Page 41 of Warrior’s Mate

Chapter 7 — Taken Alive

The western grain conduit had been built for harvest years when the automated haulers could not keep pace with Wasaytu's fields. Maelis had crawled through it twice as a child, once on a dare and once because her brother had sworn there was a nest of blue-winged dust moths beneath the fourth access grate. There had been no moths. There had been three hours of scrubbing grain powder from her hair and a lecture from Neris that had lasted nearly as long. Now nearly four hundred people waited for her to decide whether the conduit was a road or a tomb.

She enlarged the old maintenance plans. The passage ran west from the lower storage corridors, dipped beneath two irrigation trunks, then split near an abandoned milling station. One branch surfaced inside a farm equipment depot. The other ended at a loading trench less than half a kilometer from the river terraces. Neither exit had been designed for frightened civilians moving in darkness. Both were better than the doors the Sargans already knew about.

"We move children, elders, and anyone who can't run first," Maelis said. "No lights until the second junction. Hand contact along the wall. If you lose the person in front of you, stop and call forward. Do not turn around unless the entire line turns around."

One of the shelter coordinators, a broad-shouldered orchard keeper named Vesra, looked toward the ceiling when another impact rolled through the complex. "And if they breach before we're clear?" Maelis wanted to say Kaiven would stop them. She wanted that with a force that frightened her. Instead she answered the question she actually had the authority to answer.

"Then the rear group seals the first gate and uses the east storage rooms as a diversion."

Vesra understood at once. "The rear group being us."

"The rear group being whoever is still here."

"You included."

"I run the routes."

"Of course you do."

There was no accusation in it, only weary recognition. Maelis turned back to the map before the other woman could see how badly her hands wanted to shake. The local network flickered. For one breathless moment she thought Kaiven's channel had returned, but the signal resolved into the Sargan broadcast instead.

"Remain where you are. Cooperation preserves value. Resistance reduces value."

The wording was worse the second time. A young man beside the console whispered, "What does that mean?" Maelis looked at him. He could not have been more than eighteen. Field dust still marked the knees of his work trousers.

"It means we don't cooperate."

She sent the first group into the conduit. The flow began badly, because human—or Uatu—movement always began badly when fear met a narrow opening. Parents tried to keep entire families together. Elders insisted others go first. Children cried when the lights disappeared. Maelis put Vesra at the entrance and a retired irrigation engineer at the first junction. Within minutes, the line settled into something functional. Then Kaiven's voice returned in her ear.

"Maelis."

She closed her eyes once. Relief moved through her so quickly it almost hurt.

"You're alive."

"I noticed."

The dryness in his voice steadied her more than reassurance would have.

"Status?" she asked.

"Two Sargan teams pushed toward the north service yard. We stopped the first. Second withdrew after losing a transport."

"Withdrew?"

"They weren't trying to take the building."

Maelis heard the conclusion in his pause.

"They were scouting."

"Yes. And they marked three exits before they pulled back."

She looked at the western conduit entrance, where civilians disappeared one by one beneath the floor.

"I'm moving the shelter population."