I fight the urge to drag her down from the tree. I could shake her. I could kiss her. I can’t let myself do either. I can’t believe I was so moronic as to let her go off alone after I’d seen those paw prints. I have to be smart, handle this next part carefully. I swallow, clearing my throat to make my voice even.
“That was some climb. Do you need a hand down from there?”
She ignores my offer, which reassures me more than anything else that she’s suffered no permanent damage. I’d be more concerned if she let me help her. She more falls down than climbs down, sliding sideways, dangling for a few seconds, then letting go so she can hit the ground with a thump. She crumples to sit on the dirt, then scrabbles backward away from the dead creature.
I know this moment too well, I’ve seen it in the field. Hell, I’ve been there myself. I could rub it in that I was right, and she was wrong—that I saved her life, that she needs me to survive. But there’s no point. She knows it. I’m not going to force her to come crawling back. I’m the one with field experience. I should have stopped this from happening.
“Let’s go,” I say, listening to her ragged breathing. “We can cover a little more ground before we have to make camp.”
A part of me wants to reach down and take her hands, and hold them until she feels safe. But I can’t. If I do, she’ll start crying, and she won’t stop. I need her to stay tough. It’s the best thing I can do for her. So I speak again. “Are you ready?”
She nods, climbing to her feet, not even bothering to dust off her hands. I’m aching, and I hate this, but damned if I’m not getting this girl to the crash site. She can hate me for the rest of her life once we’re rescued—at least she’ll be alive to hate me.
We leave the big cat behind and slowly backtrack to gather up her abandoned supplies. From her path, she would’ve caught up with me if she’d kept running. The beast was chasing her toward me—if it had chased her the other way, I might not have reached her in time.
I hope Lilac doesn’t realize this. That it was only a coincidence that saved her life. She’s already jumping at shadows as we walk—now and then she looks over her shoulder as though she’s hearing things, seeing things. It doesn’t seem to comfort her that there’s nothing there. I hope she’s not thinking about what other impossible creatures could be out there, just beyond the trees.
And I really hope that thing doesn’t have a mate.
When we make camp by a creek, I estimate we’ve spent the better part of the day walking and taking breaks, and we’ve made it maybe ten klicks. So if we’re lucky, we’re halfway to the edge of the trees. After we make it to the plains, we’ll have to cross them and get over the mountain range somehow before we reach the Icarus.
Lilac is lying on the blanket I spread for her, arms out to each side, staring up at the slowly darkening sky through a gap in the canopy. I wonder what she makes of the sky. I’ve never seen these stars, and I’ve memorized the charts for all the colonies. That’s my only hope—that the rescue might be taking a little longer because the Icarus wasn’t where she was supposed to be when she crashed.
I shake my head, trying to get rid of the creeping sensation of wrongness. Rescue will still come. This place is terraformed, however distorted it seems. The people must be somewhere, and they can’t have missed the destruction of a ship like the Icarus.
Lilac’s been silent since the incident with the cat beast, and against all logic I find myself missing the sound of her voice, even when it’s insulting me. At least being annoyed at her is invigorating—this new quiet hopelessness is infectious.
“Not exactly the five-star accommodations you’re used to,” I call, in the cheerful voice that infuriates her so. She doesn’t move—nothing. I retrieve the canteen, set aside earlier to filter water collected from the creek. “I’ll give you a comment card when this is all over so you can complain to someone.”
She stirs, propping herself up on her elbows. She glares wearily at me for a long moment. “I do hope you’re assembling two beds, Major.” Her voice is tired, but there’s still a hint of that edge in it.
Fighting the brief and insane impulse to smile, I duck my head and start dividing the leaf litter I’m gathering into two piles. Too quickly, she lapses back into silence and stillness. And without her there to aggravate me, my mind wanders to places it shouldn’t go.
I can’t let myself think of home for too long. I can’t let myself imagine my mother hearing about the Icarus, the way my father will try to find something to say.