Source: Using The Manifesto At The Edge Of Betrayal

The meeting ends with distant fire horns as the others leave one by one. Taskov peers past the curtain out the slit window and watches a faint glow and smoke above the skyline.

"Another fire?" the woman asks.

"Maybe. Might be a couple of seed pods ignited... on a power line or smokestack, maybe. Up north we always get a few every year around this time."

"Well, the rumor is that some debris is getting through the orbital defenses."

He turns an incredulous look on her. "That's not possible."

"Everyone knows that." Her angular grin is sardonic. "Why do you think it's a rumor? Things are getting dangerous. It's just one more problem."

He shakes his head and lets the curtain fall back. "I'd better get going. I've been too long as it is."

She grasps his arm. "No."

His eyes are curious. "What do you mean?"

"Sit down, we need to talk." She gestures to a worn chair in the dimness beside the window.

Uncertainly, he grasps the arms of the chair and settles into the musty cushion. "Is something wrong?"

"There's something I need you to understand. We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" He leans forward and the dim orange light glints on his glasses. But his eyes are now unusually wide behind that barrier.

"You know that he's gone ahead building and selling weapons? About his manifesto?" Her eyes are urgent and narrowed. She has a thin, bitter face, and her overly confidential thready voice suddenly bothers him.

"It's not connected to us. He's been discreet."

"You realize you haven't been mentioning this to us."

"It wasn't important. And, besides, since he became friends with... Oloron, we don't see each other much or talk about much of anything important."

"But you knew."

He sighs and sits back. "I knew. So what's the harm?"

"It's becoming important. There have been three rocketgun killings in this city so far. A tax collector, two patrollers. The government has started to worry. So we're worried."

"All right, I'll talk to him."

"It's too late for that."

He hunches forward, swiftly. "What do you mean?"

"You're not going home tonight," she replies, "or any other night. We have a new place for you. There will be a bus down the street in an hour, you'll take it, and there will be someone who will hand off documentation and brief you. I don't know where you're going or who you'll be..."

"Wait a minute. What about him?"

"That's being taken care of." Her eyes are dark and slip away from his gaze. She stands. "Time to go."

He remains seated. "What do you mean - 'taken care of'?"

She looks at the clock. "By now, I'm sure he's under arrest."

"What!" The roaring in his ears is as if the flames are just outside the door - matched by the heat in his face. He leaps to his feet and grabs her arms - hard, painfully, and she flinches, trying to pull away. But through the roaring, he hears her saying "It had to be done! He's selling weapons! That damn manifesto! Three dead officials - his guns, his ideas. It's all coming together. If this keeps up, they'll stop ignoring us. We can't let it happen! Sometimes, you have to sacrifice one... stop that, you're hurting me... No, it wasn't my decision - it came from the next level. I made them give me permission to get you out, even though it's risky. You can't stay, you know that. He'll break, and he's going to tell them all about you. Even if he doesn't, they'll know. You came together, you work together."

He stares at her and his eyes are lost.

"You've got to go," she pleads. "There's nothing you can do. There's no time."

His hands drop.

"Don't be the fool of a hero," she snaps. "Now sit down, have a drink and get a grip on yourself."

Lan sits reading beside his window on a rare night of rest. He scratches his beard reflectively as he examines the yellowed pages, turning them slowly. His new eight shot revolving load handgun lies beside him on the table, gleaming in the light, and from time to time his eye rests there, as he thinks of the time and difficult experiments that led to it.

At that moment, there is a sound at his door - one which escalates in moments from a hammering to a sudden crash that cracks the plastic door and shatters its frame.

And in the next moment , he flies to his feet and his weapon is in his hand. Two darksuits and a patroller with a ram stand in the vacant doorway, and in the moment of recognition, he fires - once, twice, three times. It seems to take forever for the three sparks to flash across the room and smash through his opponents, exploding gouts of blood and flesh across the wall behind them.

He races to the door, horrified at what he has just done, and then, standing amidst the scorched stench of the dead, his anger rises. "Damn you," he cries. "Look what you made me do!" His breath is panting, and he kicks one of the bodies furiously, tears running down his face. He whirls to look at the apartment. All gone, now.

He stands turning, terrified, bathed in the acrid runnels of smoke from the weapon. Anger seizes his hand, snatching a pile of leaflets from a table. Leaflets which would have caused him to be sent to a prison for years, if he weren't on the verge of being executed by the government for making weapons. He stares at the thought crumpled in his fist and strides to the doorway, where he pitches it across the bodies of the men he has killed. "I warned you," he snarls.

The ancient fire alarm, surprisingly, works. Lan pauses across the street staring up at the building as it burns, watching his neighbors hurry away. It is wrong, he knows, to put all of these people out of their homes, to destroy their possessions, all to make it easier for him to hide. But he has to have the confusion if he is to have time to get to Oloron, if Taskov is not to fall under suspicion, if ... everything he has written and done is not to be destroyed.

A bus passes and for a moment blocks his sight.

Taskov sees the flames as the bus slows at a clot of fire-fighting equipment and a tangle of hoses. It is a moment before he realizes that the fire reflected in his glasses is what used to be his home.

The bus stops, hissing and throbbing with the steam engine's pent energy. Beyond the windows, the firecrew is shifting hoses and spraying high against the walls.

He stands and leans on the pipe by the door, an unnamable emotion struggling with his chest. Finally, he pushes open the door. The driver calls,"Hey! You can't go out there. This is an express, not a short run!" But Taskov doesn't hear him. He steps to the pavement and watches the flames, tears edging his eyes.

The hand on his shoulder is unexpected. His eyes leap to it and then past it to see Lan standing, cap pulled low, flames etching orange along his beard-blurred jawline.

"You're all right?" Taskov whispers hoarsely.

"I was wondering when you'd get here. I've been waiting almost too long. We've got to get Oloron and leave the city."

"What do you mean?"

"They came to the apartment. The blacksuits. Not the regulars. The blacksuits. They know. If they don't have Oloron already, we have to get him, and get moving." He pulls hard on Taskov's elbow, feeling the bone through the thin cloth. "Now."

Taskov turns to follow, just as the bus hoots and begins to move ponderously away.

The upper floor of the building is a tangle of burned wood beams, carbonized concrete, blackened metal, and heat warped plastic, lit with mounted lights, though the first light is edging the sky to the east.

The blacksuit stands with the patrollers at the top of the stairs, now open to the chalky clouds above. But amidst the wreckage, a man as dark as the charcoal beams is hunkered down beside a trio of twisted and broken mummified skeletons. Uneasy, the blacksuit tries to explain himself -

"We didn't connect the fire and the arrest right away."

The man beside the bodies looks up, eyes dark within white, incurious. He looks back to the bodies and slowly tugs on his gloves. He shines a light back and forth methodically.

A short time later he stands and walks past them to where the wall has been scorched away, as if the heat had emanated from the bodies. He pauses, eyes scanning the water-damaged litter. He retrieves a small object, and turns it over and over again in his fingers, and finally drops it in a small bag. The patrollers look bored, but the blacksuit's unease grows.

Finally the dark man completes his examination and returns to the others. "They were shot with Sandbags," he tells them. "That's only to be expected." His voice turns acid. "They should have been told," he snaps, contemptuous, but of what remains unclear.

"But, Inspector, I'm sure the arrest directive was a sealed cause. It's not fair to my people - "

The inspector waves a hand dismissively. "I'm not interested in fairness. I'm interested in results."

Lan sits suddenly awake, the dew cold on his clothing and skin. But the sound is only Taskov returning from the pond with a jar of water. The sun is still low and slants redly between the barren stems of the hydrogen trees, and throws long ragged shadows from the foliage across Oloron's sleeping figure. and the bags beside him.

Lan's body is aching and the remnant of a terrifying dream clings solidly enough to reality to blur nightmare and morning. "What am I doing here?" he mutters. He looks down, because his hand feels sore and stiff. He notices his fingers wrapped, white-knuckled, around the stock of his gun. He smells the stink of sulfur from the weapon - then he reconnects everything and a harsh exhalation forces its way through his throat.

Taskov squats beside him and unscrews the jar cap. "Here," he offers.

Lan releases the weapon and takes the jar for a grateful sip. Finally, he sighs, looking down at the rippling water in the jar. "We need a plan."

Taskov feels light, as if he has no regrets. And, when he looks, he can find none. "I suppose so."

Lan manages a smile. "Well, it's almost like old times. I don't suppose you have some depilatory? A razor?"

"Sorry. Still, how many different ways are you going to be able to alter a beard before you come back to one you've used, anyway?"

Lan tries to chuckle, but something odd happens in the middle, and he chokes as the laugh turns into racking sobs. Taskov watches in horror as Lan shudders and moans. He grabs the youth's arms and glares into his face. "Stop it," he hisses. "There's no time for this."

"I killed them... I didn't... I couldn't believe it. I don't want..."

"I thought everyone got out of the fire."

Lan looks at him, and his eyes are wide with horror. "No... no that's not what happened. They broke in. I shot them. I started the fire to cover it up."

"You mean, what you said last night, the blacksuits, that wasn't.. you meant that? You shot them!"

Lan, finally spent, nods. Behind him, Oloron sits up against the tree, looking away. "So who cares?" he rumbles, callously. "They probably deserved it." Lan shudders and rubs his face. "Maybe," he mutters.

His hand is still shaking, but he manages to drink the water and only spill a little.

"We have to figure out what to do," he sighs.

Taskov shakes his head. "I have some unbound ration cards, but they won't last long."

"Then we need to get some non-registered work."

"Like what?" Oloron asks.

Lan wipes the remnants of emotion from his cheeks and digs through his pockets. Suddenly he seems to panic for a moment, as he fails to find it. Then he relaxes and produces a small velvet bag. He grins at Taskov and Oloron in turn. Carefully he pushes a thumb and forefinger past the neck of the bag and then produces a thin gold ring. He considers it for a moment.

"I only wore it at night, to keep the hole open."

He reaches up and pins it through his earlobe.

"We'll have to go to sea, again. And we'll head back up the coast. I want to try to find Pierre. He's run businesses, maybe he'll help us with ours." He watches Taskov carefully. "I know you don't approve of the weapons. So once we get there, if you want to go your own way, I'll understand."

Taskov's eyes are wary. He takes off his glasses and brings out a rag to wipe them. "We'll see how it goes. Let's get the job first."
Lan looks to where Oloron sits squinting into the dawn sun. "How about you?" he asks.

Oloron nods sharply. "There's nothing left here for me."

But the dike is warm in the morning sun, and Lan runs up it to the top, staring out over the ocean, angry, waving his fist at the departing ship. Finally, he collapses to his knees. Oloron and then Taskov step up behind him. Taskov stands with his hands in his pockets, while Oloron looks away.

Lan rolls back to sit with his arms around his knees, rocking slightly back and forth. "But they promised."

Oloron looks over, and his eyes are a little sad, but his voice is harsh. "We'll manage. If we have to walk, we'll get there."

So they walk. At first, it is not so hard, but after a few hours, their poor shoes, no food, and their lack of conditioning begin to tell a story of aching knees and ankles on the verge of rolling.

"We've got to get some food. Some place to rest." Lan looks at the others. "Anyone have a map?" They look embarrassed.

Taskov shakes his head at their ignorance. "Wouldn't do us much good anyway. The Council controls the maps. They wouldn't be accurate enough to find anything. We're heading north, that's good enough for now. I'm sure this road will get us to the next port, which is probably Delgrane. Then maybe we can try again for a job."

"So what do we do?" Oloron rumbles. "Keep walking?"

Lan looks around, and then his eyes rove up. "No, I have an idea."

The stems are stiff, but sway slightly under his weight. He braces himself between them and squirms upward toward the gas head. Where the stems join the head, they branch out into a shield of foliage. He forces his way past the stems and balances himself on them and the large, bulging envelope. Though there are other trees around him, the terrain slopes away toward the north and he can see the road bending in a series of curves as it descends into the valley. Near the horizon he can see a town.

He looks down and calls "There's a town, down in the valley. Maybe a river, too."

Large clouds are building above in the haze. He climbs carefully through the screen of branches and slides down the trunks to the ground.

At the bottom, one hand still on the trunk, he looks upward. "You know," he muses, "there is another way."

"What do you mean?" Oloron asks, peering in the direction of Lan's gaze.

"Well... we could fly. I mean, untether an envelope and float with it on the fringes."

Taskov walks over and grips his arm. "You're crazy. Those things drift at fifteen thousand feet. They're menaces to air traffic. Besides, it would never hold us."

Lan shakes his head. "Of course it would. Look, the gas head's an ellipsoid, so the volume is, what, maybe a few hundred cubic feet of hydrogen. Even allowing for the matrix, that should be not only enough to carry us and more, but we won't go nearly as high as they usually do, because of the extra weight."

"But if we release it, it's going to pop, bang!" Oloron protests. "And then we'll be in trouble."

"Well... OK, but let's think about this, maybe it would last long enough and we could make a little leak..."

As they debate, a convoy of steam trucks rolls by below with a mournful hissing and a low plangent tone. Behind the trucks is a column of men. They are not soldiers - they are prisoners, flanked by uniformed patrollers.

No one notices the three on the hill. Lan buries his face in his hands and feels his eyes heat with tears as the column passes and stretches into the distance.

The prisoners are ragged and clearly even more exhausted than the watchers. Many walk with the irregular motion of blistered feet and bruised muscles. One stumbles and a nearby patroller strides forward and strikes him with a black rod. The man cries out and collapses to his hands and knees. The patroller draws a weapon and shoots him in the head with a projectile. The shot echoes up and down the road as the blood spreads in a dark pool. The other patrollers roughly shove at the prisoners to keep them moving, but there is a rumble of protest, quickly damped.

The dead man is left behind in the road. The shadows of the trees shift with the breeze.

Suddenly, Lan is rooting through Oloron's sacks. He is stunned to realize that one sack contains rolled canvases... but he has no time to think of that. The second bag contains the ammunition, musty but sharp smelling. He pulls out a strip, flips open the burn chamber on his weapon and slaps home the carefully bound metal tipped rockets. The burn chamber snaps shut over the first shot, and he looks up with a feral grin. But Taskov is watching with horror.

"What are you thinking!"

Lan glares up at him. "I'm thinking that's the last time I'm going to watch a man be killed and not do anything. Are you with me?"

Taskov steps backward slightly, shaking his head slowly, as Oloron steps forward. "I'm with you," he says firmly. Lan grins and pulls a second weapon from the bag and tosses it and a strip to Oloron, who catches them awkwardly. He then stands and turns expectantly toward Taskov. "Well?"

"No... I can't."

Lan feels a sharp moment of disgust. "Fine." He thinks furiously for a moment. "Here's the plan. I want you to run across the road, right there, and run down the other side of the embankment to past the curve and wait for the lead truck. I'm doing the same thing on this side. Go past the curve. You'll have to run fast. When you get there, fire into the boiler of the lead truck. I'll do the same. That's probably going to bring some of the patrollers to the front. Run backward past the trucks, about halfway up the column. If they fire, kill them." He digs out another clip and tosses it to Oloron. "Let's go - we've got to be fast." Then, to Taskov, "I understand you don't want to fight. The prisoners will probably run this way. Stop them here. Ask them to stop. We need them." Back to Oloron, "Don't miss. We don't have a lot of shots."

He waves Oloron off, and as he starts to run, his heart is pounding hard. Tree trunks flash past and the dried leaves and sticks crunch under his feet. He tries to force thought out of his mind. He has made his decision, now he has to stay the course.

To his side he can hear the wheezing of the steam trucks. Then he is ahead of them and the embankment overlooking the curve is ahead. Quickly he comes to a squat and watches, hand trembling slightly, as he waits. The truck is rumbling slowly toward him, at the speed of a slow walk. It seems to take forever, but in gasps, he is glad, because it should give Oloron a chance.

Then, it is as if time has jumped ahead, and the truck is almost past. He raises the weapon in a slow motion dream and pulls the trigger. The rockt ignites, and the dual plume of exhaust jets forward from the burn chamber. Then the rocket is gone with a quick slip of smoke and there is the sound of a vast bell and hammer followed by the shriek of high pressure steam from the opening. He fires again, - suddenly there is a massive thwang, and the boiler splits at its narrow seams, emitting a huge burst of steam that rises into the canopy. The concussion is so surprising that he almost falls backward, but he catches himself and remembers - run. He turns and hurries swiftly back toward the curve. Below, he can see the patrollers moving toward the lead truck, as he had hoped. And then he is back around the curve, and across the road he sees Oloron.

Two patrollers are left, one on each side of the prisoners, but they are watching the prisoners. Quickly, he hurries down the slope to the nearest. He is right behind the man when he finally speaks. "Don't move." The man stiffens and he looks around wildly. Across the double line of prisoners. he can see Oloron alternating between watching the guard and looking to Lan for a guidance he can't communicate. Finally, Oloron smashes his hand across the side of the other guard's face, and the man falls. "On your knees," Lan orders. He looks up for a moment - to see every eye on him. "You three," he orders. "Come here." He prods the guard with the barrel of his gun. "Lie down." For a moment he thinks he will laugh, but it should work. "You, sit on his shoulders. You, his waist, you his ankles. Don't move till I come back." The former prisoners, bewildered at first, smile, each in his own time as he realizes the idea. They take their places as Lan signals Oloron to move forward.

The patrollers are helping the driver from the lead truck as Lan and Oloron approach. Lan steps quickly along the side of the second truck, looking up as he passes the cab. His arms and legs feel almost fevered. He notices that the window on the front of the cab has been smashed by debris. The driver's head lolls from the side window - he is clearly injured if not dead - and with a shudder he returns his attention to the men ahead, who are now looking at him. He holds up his weapon. "Enough," he calls. "Lay down your guns or you'll be killed. Now!"

The ones in the front reach slowly for their weapons. Lan realizes he may have made a terrible mistake. "Hold it!" he cries. "Lie down on the ground. Hands away from your guns." He watches their eyes gain resolve - and raises his weapon. "Make no mistake - these aren't the soft projectiles from the Council armory. If I fire, my target, and the one behind him, at least, will die. So lie down!" Their eyes are uncertain. Desperate, and not daring to show it, Lan swivels the weapon and fires a hole through a large fragment of the boiler. Instantly their expressions change to fear, and they lower themselves to lie on the ground.

Suddenly Oloron is behind him. "Are you all right?"

Lan grins with relief but doesn't take his eyes from the patrollers. "Find something we can use to restrain them."

Taskov walks slowly down the road. He hears a single bellowing ring and is momentarily worried. He can see the figures ahead of him in the dappled light begin to shift, as if they are moving toward him. What am I going to do? he wonders, realizing that they are.

He sets the bags down in the road and holds up his hands. "Stop!" he calls. Panicked eyes balk and the column bunches behind the leaders. "Everything's all right. Just hang on." He wonders if he is telling the truth.

"Who are you?" asks one dark man with wild white eyes.

"I'm.. with them." Taskov replies, thinking fast. "Look, there's nothing to be gained by running off. There's nowhere to run to. Wait for them to tell you... the plan."

He decides to shut up before he gets himself into additional trouble. "Who are you?" he asks. "And what did you do?"

The gathering is behind the first trailer. Alongside, braced against the side of the road, trussed with their own arm bindings, gagged with rags from the toolboxes, some of the patrollers glare at their captors - others sit back, disconsolate. One young man seems to be crying. Lan casts worried looks at them every few minutes. It is hard to believe that they won't somehow squirm loose.

"I am... Phillippe." He eyes Taskov and Oloron. "This is... Laurence and Basceau." Two famous scientists. He smiles awkwardly.

"Are you with an organized group?", someone asks.

Lan stirs his mind quickly, realizing the possibility of informers. "We're called Liberty's Militia. We're new, but growing. We're actually on another mission, but we saw that killing."

"That's right!" someone in the back screams. "They killed Rastas, Mikar, and Twyla! They should be dead." A susurrus of agreement sweeps the group. Then someone pushes through and shoves Lan aside as he runs toward the prisoners. But Oloron brings him up short. Lan watches the others warily as he walks toward the protestor. He gestures and Oloron releases the man.

This fellow is hollow-cheeked and poorly shaven. His breath is foul and his hair is oily and matted. Bloodshot eyes keep returning, narrow with hatred, to the patrollers, one of whom seems even more afraid than the others. Lan feels an immense sadness as the adrenaline of immediate success segues into his enduring anxiety. "Don't you know?" he says quietly. "I understand. We all understand how you feel. They've taken my life, my family, my wife." His voice seems to slow and finally catch on the last word. "But we have to be better than they are. We have to find some way to take our world back without ruining what makes it worth having. I understand you want retaliation. So do I. But nothing right will happen here if we harm these people without a trial. Are you with me? We will have as trial. But not now. We have more important problems."

The man nods slowly.

"What's your name?"

"Chatain DePuys. I was from Enterais, until the mines collapsed. We couldn't work, and they found us guilty of underproduction, so they took us away. This is the third train I've been on. I liked Mikar. He shared his clothes with me." His eyes are weak, but the words spill out as if he is desperate to tell, as if the injustice may just disappear back into unreality if he tells it to some rational man.

"I understand. Keep yourself available. We'll need to hear from all of the witnesses, but later. Now go back and wait."

DePuys nods. Finally, he states "I had a wife, too." His eyes are edged with tears. Lan touches his shoulder as they share a look, and the saddened man walks back to the group.

"Before we're going to talk about our plans, we need to get back on the move. That means getting the first trailer attached to the second truck, and disposing of the first truck. We also need to inventory food, fuel and medical supplies. Once we're started, everyone is going to eat. But we have to be on the road as soon as we can. So I want anyone who knows how to drive or anything about steam trucks to stand over there. Lawrence is going to pick three people to work with him on checking our supplies. And we're going to need the strongest of you to help unhitch, move, and reattach the first trailer. Are you with me?"

A murmur rises to a cheer, and Lan's face reddens.

The engine rises to a roar, and emits a plume of overpressure steam. Some of the onlookers clap.

"Nice touch, that Liberty Militia thing," Taskov mocks quietly.

Lan turns quickly to face him and leans close, frowning. "What did you expect me to say? That we're a physicist, a foundry worker and a schoolteacher on the run? Now that would inspire confidence, wouldn't it?"

"I understand." Taskov is taken aback, but tries to maintain his composure against his young friend's vehemence.

Lan relents. "Probably not. I'm not even sure what I've got in mind yet." He sighs. "Anyway, we've got food and medicine in both trailers?"

"What there is of either," Taskov replies, pushing his glasses up his nose with a forefinger.

"Let's get everyone going, then."

The truck starts to move slowly, tugging at the weight of the two trailers filled with people. Lan sits in the rear trailer with the patrollers and some of the strongest of the prisoners, his weapon held loosely, wrist resting on his thigh. In the trailer ahead, among the weakest of the prisoners, Taskov tries to help organize food and medicine. Oloron drives, though Lan wishes he had Oloron to watch the patrollers.

But it is, he has decided, important to get off the main road. Oloron knows what he is looking for.

Ahead of them, the partly destroyed truck rolls faster and faster toward a curve that overlooks a steep descent into the river valley. It smashes through the railing and spills down the slope, coming to rest on the rocks, half buried in water. Lan hears the crash and then can see the break as his trailer completes the curve. "Well, that's something," he mutters. With any luck, thinking there had been an accident should slow pursuit.

He remembers looking at the wrists and ankles of the patrollers to verify their manacles, applied by prisoners whose eyes were wide with excitement. He had looked around. "Has anyone searched them for keys?" He had looked back at the patrollers, and their eyes were very different. Weakly defiant, angry, embarrassed... But what does he feel? For the time being, he forces down the energies that mass behind his emotionless face, deciding to feel nothing until later, when he can afford to.

By now the truck has taken on some speed, and he can feel the rough surface of the road in the motion. So he asks the others what they had done.

They drive for an hour and then pull to the side. Lan jumps from the back and meets Oloron by the cab. "Well?" he asks.

"I found a map. Here."

They unfold the precious paper carefully. Oloron has obviously been looking at it - he points. "I think we're here. That's the city you saw. Biko River Zone 9."

"I hate these new names."

Oloron grins.

"I suppose we don't want to go there?"

Lan sighs. "Probably not. That's where this convoy is probably expected. We'd get there early, but I can't see that helping us. No, we have to stay rural until we can figure out the best way to get up north. Besides, tomorrow we're going to have to resolve what we're going to do with the patrollers."

Oloron shoots a hot glance at the second trailer. "I have a few ideas. I bet the guys you're riding with have some suggestions, too."

"I know." Lan's jaw tightens painfully with unexplored emotion. "But we're not going to do it that way. According to this, we've got what, another hour in the forest?"

"Maybe."

"Find a turnoff. Gravel, dirt, something unimproved. We'll camp out tonight."

Oloron leans closer. "What are we going to do with these guys?"

Lan shakes his head. "I don't know yet. but I want to keep our options open for another day or so."

"Okay."

"Hey, listen."

"Yeah?"

"I saw those canvases in your bag."

Oloron's eyes fall away. "So?"

"They're hers, aren't they?"

Oloron shrugs.

"I'm glad you saved them," Lan finishes.

Oloron smiles, just a bit.

At an intersection with a dirt road, Oloron spins the large steering wheel while he levers the throttle down. The truck rumbles onto its new course, shaking with the ruts and stones of the disused road. White stalks of brach rise to either side and the nests of bluish photosynthetic fibers brush the cab and boiler. After a while, the road widens, and Oloron pulls to the side. The boiler wheezes and hisses, emitting a faint steam from the pressure valve. Then, with a hoot, it emits a cloud of unused steam.

The sun is low and reddened as he steps down onto the road. Lan has already stepped down and is looking around. The dust of their passage smokes behind him, laced with the last rays of the sun. Then the light is subdued and there is only the sea colored sky above them and its cool light.

"Good spot," Lan remarks, smiling.

Oloron nods. "It might be a little cold tonight."

"Yeah, we'll have to deal with that. Among other things. Come on."

He leads Oloron to the back of the second trailer. "Come on out, fellows." He looks to Oloron. "You have your gun?"

"Yes."

The former prisoners climb down to the road. They look tired. But Lan addresses them directly and cheerfully. "Listen, we've got a number of things to get started with, can you help?" They agree with a variety of nods and gestures.

In the meantime, Taskov has joined them, rubbing his brush cut and looking around. "What's up?"

"You got anyone up there who can start looking for tinder and logs?"

"Maybe. Everyone's pretty tired."

Lan shrugs. "They'll be pretty cold if we don't get organized. Pick four and send them out. Make sure they don't go too far and get lost."

He turns back to Oloron. "I want to park this trailer in the middle of the road. We're going to unhitch it, and then park the engine down the road before we shut it down. Any idea how long it might take to start up in the morning?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes? Depends on how cold probably. Assuming I can figure out how to start it. It's not the same as the Milamor's I learned on. And if we have enough fuel. It's not very efficient. I think we have a half tank of oil left."

"But can you park like that?"

"Sure."

"Let's do it."

The truck moans and whistles as it moves in the twilight to the center of the road. It pauses while four men hurry to unhitch the rear trailer. Then Oloron drives backward to block the road.

"Chatain?"

The thin man whirls to face Lan.

"How are you?" Lan asks.

"I... I'm all right, thank you." Surprisingly, he smiles. "I've had some food, some drink. Some rest." His thin, lined face becomes bleak in a moment. "What about them?" He looks pointedly and then angrily toward the trailer as if rediscovering that he has a variety of emotions.

"I need your help." Lan's feet crunch on the road as he shifts nervously. The fading light makes it a little hard to assess Chatain, and Lan is worried about the extent and persistence of his previous madness. And yet... what lay beneath that could have its use.

"You saved me from prison. I'll do whatever you want."

Lan is even more uncomfortable, but he makes himself continue. "I need someone to watch the trailer and the camp from a distance. To make sure someone wakes me, or the others, if anyone tries to leave or escape." What he leaves unstated is his worry that at least one or two of the prisoners may be informants, biding their time, and that he needs someone to begin with in an effort to expand the circle of trust.

"I can do that."

"You understand, if anyone tries to leave, we need to stop them. We can't risk anyone being caught. Right now, we're safest here."

"All right." Chatain's voice is distant as he eyes the trailer.

It is dark by the time arrangements are complete. The trailer is in the center of a circle of four fires around which the escapees huddle as the temperature drops. Around it, the patrollers are chained to to the chassis and shiver with the cold. Lan sits against a barrel from one of the trailers, watching the flames, trying to wind down, unable to take his eyes from the central trailer. Intellectually, he knows that exposing them to the elements, keeping them hungry and thirsty - and weak - is the best safeguard for them. But the tension between them and the escapees, added to the uncertain future, keeps him restless and worried.

Some of the men start to sing - an old song from the highlands above Goslin. Others join in and Lan smiles.

Oloron comes to hunker down beside him as the song trails away into laughter. Lan's eyes soften with the thought that this may well be the first time in a very long time that these people have had a reason to laugh. The song slides up out of the laughter again.

"You know that one?" Oloron asks.

"No. I've heard it." He grimaces.

"What's the matter?"

Lan is tapping his finger on his knee. "We've got forty five men, seven women, and then six patrollers chained up with their own gear. Tomorrow, we're going to have to do something with all of them. Sooner or later, someone is going to notice this convoy is gone, and when they do, they'll be after us with air, satellites, you name it. We've got three days food and water under the floorboards of those trucks. Before then, someone's going to panic, run-off, or one of those patrollers will get out. And we can't stay awake forever."

Oloron nods and sips from his cup. "So get some rest. You've got Chatain and a couple of others watching. Nobody'll get by for a few hours anyway." He downs the rest of the drink. "Come on, I've got a bed for you in the other truck."

He awakens to the drum of rain on the corrugated metal roof of the truck and the murmur of voices crowded into a narrow space. He opens his eyes with a start and sits up. Crowded near the back of the truck, looking out on the rain-filled darkness, shadowed figures huddle - some sleeping, some talking quietly.

He stirs, rolls over, pulls his blankets around himself, and tries to force himself to sleep.