Page 62 of Challenged

“It’s fine. You can come over. Just watch your feet.”

The other raskarran helps Liv over to me, holding her arm the entire way so she can’t trip and fall over the roots. I wonder if this is her mate, but there’s no intimacy to the way he holds her, so I assume he’s not. Watching the level of care this guy provides her, simply because she’s pregnant, maybe a little because she’s in charge - it makes my chest ache.

Be glad, then, that you are stuck here. Because you could never be worthless to me.

A shiver prickles over my skin that has nothing to do with the goo dripping from the ends of my gloves.

“It’s not blight, it’s poison,” I say. “And it can’t spread any more than it already has because the poison is all used up. The tank’s empty.”

Movement at the edge of my vision catches my attention. More raskarrans, more humans coming to have a look at what we’re doing. Liv turns to them, gesturing Sally over. Sally hands Marsal to one of the other raskarrans, then picks her way towards us.

“You’re saying they don’t need to do this burn they’ve been planning?” Liv says. “If it’s not a disease, it can’t be necessary.”

“No, a burn won’t do anything except waste a lot of time and energy.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Liv says. She blows out a relieved sigh, but changes her mind partway through, shooting me a worried look. “Is it? This is good news, right?”

I nod. “There’s no more chemical available to spread. Over time, the level of contamination in the area will reduce. The rain will continue to dilute it, spread it out over a wider area. And eventually, it will break down. The forest must have recoveredbetween Mercenia leaving and Basran’s tribe moving in. That would have been fifteen years or so, right?”

“Something like that,” Liv says.

“The chemical has been spread for twice as long this time round, but even if that means it takes twice as long for the forest to recover, that’s thirty years. That’s still in our lifetime.”

Sally says something in the rumbling raskarran language. Sounds of relief from the raskarrans follows. But then Rardek says something, his tone concerned.

“Rardek says what does all this mean for the path that Jaskry followed?” Sally says. “Jaskry didn’t reach the end of the rot on the path he was following yesterday,” she explains to Liv.

I’ve already been thinking about this, and there’s only one logical answer.

“I think there must be something at the end of it. Another building, another place the team here was using. A place they’d need to be able to get to without fear of running into any monster cats. Maybe a launch pad? I don’t know. But it will be easy enough to find out.”

“We need to do that,” Liv says, nodding. “I don’t want any unanswered questions.”

I think of all the ones I’ve still got rattling around my head. Maybe they play on Liv’s mind more than she first let on.

Liv looks round at the people nearby. One of them is Brooks and she turns to her.

“Have you got any ideas about what might be out there?”

Brooks shrugs. “All my patrols were in the immediate area of the base. I doubt it’s a launch pad, though. The shuttle landed right in this clearing when I came. Communications array, maybe. They work better on higher ground. We often set them up a little way from our main base of operations on missions.”

“It’s high ground here,” I say.

She shrugs. “But there are no satellites here.”

“I would know that if I’d been outside before now,” I say, prompting her to grin.

Liv nods, her lips, previously pressed together in thought, releasing.

“Rardek,” she says. “Will you go to the end of the path Jaskry followed? Find out what’s out there.” As she speaks, Sally translates. “Take Maldek with you. Between the two of you and Angie and Brooks, we should be able to figure it out.”

She looks to me and Brooks for confirmation. We both nod.

“Okay. Leave as soon as you can,” Liv says to Rardek. “I want everyone back here and ready to leave by the time all the women are woken up. Let’s all walk away from this place for the last time together, okay?”

There’s a chorus of agreement. A raskarran steps up beside Brooks, his arms going round her, his lips touching lightly to her forehead. The way Brooks’ smile changes when he does this - it makes her glow.

I feel rather than see my own raskarran stepping up beside me. He doesn’t touch me. Probably wise - I’m still covered in goo.

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