Sand Red

42

'You'll have to teach two of them to help man the ship, won't you?' I said to Lars. We had come to an impasse, and Lars, if not Aida, was cooperating. The cubes were still in my possession, and I was careful to keep them safely without breaking. Lars asked me to return them constantly, since he was 'on our side', but obviously, I would not.

'It's simple enough,' he said. 'I can put in a chart on every wall after some basic training. The inputs are already there, they just have to know not to open a window.'

Yul laughed.

'It's going to be impossible getting everyone here,' Aida said. 'Everyone in the Arctic Circle!'

'Send word out,' Yul said. 'It's a start.'

'It might take years.'

'We'll help.'

'Come with me,' Lars said, ignoring Aida. This had been something he had been doing for the past few days, to show he was on our side, but Yul and I were not ones to trust easily, and I still refused to give him the cubes. He led us down the left hand passageway and to a different corridor of rooms, though they looked similar enough. He turned a knob and shuffled around in the darkness before getting out a map. 'the Arctic Circle,' he said, slamming it down flat against the table, making me jump.

Yul stepped forward eagerly. 'The entire Circle?' he asked.

'It may be a little redundant because everyone moves around so much, but yes.'

'They all basically live in the same ruins over and over again,' I told Lars.

I studied the drawings. They were handmade, that much was evident, unlike the Old World printed maps we had always referred to. Squiggly lines and unneat lettering filled the sparse settlements and camps. The Western mountains and the dry riverbeds were all marked and I mentally approved.

Lars brought out a pen. 'This-' he marked off a camp labelled Hanen. 'One of us is there, you don't need to march them here.' -he marked off another- 'And this, and Kain..' He marked eleven camps and settlements off.

A thought suddenly struck me. 'If Aida is one of you, you had contact with her.'

'Yes, through the Internet,' he said without looking up. Yul and I looked at each other.

'So she just endangered her life and ours too, for nothing?'

Lars looked up at the change in his tone. Yul's hand rested dangerously close to his dagger at his waist and I tensed up, ready to stop him from doing any harm.

'I don't know what you mean.'

'You don't?' Yul repeated, his voice silky smooth.

He shook his head. Yul looked at him for a moment before he stormed out and Od and me chased after him a millisecond later.

'Yul! Yul!'

Aida was on her hands and knees before the back of a ship, presumably looking for something else she had dropped.

Yul wrenched her to her feet. 'You had a device all this time?' he bellowed.

'Stop!' she struggled free and backed away, a screwdriver raised. 'Yul, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you in danger. I just had to get here.'

I clattered to a stop and the old corridor echoes with the noises of our running feet. 'So you used us,' Yul was saying. 'How did you even hide it from En?'

I grabbed at Yul's shoulder, trying to turn him away. 'She's a friend, Yul.' He grabbed me by the hair and thrust me aside. It was so unexpected, I didn't have the time to react.

'It's small,' Aida almost wept. 'I hid it in my mouth.'

Yul advanced on her and she lifted the screwdriver weakly. Their weapons clanged. I jumped between them, trying to draw them apart, but to no avail and I was nearly injured. They fought ferociously, Aida taking all the blows and simply defending herself desperately with her screwdriver and Yul advancing in his mad rage.

'Get off her!' Lars bellowed. He strode to the fight and flung Yul off Aida. 'You stay away from us, you understand?' he roared at Yul. 'Yes, she hid it from you. Because she would have had to kill you if you knew!'

'She led us on!' Yul roared back equally loud.

'She had good reason!'

'It's done, Yul,' I said, trying to calm him down like when we were children. 'We're alive. No harm done.' I dragged him back, and he obeyed. 'It's alright.'