Page 3 (1/2)

"And Russell’s not the sharing sort"

Vaughn laughed at that "No, no he is not Besides, all he cares about any the runaways He hardly ever coht"

Half an hour later a kid cah the bars Inside the parcel she found an ice pack, still frozen

Sa arainst her swollen eye

"Another week and I’ll co "One more bloody week"

She drifted off to sleep as the sun rose over Darwin

Not that she could see it

Chapter 3

Belém, Brazil

27APR2283

AT THE RESERVOIR Skyler decided to ditch the bike

Rain had begun to fall in large, irregular drops and when the paved portion of the road ended he found that even the knobby tires on the rass choked the land around the square,hiht a dry place for the motorcycle A worthy candidate came in the form of an office behind the deserted purification facility, and Skyler tucked the bike inside, harboring selfish hope that it ht still be here the next ti populated entirely of Orbitals, had a strong "community property" bent Teams of technicians and scientists worked out here frequently, trying to get the machinery back online After two e quantities of water, a situation now at the top of the priority list

He set the ave the ain, he traced a path around the water’s edge Swelled by ave Skyler pause If he stuck his arers in the greenish brown ed across the wide field that buffered the water froan to fall in a steady thrurass and knelt He’d taken to keeping a wide-brimmed bushman’s hat on his back, and flipped it up onto his head The dark brown leather reeked et, but it kept the rain at bay

The reservoir, despite being less than a kilometer outside the city, was completely surrounded by thick rainforest Belée transitioned from slum to forest so abruptly that Skyler had been initially ree in Darwin On one side dense slus were packed in with a density that rivaled the Maze Walk a few paces east across a street or creek and the rainforest took over He guessed some sort of conservation law had been in place here before the disease caht in wealthy would-be adventurers frorown up instead of out

From his position, Skyler heard no choir The reen canopy, would likely cover up any such sound, if it even existed He had his doubts More likely the h scan of the horizon produced no hint of an aura tower above the treetops This caned the s that the tall toere "better" and thus more valuable Skyler knew of no evidence for this, but he had long given up arguing such trivial points

He rowth,tree line A crude barricade, less than half co the meter-wide path, more to keep local wildlife out than subhumans Skyler walked to the endpoint of the is The work had stopped at a sharp corner in the peried straight into the dark heart of the rainforest The canopy stretched over the trail fro a natural tunnel filled eak green light The ceiling of broad leaves also served to keep the dirt below h to still hold evidence of an aura tower’s passage, at least

Despite being small, the aura tower still left a wide, sh the towers seeround when they moved, the "cushion" field they created still sround beneath A clean series of footprints trailed in the wake, spaced at a walking pace Skyler concluded that theteam must have been calm and in control when they left The accepted practice forwith an aura toas to keep one person on each side of it, ready to nudge it should the thing start to drift Once in , and thus they were prone to stray if not kept under constant watch But they could just as easily beconificant bulk or height, thus the need for spotters ahead and behind the alien objects

Beyond the four guides, anyone else in a party tended to stay out in front, ready to warn the others if a course correction ht be needed

In a low voice, Skyler spoke into his radio "I’m at the point where they left the peri to follow"

A few seconds passed before Karl replied "You ative," Skyler said "But I did pass a si quartet"

"Keep in touch, you prick," Karl replied, chuckling

Skyler clung to the edge of the path, where a carpet of fallen leaves served to keep his boots froanicabove hiler vines Eht filtered down in tiny patches, and the air smelled of fresh rain mixed with old decay

The path had once been a narrow road Chunks of blacktop poked through in places where the relentless rain had eroded everything to the hardpan and beyond Mother Nature had already won this war, and Skyler thought even the hint of a path here would disappear in another five years, giving way to ferns, roots, and strangler vines

Ahead, as the road crested at a low rise, Skyler saw a break in the canopy and a wisp of rising smoke The acrid sed at him of his descent on that first climber down to Belém There’d been smoke northeast of the Elevator base, debris from the climber destroyed in orbit earlier that sao, and rain had fallen al since been banished

Caun scavenged a week earlier from the basement of a Belém police station Skyler left the path and worked his way parallel to it through the forest Years of wet dead leaves softened his footfalls Even just a few ht Alrew this low to the rainforest floor, with so little sunlight available, but vines hanging fro path It took every ounce of self-control to keep hisback and forth across the tangle all around him Such a sound carried, even in rain this heavy