Deadman Switch

And as the work continued—as the hours dragged by without even a hint of what we thought we were looking for—the optimism slowly faded... to be replaced by depression and finally despair.

We both felt it—both tried to hide it from the other for pride's sake, if for no other reason. But as the sun dipped toward the horizon, and Calandra started us toward yet another distant hill, she finally gave up the pretense.

"It's not working, Gilead," she sighed, abruptly letting her foot off the accelerator. The loud background swishing of the plants against the car faded to a half-imagined ringing in my ears as we rolled to a stop. "We're not going to find anything this way, and we both know it. Let's give it up and go back."

I ground my knuckles into my eyes, trying to rub the soreness out of them. Watching the landscape from a bouncing car, we'd discovered, was even harder on the eyes than repeatedly sweeping the horizon from the tops of hills. "We can't do that, Calandra," I told her, hearing her same tiredness in my own voice. "Besides, we've just barely reached our main target section. All this up to now has been practice; tomorrow is what really counts."

She turned to face me. "Do you really believe we're going to find anything?" she asked bluntly.

"There's always hope—"

"That's not what I asked."

I clenched my teeth. "You've given up on faith completely, haven't you?"

"What I believe or don't believe isn't the issue," she said stiffly. "And if it comes to that, don't forget that you've left the Watchers, too."

My stomach tightened. "It's not the same."

"Oh? Tell me how—and don't forget to include how much Carillon's paying to rent your soul."

I took a deep breath, trying to will my anger and depression away, and broke my eyes away from her glare. A short ways ahead, a little off to our right, was a rocky pair of close-set bluffs rising out of the vegetation surrounding them. "I don't think either of us is in the mood for a rational discussion at the moment," I said. "Tell you what; let's drive over to those bluffs over there and make camp for the night."

She hesitated a long minute, then shrugged. "I suppose we might as well," she agreed with a tired sigh. "It's probably too late to get back to Myrrh before dark, anyway."

We headed out... and as we approached the bluffs I discovered that my original guess had been wrong. There were, in fact, four bluffs in the group, not two, sitting closely together in a rough square. Probably with a fair amount of reasonably sheltered space in the middle of the formation, judging from what little of their shapes I could see. It would indeed be a good place to spend the night.

Perhaps an equally good place for a smuggler to spend the night. Possibly even a good place in which to hide a small shuttle...

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stiffen. If there were smugglers in there, watching our approach...

Beside me, Calandra stirred. "There's a thunderhead on the top of the bluff," she said.

I felt heat rise to my face as I squinted against the bright sky behind the bluff. She was right, as usual; in fact, I could see one of the large plants on each of the two bluffs whose tops were visible from here. "Oh, well," I said. "It was just a thought."

"Yeah. How close do you want me to get?"

"Might as go all the way in, if you can," I told her, pointing to the nearest of the gaps. "If last night was any indication, it's likely to get pretty chilly tonight, and those bluffs may at least break the wind for us."

"Or fu

"So we'll find someplace out of the line of fire," I growled. "Let's just go, okay?"

She flashed me a glare and drove on in silence.

The place was clearly not being used by smugglers... but the closer we got, the more I realized it could easily have been. All four of the bluffs were tall and—from this side, at least—unusually straight-walled, which meant the gaps between them remained narrow all the way up. A cozy hideaway, indeed, with virtually no visibility except from directly overhead. The ground leading to our target gap began a gradual rise about a hundred meters out from the bluffs, and from glimpses I caught through the opening I got the impression that the ground fell away again toward the center of the enclosed area.

"What do you think?" Calandra called over the swishing of plants around and beneath us.

I studied the gap and the terrain in front of it. "Looks like we can get in all right," I told her. "Let's try it. We can always stop if we hit a patch of sharp rocks or something."

She nodded. We passed the outer edges of the bluffs, the sunlight from behind us cutting off abruptly as we passed into shadow. The walls of the bluffs curved toward us, and I could see now that the narrowest part of the opening would indeed be large enough to admit us. Calandra saw that, too, and kept going. A couple more meters of slope up; and then we were through the gap, angling down now toward the slightly depressed center—

And Calandra slammed on the brakes. "God in heaven," she breathed, almost mechanically.

Directly ahead, filling the enclosed area from the base of one bluff to the next, was a literal sea of thunderheads. The plants which always before we'd found in the centers of lush vegetation... and never in groups larger than four.

I took a deep breath. "Offhand," I heard myself say, "I'd guess we've found a very healthy place to camp."

The words seemed to break the spell. "Right," Calandra said dryly. "At least if you're a thunderhead." She stared at them for another minute before shaking her head. "Well, come on, then," she growled, getting stiffly out of the car. "Let's get those shelters put together before the sun goes down."

Chapter 18

Calandra had been correct about the gaps tu

For a long time afterwards we just lay there on the ground, too exhausted even to talk. I watched the clouds passing overhead, framed by the towering buttes, and wondered if my legs would ever feel like walking again.

"Gilead...?"

"Hmm?" I said. There was no reply, and with an effort I turned my head to look at her. Flat on her back, her head propped almost vertical against a rolled-up sleeping bag behind her neck, she was staring down at the mass of thunderheads. Staring at them with a troubled expression on her face. "Something wrong?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "What are they all doing here?"

"What, the thunderheads?" Feeling vaguely resentful at having to make the effort, I propped myself up on my elbows.

She had a point—even tired and irritated I had to admit that. Every other thunderhead we'd seen today, without exception, had been growing smack in the middle of heavy concentrations of plant and insect life, neither of which was present here in even moderate amounts. Not to mention the sheer unexpected number of the things growing together in the first place. "Could be there's enough shelter from the proper seasonal winds in here that spores don't get very far," I offered.