The Rift - Howard Chris - Страница 20

The red lights pulsed inside the glass as the time ran out, and I tried to picture what would happen when there was no time left. The tank would lose its charge, that had to be the problem. And then the trees would be too cold, I reckoned. Hell, maybe that liquid would freeze, and we’d have nothing but seven icy saplings.

“Take turns keeping watch?” Alpha said, appearing beside me. She’d been ignoring me through the last part of the day—such a waste, when all I’d wanted was to be with her.

I glanced at the blanket of snow that stretched beneath the darkness behind us. And there was still no sign of Harvest’s commandos, but it was as if I could feel them out there on the frozen plateau, closing any gap we’d created between them and the trees.

“You can sleep first,” I told Alpha.

“With Crow’s snoring?”

I turned to face the tank and saw the two of us reflected in the glass, our bodies lost inside thick clothes, our faces peering out from the hoods of our jackets.

“The tank’s warm,” she said.

“Well, I ain’t getting in there for nothing.” I stared past my reflection at the twisted limbs of the saplings where they floated in the liquid, still tethered to the knotted remains of my dad.

“I meant we could lean against it,” she said, and I sure needed something to lean on, so we sat with our backs against the tank, the glass hot through our chunky coats.

We faced north. Watching for Harvest. Knowing his troops weren’t the sort who’d stop and rest someone’s broken lungs. One of them replicants needed to stop, the others would have just kept on going.

“I know I ought to be more grateful,” Alpha said, after I’d just sat there saying nothing, feeling all closed up. “For you, I mean. For how you feel about me.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“But it’s like something out of an old world song,” she said. “This feeling. Love. The way that you mean it.”

“The way I mean it don’t belong to the old world.”

I watched the tank’s lights throw crazy patterns on the snow, making silhouettes of the saplings, as if the trees had already grown tall enough to cast their shadows upon us.

“I know you want to keep me safe,” Alpha said. “And I mean to look after you, too.”

“Lord knows I could use it.” I tried to make her grin, the way I said it, but she was too lost inside what she was trying to say.

“It’s just I know you want to keep these trees safe, too. And we both know what that means, Banyan.”

“I don’t want to talk about it no more.” I turned to her. Her face chapped from the cold, but so beautiful, and so damn alive. “Let’s just try to get back. I mean, look at us.” I pointed out at the white freeze and the big black sky. What was it Kade had called it? A blank slate.

“I wanted you to know I’m grateful is all,” she said, her voice small in the vast emptiness of the night.

“I don’t want you to be grateful. I want you to feel how I feel.”

“I’m working on it,” she said, like she was trying to sound easy, but the words came hard. “This is new for me.”

“It’s new for me, too.”

“So we figure it out together?”

“I’ll do it any way that you want.”

She smiled as she leaned her head against the glass.

“Do what?” Crow’s voice crept out of the darkness.

“You should be resting,” Alpha told him.

“And so should you.” He crawled up beside us. I mean, literally dragging his ass through the snow.

“You gotta try,” Alpha said. “You need to try standing. Walking. The more you do it, the better it’ll get.”

“And how would you know? These things they scienced onto me are tired and useless. I and I is flimsy, all the way through.”

“And what?” I said, trying to force some cheer upon him. “You’re gonna leave my sister alone in there, sleeping next to that scoundrel?”

“Don’t you worry. Crow here’s still looking out for Miss Zee. I believe the redhead be all right.”

“You sure about that?” Alpha got to her feet. She glanced at Crow, then rolled her eyes at me before heading to the shelter. “Guess I’ll take the next watch, bud.”

“What’s the rush?” Crow called after her. “Don’t want to talk story with me?”

He collapsed back so he was propped against the tank beside me, right where Alpha had been. Quite the damn trade.

“You all right, little man?”

“Oh, sure. Just figuring I’d freeze first and starve second.”

“Nah. Tough young guy like you.” He punched at my leg. Not hard or anything, but there was something painful in the gesture.

We both watched Alpha crank up the side of the shelter, then crouch in beneath it.

“Glad she’s back, no?” Crow said.

“Somehow makes it all worth it.”

“Aye.” Crow bared his teeth, white as the snow, but he weren’t really smiling. I’d given up hope I’d ever see him smile again.

“So she talked to you?” he said. “About Old Orleans?”

“What about it?”

“About her plans.” Crow picked at the bark on his leg. “For our trees.”

“Yeah. We talked about it,” I said, though I wasn’t really sure that we had. “What she say to you?”

“Girl’s got lofty ambitions.”

“When were you even talking to her, anyway?”

“On the boat.”

“All I remember’s you stood at the bow. Silent.”

“True that.”

“True what?”

“We talked, man,” Crow said. “Take it easy. I figured you two been talking also.”

“Sure. We talk plenty.”

“And not just talking to that sweet thing, I hope.” He nudged me, but playful weren’t something he was good at no more.

“So what about you, anyway?” I said. “What’s your ambitions?”

“Told you, just get me to Waterfall City.”

“Didn’t you get thrown out of Waterfall City?”

“They’ll welcome me back with open arms, if I come bearing fruit trees. You’ll see. You born Soljah, then you die part of the tribe.”

Crow made another attempt at smiling. Then he pointed to the far edge of sky, where the giant moon was poking its head up, and we sat there for a bit, watching the moonbeams flood the snow. Crow leaned closer to me and dropped his voice. “Rastas know how to keep a secret,” he said. “The rivers. The falls. Good places to hide from GenTech.”

“Niagara.” I nodded. Sure, you could stay out of sight there. If you knew the right place to go.

“Agents keep their distance,” Crow said. “Always have.”

“The Rastas would let us in? All of us?”

“Course.” He tapped the back of his head on the tank. “When they see what we got.”

“Nice to know we’re all set then.” I shook my head at him. “Guess we just have to get over these mountains, huh?”

“Past the Rift.”

“Keep away from Harvest.”

“And steer clear of GenTech.” Crow’s eyes glittered, as if they might work up a grin from the rest of his face. “Told you before you should have stuck to building.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

“What?”

“Thought for a second you was gonna smile.”

After all, he had to know all this talk meant nothing. Except I could see that it mattered to him. Not just securing the trees for his people—it was more than that. He seemed to want my support for something. Because we were friends now, I guess. Because of all we had been through. I mean, I couldn’t see why else he would care.

“Alpha’s right, you know. Your legs might work better,” I said, “if you don’t get so down about it.”

“You saying it’s all in my mind?” Crow stared into the night, and he sure weren’t close to smiling no more.

“I never said that.”

Tell you the truth, I just reckoned Crow was as tired as I was. I figured one uprising had been enough for him, too.