Treacherous

Chapter 4

Bell nodded, “At least. There could be more, but I found evidence at our settlement to show that there probably is only eight total.” She looked over at him finally, wondering if he believed her at all.

“What evidence? Do the others know about it?”

Bell shook her head, “I don’t think anyone else knows. When we came to the settlement the others were more worried about shelter and you.” She paused here, remembering how they’d gathered to watch Johns lead Riddick into camp. “I knew it was a geological settlement, founded to determine if there was anything of worth on T2. In one of the sample rooms I found an office that must have been used by the head geologist or the ONLY geologist. The others would have been just workers, no education necessary.”

Riddick waved his hand impatiently and she realized she’d gotten off track. “Anyway, I found a sketchy map of the region, showing the location of the other settlements. They’re arranged in a grid, hoping to get the truest find I suppose. The settlement we were in was SS4.”

For long silent seconds Riddick just looked at her. “Did you take the map?”

Bell almost laughed, “No, I posted it in the meeting hall and made copies for each person.”

Riddick shook his head, “You got a smart mouth.”

“Well you ask stupid fucking questions,” she shot back. “I’m leading you to a settlement that I told everyone about. Yeah, that makes complete sense.”

“You’re an industrious girl. Been keeping this secret the whole time. Why’d you decide to share it with me?”

Bell frowned and looked at him, “I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t going to watch Johns fry you, and with or without you I would have eventually left. Leadership by idiots is no leadership I want to have a part of.”

Riddick smiled, one of the most real she’d seen on him, if not the only. “Why do you call them idiots?”

“Because they are. They drag their asses to the nearest semi-comfortable spot and won’t leave. That’s fucking stupid. Something obviously happened to cause the people to leave SS4. Since no one knows what it was or cares to try to find out they risk it happening to them with each hour they stay. Then they ignore clues that are staring them in the face. Rather sophisticated equipment that was obviously delivered or even engineered for this particular planet. It makes sense that there would be more than one settlement. It’s just more economical. The sandkat alone should tip them off. What did the settlers have that they couldn’t just carry or move with a lift within the buildings? The sandkat is made for outdoor distance, not delivering lunch. Even if I hadn’t known before that there was more than one settlement I would have considered the idea.”

“Could people still be at the other camps?”

Bell heard the suspicion and doubt in his voice. He knew the same as her that there was pretty much no chance that they’d find anyone alive on T2 after the state SS4 had been in. If anyone had been left there would have been more recent signs of life at SS4. She didn’t answer him, feeling it wasn’t necessary. Eventually they poured some water to drink and sat down again.

“How far is it?”

She finished her cup of water, feeling her stomach rebel at the diet of only water, a sort of empty churning that made her feel like she was sloshing. “Fifty kilometers or more.”

Riddick just nodded, apparently not as daunted by the distance as she had been. Of course alone she was sure he would be able to cross the distance in a day. To her it had seemed an endless journey, but one she had no choice but to take.

“We’ve covered about a quarter of that, I’d say,” Riddick murmured as if he were talking to himself.

A quarter? Bell wasn’t sure if that surprised her or dismayed her. The first day had nearly killed her and he was telling her she had to do it at least another two or three more times. Ugh!!

“Do you have the map? What’s the guiding system?”

Bell pulled the dusty torn map from where she’d stowed it in an outside pocket. “It uses the sunrise and sunset, which was obviously decided to be constant enough. We were in Sunset 4, the one at the most southwest point.”

She gave him the map and watched him carefully unfold it across his lap. For long minutes he stared at the map, measuring distance with his fingers. Bell drank more, hoping to at least fill her stomach. She filled Riddick’s cup twice while she waited.

“Good job. I’m impressed.”

Bell blinked in surprise, “What?”

“If I hadn’t seen you do it I would have doubted that you could. I thought you were useless. Expendable.”

Bell’s heart leaped into action at that word. Expendable? He was giving her one of those compliments she could do without.

Riddick stood, folding the map and tucking it into HIS pocket. “We need to travel lighter, faster. We’re only eight or nine kilometers out. With the Sandkat Johns can easily search this far.”

Bell shrugged, “Unless they found it early there won’t be the sandkat to worry about.” But even as she said it she scanned the land she could see. Nothing moved, of course. But if Johns had found Riddick gone soon enough he might not be that far behind them. What would Johns do if he caught them? Or better, what would Riddick do if Johns caught up with them? She’d gotten the feeling from the hushed conversations she’d seen between the two men that they shared some sort of history, or at least knew each other well. Would Johns kill her to get to Riddick? Or would she already be dead, Riddick ridding himself of the burden slowing him down. Either way didn’t look good for her. Yeah, they needed to move faster.

Riddick was looking at her, “What did you do?”

“I don’t know. The thing is weird. I cut a few wires to make sure it wouldn’t start, but once the problem is found it’s pretty easily fixed.” She stood and started putting the few things they’d gotten out back into the bags.

“Slow down,” he said as he stopped before her, above her really. She paused and looked slowly up at him, having to crane her neck back to see his face, as he was only a couple feet from him.

“Aren’t we going?” She almost didn’t want the answer. How easy would it be for him to say: ‘Well, I’M leaving’?

He seemed to know what she was thinking, either that or he just liked long dramatic pauses. Not being able to see his eyes didn’t help either. It was disconcerting to not know if he was even looking at her or not.

“I’m going to go look around a bit. Fill the bottles of water, we’ll need to keep moving. Did you bring any food?” He was looking out the opening of the cave and as he spoke he moved around her and to the entrance.

“Some,” she said. “There wasn’t much to have and I didn’t want to take all of it.” She’d found a few cans in one of the outbuilding, but their labels were gone, the expiration dates faded and unreadable. They could just be hauling the weight of some rotted food. She’d snagged some of the space rations. Imam and his little followers had been working on a garden of some sort, but it would probably be too late at the rate they were going through their food. And that was without feeding Riddick. They’d probably see her disappearance as a Godsend. Now they didn’t have to feed her.

“Good. Keep it handy. We’ll eat as we go. Get something ready for me too. I’m fucking starving.”

She smiled as he left, disappearing soundlessly around the edge of rock. Hungry, was he? That was probably an understatement. How long had it been since he’d eaten? Unless someone besides her was sneaking stuff out to him it had been at least four days. Considering that, the man should have been unconscious. How did he keep going? It wasn’t like he had any fat reserves to live off of.

Bell filled the liter bottles they had, tucking them handily into outside pockets of her pack. The dry rations were all in one bag, not difficult to get to, so she didn’t move them. Carefully she topped off three of the jugs with the last water in the fourth, leaving it empty. They’d gone through almost twenty liters since they started out, leaving just over sixty.

Take it along? An empty jug wouldn’t really weigh them down much, but it didn’t make sense to carry it either. At the back of the cave she found a small crevice high up and wedged the jug in. It wasn’t visible from the entrance, and she figured their presence in the small cave would be detectable even without the jug.

Finally she sat and waited. Looking at the water jugs she wondered if Riddick was intending to carry all of them. That didn’t seem particularly fair to her, but he’d shown that he was strong enough to carry the weight.

Bell remembered the headache she’d gotten and cringed at the idea of having it return. But what could she do? She didn’t have any sunglasses or anything like that. A veil might work, but she’d feel completely retarded walking around with something over her face. She finally dug out a bandana and tied it around her forehead, playing with pulling it down over her eyes until she could barely see. If worse came to worse she could just do as Riddick hand done and follow. She’d only need to see his feet to follow him, after all.

Eventually she started to nibble some crackers and jerky out of one of the meals. The jerky was tasteless and the crackers like concentrated dust. Yum.

Suddenly Riddick was standing before her. She gasped in surprise. Had he dropped from above? It didn’t seem like she’d seen him actually walking.

Immediately he started lifting the bags. He lifted the pack she’d been carrying and paused turning his head to the side to look at her.

“What?’

He just shook his head and swung the pack onto his own shoulders. “We have to move fast. We’re still out of sight here, but we’re in the open. Stay against this rise and climb when you can. Be quiet.” He gathered the water containers and lifted them all at once. Having no choice in the matter, Bell quickly lifted the remaining two bags, feeling light compared to how she had walked during the ‘night’.

Riddick lead the way, looking back the way they had come as he moved in the opposite direction. The bluff the cave was in sloped down and they were able to climb up carefully. Conveniently an outcropping of rock rose up and Riddick lead them behind it, ducking down as he walked, and then they were descending the other side.

“Did you see something?” Bell asked, whispering because she didn’t know if she shouldn’t.

“He tracked us to the lake, but then lost us. Don’t know if he’ll keep looking.”

“Is he on foot?”

“Looks like it.”

Thus ended the conversation for the next several hours. Riddick set a grueling pace, at times letting her lag far behind. Twice she caught up to him to find him filling the water bottles. He would give her one and they would continue. She tried to keep up, trotting at times, but it was no use and just seemed to be expending her energy that much faster.