I’m still standing when Tarver returns. I hear his footsteps through the tall grass long before he reaches me, so when he announces with uncharacteristic cheer, “Burrows—we’re in luck,” I manage not to jump.
I glance over my shoulder to find him standing there smiling, his arms full of plants and long grasses. The sight’s distracting—but not so distracting as what I heard. I turn back toward the plains.
“Did you hear anything while you were out there?” I ask, squinting into the afternoon light and trying as hard as I can to keep my shivering to a minimum.
“Wind,” he replies, punctuated by a rustle as he drops his armful. “The grass, the occasional scurrying critter. There won’t be anything larger out here, there’s nothing to feed it.”
“I heard a man.”
The sound his monster of a gun makes when he takes it out of its holster is getting to be familiar. I sigh, shaking my head. “I don’t think he means us any harm. He didn’t sound angry.”
Tarver comes up next to me, peering in the same direction I’m facing. “You sure? There’s not much room for someone to hide out here.”
“Positive.” He can’t accuse me of dreaming this time. I’m wide-awake, every nerve on edge. “I thought it was you at first, but you were too far away. It sounded really close, like he was nearby.”
Tarver’s frowning now. I catch him shooting me a sideways glance, before taking a few steps forward to turn in a slow circle, scanning the area. “I guess a voice could be carried a ways on the wind. What did he say?”
I hesitate, clenching my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. “I don’t…know. I couldn’t quite tell. It was like listening to voices through a wall. You know they’re speaking a language you understand, and you know you could hear them if you could just…” I don’t know how to explain it.
He stops watching the plains, turning his attention fully on me. “Well, which was it? Was he distant or right next to you?”
“I don’t know!” The burst of frustration escapes before I can control it, and my voice is shaking with whatever’s seized my body. “He was right here, but muffled. Like—the sounds were clear, but there was no meaning in them.”
He’s staring at me, and I feel my face starting to burn.
“I’m realizing how this sounds,” I whisper.
“Not good,” he agrees. But then he surprises me, and turns around to holster his gun and cup his hands around his mouth to bellow across the plain. “Come on in if you’re out there. We’re armed, but we’ll play nicely if you will.”
He drops his hands, turning his head slightly to better listen for a reply. My own ears strain, skin prickling at each rustle and whistle of grass and wind.
Then, from only a few feet away, comes the voice, clearer than ever. I still can’t make out what he’s saying, but this time I can tell he’s excited.
“There!” I dart forward to stand at Tarver’s side. “There, it’s the same voice. I told you.”
He isn’t smiling. He’s not looking out at the plain, but rather down at me, his expression more troubled than annoyed.
“I heard nothing,” he says quietly.
The words are like a punch in the stomach, leaving me gasping. Even he wouldn’t be so cruel. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” Carefully, Tarver reaches out and takes hold of my shoulder. “I’ve been working you too hard. You’re exhausted. Let’s just sit and rest, and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”
I jerk my shoulder away with such force that I wrench the muscle, although I scarcely notice the pain. My spine tingles uncomfortably. “I’m not hallucinating, Tarver!”
He smiles, though it doesn’t touch his eyes, which remain grave, fixed on mine. “It’s no big deal,” he says dismissively. “I’ve done it myself, once. Come, sit down for me, and I’ll see about finding you something to eat besides those ration bars.”
“I know what’s real!” I want to smack him, shake him, do whatever it takes to convince him that I know what I heard. My shivering slows, my dizziness ebbing. As a breeze skitters past and touches damp skin, I realize I’ve been sweating.
“Lilac,” he says, voice soft and weary. “Please. Rest.”
I wonder if he knows how easily he can win this way—how can I fight him when he’s so tired, so sad? The relief at having heard another human voice has shattered into a thick misery, so dense I can barely breathe. I sink back down onto my blanket, eyes burning. I refuse to cry, not while he can see me. But was it too much to ask to have been proven right, just once? Instead he thinks I’m going mad, that Lilac LaRoux’s so traumatized she can’t even tell dreams from reality. I wish Tarver were here alone.
And the worst part is that I know he does too.
“Sudden trauma can manifest in any number of ways.”
“That’s true. We receive extensive training.”
“Did you notice any of those manifestations in Miss LaRoux?”
“No. Well, only that she was off her food, but I think that was an objection to the ration bars, mostly. Not quite what she was used to.”
“Otherwise nothing?”
“That’s what I said. Are you having trouble understanding my answers?”
“We just want to be certain, Major. Exact.”
“Any chance you can tell me exactly how much longer this is going to last?”
“Until we have the answers we require.”
FIFTEEN
TARVER
SHE STAYS CRUMPLED ON THE BLANKET, and I deliberately putter around, giving her a little time to pull herself together. If I’ve learned anything about Lilac LaRoux over the past few days, it’s that she doesn’t like to fall apart in front of people, even when it’s justified. I find the razor in my grab bag and shave, clawing a couple of steps back toward civilization—a comfort to her, maybe. The rough rasp of the blade on my skin keeps me focused, and the silence draws out.
There’s some good news among the bad. The plains make for easier walking, the ground even and flat. I’m confident we’ve left our feline friends behind in the forest. I’ve found burrows that tell me something will end up in my snares for sure, and the armful of unfamiliar plants and grasses that I foraged is bound to yield up something edible. I’d hoped that giving Lilac a break from the ration bars might cheer her up.
But now there’s a horrible weight in the pit of my stomach that won’t shift. I saw how she was shaking, sweating, how dilated her pupils were. Hallucinations can be a sign of a number of things, but I can’t help thinking that in Lilac’s case, it’s simply all too much. I just need her to hold on long enough to make it across the mountains to the Icarus.
“Give me an hour or so, and I might be able to get some variety into your diet, Miss LaRoux,” I say briskly, running out of things to pretend to fiddle with and sinking down beside her. “When they terraform, a lot of the flora that goes in is edible, more or less. Once you’re on a steady diet of ration bars, your definition of ‘edible’ changes pretty radically, I’d say.”
Her gaze flicks up to me, still blank, glazed. I know that our ongoing battle isn’t what she needs right now, and in the face of such misery, I try the only thing left that I can think of. I offer her a small smile—and though she doesn’t quite smile back, she looks at me, absorbing the human contact.
“I’ll test them,” I continue, “and if any of them are edible, we can gather up some extras and have a proper meal tonight. These aren’t the standard plants I usually see come out of terraforming, but I can’t see why the principle wouldn’t be the same. There’s enough grass here for a tiny fire, so we can heat up the canteen for some soup, at any rate.”
She nods, which is a small improvement. My efforts are beginning to calm me down, as well. I set to work, breaking open the first stalk of grass—a stout, woody thing at the base, green and juicy at the tip, about the same thickness as one of her fingers. I don’t want to highlight to her how strange it is that I don’t recognize these plants—terraforming flora and fauna are completely standard. The corporations don’t mess with a formula that works…but the plants here are only tangentially related to the ones I’m used to. As the sap on the broken grass stalk begins to appear in tiny beads, I rub it across the sensitive skin on the inside of my forearm.
“What are you doing?” She’s still subdued, but at least she’s looking at something other than the ground in front of her.
“Checking for an allergic reaction. If it doesn’t make me red or itchy, then it makes it through to round two, the taste test.”
She nods, watching my forearm for a moment, then looks away.
I try again. “There’s a dip in the land to the east, looks like a river. We’ll cross over and follow it across the plains so we’ve got plenty of water. We can even wash, if you like, make ourselves presentable for when the cavalry arrive.”
She bows her head and takes a deep breath. “I expect you to check it thoroughly for me, Major. Knowing my luck, there’ll be space crocodiles hiding in it.”
Pay dirt, it’s a joke. I’m grinning like an idiot, more than her attempt at humor deserves. She doesn’t seem to notice. “Space crocodiles are no problem,” I say. “You just tickle them under the chin and they roll over. I was posted to New Florence last year, and I met a guy who kept one as a pet, shipped it home from his posting in his luggage. He punched airholes in his bag, and the croc made it just fine.”
She treats me to a faint smile. Now we’re getting somewhere. If I can find a way to sustain it a little longer, we can leave the voices behind. She can get some rest, some sleep, and we’ll keep walking. That’s what matters. Getting home.
There’s a sudden stab of longing at the thought of home—it’s why I need to try not to think about my family. I’ve always known something might happen to me in the field, but I never saw it happening like this, with time to remember my mother’s face when they came to tell us about Alec.
“Smuggling crocodiles. What adventures you’ve had, Major,” she murmurs, sounding oddly wistful. The smile’s fading out.
“Well, I’ve seen plenty of places in the last couple of years, but not many as beautiful as the plain out there.” I sort through my piles of plants. “Look at these.” I hold up a handful of small, delicate flowers with purple petals that stand out unevenly against a brilliant yellow center. Their underside is the same gray-green as the grass of the plains, so that when they close as the sun goes down, they can hide. “Just like us, a little rumpled, but still doing all right, yes?”
She breathes out slowly as she reaches for them. “It’s hard to believe these things are just growing here.” She picks one flower out of my hand, her fingertips brushing mine as she does. The one she’s chosen is warped, two of the petals growing together, asymmetrical. I realize she’s probably never seen the imperfect beauty of the natural world.