Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(42)

"My dad's got the whole rest of the colony to worry about at the moment," I said. "And Mom's in the medical bay, getting fixed from when she dealt with this the last time."

"You don't think that tells you something?" Gretchen said. I turned on her, a little angry, and she held up a hand. "Sorry, Zoe. That came out wrong. But think about it. Your mom was a Special Forces soldier. She fought things for a living. And if she came out of this with a wound bad enough for her to spend her night in the medical bay, it means that whatever is out there is serious business."

"Who else can do this?" I asked. "Mom and Dad went after that hunting party on their own for a reason - they had been trained to fight and deal with experiences like that. Anyone else would have gotten themselves killed. They can't go after Magdy and Enzo right now. If anyone else goes after them, they're going to be in just as much danger as those two and their other friends. We're the only ones who can do this."

"Don't get angry at me for saying this," Gretchen said. "But it sounds like you're excited to do this. Like you want to go out there and fight something."

"I want to find Enzo and Magdy," I said. "That's all I want to do."

"We should inform your father," Hickory said.

"If we inform my father he'll tell us no," I said. "And the longer we talk about this the longer it's going to take to find our friends."

Hickory and Dickory put their heads together and clacked quietly for a minute. "This is not a good idea," Hickory said, finally. "But we will help you."

"Gretchen?" I asked.

"I'm trying to decide if Magdy is worth it," she said.

"Gretchen," I said.

"It's a joke," she said. "The sort you make when you're about to wet your pants."

"If we are to do this," Hickory said. "We must do it on the assumption that we will engage in combat. You have been trained with firearms and hand weapons. You must be prepared to use them if necessary."

"I understand," I said. Gretchen nodded.

"Then let us get ready," Hickory said. "And let us do so quietly."

Any confidence that I had any idea what I was doing left me the moment we entered the forest, when the running through the trees brought me back to the last time I raced through them at night, some unknown thing or things pacing us invisibly. The difference between now and then was that I had been trained and prepared to fight. I thought it would make a difference in how I felt.

It didn't. I was scared. And not just a little.

The rustling, rushing sound we had heard was getting closer to us and heading right for us, on the ground and moving fast. The four of us halted and hid and prepared ourselves to deal with whatever was coming at us.

Two human forms burst out of the brush and ran in a straight line past where Gretchen and I were hiding. Hickory and Dickory grabbed them as they passed by them; the boys screamed in terror as Hickory and Dickory took them down. Their rifles went skidding across the ground.

Gretchen and I rushed over to them and tried to calm them down. Being human helped.

Neither was Enzo or Magdy.

"Hey," I said, as soothingly as I could, to the one closest to me. "Hey. Relax. You're safe. Relax." Gretchen was doing the same to the other one. Eventually I recognized who they were: Albert Yoo and Michel Gruber. Both Albert and Michel were people I had long filed away under the "kind of a twit" category, so I didn't spend any more time with them than I had to. They had returned the favor.

"Albert," I said, to the one closest to me. "Where are Enzo and Magdy?"

"Get your thing off of me!" Albert said. Dickory was still restraining him.

"Dickory," I said. It let Albert go. "Where are Enzo and Magdy?" I repeated.

"I don't know," Albert said. "We got separated. Those things in the trees started chanting at us and Michel and I got spooked and took off."

"Chanting?" I asked.

"Or singing or clicking or whatever," Albert said. "We were walking along, looking for these things when all these noises started coming out of the trees. Like they were trying to show us that they had snuck up on us without us even knowing."

This worried me. "Hickory?" I asked.

"There is nothing significant in the trees," it said. I relaxed a little.

"They surrounded us," Albert said. "And then Magdy took a shot at them. And then things really got loud. Michel and I got out of there. We just ran. We didn't see where Magdy and Enzo went."

"How long ago was this?" I asked.

"I don't know," Albert said. "Ten minutes, fifteen. Something like that."

"Show us where you came from," I said. Albert pointed. I nodded. "Get up," I said. "Dickory will take you and Michel back to the tree line. You can get back from there."

"I'm not going anywhere with that thing," Michel said, his first contribution to the evening.

"Okay, then you have two choices," I said. "Stay here and hope we come back for you before these things do, or hope that you make it to the tree line before they catch up with you. Or you can let Dickory help you and maybe survive. Your choice." I said it a little more forcefully than I had to, but I was annoyed that this idiot didn't want help staying alive.