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“Now what do we do?” asked Linder.
The whole group was huddled around a light gourd in the safe house a few blocks from the city walls. Dawn was only a couple of hours away. Kyra and her daughter Sophie were asleep in the next room. Kyra had not seen or heard of another set of captives from Halcyon. She did know that Bigelow had been angry about some development. He had apparently gone to a place called the Mutandi Highlands to meet a wizard called Zambor who was going to do something to give Bigelow some kind of weapon or advantage. Captivity had made Kyra lose track of time.
No one responded to his question, so Linder tried again. “We have to decide what to do about Kyra and Sophie. It seems we only have three options: one, find a safe place for them in Abaddon; two, take them with us as we search for Pam and Little Thomas; or three, send them back home through the black swamp oaks.
“I think we have no choice but to send them back home,” said Al. “They are Bigelow’s victims. We have it in our power to rescue them, so that’s our duty.”
“Whoa,” said Linder. “Think about what sending them back would mean. It will have been noted back home that they didn’t return with the Halcyonites. They’ve probably been listed as dead. Their reappearance will attract the interest of the authorities. They’ll be interrogated. Soon everyone back home will figure out the business of the black swamp oaks. Don’t you see what that will mean? We’ll have incursions by the powers-that-be from back home. Once we open that Pandora’s Box, we won’t be able to close it again.”
“I know,” said Al, “and that worries me too. But we don’t have the right to condemn Kyra and Sophie to a life here when we have the power to send them home. The end never justifies the means.”
“Yeah, but do the means justify the end, even if the end means having this place overrun by opportunists and exploiters of Darwin Blackmore’s ilk from back home? I thought that was one of the reasons we fought against him at Halcyon.”
“You’re right in what you say Linder, but you’re asking us to strand Kyra and Sophie in this inhospitable country where they will be slaves, when we have the power to send them home. They are people of infinite worth. Every person is. We need to do the right thing by them, and trust that whatever happens, it will somehow work out for the best.”
“Friend Al is right,” said Hanomer. “it is our duty to make sure they are returned home safely.
“Let’s look at Linder’s three options,” said Dave. With regards to option one, we don’t know of any safe place for them. They can’t go to the Guild since Bigelow and his cronies will be looking for them. If we tried to take them to the Rebels why would they help them? The Rebels have enough problems, and have no history or blood ties with Kyra and Sophie. Kyra doesn’t even know the language.
“Option two is also out. We have to move fast and under cover. We can’t do that and take them along. That leaves only option three. I agree with Linder that this will open the floodgates to the people who share Blackmore’s mindset, but this place could use some shaking up. At any rate, even if the government wanted to invade Abaddon, they can’t really launch an invasion with three black swamp oaks as the only means of transport. I say, let’s take them back. Don’t go directly out of the swamp. Confuse the way. Whoever takes them back can take them directly back to their family and then disappear. Maybe with the confusion and stress, Kyra won’t be able to lead them back to the swamp oaks. Maybe their untimely emergence will be attributed to a bookkeeping mistake followed by post-traumatic stress syndrome.
“Maybe,” said Linder, skeptically.
“Tandor, am I right in what I said about the Guild and the Rebels?”
“Yes, you are right.”
The discussion continued for a few more minutes, but Linder, who wanted to continue the search for Pam, and hide Kyra and Sophie, had to concede in the end.
“Alright,” said Linder, “I see the way the wind is blowing. How do we take them back? We can’t just load them into the swamp oaks and leave them in the middle of the swamp back home. Someone has to go with them. I’m willing to go, but how do I find you when I get back?”
“I don’t think you should go alone,” said Al. “We have three oaks, so we can send back three parties. I think we should blindfold Kyra and Sophie as you take them out of the trees on the other side, so that they can’t guide the authorities back to the oaks. When you get back to our space-time, contact Makalo and have him pick you up. Try to keep Sophie and Kyra from seeing Makalo, otherwise he’ll be in even more trouble than he already is.
“And there’s something else. We need a way to try to find Pam and Little Thomas. I’ve been thinking we need a way to track Little Thomas’s chip here. We can’t track it because there are no cell towers here, but back home they do make military grade mini-towers that are used by oil companies and others who are working out in the bush. They’re small enough to carry, and they work on solar. Why not bring one back? We’ll have to be within a few miles of Little Thomas, but that’s a whole lot better than what we have now.”
“All good ideas,” said Linder. “So, who’s going with me, and how do we find the rest of you when we get back?”
“I’ll go with you,” said Thomas.
Al pulled a small package out of his pack, the size of a large chocolate bar. “These bread crumbs are how you’ll find us. I’m always looking for new hiking gadgets and I thought this might come in handy here.” He opened the package. “There are thirty solar rechargeable battery-powered transmitters here. We’ll leave them every few kilometers behind us. When you come through, you’ll use this direction finder to locate the nearest transmitter—just like picking up bread crumbs.”
They woke Kyra and Sophie and told them about the plan, including the blindfolding once they returned to America. Kyra was very nervous, but the thought of going home made her willing to attempt the return journey.
Shortly after dawn, the whole group left the town along with a throng of workers going to the fields. When they were well away from the gate, they left the main road and again retraced their steps back to the Necroan swamp. They crossed to their camp on the Butte and saw that the mine was still silent. Without Bigelow back to restart it, it looked like no one was willing to man the dig.
The trip back to the black swamp oaks was uneventful, although Kyra and Sophie had to be helped to cross from island to island on the tree limbs. After Linder, Thomas, Kyra and Sophie settled into their black swamp oaks, the rest of the company spent a sleepless night waiting for them to depart. They huddled on one of the natural platforms made of interlaced branches, dreading the possibility that they might hear sounds of the Necroans crashing through the underbrush and leaping from island to island. But they heard only animal noises. Early in the morning grunts mixed with the occasional bellow had them on edge. When the noise died down, they all fell into a troubled sleep.
The next morning, Tandor, Al, Dave, Arlana, Chartrand, Larsen, and Hanomer climbed down from the platform, verified that the three black swamp oaks were empty, and left the Necroan swamp as quickly as possible. The search for the Mutandi Highlands, and for Zambor, Bigelow, Pam, and Little Thomas began once more.