“Your legs are too damned long,” I panted, sucking in the chill mountain air. “I can’t keep up with — Glitch, what are you doing?”
The AI had jumped down to the snow and, at my complaint, started ‘scanning’ Karnac’s legs. It was bullshit, of course: all the scanners were in my vambrace, not the hologram, and they didn’t emit a stream of green light. But Glitch’s illumination highlighted how perfectly muscled Karnac’s legs were, and just to make that point more obvious five stars popped up beside them above an illegible block of writing that I recognized as a review.
I snorted, Karnac looked confused, and that just made me laugh more.
“What is this, Molly?” His bewildered tone broke me again, and it took a few breaths for me to pull myself together.
“Sorry, sorry,” I managed at last, forcing out words between the giggles. “I’m just, uh, Glitch is making a little joke, that’s all.”
“A joke about my legs?” Karnac looked affronted, glaring down at the AI. Glitch meowed, vanishing before the sound was complete, and a moment later I felt his ghostly weight reappear.
On my head.
Now it was Karnac’s turn to laugh, though he kept it short and quiet with a visible effort. His shoulders shook, and he kept his mouth firmly closed.
“Glitch,” I said, my voice as cold as the snow surrounding us, my cheeks hot as the sun. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but get down now or I’ll switch off your projector.”
Something about my words set Karnac’s laughter off again and I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine, this is funny too. We’re even. And if you ever mention this again, I will… do something unspeakable to you.”
It wasn’t easy to keep my glare steady and even, but I saw the joke. And there was something about Karnac’s laughter that I liked. It didn’t feel like he was mocking me, just amused at the ridiculousness of Glitch’s behavior and, yes, my exasperated response.
His laughter came from the same place as mine, no malice at all. And I liked to hear him laugh. Damn it.
“Fine, okay, the joke with your legs was that he rated them very highly, and so do I,” I explained. “They are awesome legs, and I wouldn’t want to change them, but you’re going too fast for me to keep up.”
“Ah.” He paused a moment. “I don’t think I get the joke, but I’m glad it amused you. We must hurry, nonetheless. Look there.”
He pointed behind us, and I followed his finger to see the dark wall of clouds at the horizon. More snow on the way, and those clouds looked heavier than the last ones. I gulped.
“I’ll do my best to stick with you, but I can’t match your pace. It won’t happen.”
“That is fair,” Karnac said, then smiled lopsidedly. “Your legs, too, are ‘awesome,’ but now they’re too short.”
I grabbed a handful of snow and threw it at him, blushing. We both laughed, and he snatched me up to kiss me firmly on the lips.
And didn’t set me down again.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I objected, but he was already under way, loping along in a steady but swift pace back to the station. Once I realized that, A: he would not let me down, and B: I didn’t want him to, I tried to think about other problems. Like why I enjoyed being manhandled by a brutish thug, and why I never wanted him to let me go.
12 Karnac
Without the storm, it wasn’t even hard to find the station. I spotted the flashing red light of the antenna tower and made my way towards it. On the way I watched for the fallen body of Torgek but I couldn’t identify the place we’d fought with any confidence, and the snow was deep enough that I might have walked past the corpse and not known it was there.
No time to waste searching, either. I pushed Torgek from my mind and climbed the slope towards the ultrasonic fence, Molly in my arms.
Crossing it, I relaxed slightly. Foolish, of course: the real danger was a pack of Prytheen, and they wouldn’t stop for the fence any more than I did.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Allison’s voice, full of rage, greeted us before we reached the station. “You idiots went out in a fucking blizzard, do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What a headache you left me with? I was trying to work out how to send search parties looking for you because I can’t call home for help. How could I? Both my idiot technical experts are missing, probably dead.”
“I checked the weather forecast before I left,” I said, putting Molly down with great care. “The storm was a surprise.”
Allison rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, well, you try to do one without satellites or any other kind of modern tech. I’m not having an easy time of it, and now I’ve made a mistake that nearly got two people killed.”
Her anger deflated and she slumped forward.
“If it’s any consolation,” Molly said, “I knew that the report wasn’t accurate, I just didn’t realize how bad it would get, or how fast. I had to warn Karnac.”
Allison shook her head, snarled something, and gestured to us. “At least you’re alive. Now come on in, there’s another storm on the way and I don’t want to risk losing you to this one now that you’re back.”
She turned and strode away, and we followed. I caught up with Allison easily, Molly panting behind us. I didn’t like leaving her struggling to keep up, but my message for Allison could not wait. “There is something more you must know, and urgently. You have a traitor in your midst, someone in your station is the ‘ghost’ and they’re selling to the enemy.”
Allison laughed, shaking her head. “Come on, Karnac. What enemy? We’re way up a mountain, and close to the Joint Colony. No enemy would dare.”
“Unless they planned on attacking the Joint Colony, in which case this is a good place to gather intelligence from,” Molly gasped, making Allison pause. I watched her carefully, looking for hints that she was the traitor.
“That’s ridiculous, Molly,” she said. “An attack on the Joint Colony? There are too many people there, humans and Prytheen…”
Her words trailing off, Allison looked back at me and frowned. I nodded, seeing the realization creep across her face. “A human attack would fail, the Wandering Star and the Joint Colony around it are too well protected. But my fellow Prytheen? Who knows which side’s they’ll choose? Auric became Alpha of the colony by challenging Zaren. If another challenged him and won, they’d switch sides. And some might already be sworn to the attacker, if they are led by a different Alpha-Captain.”
Allison’s pink lips compressed into a thin line, and I made my judgement. She knew nothing about this, she was thinking through the implications for the first time.
“So the failures are no accident, if what you’re saying is true,” she said, and I saw the cool, cold calculation in her eyes. “Whoever is doing this has cut us off from the colony which means they’re planning on doing something soon. Tulla, be a darling and book me a recording station. I think we’re going to have to interrupt this morning’s cartoon hour with something a little livelier.”
A helpless giggle from Molly got us both to turn to her. She waved a hand apologetically. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just the image. All the kids in the colony having their Sally the Spacegirl episodes interrupted by you announcing an incoming attack.”