Page 114 of Escape Velocity

With one hand Max clicked his beamer to full power. His quarry was facing away from him. He could shoot the bastard in the back, but he had no intention of taking the coward’s way out.

Steadying himself against the tree trunk, he shouted, “Stop worrying about your former comrades on the ground.”

The man whirled, his eyes widening as he spotted Max at his level in the neighboring tree. He raised his beamer, pointing it at Max.

“You.” He got off a shot, but the blast barely registered in the foliage next to Max’s arm.

“Merde.”

“Out of juice?”

When LaTour didn’t answer, Max said, “Tell me why you did it.”

“Why should I?”

“Dubois will want to know.”

The fugitive swallowed hard, then shrugged. “All right. My sister disappeared. I went charging over to Tudor’s place to look for her. He caught me and took me to his secret room. She was still alive when he let me see her.”

Max’s stomach knotted as he thought of what the man must have seen. Worse, he couldn’t stop imagining Amber in that room playing through his mind.

“He made it clear that the same thing would happen to me if I didn’t start working for him.”

“You could have told Dubois.”

“That faint-livered woman in man’s clothing? What could he have done?”

“More than you think. He’s down there now.”

All at once, with his other hand, LaTour pulled out a second beamer that must have been in the pocket of his pants—held in reserve until he needed it.

He fired with a full charge, but jerking out the gun had thrown him off balance and the shot went past Max’s head and into the tree trunk.

Max hadn’t moved from his position with his back braced against the tree trunk. Willing himself to steadiness, he aimed and fired, his shot striking the man in the chest. He fell backwards, crashing through the leaves and hitting branch after branch as he plummeted to the ground—strange fruit falling from the Patamas tree.

Max heard an exclamation from the ground. Then Dubois called out, “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Come down.”

“As soon as I have a look around.”

Max climbed out on a limb and used it to scramble into the boughs of the tree where LaTour had been standing. On the platform he found a cache of food, knives, and another rope that could have taken the fugitive to still another tree if he hadn’t been surrounded.

“There’s food and knives up here,” he called down. “Do you want them?”

“Someone will come back later,” Dubois answered.

Max climbed slowly down. He’d expected to feel exalted after accomplishing his mission, but instead he felt a kind of numbness as he joined the group of men gathered around the body. Bernard the dog hung back, and Max could only imagine what he was thinking. He had led the way to his friend, and he had come plummeting out of a tree. Did Bernard blame himself? Or could a dog make that connection?

“Are we taking him back to camp?” Max asked.

Dubois made a rough sound. “Waste of energy. We’ll dump him in the first bog we find.”

“That suits me.”

“But first we should find his boat.”

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