Sand Red

37

He held a gun to my head.

I braked slowly.

'Get out,' he said.

Fear mounted in me. 'Don't leave me here,' I said, with as much dignity as I could.

He seemed to think. Yul burst into motion a second later, but we had been starved and slowly killed, and he was too slow. Lars slammed the gun into the side of his head with a sickening crunch. He either didn't mean to really kill us or was saving his bullets.

'Look,' his eyes had a silver madness in them. 'I need Aida. I don't need you. Though I feel sorry for you and I want to help.' He looked at us carefully. 'Nothing comes before my goal. You either get out or you do as I say.'

'You can drive,' I said weakly. I had underestimated the scientist. I had thought he was one of the weak that lived by way of protection from the strong. But I think there is nobody truly weak that survivesin this world.

'Good,' he said, apparently satisfied.

We changed seats somberly. I sat drinking in the cool, fresh air of the night. Winter was really upon us now and I shivered in my meagre clothing in the darkness. They had taken our jackets and shoes at En's camp. Behind, Yul had given Aida his shirt and he was shivering even more violently than me; I could hear his teeth chattering from here. God knows what the campers thought had happened to us.

'Are you cold?' Lars asked, sounding truly concerned, oddly back to his nicer self.

'Aye,' I said. I could sacrifice my dignity for Yul's sake.

'I didn't think of clothing,' he said. He began to take off his own jacket. 'You can have mine.'

I gave him a strange look. Only minutes ago, this same man had cracked Yul's skull open.

As if reading my mind, he said, 'I'm sorry I hit you.'

Yul said nothing. I passed the jacket behind to Yul a little longingly. It radiated heat.

Yul was bleeding at the temple and he glared at the back of Lars' head murderously before covering Aida with the jacket.

'Put on your own shirt at least,' I said to him.

He grunted and pulled it out from beneath the jacket. Tremors went through Aida's figure and I could feel her heat from here. Her stab wound was badly infected and she was sick from it. Guilt rose to my throat as I remembered how she'd insisted on treating my wound.

I realized in a burst of anxiety that I cared about Aida. She was my friend. We had just gone through hell and back together and she was my friend. I wasn't jealous of how Yul looked after her anymore. She deserved to be cared for. More than that, she needed it.

'She's really sick,' I said to Lars.

He glanced back worriedly. 'Yes. We have medical equipment where I'm going.'

'How long?'

He hesitated. 'Two hundred kilometers. I don't know how long that is.'

I stared at him. 'Five hours. But how do you know about it if you haven't been there before?'

'Internet.'

It occured to me that he was rich. He didn't have to fight for his water. He didn't have to fight for a stinking device if he needed it. He just had to ask.

'The device Syenin and us stole,' I began carefully. 'Was it for you?'

The air between us changed. Aida was dying in the back, and if he was the spoiled child I thought he was, her life and all our tortures the last month had been caused by him.

He shook his head. 'En doesn't know I have Internet access. He wanted it for himself. He's got some crazy ideas.'

I reclined in the chair, the tension dissipating from the air. Now that the novelty of our escape was wearing off, my thirst was growing in its demand again.

'Have some water?'

He handed me a waterskin. I gave it to Yul first. 'Feed Aida last. We don't want to get sick,' I warned him.

The sixty seconds of Yul's endless drinking was almost as painful as the burning of my wound had been.

Then he handed me the bag and I was flushed with green from the instant the first drop touched my tongue. I drank like an animal, hypersensitive of every movement of the water, and the vehicle and not a single drop fell from the skin or rolled down my face, or was allowed to evaporate as I slammed down the cap when my thirst was quenched.

'What's in the back?' I asked Lars a little while later.

'My greatest project.'

'What is it?'

He seemed to struggle with himself. 'It's just Aida's help I need.'

Dangerous secrets are murdered for and I shut up.