Summerhill (6 page)

Those were audacious words from the person who’d played her hand to get him thrown in the brig in the first place, but hey, maybe she
was
trying to assuage her guilt. That was her problem, though; if she really wanted to help Summerhill, he wasn’t going to hold his breath. In the meantime, since he didn’t have anything else to offer her in the way of proof... “Look, do you mind if I just eat? It’s been ages.”

With a hint of reluctance, Katherine backed off. “Yeah,” she said. “Look, I’m serious about what I said. I’ll be back with your breakfast tomorrow if you change your mind.”

“Yeah,” Summerhill murmured. He picked up the platter and turned away from her, and a few seconds later, he heard the force field turn back on, followed by the hostess’ footsteps leading away down the hallway.

Find Katherine. Make sure you stick with her and everything will be fine.
Things Summerhill wasn’t going to trust anymore: his own instincts, and other versions of himself.

The dog lifted the cover off of the platter, and the rich, warm scent of stew filled his nostrils. The bowl was on the small side, but the stew itself looked thick and hearty, like something that would be served to an actual guest and not some weirdo who was rotting away in the brig. There were no utensils with which to eat it, probably to safeguard against any escape attempts (though Summerhill was hard-pressed to imagine how he’d be able to circumvent advanced
Nusquam
technology with a spoon).

Well, at least Summerhill had the sort of muzzle that was conducive to eating from a bowl even without a spoon. It might be demeaning, but no more so than being stuck in a cell. At least he’d been given real food.

He picked up the bowl, which was warm to the touch, but not hot. Bringing the bowl to his muzzle, he opened his mouth and extended his tongue—

—and then spotted a small note left sitting on the platter.

It had been hidden underneath the bowl of stew, the paper having curled and warped somewhat due to the heat. There was writing on it, and before he even tried to read it, Summerhill recognized the handwriting as his own.

He didn’t know when he’d ever seen himself write anything, but he recognized his handwriting all the same. The words appeared to have been hastily scribbled, too. They said:

“Get ready to make a run for it.”

The very instant Summerhill read the words, the lights in both the cell and the hallway shut off. For a second, the brig was plunged into complete darkness, and then emergency lighting came back on in the hallway outside.

What didn’t come back on was the glowing green force field.

Summerhill was struck with three very important thoughts: that he could, in fact, make a run for it; that if he did make a run for it, the two sentry robots were still right outside his cell; and, that while he did have a possible window of escape, he was really,
really
hungry and didn’t want to have to abandon his only meal in who knew how long.

He attempted to multitask, lapping offhandedly at the warm stew while looking at the two robots. The fact that they didn’t have faces really did make it problematic in trying to tell whether they were looking in at him or not, but so far, they hadn’t shown any obvious reaction to the power outage. Which didn’t mean they wouldn’t have one to Summerhill suddenly sprinting out into the corridor and making a run for it.

The sound of hurried footsteps came from somewhere down the hallway. They got closer and closer, and then Summerhill went wide-eyed as he saw Katherine run right past his cell.

A moment later, one of the sentry robots disintegrated in a bright flash. Recoiling in shock, Summerhill very nearly dropped his bowl of stew, bobbling it from one palm to the other before catching it in both hands again. Katherine let out a shriek that echoed from down the hall. The other robot sprang into action, swinging its pike up before marching down the hall in the direction the hostess had come from.

Summerhill had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t going to waste this chance. Hopping off of the bed, he pitched forward, briefly tripping over his own feet as he barreled out of the cell and into the corridor. Some of his stew sloshed out of the bowl and onto the floor, but he wasn’t about to give up on dinner just because he was running for his life. He spared a brief glance to the right, saw a small group of moving figures at the far end of the poorly lit hallway, and then spun around and caught Katherine disappearing around the corner at top speed.

Yet again, Summerhill thought of the final piece of advice he’d been given before departing the World of the Pale Gray Sky.
“Find Katherine. Make sure you stick with her and everything will be fine.”
Until now, he’d been fixating on the first part of that message. He hadn’t given much thought to the second. “Katherine, wait!” he called as he started to run after her. “Where are you going?”

Another explosion sounded behind him, but he didn’t dare stop to see what it was. He put all of his energy into running without dropping his stew, hoping that he could catch up with Katherine before he lost track of her. The combination of fear and excitement helped propel him, and while he wasn’t so caught up in the moment that he was having fun, he at least had to concede that he couldn’t complain about life being boring anymore.

Rounding the corner, Summerhill was relieved to see that he hadn’t lost sight of Katherine completely yet. This hallway was even longer than the one he’d just run down, but it was empty except for the hostess and himself. “Katherine!” he shouted again. “What’s going on?”

But Katherine didn’t answer. She just kept running, swinging her arms as she tore off towards the far end of the hall. Summerhill did his best to keep up; he was just a little faster than her, and so hopefully he’d catch up to her before she got away. If it turned out that there was something they were right to be running from, then they could run from it together.

Eating while running wasn’t as easy as Summerhill had hoped. Without utensils, he had to hold the bowl up high and dip his muzzle into it. He tried to keep one eye on Katherine as his tongue lapped at the stew, which was still quite hot. More of it got onto his snout and whiskers than got into his mouth, but what he did manage to get was quite tasty. His aching hunger was making him stubbornly persistent despite the minor scalding he was suffering under his short fur.

Before either Katherine or Summerhill reached the end of the hallway, a deep, gruff voice called out from behind them. “Target in sight! Open fire!”

Summerhill spun around and skidded to a stop, spilling more of his precious dinner in the process. There were three beings, all of comparable size, all wearing black, form-fitting suits and black helmets that obscured their features. One of them held up some type of rifle.

Behind Summerhill, Katherine shouted something, but he couldn’t hear what it was. The rifle went off, firing a bright green bolt of energy straight down the hall. To Summerhill’s surprise, it went well wide of him—but it struck the wall right next to Katherine, the impact knocking her aside.

“Stop running, Katherine,” one of the three pursuers said. Due to the helmets, it was impossible to tell which one had spoken. “Come quietly, and you won’t be harmed.”

Though she was slightly off-balance, Katherine hadn’t been knocked off her feet, nor had she lost her nerve. “Bugger that!” she snapped back, and with a quick flick of her wrist, she brought her sleek pistol into her hand and fired. Her shot struck the attacker holding the rifle, and he was instantly immobilized by blue-white energy.

The hostess wasted no time in turning and running once again. Summerhill took off after her, not waiting to see how the other two pursuers would react to one of their number being stunned. The others hadn’t been carrying any visible weapons, but as Katherine had proven, that didn’t mean much.

Katherine hit the door at the end of the hallway shoulder-first. It opened into a narrow, cramped stairwell. Summerhill slipped in through the open door just in time to see the hostess vault over the railing, only to have her feet come down unevenly on the steps, sending her off balance. She fell and tumbled down the stairs, crumpling onto the landing below. It hadn’t looked like a particularly bad fall, but Summerhill hurried to help her all the same.

“Who are those people?” he asked as he hunched down to help her back to her feet.

Dusting herself off and wincing just a bit as she tested her feet and ankles, Katherine said, “Mr. Summerhill, you really shouldn’t be here right now.” She turned to keep running, then stopped to look back at the bowl of stew in the dog’s hands. “Wait, are you
eating
?”

“What can I say? Walking all the way out to the middle of nowhere works up an appetite.”

Katherine opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head and continued her way hurriedly down the stairs, taking them two at a time. She wasn’t limping, and she kept her stun weapon at the ready the whole time.

Thrashing his tail to and fro for balance as he sprang down the stairs after her, Summerhill tipped his ears back to listen for any sign that their pursuers had entered the stairwell behind them. “And maybe I’m not supposed to be here,” he called out in between heavy pants, “but under the circumstances, I don’t think sitting quietly in my cell was really an option.”

One deck further down, Katherine stopped at the landing to grab onto the handle of the door there. “Look, Mr. Summerhill,” she said, short of breath herself. “If you want to do yourself a favor, keep heading down the stairs. They’re not after you.” With that, she shoved the door open and burst into the hallway beyond.

From up above came the sound of another door being violently slammed open. Either the pursuers had found out how to un-freeze their companion, or they’d left him behind in favor of the chase. In any event, they were probably better equipped for a long pursuit than either a cruise hostess or a tired dog with a bowl of stew. Summerhill appreciated Katherine’s advice—and she was probably right about it, too.

Nevertheless, Summerhill went through the door after her and slammed it shut behind him. He realized this probably meant he was in for the long haul, but he couldn’t really say that he’d been any good at making smart decisions up through now anyway. In the short term, though, these folks were going to keep chasing after them, and a service door that didn’t lock wasn’t going to slow them down.

The dog scanned the hallway. If it were like the other areas of the ship that he’d been through, then—

There, in the alcove that Katherine was about to run past, was a tiny decorative table with a small vase full of flowers atop it.

“Katherine!” Summerhill called out. “Toss me that vase!” He set the bowl of stew down on the floor and then held out his hands.

The hostess turned and looked back at him, confused and impatient. “You’re not going to try to fight them off with a
vase
, are you? Because—”

“Just throw it to me. Hurry!”

With an exasperated sigh, she picked up the vase from the table and lobbed it underhand to Summerhill. He only had to lean forward a little bit to catch it, water splashing his face and chest in the process. Sputtering and shaking his head, he dumped the flowers out onto the floor at the foot of the door, then tossed the vase itself aside.

He stretched out his arms towards the flowers, focusing his mind. His pulse raced as he willed those flowers to grow, to change, to sprout up impossibly fast and impossibly strong. He channeled a part of his own individual essence into the flowers, and with that effort came a form of exertion he’d never felt before, but he kept it up, knowing that if anything was going to buy him and Katherine the time they needed to get away, this was it.

And, as he willed it, the flowers did grow and transform. From their thin stems grew twisting vines, thick and strong. They climbed the frame of the door, then spread inward to cover the door itself. First they laced together in a loose mesh, and then they tightened together until the web of vines and tendrils was solid and compact.

There. It wouldn’t stop a group of people armed with energy weapons forever, but it would certainly keep them occupied for a while.

“Okay,” Summerhill said, dizzy and panting as he bent over to pick up his bowl of stew. “Back to running.”

Katherine, momentarily dumbstruck, stood there for a second longer. She then backpedaled a few steps before managing to turn around so that she could make a run for it again. “What did you just do?” she yelled back to Summerhill.

“Hopefully just bought us enough time to get away,” he replied. “Speaking of which, where are we going?”

“I was thinking one of the lifeboats.” If Katherine balked at the idea of the two of them being a ‘we,’ she showed no indication of it. “They won’t be able to follow us if we do that.”

Summerhill was still woozy in the aftermath of his little stunt, and so keeping up with Katherine was even more difficult than it had been before. She did, however, stop to pull a white-and-red lever—a fire alarm, Summerhill realized after the fact—before quickly rounding yet another corner. A series of tiny sprinklers descended from concealed holes in the ceiling, and they started to spray water as the alarm blared through the hall.

A whimper rose from Summerhill’s throat as the water soaked his stew. The dog hurried to get as many mouthfuls of it as he could before the more immediate need to keep running overrode his hunger, and he finally discarded the unfinished bowl with a casual toss. At least the sprinklers were helping to rinse off his fur.

He followed Katherine through another set of doors. “Why don’t you just call
Nusquam
security?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she pressed on ahead, seemingly unperturbed by the water (which was already making Summerhill quite cold as it drenched his fur). The big metal door she stopped at next had a large lever that required both arms to lift. Doing so revealed a small wheel that she spun rapidly until an unseen lock fell open with a heavy
thunk
. She pushed the door with both hands, the water making her slip a few times until the door swung open the rest of the way on its own.

Summerhill followed her inside and closed the door behind them. If he’d had some more plant matter, he could have tried to tangle up the wheel mechanism from this side of the door, but there were no decorative elements in this part of the ship. The lighting was dim and the air was musty. This was one place where guests weren’t expected to come.

A small flight of stairs led down to a short, dead-end corridor, lined with half a dozen sealed hatchways. Katherine had already made her way down to the first. As she pulled it open, she looked back up the stairs at Summerhill. “This is going to be a one-way trip, so you know,” she said. “Those guys aren’t after you. You can probably still slip away.”

Given his options, Summerhill was still betting he had better chances sticking with Katherine than he did trying to avoid not only a group of people armed with energy weapons, but also a team of pike-wielding security robots who by now had probably discovered he’d escaped his cell. “I’ve come this far,” he told Katherine. “No sense turning back now.”

Katherine made no further attempts to dissuade him, nor did she seem upset with his decision. She held the hatch open for him, then jumped in after. The hatch then sealed itself shut behind her.