Chapter Six

“I am not certain I understand how you arrived at that conclusion,” Sabin said calmly. “It is completely illogical.”

Danielle, much to his dismay, whirled on him, targeting him with anger.

Which was just as unreasonable as her conclusion to his mind.

“Logic!” she spat at him angrily. “In the first place, they were probably drunk, which means they weren’t thinking clearly. In the second—we all have families! Do you think it hasn’t occurred to all of us to go into the city to look for them?”

Sabin lifted his brows at her vehement response to what had been a perfectly reasonable remark delivered in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice. He could not fathom how that seemed to have antagonized her. He was about to point that out when On intervened.

“You’re most likely correct. The intoxicating beverage interfered with their reasoning abilities and they became convinced that it was safe to search for their cherished ones,” he said quietly. “If that is the case, though, there is nothing that can be done about it. If they left during the night, they have been gone many hours now and it would be impossible to locate them in such a large city.”

“But … we can’t just abandon them!”

“I’ll take the chopper up and have a look,” Nick said grimly. “The bus should be easy enough to spot. It’ll be the only thing on the ground moving.”

“There would be an unnecessary and undesirable risk of contamination,” Sabin pointed out.

“I hate to agree with him, but he’s right,” Danielle said, abruptly reversing her viewpoint.

Indignation at her assertion that she disliked agreeing with him completely outweighed any satisfaction it might have given him that she had agreed. Sabin eyed her with a good deal of irritation. On and Nick seemed equally indignant.

“Goddamn it, Danny!” Nick growled. “As you were so damned quick to point out, it’s my fault. It’s up to me to try to haul them out of there.”

“Even if you could, you’d be putting everyone else at risk!”

Nick ground his teeth. “I can at least have a look to see if that’s what happened. We don’t know if they were even sober enough to drive the damned bus. They could’ve thought better of it and stopped. They could’ve wrecked the bus.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bork suggested.

“Joyce and I will go with you, too. The more eyes, the better chance of spotting them, and you can keep your focus on flying the thing. It’s bound to be tricky taking the chopper low enough to see anything,” Su-lynn volunteered. “Let’s suit up, first, though.”

“Anybody else? Danny?”

Danielle chewed her lip indecisively, struggling with the same urge, she didn’t doubt, as the others—to go to see if anyone in the city was still alive, to seize the opportunity, however remote, that she might actually spot someone important to her.

“I will pilot the other chopper,” Sabin said.

Danielle glanced at him a little doubtfully, which annoyed him. He imagined he could almost see the thoughts formulating in her mind. It did not make him feel a good deal better when she voiced those thoughts and made it clear he had guessed correctly. “Do you think you can fly it?”

“It is no more complicated than flying the lander,” he said with just a touch of annoyance threading his voice. “It is only different.”

It mollified him somewhat that she seemed to accept that readily enough.

Then she promptly insulted him all over again.

“You think he’s ready?” she asked Nick.

Nick glared at him but finally shrugged. “He’s a pilot. I think he can handle it.”

“I am overwhelmed by your confidence,” Sabin said coldly.

Joyce snickered. Even Danielle bit her lip to hide a smile.

He didn’t know what the fuck they found so amusing about the comment. He wasn’t particularly pleased by their reaction, but he was even less pleased when it dawned on him that he had said it to deliberately provoke Nick’s antagonism.

They split up in three groups since the choppers were not designed to carry more than three to four passengers. One group, which included Tande and the draes, would stay in case the missing men returned. Bork, Su-lynn, and Joyce joined Nick. Danielle, Bud, and On joined Sabin in his chopper.

Danielle, who took the seat in the front next to him, looked distinctly uneasy as he began to power up the craft. Gritting his teeth, Sabin did his best to appear oblivious to the blatant display of her lack of faith in his abilities.

On made no attempt to. “If you would be more comfortable in the rear, I will take that seat,” he offered.

Danielle sent him a tremulous smile. “Thanks! I think I can see better from here, though.”

So much for thinking she had taken the seat to be closer to him, Sabin reflected with annoyance.

Not surprisingly, his distraction cost him. His take off was bad enough it sent a flicker of alarm even through him. Danielle’s grip on the console and the hand strap near the door tightened noticeably. “Wind sheer,” Sabin announced through gritted teeth.

Danielle sent him a wide-eyed look, but she didn’t dispute the outright lie.

Dragging in a deep, calming breath, Sabin was relieved to feel his heart rate even out. When he’d achieved calm, he was able to focus, and the craft responded accordingly.

It was proof, of course, of the dangers of allowing emotions to overcome reason, but he suspected Danielle didn’t see it that way. No doubt, to her, it was only proof that she had been right and he had not fully acquired the skills of piloting the machine. He felt an unaccustomed urge to debate the matter with her to make her see it as he did. Not only was he certain that that would be an exercise in futility, however, he thought it was more proof that Danielle was somehow, slowly but surely, undermining his self-control.

It was some consolation that he felt he was beginning to understand her better, and thus her species. But not much when he considered that he had only managed it by sliding precariously close to feeling as they did. He thought his greatest fear was that, to unleash his primal instincts, would mean to be forever afterward at the mercy of them.

It would make him an outcast among his own species. Most likely they would consider him a threat to their society, and he feared that would not be an inaccurate assessment.

It was debatable whether ostracism, and perhaps destruction, disturbed him more or if it was the prospect of having to deal with a part of himself that he’d not previously considered might exist.

He could not help but resent the fact that On seemed far more intrigued by the notion that they had, latent within them, the same traits and urges that the humans had that he found so disturbing. Did that point to the possibility that On was more defective than he was himself? Or less so?

Or was it some defect in the method they had chosen to propagate their species that no one had anticipated? Theoretically, they should have been able to anticipate the exact same results each time. Barring the effects of nurturing and individual experiences, he should be exactly the same mahn as his contributor. Was he? Had the first found himself battling instincts that should have been discarded long since in the process of evolution?

He had not met him, naturally enough, since he was long dead. He had never even met the primary of the previous generation. He had studied the accumulated data regarding his line and he had, briefly, met one of the primary’s batch mates, but that was not enough to determine much beyond what he could expect to look like when he aged. It was certainly not sufficient time to allow him to determine much about his personality or temperament or to detect flaws in either.

Danielle drew him from his unpleasant thoughts by producing a far more unpleasant sound that made his heart contract in reaction. He flicked an alarmed glance at her at the keen intake of breath and then directed his attention to searching for whatever it was that she’d seen. “It’s the bus!”

Sabin frowned. “You expected to find it,” he said somewhat crossly. “I cannot fathom what there is about actually doing so that would encourage you to make that unnerving noise.”

Danielle turned to look at him blankly for a moment and then glared at him. “It’s stopped.”

“I see that. It appears to be intact, however—and abandoned,” he added. “They have no doubt set out on foot from here.”

“I don’t see how you can tell that it’s abandoned!”

“I did not see movement inside and the road is clearly blocked. It is a logical assumption if they were determined to reach the city.”

She sent him another sharp glance, but she didn’t argue with him. Taking the communications devise, she relayed their discovery to LaRoche. Sabin watched as the other chopper, which had distanced itself from them until it was little more than a dot, flew in a tight semi-circle and headed toward them.

It hovered close enough for the others to study the bus for several moments and then swung in a circle around them. Sabin glanced at Danielle. “Will we continue the search?”

Instead of answering, Danielle lifted her gaze to the skyline of the city. He could see that she was wrestling with her thoughts. “I’d hoped there was a chance that we could catch up with them before they entered the city.”

Sabin did not entirely understand the reasoning behind that hope, if indeed there was any sort of reasoning behind it. They had ascertained that the men had left during the night. It could not have taken them much above an hour, Earth time, to reach the first barricade.

LaRoche spoke on the communications unit. “I’m going to look for them a little longer.”

“Acknowledged.” She hesitated for several moments. “We’re turning back,” she finally said decisively.

Someone settled a hand on her shoulder. Sabin was surprised and not particularly pleased to discover it was On. “It is not safe to land—or to try to negotiate this craft between the buildings. You would not be able to recognize anyone we might spot from the air.”

Danielle glanced at him sharply and lifted a hand to place it over his. “I know. I still want to look … and I don’t.”

Their exchange made Sabin uncomfortable and, at the same time, angry in some indefinable way. He turned his mind from both with an effort. “We are airborne now. The craft is fully fueled. We might as well look for survivors beyond the city.”

Danielle looked at him in surprise but nodded, looking far less distressed than she had a moment before. It made Sabin feel unaccountably better.

Particularly when On removed his hand from her shoulder and sat back.

Sabin almost regretted that it hadn’t occurred to him that On was in a precarious position and would likely land in the floor of the craft if he had acted on inspiration instead of warning them that he was about to change directions. The image brought a faint smile to lips.

“What’s running through your mind?” Danielle asked, a teasing lilt to her voice.

Sabin glanced at her in surprise.

“Something amused you.”

Sabin considered it and finally shrugged inwardly. “I was thinking if I had not warned On before I turned that he would have fallen to the floor.”

Danielle surprised him by chuckling huskily. “Evil man,” she chided without heat.

He glanced at her sharply, but he could not see anything in her expression that seemed to indicate that she thought he was. “You do not think so,” he said finally.

Her lips twitched. “No, I don’t … but it was an evil thought. It would’ve wounded his dignity if nothing else.”

“A wound easily recovered from.”

“Not easily recovered from,” Danielle contradicted. “I still carry the scars from every wound to my dignity that I ever suffered.”

Sabin glanced at her curiously. “Now, I cannot tell whether you are being facetious or serious.”

Danielle smiled wryly. “A little of both. Don’t you have awful memories from your childhood that you still cringe about?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t,” she retorted tartly. “You were probably always perfect.”

Sabin frowned. “You are suggesting that it is possible to grow into perfection?”

Danielle shook her head at him. “You certainly don’t suffer from a low opinion of yourself, do you? I’ll say this for you, Sabin—conversations with you are often frustrating and frequently annoying but never boring. ”

Sabin studied that over in frowning silence for a time. He felt insulted. He just wasn’t certain whether she had intended to insult him or not. “You will no doubt be amazed to hear it, but I find conversations with you much the same,” he said stiffly when he had considered it thoroughly and finally decided that she had intended to be insulting.

She laughed.

There was no understanding the female, he thought irritably. He could not recall a single time when she had reacted as expected. When he was serious, she was amused. When he tried to say something he was certain must amuse her because it was completely illogical, she glared at him.

“You are suggesting that I should not feel self-esteem?” he asked tightly.

“Far be it from me to suggest such a thing!”

Now she was angry when only a moment ago she was amused! It was one of those comments she often made where she meant the opposite of what she said, he was sure. “What flaws do you perceive that I need be concerned about?”

“I haven’t perceived any … beyond conceit!”

Sabin felt his frustration mount. “I am not conceited,” he retorted stiffly. “You are the one who said that I was perfect. I made no such claim.”

“I did no such thing!”

Sabin stared at her in disbelief. “You said ‘you were probably always perfect.’ I distinctly heard it.”

Danielle turned her nose up at him. “I didn’t mean I thought you were. I meant that you thought you were.”

“That is what you said,” Sabin reminded her with determined patience.

“But it isn’t what I meant.”

Sabin frowned, wondering if it was worth pursuing to see if he could discover what she had meant, but it seemed to him that the conversation had already gone well past reason. In any case, he discovered he didn’t particularly want her to enumerate what she saw in him that was flawed—in her opinion. “This is an opinion,” he said dismissively. “It is not necessarily a fact.”

“Yes. Mine!”

The sense that he had lost the argument settled in the pit of his stomach in a hard knot of frustration but, turn it though he might, he couldn’t quite figure out why he felt he had. Perhaps it was the triumphant tone of her voice?

It was completely illogical, damn it! She had not made any point at all beyond insulting him and he wasn’t even sure why she had felt the need to insult him. “I am not conceited,” he muttered under his breath. “There is a vast difference between confidence and conceit.”

“And you suffer from both.”

Sabin slid a narrow-eyed glance at her. The distraction nearly cost them all. Preceded only by a handful of heartbeats by an explosion, something hard pinged against the side of the chopper. Danielle sucked in a sharp breath when it struck her door, creating a spider web crack across the glass.

“Gunfire!” Bud bellowed from the back. “Pull up!”

Sabin had already jerked the chopper aside and begun a climb to evade, however. Despite the evasive maneuver, several other bullets pelted against the sides and bottom of the machine, although, fortunately, the bullets were too spent by distance to do much more than bang against the metal as if someone were slinging pebbles at them.

When Sabin had leveled out the craft again, he circled around.

“I think it came from that old barn,” Bud said loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the engine and rotors.

“I see him!” Danielle said, pointing. “There’s someone in the loft.”

“Another sniper near that burnt out truck,” Bud pointed out.

Danielle twisted in her seat to look back at Bud. For a moment, the two merely stared at each other. Slowly, they began to smile and then to grin broadly. “Survivors!”

* * * *

Nick’s group met them on the tarmac when they returned to home base. Danielle was so excited she all but fell out of the chopper when it finally settled. “We found a group of survivors!”

Nick’s group had been wearing expressions of distress until that moment. They stared at Danielle, stunned and disbelieving while it slowly sank in and then Su-lynn let out a whoop of excitement. She raced to Danielle, flung her arms around her, and executed a joyful dance for several moments.

“How many?” she gasped when she finally pulled away, voicing the question being babbled around them by the others.

“At least two,” Sabin said dryly, examining the dents in the sides of the chopper.

Everyone turned to stare at him and then looked at Danielle again. She shrugged. “They fired at us, but we got a good look at the place. They’ve built a sort of make-shift fortress with vehicles. I think there’s a good chance there’s at least one family, possibly more. It looked like a very large area to secure for only a couple of people.”

Some of the excitement of the others waned. “You didn’t actually see but two?” Nick demanded irritably.

“We didn’t actually see two,” Bud volunteered. “We saw two gun barrels. They shot at us or we might have missed the place completely.”

Everyone exchanged uneasy glances. “Looters?” Joyce said questioningly.

“There’s no telling what’s been happening,” Danielle said pointedly. “Obviously, there’s been a complete breakdown in authority. I found a map in the chopper. I’ve marked the place on the map. I think the further we get from the city the more people we’re going to find. Hopefully some larger refugee camps, possibly a medical center.”

“It’s something,” Su-lynn agreed, patting Danielle’s shoulder, although her smile faded. “I’m sure you’re right. We did a fly over, as low we dared. We didn’t find any of the guys, but the city’s a shambles. I’m guessing there were wide-spread riots in the streets. A lot of it’s been burned, although it’s hard to say whether it was an effort to contain the disease, or from the rioting, or even accidental. It looks like a war zone.”

Danielle sobered. “You didn’t see any sign of survivors inside the city? None at all?”

Joyce shook her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and Danielle was suddenly glad she hadn’t demanded to be taken to see it for herself. She looked away. “We hadn’t really expected to, though, had we?”

“Which direction did you take?” Nick asked brusquely, redirecting the conversation and effectively focusing everyone’s mind on the first ray of real hope they’d had since they’d arrived.

“I followed the highway south of the city,” Sabin responded.

Nick nodded. “Well, bring the map. Let’s study it and see if we can pinpoint some likely spots to look.”

By the time they’d poured over the map for hours and discussed and marked possibilities, it was mid-afternoon. Guessing that the people fleeing the city would’ve wanted to avoid any other population centers for the same reason they’d fled the city to begin with, they’d marked areas where it seemed food, water, and a possibility of shelter would’ve been fairly accessible. Bork had suggested that perhaps the people had fled to the nearest military outpost, but Danielle flatly vetoed that, pointing out that the military had clearly been called in to handle the rioting and had set up the barricades to prevent the populace from leaving the city. It seemed very unlikely to her that the survivors would’ve fled to the people they would almost certainly have seen as their enemies at the time. They would’ve been looking to escape infection and would’ve lost faith that the authorities could protect them. It sparked a brief debate among them, but the human camp agreed with Danielle and the visitors finally conceded that they would know their own people best.

Since the people they’d located had greeted them with hostility and they calculated that they weren’t likely to reach the place before dusk, they decided to spend the afternoon locating another mode of transportation and stocking up with supplies.

Nick told the group that he’d spotted a car dealership not far from the airport and asked for volunteers to accompany him to appropriate a vehicle. There were plenty of cars in the airport parking lot, of course, but none with keys. The dealership should have the keys in a fairly accessible place.

“We need to take our side arms,” Bud said. “In point of fact, I wouldn’t mind looking for a little more artillery while we’re at it. They were using rifles. Body armor wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. I think they just figured they were defending their turf, but we could run into some real bad guys—snipers.”

“Good point,” Nick said approvingly.

Mikhail offered to stay and guard the home base.

Nick sent him a wry look.

Mikhail returned it blandly and after a brief pause Nick seemed to grasp his meaning. He glanced around at the others thoughtfully and zeroed in on Sabin. “You game, Sabin?”

Sabin stared at him blankly. “Game?”

“I’m thinking it’ll take more than two of us to get the vehicles and the supplies.”

“Bork and I will go,” On volunteered, ignoring the indignant glare Bork focused on him.

Nick studied Bork. “You going or staying? Four would be better—one to drive, one to ride shotgun.”

Bork seemed more inclined to go once Nick put it that way. Or maybe it was just that he’d objected to On volunteering for him?

Danielle considered objecting. She thought it would be safer all the way around if they stayed together. They’d already lost Lindsey and possibly Dr. Morton, Andre`, Richard, and Jim, as well, and they hadn’t even been home a full week. She decided against it when she realized it was possible that the missing men would return. Without any way of communicating, they would have no way of knowing where the rest of the group had gone.

She still didn’t like separating when there were so few of them, but she could see the sense in it, particularly since Dr. Morton and the others had deprived them of the only ground transportation they had. When they’d settled the details, they split up to search for supplies for the trek. The dealership ‘near’ the airport, as far as they could tell, was going to be a very long hike. At the very least, the men would need some way to carry water that wasn’t too awkward. Su-lynn and Danielle both thought it would be wise to take a blanket roll, an emergency medical kit, and enough food for a couple of meals—just in case.

Neither Bud or Nick wanted to be burdened with the extra supplies, pointing out that it would slow them down and that the dealership probably wasn’t much more than a half a day’s hike.

“But you don’t know exactly where it is and none of us know what to expect,” Danielle said patiently. “Don’t you think it would be better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it?”

They didn’t, not when it meant lugging ‘all that shit’ for miles, but Bork and On weren’t inclined to argue about it and once they’d taken the packs made up for them, Bud and Nick sullenly shouldered their own and the group set out.

Danielle and Su-lynn followed the party from the hotel and watched them until they disappeared from view. “Maybe it would’ve been better to take one of the choppers and try to drop them closer to the place?”

Su-lynn shrugged. “If there’d been any place handy to set one down, Nick wouldn’t have suggested hiking to it,” she said dryly. “Let’s just hope it isn’t further than he thought. I don’t remember seeing one.”

Danielle looked at her sharply. “You think he just said that and he has something else in mind?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying I think it’s strange that he didn’t take one of the choppers up to make sure he knew where it was and that there wasn’t any place to set it down closer. He didn’t seem keen to take any of the visitors along, did he?”

“You think that’s significant?”

“It is to me, but then I’m starting to get seriously paranoid.”

Danielle glanced around to make certain they were still alone. “You think the visitors have an agenda other than the one stated?”

Su-lynn lifted her head and studied the area around them. “Maybe they only came to help … maybe not. Even if they didn’t come with anything sinister in mind—look around you! There’s a hell of a lot of really nice real estate available now, isn’t there? And we’re seriously outnumbered.”

“Bork keeps bringing up the military. He’s mentioned them at least three times within my hearing—just a question here and there, nothing too probing, but enough to make it clear that it’s on his mind—like him suggesting we head to the nearest base to see if the survivors are there. And, as far as I know, none of them has said a damned word about talking to our leaders since we arrived.”

Danielle shivered as a chill crept down her spine. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything beyond the fact that it has to be obvious to them that we don’t even know where to look for our leaders—assuming we still have some that survived this. We hadn’t had communications in weeks before they arrived, but they could’ve been monitoring everything broadcast over the last hundred years. Surely, if they’d come to invade, they would’ve broken through our security and gotten all of the information they needed? Hell, they could’ve gotten just about any information they wanted over the Internet before it went down—including maps that pinpointed most of the military bases around the globe.”

“You have a point, and yet they wouldn’t know as much about us as they do if they hadn’t been monitoring broadcasts, would they?”

Danielle frowned. “Say you’re right—and I’m not disagreeing—what do you suggest?”

Su-lynn shrugged. “Caution. What did Nick say when you and him went off the other day right after we got here?”

“Pretty much the same thing you have. And I agreed with him then. There’s just something about them …” She frowned, considering it. “I don’t know. I guess it’s more a feeling. I can’t think of anything they’ve actually said or done to make me feel … threatened or distrustful—aside from the fact that they’re aliens.”

“Except that they haven’t seemed all that anxious to rush to aid mankind? We’ve got an excuse. Even our training didn’t prepare any of us for what we’ve had to deal with—we’re still human—and, when it comes right down to it, we weren’t trained to deal with this kind of situation at all. We’re having to wing it. The sheer scope of this disaster, compounded by our personal losses, has made it hard to figure out where to start or what needs to be done first. Nobody can think about much of anything besides looking for their families.

“The visitors should have cool enough heads to know where to start and what to do, even though we don’t, particularly if that was their reason for coming. They should’ve had a plan of action already in place, don’t you think?

“And yet they haven’t mentioned one, haven’t attempted to direct us at all. They seem perfectly content to merely follow us while we stumble around trying to figure out what to do.”

Danielle nodded. “I guess that’s the part that’s been bothering me. I got the impression that they were completely prepared and I’ve been expecting them to take charge—or at least try to.”

“I suppose it could be argued that that would instantly create friction they might not want, but still …”

“They’ve got no reason to worry about whether we like it or not. So that means it isn’t us they’re worried about, right?”

“I think it comes back to the military,” Su-lynn agreed. “It makes sense that they wouldn’t want to be attacked, but you know damned well that they’ve already reported back that there wasn’t any sign of a challenge when we landed. And Nick’s been crisscrossing the area in the chopper for days without a sign of any military.”

“Maybe that’s what they’ve been waiting for—the ground crew to report back on the possible strength of our defenses?” Danielle said uneasily.

“I think that’s exactly what they’ve been waiting for,” Su-lynn said. “I’m not much of a strategist, but it makes sense to me. And, if we’re right, they’ll start the invasion any day.”

Danielle felt a wave of nausea. “We need to try to contact the military ourselves—see if there are any defenses in the area. If anybody still has communications capabilities, it’ll be the military. I just don’t see how we’re going to manage it when we have the visitors right under us.”

“We can’t. We only have two options that I can see—killing or capturing them, or somehow ditching them.”

An image of Sabin instantly leapt to Danielle’s mind and her belly tightened with reluctance. “I couldn’t agree with attacking them when we don’t know whether we’re even right or not. It would be unconscionable to attack them when we could be wrong and they really did come to help. Besides, we don’t outnumber them anymore—we might have had some chance of overcoming them before Dr. Morton and the others took off. Now there’s more of them than us, and they’re better armed.”

“Except they’ve no reason to expect us to try anything like that,” Su-lynn pointed out.

“If you’re right about them, they’ve every reason to expect it and that might be why there’s always at least one of them close by—because they’re expecting us to be as deceitful as they are.”

“I think we still have to try. And I think we’re running out of time. I don’t know why they’ve hesitated, but I don’t think they will much longer. They’re going to invade and when they do we won’t be able to do anything to stop them.”