“I know.”

  “Well, this could do.”

  I remembered stories of flash flooding, of walls of water thundering down dry creek beds in spite of blue skies, and I kept walking.

  “It’s not safe,” I said, echoing the words of my survival instructor.

  Geordie shrugged, sighed, and stifled a yawn, but he kept up. We’d almost made it to the end of the chasm, when we heard voices. The words were unintelligible, but the tone was excited. They weren’t shouting, exactly, but they were relaying information. Geordie and I found hiding places amongst the boulders, and waited.

  For a while, it looked as though the voices were getting closer, but no-one entered the chasm. When the shooting started, it was way over our heads, and then we realized that whoever it was had maneuvered over the hills, while we were working our way through. Slowly, we emerged.

  “Still think we can’t stop?” Geordie asked, and there was challenge in his tone.

  “We’ll get out of here, and find a place on one of the hills,” I said. “These rivers flood.”

  “When there’s been no rain?”

  “What falls upstream can come down in an awful hurry.”

  I watched realization dawn on Geordie’s face, and turned toward the chasm’s end.

  “Who do you think they were?” Geordie’s question stopped me cold.

  It was something else to which I didn’t know the answer. I shrugged.

  “Maybe we could ask them for help.”

  “And maybe they’ll use our gizzards for sausage casings,” I snapped, tiredness, and my temper, getting the better of me.

  The click and whine of a Glauzer 957 being armed, snapped loud and clear down the canyon, setting my teeth on edge. Geordie dived behind a rock, for all the good it would do him.

  “Now, that wasn’t very polite.”

  I turned my head toward the voice, squinting against the glare at the canyon’s end, and wondering if I’d have any time to unsling my own weapon. It wasn’t a Glauzer, but it had a better rate of fire. The voice came again.

  “Why don’t you raise your hands?”

  I turned my head, slightly, following the sound. Whoever it was, they were awful quiet, and fast. It took my eyes a little time to adjust to the shadows, and even then I might have missed him, if he hadn’t moved to bring the Glauzer up.

  “I said, raise your hands.”

  A perverse part of me wanted to argue that he’d only asked me why I didn’t, but it didn’t seem wise to provoke him, so I raised both hands.

  “Now, why don’t you ask your friend to step into the clear?”

  I swallowed, looked across at Geordie.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Come on,” I said. “Glauzer will punch right through that.”

  Geordie stood up, glaring at me, but lifting his hands over his head. When he was standing beside me, other shapes moved in the shadows along the canyon walls. Since when had there been caves? I blinked. And where had the power come from? For all the caves I could see glowed with the promise of light further in.

  “Don’t move.” The order came from a figure garbed in acacia green broken by earth red patches and grass-yellow streaks. The voice was female, but the head and face were covered by the suit.

  I looked at her, looked just beyond, and raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t even gonna twitch. They took my gear, in quick efficient movements, and then ran a scanner over my clothing, removing the extra bits and pieces I’d found came in handy in the caverns.

  “And what do you need all of this for, hey?”

  “Rescuing people like him from their fear of the dark.”

  She stilled, then stepped back.

  “We got another one,” she said, speaking into the mike clipped at her collarbone. “Looks like the interdimensionals were on a hunt after all.”

  “These two?”

  “Shepherd and seeker.”

  Shepherd? That was not a term I’d heard used. Amongst my own people, I was called a guide. I waited, my arms weighing like lead. Beside me, Geordie shivered. Looked like the effects of the adrenaline were wearing off us both.

  “Look—” I began, but her comm unit crackled.

  “Bring ’em in.”

  “Move.” The soldier laid a hand on my arm and pulled me toward the nearest cave.

  As we drew closer, I could see it was some kind of doorway. We were three meters away when Geordie grabbed my other arm.

  “Miranda,” he said, and I could feel the fear in his voice.

  “Hey,” I said, coming to a stop, and bracing against the pull of her hand. “Hey!”

  Weapons came up around me, but the soldier turned. Her masked face moved as though looking from me to Geordie, and she nodded.

  “Knock him out.”

  Before I could protest, one of the soldiers closest to the seeker had hit him over the head with the stock of his rifle. He’d then slung the rifle, and picked up Geordie’s limp form and slung it over his shoulders. It wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, but it was effective.

  “Come on,” the female soldier said, and turned away.

  I followed. Her solution to Geordie’s fear had been brutal, swift, and efficient. I didn’t want to find out what her solution to resistance might be. I had been right; there were doorways in the cliffs—not caves—and the corridors beyond were lit. What I hadn’t expected were the bright, open spaces to which those corridors led.

  Stepping into the first, I looked around. It was a broad open bowl, surrounded by red-and-purple cliffs, and interspersed with pillars of the same rock. At the base of every rock, stood a small stone house, the same color, and, in the centre of the valley, stood a cluster of administrative buildings. I looked up.

  The sky arced overhead, and I frowned.

  “What do you think?”

  The soldiers had stopped with me, and their leader had turned her head toward me. Just when I was thinking I would feel a lot better about things if I could see her face, she removed her mask.

  “Leila!” We had worked together, until she’d fallen for one of the seekers, and taken up residence in the town. “I was coming to warn you.”

  I felt my face fall, remembering the deserted township, thinking of how many lives we’d lost, delivered like sacrifices to a place that should have been safe.

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t know.”

  She smiled, reaching out to place a hand on my shoulder.

  “Well, that much is obvious. Anyway, we had some help.”

  “But, why didn’t you recognize me out there? Why—”

  “—the charade?” The voice was still new, and I turned to watch as the man with the Glauzer stepped into the open behind us.

  “Yes.”

  “Because the interdimensionals are growing more cunning every day. Last shepherd that looked like a friend really wasn’t.”

  “Fortunately, bringing him back through the canyon stuffed up the equipment he was using for camouflage, and we saw what he was before we opened the doors.”

  “They can do that?”

  “Yeah,” Leila said. “They can.”

  She gestured back at the man with the Glauzer.

  “This is Peachy. He’s our liaison.”

  I looked back at Peachy.

  “Liaison?”

  “Come on, Miranda! You knew we weren’t alone in the universe, right?”

  “Yeah, but I thought we’d been forgotten.”

  “Well, we haven’t been. The planet’s still under restrictions, but we’re reconnected.”

  “How long?”

  “Three or four months.”

  “You didn’t mention it, last time around.”

  “We were told not to.”

  I looked back at Peachy, the questions stark on my face.

  “Let’s discuss this inside, hey?” He gestured to Geordie’s limp form. “He’s not exactly light.”