightly away.
"That was lovely," I remark. "Thank you, er, Grandmother."
The smile she gives me nearly crinkles her eyes shut.
"Glad you enjoyed it, boy," she replies with obvious pleasure. Then she becomes gravely serious. "Now, you two wouldn't be here if'n you weren't in trouble. I promise you'll be safe long as you're here. Anything else that needs saying can wait until morning."
Rising from the table, she asks, "Whyn't you help me get things settled for the night while Little Miss Eighty-Three gets herself ready for bed?"
I nod and rise with her while she shoots Liz a look and says, "Outhouse is round back. Light switch is to the right of the door just at the height of the latch."
"Thank you, Grandmother," Liz smiles, and she gathers up the dirty dishes and moves them to the sink.
As Liz finishes clearing the table and wiping it down before getting ready for bed, Grandmother directs me to bring the stepladder out of the corner and pull a few items down from above the rafters. A large, fluffy bundle turns out to be a mattress and pillows, a cloth sack is actually a pillow case stuffed with the rest of the bed linens, and another fluffy bundle is a crazy quilt much like the one gracing Grandmother's bed.
As I return the stepladder to its place in the corner by the door, I hear her shuffling things around in the back corner. When I join her there, ready for further instructions, she hands me an open box with wooden ends and a bottom and sides of metal.
"I reckon cat'll find her own bed for the night," she says, "but just like us, I bet she has other business to do before she sleeps. She oughtn't be creeping around outside until she gets to know the place, so you can go fill that with some dirt for now."
The desert soil is sandy, but it's not loose, at least not that I noticed anywhere around here, so I stop by the basket of wood outside the door and find a sturdy piece that looks good for digging. I go a few yards away from the house hoping to avoid digging a hazardous hole anywhere close to where Grandmother might frequently walk, and use the stick to root up and loosen the ground as best I can. Working mostly by touch in the feeble moonlight, I break up large clods of dry dirt and toss aside the stones I find, and within a very few minutes I am returning with a box of sandy soil for Beans's elimination needs. Then, following Grandmother's instructions, I help her and Liz rearrange the spare provisions in the back corner to make space for the mattress, and Liz and I make up the bed.
After a quick trip to the outhouse, I return to find Liz curled up beneath the crazy quilt and Beans happily making herself comfortable on my side of the bed. In the reflected light from Grandmother's bedside lamp, I lift the cat out of the way and settle in beside Liz. I hear a wish for sweet dreams from the other side of the room, but I'm too exhausted to respond, and fall soundly asleep to the sensation of Beans still burrowing her way under the covers between Liz and me.