Текст книги "Cress"

Автор книги: Marissa Meyer

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She tried to ignore the niggling thought in her head that this was not enough. That not even the bandages in the medbay would be enough.

She grabbed the guard’s shirt and bunched it against Wolf’s chest. At least this bullet had missed his heart. She hoped the other one hadn’t hit anything vital either.

Her thoughts were hazy, repeating over and over in her head. They had to get Thorne. They had to go after Scarlet. They had to save Wolf.

She couldn’t do it all.

She couldn’t do any of it.

“Thorne—” Her voice broke. “Where’s Thorne?” Keeping one hand pressed onto Wolf’s wound, she reached for the guard with the other, grabbing his collar and pulling him toward her. “What did you do to Thorne?”

“Your friend who boarded the satellite,” he said, as much a statement as a question. There was regret in his face, but not enough. “He’s dead.”

She shrieked and slammed him into the wall. “You’re lying!”

He flinched, but didn’t try to protect himself, even though she’d already lost her focus. She could not keep him under her control so long as her thoughts were so divided, so long as this chaos and devastation reigned in her head.

“Mistress Sybil changed the satellite’s trajectory, removing it from orbit. It will burn up during entry. It probably already has. There’s nothing you can do.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Every part of her was trembling. “She wouldn’t have sacrificed her own programmer too.”

But there was no telltale orange light in her vision. He wasn’t lying.

The guard leaned his head back as his gaze skimmed Cinder from head to toe, as if examining an unusual specimen. “She would sacrifice anyone to get to you. The queen seems to believe you’re a threat.”

Cinder ground her teeth so hard she felt that her jaw would snap from the pressure. There it was—stated with such blatant simplicity.

This was her fault. This was all her fault.

They’d been after her.

“Your other shirt,” she whispered. She didn’t bother to control him this time, and he removed the undershirt without argument. Cinder grabbed it from him, spotting the end of her own projectile jutting from his skin, just below his ribs.

Looking away, she pressed the second shirt against the wound in Wolf’s back.

“Roll him onto his side.”

“What?”

“Get him on his side. It’ll open the airway, help him breathe.”

Cinder glowered at him, but a four-second net search confirmed the validity of his suggestion, and she eased Wolf onto his side as gently as she could, positioning his legs like the medical diagram in her brain told her to. The guard didn’t help, but he nodded approvingly when Cinder was done.

“Cinder?”

It was Iko, her voice small and restrained. The ship had become dark, running only on emergency lighting and default systems. Iko’s anxiety was clouding her ability to function as much as Cinder’s was.

“What are we going to do?”

Cinder struggled to breathe. A headache had burst open in her skull. The weight of everything pressed against her until it was almost too tempting to curl up over Wolf’s body and simply give up.

She couldn’t help them. She couldn’t save the world. She couldn’t save anyone.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

“Finding someplace to hide would be a start,” said the guard, followed by a ripping sound as he tore a shred of material from the hem of his pants. He winced as he yanked out the projectile and tossed it down the corridor, before pressing the fabric against the wound. For the first time, she noticed that he still wore what looked like a large hunting knife sheathed on his belt. He looked up at her when she didn’t respond, his eyes sharp as ice picks. “Maybe someplace your friend can get help. As a thought.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. We just lost both of our pilots and I can’t fly … I don’t know how…”

“I can fly.”

“But Scarlet…”

“Look. Thaumaturge Mira will be contacting Luna and sending for reinforcements, and the queen’s fleet isn’t as far away as you might think. You’re about to have an army on your trail.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You can’t help that other girl. Consider her dead. But you might be able to help him.”

Cinder dropped her chin, curling in on herself as the warring decisions in her head threatened to tear her apart. He was being logical. She recognized that. But it was so hard to admit defeat. To give up on Scarlet. To make that sacrifice and have to live with it.

With every passing second, though, she was closer to losing Wolf too. She glanced down. Wolf’s face was scrunched in pain, his brow beaded with sweat.

“Ship,” said the guard, “calculate our location and relative trajectory over Earth. Where is the closest place we can get to? Someplace not too populated.”

There was a hesitation before Iko said, “Me?”

He squinted up at the ceiling. “Yeah. You.”

“Sorry, right. Calculating now.” The lights brightened. “Following a natural descent to Earth, we could be in central or north Africa in approximately seventeen minutes. A loose thousand-mile radius opens us up to the Mediterranean regions of Europe and the western portion of the Eastern Commonwealth.”

“He needs a hospital,” Cinder murmured, knowing as she said it that there wasn’t a hospital on Earth that wouldn’t know he was one of the queen’s wolf-hybrids as soon as he was admitted. And the risk she posed to take him there herself, and how recognizable the Rampion would be … where could they possibly go that would offer them sanctuary?

Nowhere was safe.

Beneath her, Wolf moaned. His chest rattled.

He needed a hospital, or … a doctor.

Africa. Dr. Erland.

She peered up at the guard and for the first time struggled through the sluggish mess inside her head to wonder why he was doing this. Why hadn’t he killed them all? Why was he helping them?

“You serve the queen,” she said. “How can I trust you?”

His lips twitched, like she’d made a joke, but his eyes were quick to harden again. “I serve my princess. No one else.”

The floor dropped out from beneath her. The princess. His princess.

He knew.

She waited a full breath for her lie detector to recognize his falsehood, but it didn’t. He was telling the truth.

“Africa,” she said. “Iko, take us to Africa—to where the first outbreak of letumosis occurred.”

Twelve

The fall was slow at first, gradual, as the pull of the satellite’s orbit was overpowered by the pull of Earth’s gravity.

Thorne hiked up his pant leg, using his toe to pry off his left boot. The knife he’d stashed there clattered onto the floor and he grabbed for it, awkwardly trying to angle the blade toward the blanket that was knotted around his wrists.

The girl murmured around her gag and shifted toward him. Her binds were much more secure and complex than his own. The thaumaturge had only bothered to have Thorne tie his hands in front of him, but this girl had binds all down her legs, in addition to having her wrists fastened behind her and the gag over her mouth.

With no leverage to press the knife against his own binds, he nodded at the girl. “Can you turn around?”

She flopped and rolled onto her side, pushing off the wall with her feet to turn herself so her hands were toward him. Thorne hunkered over her and sawed at the sheet that was cutting into her arms. By the time he’d hacked it off, there were deep red lines carved into her skin.

She ripped the gag off her mouth, leaving it to hang around her neck. A knot of her frayed hair caught in the fabric. “My feet!”

“Can you untie my hands?”

She said nothing as she snatched the knife from him. Her hands were shaking as she angled the blade toward the binds around her knees, and Thorne thought maybe it was best for her to practice on herself anyway.

Sawing through the sheet, she looked like a madwoman—her brow wrinkled in concentration, her hair knotted, her complexion damp and blotchy, red lines drawn into her cheeks from the gag. But the adrenaline had her working quickly and soon she was kicking away the material.

“My hands,” Thorne said again, but she was already grasping for the sink and pulling herself up on trembling legs.

“I’m sorry—the entry procedures!” she said, stumbling out into the main room.

Thorne grabbed the knife and clambered to his feet as the satellite took a sudden turn. He slipped, stumbling into the shower door. They were falling faster as Earth’s gravity claimed them.

Using the wall for balance, Thorne rushed into the main room. The girl had fallen too, and was now scrambling to get over the bed.

“We need to get to the other podship and disconnect,” said Thorne. “You need to untie me!”

She shook her head and pressed herself against the wall where the smallest of the screens was embedded, the screen that the thaumaturge had meddled with before. Strings of hair were sticking to her face.

“She’ll have a security block on the ship and I know the satellite better and—oh, no, no, no!” she screamed, her fingers flying over the screen. “She changed the access code!”

“What are you doing?”

“The entry procedures—the ablative coating should hold while we’re passing through the atmosphere, but if I don’t set the parachute to release, the whole thing will disintegrate on impact!”

The satellite shifted again and they both stumbled. Thorne fell onto the mattress and the knife skittered out of his grip, bouncing off the end of the bed, while the girl tripped and landed on one knee. The walls around them began to tremble with the friction of Earth’s atmosphere. The blackness that had clouded the small windows was replaced with a burning white light. The outer coating was burning off, protecting them from the atmosphere’s heat.

Unlike the Rampion, this satellite was designed for only one descent toward Earth.

“All right.” Forgetting about his binds, Thorne swung himself over to the other side of the bed and hauled the girl back to her feet. “Get that parachute working.” She was still wobbly as he spun them toward the screen and dropped his arms over her, forming a cocoon around her body. She was even shorter than he’d realized, the top of her head not even reaching his collarbone.

Her fingers jabbed at the screen as Thorne widened his stance and locked his knees, bracing himself as much as he could while the satellite shook and rocked around them. He hunched over her, trying to hold his balance and keep her steady while codes and commands flickered and scrolled across the screen. His attention flicked to the nearest window, still fiery white. As soon as the satellite had fallen far enough into Earth’s atmosphere, the auto-gravity would shut off and they would be as secure as dice in a gambler’s fist.

“I’m in!” she shouted.

Thorne curled the toes of his one shoeless foot into the carpet. He heard a crash behind him and dared to glance back. One of the screens had fallen off the desk. He gulped. Anything not bolted down was about to turn into projectiles. “How long will it take to—”

“Done!”

Thorne whipped her around and thrust them both toward the mattress. “Under the bed!” He stumbled and fell, dragging her down with him. The cabinets swung open overhead and Thorne flinched as a rain of canned goods and dishes clattered around them. He hunkered over the girl, deflecting them away from her. “Quick!”

She scurried forward, out of the ring of his arms, and pulled herself into the shadows. She backed against the wall as far as she could, both hands pushing against the bed frame to lock her body in place.

Thorne kicked off from the carpet and grabbed the nearest post to pull himself forward.

The shaking stopped, replaced with a smooth, fast descent. The brightness from the windows faded to a sunshine blue. Thorne’s stomach swooped and he felt like he was being sucked into a vacuum.

He heard her scream. Pain and brightness exploded in his head, and then the world went black.

BOOK

Two

The witch snipped off her golden hair and cast her out into a great desert.

Thirteen

Cress would not have believed that she had the strength to drag Carswell Thorne beneath the bed and secure his unconscious body against the wall if the proof wasn’t in her arms. All the while, cords and screens and plugs and dishes and food jostled and banged around them. The walls of the satellite groaned and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to imagine the heat and friction melting through the bolts and seams, trying not to guess at how stable this untested satellite could be. Trying not to think about plunging toward the Earth—its mountains and oceans and glaciers and forests and the impact that a satellite thrown from space would have when it crashed into the planet and shattered into billions of tiny pieces.

She was doing a poor job of not imagining it all.

The fall lasted forever, while her small world disintegrated.

She’d failed. The parachute should have opened already. She should have felt it release, felt the snap back as it caught their descent and lowered them gently to Earth. But their fall was only faster and faster, as the satellite’s air grew warmer. Either she’d done something wrong or the parachute hatch was faulty, or perhaps there was no parachute at all and the command was from false programming. After all, Sybil had commissioned this satellite. Surely she’d never intended to let Cress land safely on the blue planet.

Sybil had succeeded. They were going to die.

Cress wrapped her body around Carswell Thorne and buried her face into his hair. At least he would be unconscious through it all. At least he didn’t have to be afraid.

Then, a shudder—a sensation different from the drop—and she heard the brisk sound of nylon ropes and hissing and there it was, the sudden jerk that seemed to pull them back up into the sky. She cried out and gripped Carswell Thorne tighter as her shoulder smacked into the underside of the bed.

The fall became a sinking, and Cress’s sobs turned to relief. She squeezed Thorne’s prone body and sobbed and hyperventilated and sobbed some more.

It took ages for the impact to come and when it did, the jolt knocked Cress into the bed again. The satellite crashed and slid, rolled over and tumbled. They were slipping down something solid, perhaps a hill or mountainside. Cress clenched her teeth against a scream and tried to protect Thorne with one arm while bracing them against the wall with the other. She’d expected water—so much of the Earth’s surface was water—not this solid something they’d hit. The spiraling descent finally halted with a crash that shook the walls around them.

Cress’s lungs burned with the effort to take in what air they could. Every muscle ached from adrenaline and the strain of bracing for impact and the battering her body had taken.

But in her head, the pain was nonexistent.

They were alive.

They were on Earth and they were alive.

A grateful, shocked cry fell out of her and she embraced Thorne, crying happily into the crook of his neck, but the joy receded when he did not hold her back. She’d almost forgotten the sight of him hitting his head on the bed’s frame, the way his body was thrown across the floor, how he’d slumped unnaturally in the corner and made no sound or movement as she’d hauled him beneath the bed.

She pried herself away from him. She was covered in sweat and her hair had tangled around them both, binding them almost as securely as Sybil’s knotted sheets had.

“Carswell?” she hissed. It was strange to say his name aloud, like she hadn’t yet earned the familiarity. She licked her lips and her voice cracked the second time. “Mr. Thorne?” Her fingers pressed against his throat. Relief—his heartbeat was strong. She hadn’t been sure during the fall whether he was breathing, but now with the world quiet and still, she could make out wheezing air coming from his mouth.

Maybe he had a concussion. Cress had read about people getting concussions when they hit their heads. She couldn’t remember what happened to them, but she knew it was bad.

“Wake up. Please. We’re alive. We made it.” She placed a palm on his cheek, surprised to find roughness there, nothing at all like her own smooth face.

Facial hair. It made sense, and yet somehow she’d never worked the sensation of prickly facial hair into her fantasies. She would amend that after this.

She shook her head, ashamed to be thinking of something like that when Carswell Thorne was hurt right before her and she couldn’t do any—

He twitched.

Cress gasped and attempted to cushion his head in case he jerked around too much. “Mr. Thorne? Wake up. We’re all right. Please wake up.”

A low, painful moan, and his breaths began to even out.

Cress pushed her hair out of her face. It fought against her, clinging to her sweat-dampened skin. Long strands of it were pinned beneath their bodies.

He groaned again.

“C-Carswell?”

His elbow lurched, like he was trying to lift his hand, but his wrists were still bound between them. His lashes fluttered. “Wha—huh?”

“It’s all right. I’m here. We’re safe.”

Thorne dragged his tongue around his lips, then shut his eyes again. “Thorne,” he grunted. “Most people call me Thorne. Or Captain.”

Her heart lifted. “Of course, Tho—Captain. Are you in pain?”

He shifted uncomfortably, discovering that his hands were still tied. “I feel like my brain’s about to leak out through my ears, but otherwise, I feel great.”

Cress inspected the back of his head with her fingers. There was no dampness, so at least he wasn’t bleeding. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

He grunted and tried to wriggle his hands out of the knotted blanket.

“Hold on, there was that knife…” She trailed off, scouring the clutter and debris around them.

“It fell off the bed,” said Thorne.

“Yes, I saw it … there!” She spotted the knife handle lodged beneath a fallen screen and went to grab for it, but her hair had gotten so wrapped up around her and Thorne that it yanked her back. She yelped and rubbed at her scalp.

He opened his eyes again, frowning. “I don’t remember being tied together before.”

“I’m sorry, my hair gets everywhere sometimes and … if you could just … here, roll this way.”

She grabbed his elbow and nudged him onto his side. With a scowl, he complied, allowing her enough movement to reach the knife handle.

“Are you sure it’s over—” Thorne started, but she had already draped herself over his side and was sawing through the blanket. “Oh. You have a good memory.”

“Hm?” she murmured, focused on the sharp blade. It frayed easily and Thorne sighed with relief as it fell away. He rubbed his wrists, then reached toward his head. When the tangles of Cress’s hair tried to hold him back, he tugged harder.

Cress yelped and crashed into Thorne’s chest. He didn’t seem to notice as his fingers found the back of his scalp. “Ow,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“This bump is going to last awhile. Here, feel this.”

“What?”

He fished around for her hand, then brought it to the back of his head. “I have a huge bump back here. No wonder I have such a headache.”

He did, indeed, have an impressive bump on his scalp, but Cress could think only of the softness of his hair and the way she was practically lying on top of him. She blushed.

“Yes. Right. You should probably, um…”

She had no idea what he should probably do.

Kiss her, she thought. Isn’t that what people did after they survived thrilling, near-death experiences together? She was sure it wasn’t an appropriate suggestion, but this close, it was all she could think about. She yearned to lean in closer, to press her nose into the fabric of his shirt and inhale deeply, but she didn’t want him thinking she was odd. Or guessing the truth, that this moment, filled with injuries and her destroyed satellite and being separated from his friends, was the most perfect moment of her entire life.

His brow creased and he picked at a lock of hair that had tightened around his bicep. “We need to do something about this hair.”

“Right. Right!” She shifted away, her scalp screaming as her hair was trapped beneath them. She started to untangle the strands, gently, one by one.

“Maybe it would help if we turned on the lights.”

She paused. “The lights?”

“Are they voice activated? If the computer system went down in the fall … spades, it must be the middle of the night. Is there a portscreen or something we can turn on, at least?”

Cress cocked her head. “I … I don’t understand.”

For the briefest moment, he seemed annoyed. “It would help if we could see.”

His eyes were open, but he was looking blankly past Cress’s shoulder. He pried away some strands of hair that had gotten twisted around his wrist, then waved his hand in front of his face. “This is the blackest night I’ve ever seen. We must be somewhere rural … is it a new moon tonight?” His scowl deepened, and she could tell he was trying to remember where Earth was in its moon cycle. “That doesn’t seem right. Must be really overcast.”

“Captain? It’s … it isn’t dark. I can see just fine.”

He frowned in confusion and, after a moment, worry. His jaw flexed. “Please tell me you’re practicing your sarcasm.”

“My sarcasm? Why would I do that?”

Shaking his head, he squeezed his eyes tight together. Opened them again. Blinked rapidly.

Cursed.

Pressing her lips, Cress held her fingers in front of him. Waved them back and forth. There was no reaction.

“What happened?” he said. “The last thing I remember is trying to get under the bed.”

“You hit your head on the bed frame, and I dragged you under here. And then we landed. A little rocky, but … that’s all. You just hit your head.”

“And that can cause blindness?”

“It might be some sort of brain trauma. Maybe it’s only temporary. Maybe … maybe you’re in shock?”

He settled his head on the floor. A heavy silence closed around them.

Cress chewed on her lip.

Finally, he spoke again, and his voice had taken on a determined edge. “We need to do something about this hair. Where did that knife go?”

Before she could question the logic behind giving a knife to a blind man, she had set it into his palm. Thorne reached behind her with his other hand and gathered a fistful of her hair. The touch sent a delicious tingle down her spine.

“Sorry, but it grows back,” he said, not sounding at all apologetic. He began sawing through the tangles, one handful at a time. Grab, cut, release. Cress held perfectly still. Not because she was afraid of being cut—the knife was steady in his hand, despite the blindness, and Thorne kept the blade angled carefully away from her neck. But because it was Thorne. It was Captain Carswell Thorne, running his hands through her hair, his rough jaw mere inches away from her lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.

By the time he was brushing feather-soft fingers along her neck, checking for any strands he’d missed, she was dizzy with euphoria.

He found a missed lock of hair by her left ear and cut it away. “I think that’s it.” He tucked the knife under his leg so he would know where to find it and buried his hands into the short, impossibly light hair, working out the remaining tangles. A satisfied grin stretched over his face. “Maybe a little jagged on the ends, but much better.”

Cress reached for the back of her neck, amazed at the sensation of bare skin, still damp from sweat, and short-cropped hair that had a subtle wave to it now that all the weight was gone. She scratched her fingernails along her scalp, riveted by the pleasure of such a foreign sensation. It felt as though twenty pounds had been cut from her head. Tightness was fading from muscles that she hadn’t even realized was there.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, brushing away the locks of hair that still clung to him.

“And I’m really sorry … about the blindness.”

“Not your fault.”

“It is kind of my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to come rescue me, and if I had—”

“It’s not your fault,” he said again, his tone cutting off her argument. “You sound like Cinder. She always blames herself for the stupidest things. The war is her fault. Scarlet’s grandmother is her fault. I bet she’d take responsibility for the plague too, if she could.”

Picking up the knife, he shimmied out from beneath the bed, pushing his arms out in a wide circle to nudge away any debris before pulling himself up onto the edge of the mattress. His progress was slow, like he didn’t trust himself to move more than a few inches at a time. Cress followed and stood up beside him, shuffling some of the debris around with her bare toes. One hand stayed buried in her hair.

“The point is, that witch tried to kill us, but we survived,” said Thorne. “And we’ll find a way to contact the Rampion, and they’ll come get us, and we’ll be fine.”

He said it like he was trying to convince himself, but Cress didn’t need any convincing. He was right. They were alive, and they were together, and they would be fine.

“I just need a moment to think,” said Thorne. “Figure out what we’re going to do.”

Cress nodded and rocked back on her heels. For a long time, Thorne seemed to be deep in thought, his hands clasped in his lap. After a minute, Cress realized they were shaking.

Finally, Thorne tilted his head toward her, though his unfocused eyes were on the wall. He took in a deep breath, let it out, then smiled.

“Let’s begin again, with some proper introductions. Did I hear your name was Crescent?”

“Just Cress, please.”

He extended a hand toward her. When she gave him hers, he tugged her closer, bent his head, and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. Cress stiffened and swooned, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her.

“Captain Carswell Thorne, at your service.”

Fourteen

Cinder followed the progression of the Rampion on her retina display, watching breathlessly as they entered Earth’s atmosphere over northern Africa and careened toward Farafrah, a small oasis that had once been a trading post for caravans traveling between the central African provinces and the Mediterranean Sea. It had fallen into poverty since the plague had first struck a decade ago, sending the trade caravans farther east.

She didn’t leave Wolf’s side. She dressed the wounds as well as she could using the bandages and ointments the guard had thrown down from the ship’s upper level. She had already had to change the bandages once, and still the blood soaked through. His face was pale and clammy, his heartbeat growing weaker, each breath a struggle.

Please, please, let Dr. Erland be there.

So far, the guard, at least, had proven trustworthy. He had flown straight and fast—very fast, to Cinder’s relief. It was a risk entering Earth’s orbit, but a necessary one. She only hoped this oasis would be the safe haven the doctor had believed it to be.

“Cinder,” said Iko, “the Lunar is asking where he should land.”

She shuddered. She’d been expecting the question. It would be safest, and most prudent, to land outside the town, out in the ruthless desert. But she could never carry Wolf and they didn’t have the luxury of being prudent.

“Tell him to land on the main road. On the map it looks like there’s only one—a town square of sorts. And tell him not to worry about being stealthy.”

If they couldn’t hide, then she would draw as much attention as possible. Maybe if they made enough of a spectacle it would draw Dr. Erland out from wherever he was hiding. She had to hope that any civilians would be so distracted by their brazenness, they wouldn’t bother alerting the police until it was too late.

It wasn’t a good plan, but there wasn’t time to come up with anything better.

The ship dove. Normally this was the quiet part of landing, when the engine power switched to magnetic levitation, but it seemed the guard was planning on doing this all manually.

Perhaps the town was so rural, they didn’t have magnetic roads at all.

Finally the ship clanked and groaned. Though it was a soft landing, the shock still made Cinder jump. Wolf groaned.

Cinder bent over him and cupped his face in both hands. “Wolf, I’m going to get help. Just stay with us, all right? Just hold on.”

Standing, she keyed in the code for the podship dock.

The dock was a sight—blood and destruction everywhere. But she walked past the remaining shuttle and tried to put it all from her thoughts. “Iko, open hatch.”

As soon as the doors had parted enough for her to fit through, she crouched on the ledge and jumped down into the street.

A cloud of dust whirled around her as her feet struck the hard, dry ground. The surrounding buildings were mostly single-story structures made of stone or clay or large beige bricks. Some window shutters had been painted blue or pink, and stenciled designs lined the entryways, but the colors had been bleached by the sun and chipped by relentless sand. The road dipped down toward an oasis lake a few blocks to Cinder’s right, both sides lined with thriving palm trees—trees that looked too alive for a town that hung with desertion. A few blocks to her left was a stone wall lined with more trees and, beyond it, reddish plateaus disappearing in a sandy haze.

People were emerging from the buildings and around street corners, civilians of all ages, mostly dressed in shorts and lightweight tops to combat the desert heat, though a few wore more concealing robes to keep off the blazing sun. Many were covering their mouths and noses. At first Cinder thought they were protecting themselves from the plague, but then she realized they were simply annoyed at how much dust the ship’s landing had kicked up. The cloud was already blowing off down one of the side streets.

Cinder scanned them, searching for a wrinkled face and a familiar gray cap. Dr. Erland would be paler than most of the townspeople, although skin tones ranged from the deepest browns to honeyed tans. Still, she suspected that a little old man with glaringly blue eyes would have drawn some attention in the past weeks.

She opened her hands wide to show she had no weapons and took a step toward the crowd. Her cyborg hand was on full display, and the townsfolk had noticed. They were staring at it openly, though no one shied away as she took another step closer.

“I’m sorry about the dust,” she said, gesturing to the cloud. “But this is an emergency. I need to find someone. A man. This tall, old, wears glasses and a hat. Have any of you—”