Playing God(120)

“David,” she murmured, as if to her implant. “David, David, David.”

“We're going to him, Lynn,” said Arron, and the memory of how they'd told Res they were going to find her Aunt Senejess rushed through him, burning as it went. “We're on our way, right now.”

She blinked and focused her eye on him.

“Arron? Oh, God, Res …”

“I know.” He cupped his hands around hers. “Drink the tea, Lynn. You need it.”

She drank. Arron looked around. His crowd of helpers had cleared. Mission accomplished. The live person had been retrieved and delivered into the hands of her sister. Now there were other, more immediate tasks at hand. The city was under siege and on fire. There was a lot to do.

He glanced around wildly and saw an abandoned pushcart lying on its side. He ran to it. Both wheels and the axle were intact. He righted it and shoved it over to Lynn.

“Let me help you in.” He held out his hand.

“No. I'll …” She set down the cup.

“Lynn, we have to go. Cabal might already have left!” It was the first time he'd let himself think about it, and the idea left him numb with terror.

Lynn didn't say anything else. She let him help her into the cart. Arron grabbed the handrails and shoved the cart forward. Every muscle and joint shot back pain in protest. The smooth wood burned against his raw palms, but he managed to get them going. Moving at a limping trot, Arron pushed Lynn through the ruined streets, while still more planes flew overhead.

Because of the cart, he couldn't use his pass-through to the harbor. He had to take them by a more circuitous route. A bunch of buildings had been bombed into rubble-filled craters, making for longer detours. No one appeared to help. None of the passing public-health carriers or troop trucks stopped. It was just him and Lynn and the whole world falling apart around them.

He knew what the bombers were ready looking for. They were looking for the underground crÈches that held the daughters and the carrying mothers. That was standard tactics. He didn't want to think about it, but he knew it was true.

Finally, they reached the harbor. The guns still thundered, but more raggedly. The t'Therian ships still stood out to sea. Gouts of water erupted out of the harbor at random intervals. The battle down there had been joined.

The harbor was nothing but a mass of abandoned boats. Arron scanned them, looking for Cabal's nondescript trawler. He didn't see it, and didn't see it, and didn't see it. Panic tightened his throat.

Something flashed white among the boats. His gaze fastened on it. Cabal waved frantically from his boat's aft deck. Relief robbed Arron of most of his remaining strength. He waved back. Cabal looked across the harbor as another geyser erupted and vanished into the boat's cabin.

Arron got the pushcart down to the quay. Lynn climbed out clumsily, one hand clutching the blanket around her shoulders, but she did it under her own power and Arron was glad. He wasn't sure he'd be able to lift her again. They teetered along the docks, leaning against each other's shoulders. They all but collapsed onto Cabal's boat.

He must have already cast off, because as soon as they hit the wooden deck, the engine roared into life, and the boat pulled away from the dock. She nosed around and headed for open water. It wasn't a straight path, because of all the abandoned boats, but Arron was sure Cabal knew what he was doing. He'd done it a thousand times.

“Let's get below.” Arron picked himself up off the deck and held out a hand to Lynn. She took it. He helped her down the ladder into the hold.

Because it was a Dedelphi boat, there were no separate cabins, just a lower hold for cargo and an upper hold for people and yet more cargo. Not being comfortable on a pad on the floor, however, Cabal had bunks built into the sides. Arron installed Lynn in one and went onto the cramped bridge.

Cabal glanced over his shoulder as Arron entered. His hands gripped the wheel as if they were welded to it.

“Holy God and Hell, Arron, I thought you'd gotten us both killed.” He heaved the wheel clockwise to steer around a cluster of trawlers and their anchor cables. “Are your friends below?”

“Lynn is.” Arron collapsed onto a narrow ledge of a bench that ran along the cabin's starboard wall. “Resaime's dead.”

Cabal set his jaw and kept his eyes on the window. “I was almost dead. Did you see those boats smashed up back there? They're bombing the harbor. You owe me a lot more than a trip back home for this one, Arron. A lot more.”

Arron looked up at him. For a moment he considered killing him outright and taking the boat for himself.

Cabal cleared the last of the anchored boats. A boom sounded through the hull, and a wave sluiced over the deck. The boat rocked violently. Cabal cranked up the power to the engine, and the boat lurched forward.