48

Ajiñe held Wenthi’s hand tight and pulled him down the dirt path.

“What is going on?”

“Alliance soldiers,” she said. “Not the nucks, but actual soldiers in Reloumene uniforms.”

“Yeah, that’s who has jurisdiction outside of the city,” Wenthi said. He knew from Mother’s work that the Alliance stewardship worked to rebuild the cities, to eventually establish the independent, elected government, but outside the city needed more than they had the manpower or infrastructure to handle. So the Reloumene Army handled the countryside, especially getting the farms, mines, and oil fields back into shape after the wars had torn them apart. It took years before they got operations to the point where they could sustain Pinogoz and contribute their share to the war efforts.

“Are they policing?” he asked as she pulled him into a niche between two shanties, pressing her lean, muscular body against him in the tight space.

“I don’t know what they’re doing, but I’d guess they got word we were here, and came to crack down.”

“Let’s get back to the trucks.”

The trucks weren’t where they had left them.

“Shit!” Ajiñe muttered. “Did they leave without us?”

Wenthi noted the tracks in the mud, leading down the road, around one curve through another set of shanties. “That way.”

They tracked the path through another row of shanties and huts, no sign of the trucks.

“What are we going to do?” Wenthi asked.

A pair of hands grabbed them both and pulled them into a narroway. Nicalla and Fenito.

“Thank your spirits,” Nicalla said. “We thought they had nabbed you both.”

“Are they nabbing?” Wenthi asked. “What for?”

“For just being here, I guess,” Nicalla said.

“I heard a couple of the kids say something about how they round up for work detail,” Fenito said. “When we heard them coming, Miss Jendi went to hide the trucks, and the locals said we needed to hide ourselves.”

“Where are we going to hide?” Ajiñe said. “How do we get to the trucks?”

Wenthi looked back out at the wide path—not a proper road, but wide enough for the truck to pass through. “Looks like there’s a set of shacks down the way there, big enough for the trucks to fit in. I would bet—”

Gabrána charged over to them all, tears streaming down her face. “They grabbed Mensi.”

“Where?” Ajiñe asked.

“Down that way,” Gabrána said. “Four of them, taking him toward their gunroller. I’m . . . I’m sorry, I panicked, I was scared, I didn’t . . .”

“We need to find him,” Ajiñe said. “But I don’t see how we can—”

“We’re still in faint sync with him,” Wenthi said, realizing it was true. He could feel all of them, including Mensi, vibrating on the edge of his senses. “And with each other. That must be how we found each other right now.”

“I just ran on instinct,” Gabrána said. “And it brought me right here.”

“We can’t—” Fenito started.

“You all, follow the tracks, get to where Miss Jendi hid the truck, and stay with it. I’ll go for Mensi.”

“Alone?” Fenito asked.

“There are four of them,” Gabrána said.

“If I go alone, the worst that happens is they just have Mensi and me. If we all get caught—”

“I couldn’t bear it,” Nicalla said.

Wenthi closed his eyes, and dug into himself, feeling the faint whispers of the sync with the rest of the crew. The echoes of Gabrána, Nicalla, Fenito, and Ajiñe right around him.

And Mensi. A quarter mile or so away.

Wenthi started running.

He opened his eyes, knowing Ajiñe was right with him.

“I said—”

“You don’t give orders,” she said.

He didn’t argue, because he could feel Mensi moving. Faster. The speed helped Wenthi lock into Mensi, draw on more of his senses. Mensi was in the back of a truck, shackled with a number of young baniz—mostly boys and girls who had just turned old enough to do the Spirit Dance—which was driving away with a gunroller at the lead. Heading north, out of the town.

He ran, and as he ran, he felt more and more of Mensi—the fear clawing at his heart. Fear of where he was going, of never seeing his friends again, of not knowing what would happen.

He ran with his heart slamming, his lungs burning, but he could feel the truck and Mensi getting farther and farther away.

“Renzi!” Ajiñe pulled up on a garbage junkbash cycle, a weak-engined corn-burner. “Get on!”

He didn’t argue and she poured off.

“Where did you—”

“I asked and they said yes,” she said. “Which way?”

She went fast enough that he could just guide her, connected her with Mensi, feeling him pull on them.

“Can we go faster?” he asked.

“Not much,” she said. “This cycle is shit.”

“It’s the only shit we have,” he said. “Drive it to the white.”

She gunned the throttle and went off.

“Take that path, and try to cut off the truck from the gunroller,” he said.

“You got a plan?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he said, pulling her knife out of its sheath.

Ajiñe crossed through the path, across a ramshackle alley, and dropped down another narroway just as the gunroller rumbled by. She darted into the path of the truck, crossing right in front of it.

Wenthi jumped when she did, and the truck slammed on the brakes. He landed on the hood, and holding on to it with one hand, hung the other arm over the side and jammed the knife into the wheel.

The truck swerved out of control, colliding with a corner pole of one of the shacks.

Wenthi held on, but one of the soldiers inside flew through the truck’s windglass, while the other smashed into the steering wheel. Wenthi scrambled up the hood into the cab, and drove his fist into the soldier’s face, again and again. The soldier sufficiently dazed, Wenthi pulled the keys off his hip and jumped out, around to the truck bed.

“Renzi,” Mensi said weakly. “You shouldn’t—”

“Let’s just get you out,” Wenthi said, unlocking Mensi’s shackles. He got him out and pulled him down to the ground. “Can you run?”

“Not well,” Mensi said. Ajiñe had come back around on the corn-burner.

“Let’s go!” she shouted.

Wenthi helped Mensi on the back. “Get him out! I’m right behind!”

She darted off, and Wenthi climbed into the truck bed, unlocking more shackles.

“Go, go,” he told the young baniz. “Get out of here!”

“Gunroller!” Nália shouted.

Wenthi looked up, and saw the gunroller had stopped and turned its turret toward the truck. Unshackling the last baniz, he pulled them off and ran just as the shell hit the truck. The blast knocked them both to the ground.

Wenthi was dazed and addled, not quite able to see or hear or will himself to move.

But yet he was on his feet, running.

Nália. Her head was clear. She got his body back on its feet and ran.

“Do you feel them?” he asked her. “Are they safe?” He was able to take a bit of control back, look over his shoulder. The gunroller was lumbering forth, but this path was one of the few it could take in this maze of shacks and shanties. The baniz had scattered and hid.

“This way,” Nália said. She willed them to move down through the alleyway, around a set of hovels, and to a bombed-out lot just as the trucks rumbled over.

“Get in!” Jendiscira shouted, barely slowing down. Wenthi wasted no time jumping on and climbing into the canvassed bed, falling down in a heap around all five of his crew. All of them together, safe.