Sand Red

30

I wasn't going to die. Duke came into the little room at dawn.

'You must leave today,' he said without preamble.

We were silent. Yul sat lacing his borrowed boots and Syenin was cutting his nails with a pocket knife. We hadn't spoken yet about where we would go.

Taking Syenin's advice, I spoke. 'Thank you for your hospitality, Duke.'

He looked at me a little strangely.

'What about Internet access?' Yul asked.

'We don't have it,' he said with certainty.

'I think you do.'

'Yul..' I warned.

Aida stepped forward before he could say anything else. 'Duke,' she turned her face up to his towering figure. 'This will be good for you, too. Look at the acres of shallow water just evaporating on your fields. It's unsustainable.'

Duke laughed. 'We are not doing this just for feeding the people, Aida. We are bringing an entire ecosystem back.'

'You're losing water to space,' she said steadily.

'Enough remains for us.'

She shook her head. 'What happens the summer you can't feed your people because of the evaporation rate? Groundwater has always run out.'

'That's the beauty of it, there is a billion acres of ground on this planet.'

'I still think this would be a smart gamble on your part.'

'No. Leave by dusk. Take your sheets.' He looked at Yul. 'Don't visit again because the next time you will be killed on my order.' He swept out of the room powerfully.

There was silence after his departure. 'Where do we go next?' Syenin asked finally.

'North to the ocean,' Aida said.

'Why?' I asked.

'It's where glass comes from.'

'Steal from the Reds,' Yul said. 'Find Internet access.'

'Sounds smarter,' Syenin said.

'We won't starve. What water do we get to the coast by?' I reasoned.

Aida was silent. 'How?' she asked in a low voice.

'Today. It's harvest season. They're incredibly busy.'

'Where would a device be?'

'With Duke, undoubtedly.'

'Where with Duke?'

'His underpants,' Yul said hotly. 'It's impromptu, how am I supposed to know?'

Syenin snorted, and I stifled a laugh at the image of Duke with a computer down his breeches.

'So where do we look?' Syenin asked.

'His hut.'

'This whole plan just seems a little unlikely,' Aida broke in.

'We'll just capture Duke. Hold him hostage, maybe a child or two as well,' Yul said. 'Threaten to kill them unless we're given what we need.'

'They will be powerful enemies to have,' I said dubiously. 'And children are best left out of this.'

'That sounds better,' Aida said thoughtfully. 'And I agree with Kun, no children. We're doing this for our own children after all. If we can hold Duke and maybe another important person hostage, it could work.'

'I will be useless,' I informed them. I did not want to be useless.

Yul looked at me with his shiny black eyes. 'You will. We can get him out before sunset,' he said, turning to Aida. 'Oh, and we can get you a pair of crutches.'

I shook my head. 'Need my chest muscles. Can't use them.'

'Don't be stupid. They helped Od and they'll help you.'

'Believe me,' I said,'You need one more than I do.' And we left it at that.

'We'll get you out now, Kun,' Aida said. 'And you would benefit from a walking stick Yul.'

He shook his head as though too high and mighty for crutches. 'Come on. We'll deposit you far off and get to you after dark, okay?'

I didn't want to be "deposited" anywhere, but I was in no position to argue. Nobody writes books about the injured boy sitting on the sidelines. If we were in a book, Yul would probably be the main character.

I was left behind a gentle dune in a natural patch of sand that had buried a growth of thorn. Pain was my planet and I was its slave. My cut begged to be itched, but I couldn't get to it beneath the mountains of rag the Reds had tied it with. I lay under the open sky waiting for my friends like I had before, not knowing whether they would be dead or alive.

It was not long at all before they arrived. I drew my knife when I heard an engine purr in the distance. I felt sick to my stomach wondering if something had gone wrong.

I shuffled towards the dune in an effort to hide myself, my knife clutched in my palm like when we were jacking that car the day before we had left the old camp. How different things had been then.

To my horror, the vehicle stopped a few feet from me and there was an anxious scrabbling sound as someone climbed out in a panic. And then Yul's voice was yelling for me and I almost dropped my knife in surprise and quickly called back. He charged towards me and lifted me haphazardly, tearing a searing line of red across my side and I choked from the feeling as he dragged and unceremoniously dumped me in the car they had somehow managed to procure. Inside, Syenin was at the wheel and Aida lay clutching her arm from which copious amounts of blood was seeping out.

'Good lord, what happened?'

'Duke,' she panted. They had evidently been running recently and were all breathing hard and covered in a sheen of sweat.

I gently took her hand off the wound. A river of red smoothly flowed out of a deep, gaping red cut. 'Hit a vein,' I said with some effort. My own pain was blinding me and I somehow felt queasy at the sight of her gaping wound. 'Hold on to it'-I put her hand back over it-'We'll have to stitch.'

Aida continued to pant and put even more pressure on the wound so blood squeezed itself out from beneath her palm.

'Are you okay?' I looked Yul over to make sure he was. He was grinning. 'We got it! The device.'

Distant shouts floated up from behind and I looked in a mirror to see another vehicle, no doubt filled with an infuriated mob. Any elation from Yul's news quickly disappeared and was replaced with panic. 'Floor it!' I yelled hoarsely at Syenin and he struggled with the gear stick for a moment before pushing us into sixth.

This was old technology from a world older than the Old World, but it was cheap, and one could build a geared car in the New World also.

My heart was in my mouth as the vehicle behind us didn't slow for nearly a mile. At some point, I suppose they had a mechanical failure or decided the fuel wasn't worth it, because they fell back and I did not see them in the mirror again. We took no chances, though and drove on for close to an hour.