Flute made a chirping sound, patterns of prism-bright orange flowing across his hide. After another stretch, he trotted off up the hill, vanishing between the trees.

“What’s next?” Falise asked. “We just going to wait on this rock for someone to come by?”

Kylee squinted her too-large blue eyes as she slung her rifle and stared around. Falise had to admit, there was something feral, capable, and damned attractive about the girl. Here, in the middle of wilderness where people had died within a stone’s throw, she looked completely at ease. Almost exuded a calm purpose. A wild thing in its element.

She turned those hard blue eyes on Falise. “You don’t leave someone in the bush like they did last night. On Donovan, that’s a death sentence. Bogarten knows that. Why he’d—”

“It was Soukup,” Falise said flatly. “It’s the only explanation. He’s an IG. His orders carry more weight than even a Supervisor’s.”

“Still, Bogarten—”

“You saw Soukup,” Falise told her. “The man was half-crazy with pain. Terrified. And a quetzal carried him through a dark forest to the aircar. His Fourth, the strong one, had vanished in the night. His Second had been eaten by a tooth flower. His Third was . . . Well, he knew she was dead. Once Flute set him in that airtruck, Soukup was so panicked and crazed, he ordered Bogarten to get him the hell away.”

“But, to leave someone—”

“Stop it.” Falise turned, looking at the brightening sky to the east. “He’s already back in PA. He’ll tell someone to come back and get us.”

“Stop it.” Kylee mimicked in the same no-nonsense voice. “Step Allenovich, Talina, Shig, would have Soukup strung up by his balls for leaving us out here.” She raised her voice. “No way he or Bogarten are telling. We’re on our own.”

“So, what do we do?”

Kylee pointed south. “It’s about fifteen kicks to Tyson Station. We walk.”

Falise blinked. “We barely made a single kilometer last night, and you might recall, it didn’t work out so well.”

“Talina and Cap are said to have made almost forty. And they didn’t have a quetzal.”

“You ever gone that far, across that much forest before?”

“Nope. Got to be a first time for anything, right?”

Falise took a deep breath, her gaze going back to the trees, hearing the howls, seeing the distant shapes of things flying up over the trees. Mobbers?

She’d been horrified at Kalico Aguila’s scars.

“You and Flute. Sure. What are my chances, Kylee?”

The girl shrugged, re-hitching her rifle. “You don’t remember well do you? I told you back in—”

“About ten percent.”

Kylee gave her a sidelong glance. “Beats dying of thirst here on this rock, doesn’t it?”

Chapter 68

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