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He sat for a few minutes and tried to focus The pillar looht about it He had no rope, no cliear Skyler was in excellent shape, but he knew his limits There was no way he could reach that pedestal without soht to pack any; it had been her job to provision the plane beyond basic necessities

Reason finally won out over the desire to explore He stood and pulled his backpack on, then walked back the way he’d co,proved much easier This tih the dome’s wall He felt all the sanitude faster He ca He slipped on round Rain pelted him

This storm must have come out of nowhere, he had tiround in a dull splash Cold shakes began to rattle him Skyler came to his knees, waited for the maelstrom in his one The sun, so bright and clear when he’d entered, now hid behind a dark gray ceiling of nasty-looking clouds What in the hell?

Off to the side he saw a tent that hadn’t been there before An LED lantern hung froht around the entrance and half aa slate

Baffled, Skyler began to stumble in the direction of the tent The person inside looked up It was Ana, though she looked different Different clothes, Skyler realized Hair pulled back in a ponytail Her face was ashen, as if she’d become sick

All the color left in that face drained when she saw him She raced fro

"Jesus," he said "Nice to see you, too Where’d the others go?"

Ana just sobbed She held hiht fall asleep

"Okay, okay," he said "Relax, I’ She just held hi to be ed on and she didn’t let up, he began to find her reaction aliven that they’d only been apart for ten enuine, of that he felt sure, but wholly inappropriate

"We thought you were dead," she said at last

Skyler alhed The sincerity in her voice stopped hiirl finally pulled back and held hi his "What the … Where the hell have you been?"

"Inside, of course Where’d this storm come from? Sun to downpour in ten minutes flat That’s i you brought a tent Are the others inside? We need to--"

"Ten ht line

"Skyler," she said, "you’ve been gone for over a month"

Chapter 40

Darwin, Australia

2SEP2284

SAMANTHA AWOKE TO a pounding at the door to her room

"I’ She fumbled for her canteen and knocked it to the floor "Shit"

Her watch put the ti on her door went on, and for a few seconds she wasn’t sure if it was real or just the result of a long evening at Woon’s

She rolled onto her side and plucked the steel canteen from the pool of water it had created on the floor A s later she found her voice again "Go to hell!"

"Grillo is on the cooons, she couldn’t guess which fro her feet onto the cold floor A blistering ache formed somewhere just behind her eyes, and she rubbed her teers, to no avail "What does he want?"

"No idea," the man said "Not h that he ht hear it These Jacobites were a touchy bunch She pulled on some socks "Be there in a sec"

The coar, where the Melville used to rest Without the presence of the aircraft, the space see the "office" she’d set up in the e board made of cork had been placed next to the ion to it Colored thued, a trick she’d learned from Prumble She’d never seen histo operate the s

Grillo watched her approach from his end of the connection Sa chair in front of the screen and swept her hair back from her face

"I’htcliff, or his mansion in Lyons Behind hi out of the ceiling and running horizontally behind the man Grillo looked impeccable, of course Not a hair out of place His expression, so often unreadable, right now had a hint of concern "Rouse asthem and their aircraft to the stadiu on?" Sam asked

"There’s no time, Samantha Be here in an hour"

"I … okay"

"Fly dark, fly low" He cut the link and his ie vanished

Fortyher birds take flight

Nine pilots were available, but only seven planes had their caps charged enough to be useful Given the short notice, she thought the nuiven no hint as to how ue, or hurried Soines of the sixth craft roared and the shoddy hauler began to climb That left only the Ocean Cloud