Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(39)

To the left of us there was a faint scream. Jane swiveled in its direction and then turned back to face me; her expression left very little doubt that whatever mom-daughter bonding moment we'd been having was at a very abrupt end. "Stay here," she said. "Send word down the line to halt. Hickory, come with me." The two of them sped off in the direction of the scream quietly at what seemed like an almost impossible high speed; I was suddenly reminded that, yes, in fact, my mom was a veteran warrior. There's a thought for you. It was just now I finally had the tools to really appreciate it.

Several minutes later Hickory returned to us, clicked something to Dickory in their native tongue as he passed, and looked at me.

"Lieutenant Sagan says that you are to return to the colony with Dickory," Hickory said.

"Why?" I asked. "Have they found Joe?"

"They have," Hickory said.

"Is he all right?" I asked.

"He is dead," Hickory said. "And Lieutenant Sagan believes there is reason to worry that the search parties may be in danger if they stay out here much longer."

"Why?" I asked. "Because of the fanties? Was he trampled or something?"

Hickory looked at me levelly. "Zoe, you do not need me to remind you of your last trip into the forest and what followed you then."

I went very cold. "No," I said.

"Whatever they are, they appear to follow the fantie herds as they migrate," Hickory said. "They have followed those herds back here. And it appears that they found Joseph Loong in the woods."

"Oh my God," I said. "I have to tell Jane."

"I assure you, she has figured it out," Hickory said. "And I am to find Major Perry now, so he will know presently. This is being taken care of. The lieutenant asks for you to return to Croatoan. As do I. Dickory will accompany you. Go now. And I advise silence until your parents speak of this publicly." Hickory strode off into the distance. I watched it go, and then headed home, fast, Dickory matching my strides, both of us moving quietly, as we had practiced so many times.

The fact that Joe Loong was dead spread fast in the colony. Rumors of how he died spread even faster. Gretchen and I sat in front of Croatoan's community center and watched a revolving cast of rumormongers offer up their takes.

Jun Lee and Evan Black were the first to talk; they had been part of the group that had found Loong's body. They were enjoying their moment in the spotlight as they told everyone who would listen about how they found Loong, and how he had been attacked, and how whatever had attacked him had eaten part of him. Some people speculated that a pack of yotes, the local carnivores, had cornered Joe Loong and brought him down, but Jun and Evan laughed at that. We'd all seen the yotes; they were the size of small dogs and ran from the colonists whenever they saw them (and for good reason, since the colonists had taken to shooting at them for bothering the livestock). No yote, or even a pack of yotes, they said, could have done to Joe what they'd seen had been done to him.

Shortly after these gory tidbits had gotten around, the entire colony council met in Croatoan's medical bay, where Loong's body had been taken. The fact that the government was being pulled into it made people suspect it might actually have been murder (the fact that the "government" in this case was just twelve people who spent most of their time hoeing rows like everyone else didn't matter). Loong had been seeing a woman who'd recently dumped her husband, so now the husband was a prime suspect; maybe he'd followed Loong into the woods, killed him, and then yotes had at him.

This theory made Jun and Evan unhappy - their version with a mysterious predator was much more sexy - but everyone else seemed to like it better. The inconvenient fact that the presumed murderer in this case had already been in Jane's custody on a different charge and couldn't possibly have done the deed seemed to escape most people's notice.

Gretchen and I knew the murder rumor had nothing to it, and that Jun and Evan's theory was closer to reality than not, but we kept our mouths shut. Adding what we knew wouldn't make anyone feel less paranoid at the moment.

"I know what it is," Magdy said, to a bunch of male friends.

I nudged Gretchen with an elbow and motioned with my head at Magdy. She rolled her eyes and very loudly called him over before he could say anything else.

"Yes?" he said.

"Are you stupid?" Gretchen asked.

"See, this is what I miss about you, Gretchen," Magdy said. "Your charm."

"Just like what I miss about you is your brains," Gretchen said. "What were you about to say to your little group of friends, I wonder?"

"I was going to tell them about what happened when we followed the fanties," Magdy said.

"Because you think it would be smart at the moment to give people another reason to panic," Gretchen said.

"No one's panicking," Magdy said.

"Not yet," I said. "But if you start telling that story, you're not going to help things, Magdy."

"I think people should know what we're up against," Magdy said.

"We don't know what we're up against," I said. "We never actually saw anything. You're just going to be adding to the rumors. Let my parents and Gretchen's dad and the rest of the council do their jobs right now and figure out what's actually going on and what to tell people without you making their job harder."