Sometimes I still can't believe we're here, Mark thought, staring across the field, after Carl Davis and Micah hurried off, to find out what was keeping Jeffers and Tepper.
The returning expedition had angled out of the jungle a little east of the north side of The Rock, where the rim above revealed structures sheared-off by the Garubis beam, a game store, the private home behind it, and the corner of a small church, its steeple tilted but still standing. These buildings stood directly on the brink, like shells designed by an architect who was both masterful and insane. It all looked inhuman. So useless and perfect.
Of course, over time, every scrap would be salvaged or recycled, including chunks of lumber and glass that had spilled over the cliff when the Rock landed. But for now, those perfectly amputated buildings gave Mark a chill. The technology and the power that had brought them here was so far beyond any human capability.
“We spotted your flag,” Mark murmured. “And unloaded nearby. Go-Go left the kamen and a battery, behind one of the tubs.”
“I know,” Dave answered, standing quietly next to the hood of the SUV. “I was watching, from a tree.”
Alex nodded. “So we figured. You made good time, getting back here ahead of us.”
McCarty thumped his chest. “The Tarzan gang. In a jungle, nothing—no car or truck—can keep up with us.”
“Especially since it was less than a mile,” Mark snorted. “And we had to dodge firesap all the way. Any problems?”
“Well,” Dave frowned. “Poor Cammie fell and wrenched her ankle. Don’t get up! She’s okay. Oh, and then there was this dude we met, out there.”
“Dude?” Mark straightened, feeling a sudden, nervous chill. Something in Dave’s too-casual tone of voice. “What dude?”
“Oh, nobody special. One time I turned around there he was, lending a hand! Kind of a helpful guy, as it turns out, though kinda hard to talk to. I think you folks also spotted him too, at one point. I invited him to come visit.”
“Dave!” Mark wanted to throttle his friend.
“In fact, there he is now.”
McCarty made a languid nod and pointed behind Mark, who noticed that suddenly all had gone quiet. The babble of questions, peppering Froggi and Alex and Sophie tapered to nothing. As Mark turned, he saw that all eyes were staring past him.
“Oh my God,” Alex murmured. “It’s …”
“… what Micah an’ me saw in the jungle.” Froggi finished, his voice suddenly little more than a croak, as Mark gawked, as well.
A squat, gray alien emerged through the brush.
✽✽✽
The creature shuffled on two legs into an open pocket along the rim of the clearing—a thick, slump-shouldered figure, shorter than a man but about as bulky. Gray and brown against the orange plants, it had short arms tipped by what might be hands, but with an impressive claw jutting from each wrist. The head, set atop thick shoulders, looked vaguely like a rhino’s—wide, heavy, and ending in a pointed snout in front. Its eyes were big and wide, like a lemur’s. Over one shoulder and across its barrel chest, it wore something that looked like a bandolier of pouches or crude cloth bags.
Definitely not a Garubis, came Mark’s clear thought, not knowing whether to feel relieved about that. Then the stunned silence was broken as Dave McCarty screamed in outrage! Not at the creature, but his fellow humans.
“Hey! Stop that!”
Some men and boys were throwing rocks at the gray visitor. Badly, at first. They threw high in the lesser gravity of New Mojave. Regardless, their panicky barrage made noises in the foliage. The interloper hesitated at the ragged wall of vegetation, its claws lifted—in a sign of peaceful intent? Or as a threat?
Two of the throwers were carnies, Mark saw. One of them had snatched up a branch as a club, taking a step forward and growling. A few kids joined in, hollering. One of them, with a bandaged eye, Mark recognized as an unlucky victim of the first bat attack.
But this was no time for observation. McCarty had already charged in, screaming. “You bastards get back! He’s friendly!”
Two steps behind, Mark skidded in between the strange creature and the rock-throwers—among them Zach Serpa, the wiry carnival boss.
“Are you crazy?” Mark yelled, supporting Dave. “It’s peaceful. And it’s got clothes!”
That might be generous wording for a string of bags, but it sure conveyed one meaning. I am not an animal.
Serpa sputtered. “That thing came right at us.“
“Look at it! Do you see any weapons?”
“Well, yeah! What do you think is in that scabbard, between its legs?”
Mark swiveled and saw the creature shifting nervously, one hand at the mouth of the longest bag, fondling the hilt of something long and thin.
“Fine! But it’s sheathed. It's probably just—” Mark was aware of Nick and Gracie coming up behind, forming a line with Dave McCarty, to his right. And suddenly, there was Barry Tang, as well! Joining on the left, panting. Probably ran the whole way from school, upon hearing we’d arrived. But where are Jeffers and Tepper?
Dave turned away from the carnie he’d been facing and started walking toward the alien, with arms spread wide. He must have hoped it was a friendly, non-threatening posture—and that it might deter any more rocks. But then another missile whistled through the air.
The projectile clipped the alien in the shoulder and it let out a sharp, barking yelp. Mark saw that the stubby-headed creature had blue eyes almost the size of saucers, set low beside its wide mouth. But he didn't have time for more details. Lunging past Serpa, Mark grabbed the arm of the rock-thrower. At the same time, he clenched the shirt of another carnie who cocked his arm back to throw.
“Stop! Stop!” Mark yelled.
“Get off me, kid.” The taller man wrenched away from Mark and another caught Mark's wrist.
“It came to say hello!”
“Bamford!” Froggi said in alarm, turning Mark's head. For an instant, he thought the alien was attacking after all. But Froggi meant to beware of angry humans, as Mark was now surrounded.
Serpa growled to his people. “Get these punks out of here. Especially this monster-lover.”
“No!” But three large men were holding on to him now. Another clamped down on Froggi's arm.
Which means they can’t be throwing things for a few seconds.
For whatever good that did. As he saw others approaching with rocks and much worse—some of those scythe-things used by the brush-clearing crew.
“Stop it!” He heard Alex, and she wasn’t alone. A crowd gathered, timidly at first, joining her calls for calm. Glancing through the pack of men and teenagers, Mark saw Dave and Barry standing before the alien, in the line of fire, reassuring it. Any more rocks would as likely strike them.
Mark couldn't hear, but he saw Barry show two fingers and then three, as if performing simple math. Maybe the alien's hands or paws or claws were repeating the gesture—or leading Barry through it. Mark couldn't tell.
It's intelligent. There's no question.
“Wait!” Mark yelled again.
A dirt clod whacked into the foliage beside the alien, then a good-sized rock clipped the back of Dave McCarty's shoulder, as Mark felt himself dragged backward—
— when suddenly a blur of white metal intervened with an electric whine, sweeping in to form a boxy wall between the groups. It was a rodeo move, all style and noise. Dirt and red leaves whooshed up from the Chevy’s tires. Nick Hammar grinned from behind the steering wheel.
Serpa snarled. “Drop the kid and come on!” he called to his two associates, and Mark felt himself hurled to the ground as the trio snatched up scythes, heading purposefully round the back end of the Tahoe. “No!” Mark shouted, scrambling to follow. Too slow. Too late.
“No,” said a deeper voice, just ahead, echoing Mark.
Rounding the tail of the SUV, Mark found Serpa frozen in his tracks, snorting and struggling to hold on to his weapon, before it was torn out of his grip. The butt end of the scythe then shot between another carny’s legs, sending him toppling.
Chuck, Mark realized. The big assault rifle lay slung across the biker’s back and—from his confident, almost lazy expression—was unneeded. Dropping the scythe, he caught the fist that Serpa sent toward his face, and the two big men grunted. Only Chuck had another hand, which shot out—
—catching a third carnie by the throat, holding the man till he turned red and crumpled to his knees.
“Back … off …” Chuck rumbled. “The kids are right,” he added with a slight nod at Mark. “We don't know anything about this visitor. Didn’t your momma teach you hospitality?”
For a moment most of the nearby humans stared at Chuck, transfixed as much by his calm reprimand as by the barely repressed threat of violence. Broken free from the pony tail, his shaggy black-and-gray mane was epic, nearly as large as the alien's head. His gut bulged from a leather vest and his arms were like thick, sunburnt coils of tattoos and muscle.
“Okay, okay, let go!” Serpa yelled, when his knees seemed about to buckle. Abruptly released, he sagged backward two steps. “Hiring you was the worst decision I ever made, Hewman. No—the second worst. The first was agreeing to ever set up the carnival for this damn school.” Then, after casting a brief look of hate at Chuck, he motioned for his followers to drop their rocks and lower their scythes.
Chuck saved us again. Our guardian angel. If they make angels in three hundred pound models, plus at least another twenty in hair and leather. Jeez.
Mark hurried round the Tahoe, in time to glimpse Barry and Dave making a final gesture at the gray creature, in unison—an arc that started at the eastern horizon and wound up pointing at the sun.
Already backing away into the forest, it responded likewise. An arc from east to the sun. And Mark felt surprised at himself, for quickly grasping the meaning.
Come back tomorrow at the same time.
Good. Smart move. He gave thumbs-up to both boys, for sending the alien emissary away, before anything else could go wrong. Give us a full day to get used to the idea. That this planet isn’t all our own.
The creature vanished in a flash of soft gray fur, just before a commotion erupted behind Mark, toward the Rock, in the imperious voice of Colin Gornet.
“What’s going on here? Why isn’t anybody working? Where are the guards? Bamford! You people were told to wait by your vehicles!”
Maybe fifty meters behind the footballer, Mark spied the Council—led by Scott Tepper and Principal Jeffers, striding down the big ramp. Arriving at last, after all the excitement.
So much for the psychological benefits of making us wait and stew.
The Hammar twins, reunited, came close when Mark beckoned. “Nick, Greg, please move this truck back to join the others? Park it exactly where it was. Thanks.”
He turned to approach Dave and Barry, who were basking in appreciation from the peaceful majority of students. Moderate, reasonable people are often slower to act, at first. But a lot of these classmates now showered approval on the rebel and the nerd.
Hero or not, McCarty had work to do. At a curt gesture from Mark, his grin turned into a nod of determination as he backed away from the throng, then faded toward the forest rim, leaving Barry Tang as the center of attention.
Alex stood next to Mark, watching that miracle of well-deserved popularity. But in moments, she shifted to chiding.
“You know you’re a damn fool,” she told him. “Charging in is not what a leader does. Didn’t your father teach you anything?”
He inhaled deep and exhaled slowly. Then admitted.
“I … couldn’t think of anything … tactical.”
“Chuck had a great, big gun. So did Leo. You had only to give orders. Warning shots. All that.”
“Leo did what he’s trained to do. I saw him turn away from the excitement. There he is, still, facing the jungle.”
“You see?” Alex pounced. “You notice stuff! You have the mental tools, but you didn’t use them!
“I’m …” He shrugged. “I’m not used to this.”
“None of us are.” She sighed. “I guess you’re getting the hang of it. But we don’t have time for a gentle learning curve!”
Alex turned back to the south.
“Now it’s time for cunning, Bam. Here they come. Scott and Jeffers and Castro and Hutnicki … and Helene Shockley. And I’ll back your play, all the way. But if I see you for one instant thinking with your nards, instead of your brain, I will cut them off myself. You got me, big-bro?”
“I got you, baby sister.” He grinned, even though it earned him a sharp elbow in the ribs. Ah well. The pain of it was helpful, reinforcing her fierce point, reminding him.
This is serious. So focus.
✽✽✽
The Council got an earful of babbled versions from a dozen excited students. Suspicion and resentment from Zach Serpa. And detailed descriptions from Barry Tang that bordered on the comically tedious, especially when Kristina Zhirinova joined in, offering speculations on the color of the alien’s fur, the purpose of the wrist-claws, the early evidence of sapience. In fact, all their nerdy pedantry had the effect of calming most people down, though Principal Jeffers eyed the forest with dark suspicion and worry. He proposed sending all the work parties back atop The Rock for safety, lest there be any more jungle surprises.
Harry Castro and Ms. O’Brien wanted to hear more, but it was Scott Tepper who intervened to keep priorities on track.
“We can get a full report about the alien at tonight’s after-dark meeting,” he asserted, in a tone that sounded more than ever like a commander’s ruling. “For now, we have survival priorities that rise above all else. We came down here for one reason. To see what the Mark Bamford Expedition brought us.”
The last sentence was uttered so loudly and clearly, it had to be for the surrounding crowd. Mark spied Mr. Castro looking at him with an expression of caution.
I know. I know. This was why Scott didn’t want the brush-clearing teams sent back to the Rock, or back to work. It’s a show. That requires an audience.
And, despite Alex’s warning, Mark intently felt the presence of one set of watching eyes. Discipline, he thought, and avoided even glancing at Helene.
With Gornet’s guards fanning out, Council members and their entourage followed Mark and Alex to the row of three parked SUVs, close to the forest edge, now being clucked-over by a disapproving Bryant Marshall, the Chevy King.
“Number One will need a complete overhaul of the suspension and exhaust system. The plow is almost falling off the front bumper. And where do you think we’re going to get new tires? As for the others—”
Principal Jeffers patted the townie on his shoulder.
“Some costs are worthwhile, if they help us survive till rainy season.”
Mr. Davis had returned with the Council. “While I was gone, the physics clubs improved their measurements and calculations.” He stepped up, offering his expanded tablet. “We now think that rains may come in ninety to a hundred and ten days.”
“And we’ll be dying of thirst in ten or twenty, at best!” Colin Gornet snapped. “Unless we find a solution.”
“Well, one remedy might be to move a lot of people to the water,” proposed Kristina Zhirinova, getting less shy with every passing day. “It’s actually pretty nice up there.”
Mark noticed that she didn’t mention inconvenient galumphing arm-ear herds equipped with stony-lips, followed by packs of ravenous hell-lions. He saw Carl Davis frown, but the teacher kept his promise to delay that news.
Ms. O’Brien objected. “Moving hundreds of young people to a place where there’s nothing? No roofs or walls or supplies or protection? Before we’ve even verified what’s edible? Or what might try to eat us?” She shook her head. “Far better to stay close and dig a well.”
Harry Castro spoke for the first time.
“Crews have excavated hard at a pair of sites for two days, and come up dry, so far.”
So that’s what all the digging was about, Mark thought, feeling a mix of interest and disappointment. Of course, it would be better for everyone if the effort succeeded.
“Sure,” the biology teacher snapped back. “Even expert drillers can have a dozen empty holes for every success!” Grimy and tired, she appeared more short-tempered than Mark ever remembered.
In contrast, Ms. Takka, who had seemed almost useless from shock, a few days ago, appeared to be getting her mojo back.
“We’ve had some results from our solar stills. Though there’s not enough plastic sheeting. And a lot of vegetation has to be crushed to give up its moisture.”
Mark shared a look with Alex and they both glanced at Barry, whose expression seemed to say “I tried to tell them!” A solar still was fine for emergency survival on a life-raft or desert, after a plane crash. The method was hopeless for well over a thousand teenagers, desperate to drink and bathe.
Scott Tepper intervened, holding up two hands. “Look, there’s so much to deal with later, at the assembly.”
“Like why everything’s gone so slow erecting the outer defense wall,” growled Gornet looked around. “Where’s Dave McCarty? And the Hammars? They were here a minute ago! Finally he pointed at Ricardo Chavez, the only X-Guy still present. “You! Your team promised to cut enough poles to erect a sturdy fence, well away from the Rock.”
“We cut plenty,” Cardo answered with a shrug. “You saw the piles.”
“But the wall’s barely progressed the length of a football field. And this is the first I’ve seen of you, all day!”
Chavez shrugged, with a lazy smile that left an impression he’d been goofing off, and didn’t care what anybody thought. Cardo, you don’t have to be such an ass, Mark thought.
“We’re here to discuss water,” Principal Jeffers put in, soothing. And Scott agreed.
“We’ll explore every alternative. Especially when Bamford here—” he nodded at Mark “—volunteered in front of everyone to take his friends on a cross-country adventure. To seek what we all need. So, Mark, are you and your pals ready to show us what you brought us from that distant lake of yours?”
Mark noticed how every word was carefully chosen. Even “friends” and “pals” and “adventure” set us up to be seen as callow. Immature. Impulsive and unreliable. An implied accusation. Like the way Scott dealt with another potential rival, Gracie Donner.
So? Okay then. Let’s prove it.
Silently, he led the Council—and an accompanying crowd—to the tailgate of the first SUV, its bed half-filled with rain barrels and covered tubs. At his nod, Alex held a big aluminum cup under one barrel’s spigot and turned the knob. A stream gurgled in, swiftly filling the cup.
Sighs fluttered through the surrounding students and others, plus a smattering of applause.
“It’s all Kamen-filtered,” Alex announced. “Who’s first?”
This brought shouts from the crowd. But no one on the Council, until Helene Shockley stepped up.
“I’d love to have a drink,” she said, with a warm smile for both Alex and Mark, who couldn’t help but grin back. Too eagerly, he knew. Helene sniffed the cup like an appreciative wine aficionado, took three quick swallows, and handed it back.
“Delicious,” she said. “Much nicer than what we get from the dew-catchers and gutters.”
Froggi appeared then, hauling a dozen canteens from the back of another SUV. “Pass these around!” he called, tossing them in every direction, much to the delight of onlookers, but getting frowns from the Council members.
“We have a rationing system—” Ms. O’Brien began, then let it go.
Colin Gornet was up on the bed of the Tahoe, peering into barrels and tubs. Thumping their sides.
“These are only half full!”
Mr. Davis nodded. “As I was telling the Council. We can fetch the other half in the morning, from only a mile or so away.”
Scott tapped the nearest barrel, as if appraising the half-hollow thunk. And Mark thought: Okay, here it comes.
“So, Bamford, how much water did your expedition gather for us?”
“Including what we cached this afternoon?”
“The stuff you left a mile away? Sure, include it all. How much did you gather, at great risk and having all but ruined several valuable vehicles?”
All but ruined, was a bit harsh. But fine. Mark nodded to Kristina, who came forward with her tablet.
“We had really rough terrain to cover, so we loaded to about two-thirds of rated weight capacity … or about two tons, overall.”
That brought more than a smattering of applause, and even a few cheers! Two tons might sound like a lot. But Mark suppressed an urge to shake his head, knowing what was next.
“How much is that in liters?” Principal Jeffers asked, consulting his own tablet. “A person doing hard manual labor needs up to ten liters a day …”
“We’re barely getting one!” Someone shouted. And Ms. Takka added: “We can’t keep up this pace of work without a solution, real soon.”
Kristina answered the original question.
“Including the cache, that’s about two thousand liters.”
“That is double what we’ve been getting from the dew and fog collectors,” Helene interjected, in a hopeful tone, clearly trying to help.
Scott nodded. “That’s fine for today. But are you going on these trips daily? How much precious, irreplaceable fuel did you use? Do you plan to wreck three SUVs each time?”
A week or two ago, the younger Mark Bamford might have protested, arguing that the road to the lake would get better, with every passage. And the Tahoes were far from “wrecked.” Only now, sharing a quick glance with Alex, he just waited, silent. And with a warning glare he told even Cardo and Froggi—Stay quiet—as Scott continued.
“Kristina, how much water will your gardens need? About the same as the people? Ten thousand liters a day? Twenty? How about when you start real farming?”
She nodded, accepting the point. “A lot more than that. Though when the rainy season—”
Mark interrupted his friend. Though brilliant, she could be waylaid in unhelpful directions.
“So, Scott. Are you saying that hauling water from the lake every day by truck would be wasteful and dangerous? A costly squandering of time, fuel and equipment?”
Tepper blinked at Mark, a little surprised by the helpful summation.
“The point seems obvious, Bamford. Can you refute it?”
Mark shrugged, feeling a weight of fatigue that counterbalanced adrenaline. But then, every human on the planet was bone tired and irritable.
“I wouldn’t think of trying to refute the obvious, Scott. Oh, we’ll need to go back to the lake at intervals, for a variety of reasons. Like deciding if it would be a good Second Site. Another colony to take pressure off sustaining life on the Rock. But that’s a separate matter.”
“I’m glad you agree then, Mark,” Scott said with a smile. And seeing victory in his grasp, Tepper moved smoothly toward charity, offering an expression of gracious understanding and empathy to the defeated. “Look, we all know you and your team were brave to step up to the plate this way. And you proved to be good explorers. A bit rash, and promising way too much. But there’s a place for folks like you on our Big Team. For now, though, we’ve got to hunker down. Conserve and focus on the most promising approach, digging wells. Of course, later …”
Mark waved his hands in front of him. “Wait, Scott. I think we’re misunderstanding each other. I never admitted that we promised too much.”
Scott looked left and right and back at Mark.
“But you just confessed that your expedition failed.”
“No, Scott. I confessed no such thing. What I said was that I agree …” he gestured at Alex, Froggi, Go-Go, Kristina, Sophie and Micah. “We agree that it would be nuts to try and supply the Rock with enough water this way, hauling it by truck. We never promised to do that.”
“But we all heard you—”
“You heard us promise to get some water. Maybe even enough water. You assumed that we meant hauling it, and calculated that we’d fail. But anyone could have done your math in advance. Did you forget that we have Kristina and Barry and Alex? Water hauling wasn’t what we promised. We aimed for water delivery.”
With that, he glanced up. Then waved with both hands for onlookers to clear an area. Alex and Sophie pushed gently as the crowd backed up a bit, before a voice from the branches above shouted “Heads up!”
Several bystanders shouted as a long snake appeared to plummet toward the gap in the crowd. Mark didn’t move. Nick and Froggi—joined now by Micah—pursued the dangling end that swayed and bucked for a few seconds, like something alive. Micah won that chase, waving the end of a garden hose, as if he were a mighty hunter, and brought it triumphantly to Mark.
“Ready down there?” Dave McCarty shouted again.
“Ready!” Nick called back, as Mark handed the spigot end of the hose to Gracie Donner, giving her—at last—the honor she had earned with her first, absurdly brave expedition. She turned the knob … and faintly echoing whistle sounds were all that emerged. Gracie looked alarmed.
Patience, Mark thought, encouraging her with a grin. Then he turned back to the Council, trying to imitate the clarity of Scott Tepper’s voice, so everyone could hear.
“Of course, this is just a sample. The other half of our cargo, cached well short of halfway to the lake. It may take several more days to finish our pipeline to the source.”
Principal Jeffers took a step forward.
“Pipeline? What pipeline?”
“The pipeline Dave and his crew built, yesterday and today, instead of Gornet’s ridiculous wall!” snapped Froggi, unable to keep himself squelched any longer.
Scott was silent, clearly re-evaluating at lightspeed, while the principal stammered.
“But … but how?”
“Boo!” Froggi shouted, unable to contain himself. Till a jab from Alex set him coughing. Coughing and laughing.
Mark sighed.
“The bamboo-like shafts that Colin wanted for his fence … they’re hollow. It was easy—during the two days we prepared for our expedition—to tool up reamers that cleaned them out quickly in the field. By the time we left, there were piles and piles of them at the edge of the clearing, beveled out at one end and tapered at the other, so they fit into each other like K’Nex pieces.”
Whistling sounds grew louder from the spigot in Gracie’s hand. But abruptly everyone turned as—with melodramatic Tarzan yells—Dave McCarty and Charlie Escobar and five others rappelled like ninjas out of nearby trees. The Twenty-Nine Palms High School Varsity Climbing Team … about half of them.
This time, the applause was enthusiastic, drowning out Colin Gornet’s angry plaint. “You see? Anything can sneak up on us!”
McCarty waded with his crew amid a tide of back-slaps. And Mark recalled his father saying: “A leader enjoys sharing credit for a job well done. It should be one of life’s greatest pleasures.”
We’re not out of the woods yet, Dad, Mark replied within his thoughts, as Dave enthusiastically explained how many problems had to be solved, in order to string the makeshift pipes—at just the right slope—from tree branch to tree branch.
“Our alien guy showed up at one point and—once we realized both sides were friendly—he showed us how to tie most of the pipes into place with jungle vines!”
“That’s how we knew he wasn’t a threat, when he showed up here. If only fools would pause to actually listen.” And Dave cast a brave glare up at Zach Serpa, who glowered back.
Mark saw Scott looking at him with an enigmatic expression that might be saying—Okay Bamford, you got game.
Or maybe it meant something much worse.
Will Tepper resent it if I borrow from his playbook, and act generous tonight at the assembly? Give him credit for leadership, letting us try this? It would be a lie, given that Scott intended the whole expedition as a trap, to ruin possible rivals. But that’s politics for you.
Alex was at his side, giving him a nudge, while Dave and Charlie basked in glory, explaining the details.
“How’d I do, sis?”
“Okay I guess, bro. We can go over some minor errors before assembly. But we’re safe at home, racking up points. For now.”
He grunted and responded. “You know that everyone knows what you are to this colony, Alexandra Behr. Always making sure … you’re the one they should be applauding.”
“Hm. A gawky just-past-fifteen-year-old? I can be patient. For now. A trait you should learn by example, Bam. Though I know—”
Only then she shrugged, as if accepting something inevitable. “Anyway, consider the threat to your nards withdrawn.” And Alex repeated. “For now.”
She nodded to her left.
“Enjoy. Just—leave your brain turned on, will you, Bamford? Be careful.”
Mark turned to look where Alex indicated, and Helene’s face loomed out of the crowd, suddenly all that he could see. And her expression was all that he could want.
Which was when the hose burst forth, tumbling clear water into a tub, as well as into cup after eager cup. Students, teachers, carnies, bikers and townies— all the thirsty Earthlings—cheered with renewed hope.