A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(68)

‘Stop,’ she whispered to herself, holding her ears. ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Stop.’

But familiar thoughts were creeping in now, and there were no projects or lessons or sims to shut them up. She had been bad. If she hadn’t climbed the wall, this wouldn’t have happened. If she hadn’t gone left. If she had just thought for a second, instead of being so clumsy and bad and off-task—

‘Stop, stop, stop,’ she said, rocking back and forth. ‘Stop.’

She’d been bad. And bad girls got punished.

She thought of the factory, which was never cold and never lonely. She thought of her warm bunk, with Jane 64 cuddled close. I don’t think we should, 64 had said. But Jane had made her. She’d made her go do something bad, and that good little girl had died for it.

She thought about what that meant – dying. Just . . . ending. Lights out. The end. What if this – this night – was it? What if the last thing she ever felt was being cold and alone and afraid? What if the last thing she ever saw was a pair of hungry eyes staring at her in the dark? Maybe the lizard-birds would find her. They stuck to mushrooms, usually, but she’d seen them nibbling at dead dogs and dust mice sometimes, unwilling to let food go to waste. She remembered how those dead things looked. She imagined how she’d look if she were dead. How she’d look as other things ate her. ‘Stop,’ she said, louder. ‘Jane, stop it. Stop it.’

She whimpered at the bottom of the hole, her leg hurting more every time the cold made her shiver too hard. The dogs at the top moved restlessly. Jane 64 was dead. Jane 23 was probably dead, too, because she’d been stupid and careless and nobody was coming for her. Nobody cared. Nobody except Owl, and she’d never know what happened. Another stupid Human had left her alone, and nobody would be able to tell her why.

Jane clutched her face, rocking and rocking. This, all of this, was her punishment. And she deserved it. She deserved every bit of it.

The dogs ate the old dead female on Jane’s wagon sometime in the night. Jane didn’t know dogs ate other dogs, but protein was protein, and she guessed they’d given up on her. She couldn’t see them feeding, but she heard it, all right. The pups were excited. She almost thought they sounded happy.

She slept, kind of. It wasn’t a real sleep, just a confusion she dipped in and out of until she heard the flutter of lizard-birds overhead, which meant the sun was coming up. She had to get out of there. She had to do something. She wanted to go home.

Come on, get up, she thought. Get up get up get up get—

She tried to stand, and regretted it immediately. ‘Fucking dammit,’ she hissed, slamming her head back against the dirt wall.

A handful of dirt crumbled down to her shoulders.

Of course. Of course. It was so obvious. The ground had collapsed and made the hole. What if . . . what if she made it collapse a little more?

She dragged herself around so she was facing the wall. Even though her eyes had adjusted to the dark, it was so hard to see. But she could feel. She ran her palm over the dirt, packed tight but pliable. She got a tool out of her satchel – a small prybar, good for unsticking stuck scrap. She paused. If she made a way up, the dogs could get down. She listened. She hadn’t heard them at all since the eating sounds stopped. They had probably moved on, but there was no telling how far, or if they were still hungry. She got her knife out of her satchel and stuck it in her pocket. It was something. It was better than just fading out down there, anyway.

She slammed the prybar into the dirt, making a hole. A hole in a hole. She dug. She dug, and dug, and dug. She dug as the night faded away. She dug as the air warmed up (finally). She dug even though her fingers ached and her leg hated her for it. And as she dug, sections of the dirt wall came falling down, little by little. When it got in her eyes, she brushed it out. When it got in her mouth, she spat it away. If a big bunch fell down, she’d pull herself up on top, then dig some more, until finally – finally! – enough of the dirt had fallen into the hole that it made a sort of ramp back up. She pulled herself with her arms, groaning loud and mean. If the dogs were still around, they had to know she was coming. She pulled out her pocket knife and crawled with it in hand, satchel and busted weapon dragging awkwardly along behind her. At last, there it was – the wagon, on the flat ground where she’d left it the day before. She wanted to laugh, but instead shut her mouth tight. The dogs were still there, asleep together next to the half-eaten carcass of the one Jane had killed. She clutched her knife hard. The mother looked up, belly fat and fur stained red, her eyes hazy with food. She and Jane stared at each other. The mother growled, but it wasn’t a hunting growl. This was quieter, lower. The mother’s pups snuggled close to her, fat and messy as she was. One rolled onto its back, little bloody paws stretching into the air. The mother folded her head over her young and growled again.

Jane didn’t need to be told twice. She dragged herself the opposite way, toward a small scrap pile. The mother, at last, laid her head back down.

Jane found a length of rusty pipe in the pile, almost as tall as she was. It would do. She pulled herself up with it, trying to stay as quiet as she could. She bit her lip hard. Her leg trembled. She’d been hurt before, but not like this. Nothing had ever hurt like this.

She kept her leg up off the ground as best as she could, putting her weight against the pipe. She took a shuffling step forward, using the pipe like a walking stick. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the mother move. Jane cried out, nearly falling back down in fear. But the dog had just rolled over. Jane tried to get a hold of herself, tried to breathe normal. She was useless right now. She couldn’t run. She could barely drag herself forward. She’d gotten lucky with the dogs snoring away by her wagon – there was no way she was getting that back – but it would take her hours to get home at this speed, and if there were other packs between here and there . . .