Secrets of the Dragon Tomb (18 page)

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We spent the night in the wreckage of the lifeboat. The fall from the treetops had splintered the planks and staved in the right side of the craft, but it still provided shelter from the dripping branches, and I was glad to have something solid between me and the noises of the wilderness night. Strange, yipping voices echoed through the bush. Something large leaped from branch to branch above us, pattering berries, leaves, and twigs on the lifeboat. From all around came the sounds of breathing and scurrying. Once, something shrieked like a baby, so loud and so close that I almost screamed, too.

The interior of the lifeboat was a mess. Bits of broken wood and scattered provisions covered what was now the floor. We did our best to clear space, but in the dark, we couldn't really see what we were doing. Putty and Olivia huddled together in the back of the cabin, pressed against the mostly undamaged planks. I could just make out their pale faces and hands in the fading light.

I wedged myself into the pilot's chair, even though the impact had cracked the post that rooted it in the floor and the lifeboat tilted at a horrible angle. From there, I could see through the wide strip of thickened glass that formed the lifeboat's viewport. The glass had fractured, but it hadn't broken. I hoped that if anything approached the lifeboat, I might see it before it was too late, but it wasn't likely. Beneath the trees and thick undergrowth, it was as black as a cellar. There was no luminescent Martian grass to provide the steady nighttime glow I was used to, and anyway, my eyes kept drifting shut, until some sharp, sudden noise jerked me alert again.

Nobody said anything. I don't know. Maybe we just didn't know what to say. In the end, Olivia and Putty fell asleep. I'd meant to stay awake to keep watch, but I hadn't slept properly for the last two nights, and it was too much. The next thing I knew, sunlight was shining through the viewport right into my eyes. I sat up and almost fell out of my chair. My head was spinning. I'd slept hanging half out of the chair.

Olivia and Putty were still asleep. They were lying close together, arms around each other. They looked peaceful. I would let them sleep for a bit longer while I worked out what to do. Anyway, I didn't think I could deal with talking about Freddie yet. The longer they slept, the longer I could put it off. Just thinking about it made my throat hurt.

When our airship didn't make it to Lunae City, people would notice. They would send out a rescue ship. We'd have to make sure they spotted us. In the meantime, I needed to see what supplies had survived. I swung awkwardly out of my chair.

A trail of slime twice as wide as my hand came over the broken planks, then down into the lifeboat. Whatever had left the trail had crawled around and slid all the way up to where Putty was sleeping. Then it had turned around and slid back out. I'd slept right through it. I shivered. What if it had been something dangerous? I should have
made
myself stay awake. I was lucky all it had done was rip open the supplies and slime them.

I pulled myself through the open hatch and peered into the morning mist. We hadn't actually crashed in a forest. The trees that had caught our lifeboat and made it crash were a soaring spike of wood and branches that jutted high into the air above thick bushes and tall grasses. Around them, the land was as folded and rumpled as one of my blankets after a bad night's sleep.

I couldn't see any sign of the crashed airship or the other lifeboats. The ground was too broken up and hilly. The wreckage could be over the next ridge, or it could be miles away. I didn't even know what direction it was in. The lifeboat had curved and turned so much as we came down that I had no idea where we'd ended up. When the rescue craft came looking for us, we'd stand a better chance of being spotted if we were near the wreckage. But anything could be out in the wilderness between us and it.

“Edward?” Livvy's sleepy voice drifted up from the lifeboat. I squinted into the shadows. Livvy was disentangling her arms from the still-sleeping Putty. “What…?” she started, then gasped. A hand shot to her mouth. “Freddie.”

I lowered myself through the hatchway and dropped down. “He's gone,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten at the words. “He saved us, and now he's gone.” I wanted to just start crying, but I forced my face to stay blank. Right now, someone needed to keep us alive and get us out of here. I could cry about Freddie later.

Tears started in Livvy's eyes. She wiped them away. “Are we…?”

“We're safe,” I said. “Rescuers will be coming. We just have to wait for them.”

I looked over at Putty. She'd rolled onto her side when Livvy had sat up. Her head was twisted around against the hard wood. I winced. If she stayed like that much longer, she'd feel like she'd slept in a bathtub full of saucepans.

I shifted her around so her head was resting on a rolled-up blanket. She flopped loosely to the side again. That was weird. She was still breathing normally, but moving her hadn't even changed the rhythm of her breath. She wasn't normally this deep a sleeper. I knew she must be exhausted from the last couple of days, but still …

I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Putty?”

She didn't respond. I shook her harder. “Putty. Wake up.”

Nothing.

“What's wrong?” Olivia asked.

“Wake up!” I yelled. “Putty. Come on.” I tried to pull her up by her shoulder, but her head just drooped back. Her breathing didn't change at all.

“I can't wake her,” I said. I could hear myself starting to panic. “I can't wake her!”

“Why not?” Olivia demanded. “What's happened? What did you do to her?”

I lowered Putty gently to the floor again. My breath was coming in deep, sharp gulps that made my head swim.

I'd been wrong. Whatever had come in during the night hadn't just crawled up to Putty. The sticky trail ran over her arm. There were two small holes in the sleeve of her jacket. I pulled the sleeve back, and the holes were in her skin, too, little puncture marks like thorns.

“Something got to her,” I said. “Something came in the night and got her.”

 

15

Lost in the Wilderness

Putty's breath was steady and her pulse was strong, but when I pulled up her eyelids, her eyeballs had rolled back. All I could see were the whites of her eyes. Her muscles were limp. I clenched my fists. First Freddie, now this. I couldn't bear it.

Olivia grabbed my arm. “You have to get help.”

I stared at her. “Where?” We were hundreds of miles from anywhere.

“The airship. That's where people will gather. There might be a doctor.” She looked directly into my eyes. “Don't even think about arguing. Parthenia could die out here. I can look after her while you're gone.”

“On your own?”

She raised her chin. “If I have to. I'm
not
going to lose my other sister.”

“Livvy, this isn't—”

She cut me off with one hand, then picked up a bottle of water that had survived the crash, wiped it on her dress, and passed it to me. “You'll need this.”

I gazed at her, uneasy. How was she going to survive? What if something came out of the wild? We might be able to fight it off together. On her own, she wouldn't have a chance.

As if reading my thoughts, she picked up a broken branch. “If that thing comes back, it'll regret it.”

I hesitated.

“You don't have a choice, Edward,” Olivia said. “Neither of us do.”

She was right. We'd run out of choices. I tucked the bottle of water inside my jacket and pulled myself out of the lifeboat.

Under the hot sun, the mist was lifting quickly, revealing hills rolling further and further into the distance. I jumped to the leafy ground and started to hike uphill. I tried not to think of Olivia sitting alone in the wreck of the lifeboat with only Putty's unconscious body for company.

Adventures had never felt like this in
Thrilling Martian Tales.

*   *   *

I spotted the finger-trail of smoke on the horizon pretty quickly, but getting there was even tougher than I'd thought it would be. The land was broken into jagged ridges that looked like long knife blades as tall as houses coming up through the soil. The red rock was sharp and fragile. At one moment, it was breaking off in my hands; the next it was trying to cut them open. I sweated and cursed my way over them. To think, some people did this kind of thing for fun!

In between the ridges, the undergrowth was more tangled than Putty's hair after a morning in Papa's laboratory. Animal trails ran through the undergrowth, but it was so thick it sometimes grew over the top, turning them into tunnels. Clouds of tongue-bugs swarmed from the bushes, trying to lick the sweat from my skin, and tendrils shivered across the earth, snatching at my feet and legs. Once, an arrow-hawk plunged lightning-fast to spear some prey less than a hundred yards from me. Whatever had been attacked bellowed and writhed in agony, kicking down bushes and uprooting trees, before it finally fell still.

Here and there, great spikes of trees, like the one we'd crashed into, rose out of the undergrowth, looking like airship towers made out of wood and leaves.

It took me almost all morning, but eventually I got close to the smoke. The thick undergrowth had changed to finger-thick grass as high as my head. I struggled uphill toward the smoke. I'd almost reached it when I heard angry voices.

I dropped to my stomach and wriggled my way to where the grass ended. Just past where I was lying, the ground dropped steeply down. I'd come to the edge of a deep valley. It was full of great chunks of split red rock that looked like they'd been strewn across it by a giant in a really bad mood. On the opposite slope was the wreck of the airship gondola. Smashed wood and twisted metal had been thrown over hundreds of yards of rock. What was left of one of the great spring-powered propellers jutted into the air. The spring itself had unwound violently, scattering the pieces of broken airship and cutting a track through the ground. Smoke still rose in places from the smoldering wreckage. Just looking at it made me shudder. It must have hit with an almighty crash. I tried not to think about Freddie being caught in there when it smashed down. At least it would have been quick.

A group of men stood nearby, arguing. I recognized one of them straightaway. Dr. Blood's face was red, and he was gesturing at the airship. He was probably worrying about his rock samples. I stilled my breathing and listened.

Dr. Blood's voice drifted up to me from the valley. “I want his body found. If it's not in the wreckage, you'll search until you find it. Understand?”

I goggled at him. What was he talking about?

One of the other men mumbled something in reply. Dr. Blood's hand whipped out, cracking across the other man's face. The other man was far bigger than Dr. Blood, but he stumbled away, then dropped his gaze to the ground.

I pushed myself back behind the ridge. Why was Dr. Blood bossing those men about? Was he looking for Freddie's body? That would mean that he'd been behind the attack on the airship. Wouldn't it? Did that mean he was working for Sir Titus?

Sir Titus!
I hissed under my breath as my brain reminded me,
Ten days
.
Ten days until Sir Titus is done with your family.

He'd wanted to stop us from rescuing our family, so he'd crashed the airship in the middle of the wilderness. He hadn't even cared that innocent people might be killed. Now we'd never even get close to the rescue airship with Dr. Blood waiting. How were we going to reach Lunae City?

The sun was burning hot, and my bottle was almost empty. I only had a single mouthful left. I'd crossed a small, dirty stream about an hour back and I'd filled the bottle there, but it was almost gone again. I swirled the water in the bottle. God, I was thirsty, but if I drank it now, I'd have nothing left.

As his men trudged across to the wreckage, Dr. Blood wiped his brow and walked over to a stand of umbrella trees a hundred yards away, and lowered himself into the shade.

“Good,” I muttered. I might be able to spot other survivors before Dr. Blood spotted me. Maybe one of them would be a doctor.

It was getting hotter. How was that even possible? I'd been in ovens that were cooler than this. My brain felt as if it was frying like an egg in the heat. And not even a nice egg. A pigeon-cat egg flavored with marsh-pepper. I fumbled for my bottle and drank the last of the water.

Yech!
It was disgusting. How could water taste so vile? I licked at the rim of the bottle. If I didn't get more water soon, I'd end up like one of those preserved Egyptian mummies. All I'd have to do was find some bandages.

Maybe I'd been wrong. Maybe the other survivors would stay in their own lifeboats and wait for the rescue airships to fly over. Signal them with fire and smoke. Maybe they were too far away or they hadn't been able to get to the airship. Maybe they were all dead.

I shouldn't be lying here. I should be out looking for them.

Dr. Blood seemed to have plenty of water. There he was, sitting under his great big tree, swigging away. If I could just crawl around behind him, maybe I could grab some …

A shadow swept over me.

If it was a cloud, maybe it would rain on me. I flopped onto my back and stared up, my mouth open.

There, in the sky above me, flying low, was an airship.

Rescuers! Rescuers had come and they'd found us. I could bring them to Putty. We could
fly
there. I staggered to my feet and waved.

The airship slipped over and past. They hadn't seen me. How could they not see me? They must be looking at the wreckage. It didn't matter. I would reach them there.

Wait!
My brain might be more cooked than one of our ro-butler's pancakes, but some part of it was still working.