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Her radio.
Grabbing was rude. More than that: grabbing might antagonize Demetria, and that was
counterproductive. Not to mention potentially suicidal.
"Two of the scouts brought this in," Demetria said. "Is it the talisman you wanted?"
"Point them out to me this evening," Kyria asked. "I'd like to thank them myself."
There must be something in her equipment she could spare: a knife, maybe, or maybe the penlight.
Or the idea struck her the way the sunset struck the valley below, with the force of revelation: if I'm
picked up, there's no end to the things I can give these people!
Unless, of course, her rescue party had heard of the Prime Directive. Which, considering the number of
Trekkies in the Air Force, was all too likely.
She bent over the restored equipment, testing it out. Once she got it working, maybe she could lay out a
landing field or some kind of X-marks-the-spot for a rescue helo.
And then, it would be time to hurry up and wait. For the mists.
Or for anyone else dependent on the mists to arrive.
It could be rescuers for her.
But it could also be hostiles. Bosnians. Croatians. Albanians. Or, seeing that the mist respected time as
little as it respected persons, they might have to watch for anything from stray soldiers from Alexander
the Great's time to crusaders to Ottoman Turks.
The more the merrier, or the more genetically diverse.
As long as the Amazons could continue to take them.
In, of course, a manner of speaking.
* * *
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
The fire had died to a memory of smoke. Frost had formed on her sleeping bag. By the time the
Amazons emerged, appallingly alert, from their sleeping pelts, dampness in the air had wakened Kyria.
You never did get much sleep at altitude, she recalled. Just as well. It would keep the guards awake and
slow any potential attackers.
She gazed out over the rock lip. The sky was lighter, but if she was expecting a spectacular sunrise, she
could forget it.
Already, the bowl that was the valley had filled.
With mist, ruddy from the sunrise.
Was this the condition they'd been waiting for?
She heard Demetria whisper a prayer. Odd to find that, at this end of time, the Amazon was as big a
straight arrow as she.
How long would the mist last? The best Kyria had been able to get was: it lasts as long as it lasts.
Apparently, the weather-wise mist-wise? among the Amazons could sense when the mist was due to
arrive.
Demetria lifted her head and nodded.Go . The Amazon gathered her own gear and soundlessly dressed.
She reached over and tested the radio one last time. It had survived impact. Would it survive this too?
She checked and loaded the flare gun.
Last night, she'd marked the clearing herself for a helo landing. She was running on a lot of assumptions
here: assuming the mists held long enough to call in a recovery mission. Assuming it could see the landing
field, such as it was.
Assuming it was an Air Force helo.
Hippolyta had taken one hell of a risk sending her up here. A risk she'd been glad to take in the hope
that Kyria would be able to do something for the tribe that had taken her in.
And that might be the rashest assumption of all.
"Let's do it," she muttered to herself and began transmitting.
She sensed when the number of women at her back began to diminish. There'd be hunting parties out
today for certain. Amazons hunting men; men hunting Amazons.
Over the centuries, they'd had to have built up a certain amount of blood feuds that made
twentieth-century backlash look like a love-in.
From the corner of her eye she could see Demetria slipping from point to point, talking to the various
scouts. Which ones were set to watch her?
Possibly none, Kyria thought.Hippolyta trusts me, after her fashion . AndI gavemy word .
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
And I'm just going to go off and leave these people, aren't I? Hardly seems right.
Neither did involving the Air Force in their survival strategies or the Amazons in twentieth-century style
ethnic cleansing.
I'll think of this tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day. And possibly, another century.
She bent over the radio, searching from frequency to frequency. From time to time, she picked up noise
. . . chatter . . . something . . . but nothing that told her that this clearing on a desolate mountain peak in
ex-Yugoslavia had any connection to her own time and place. The mist thickened below them, reaching
up to lap about them. Damn! How could a chopper spot her in this kind of limited visibility, let alone
make pickup?
It would have to wait until the mist started to dispel. Assuming she could raise an Air Force unit.
Assuming they hadn't called off the search. Assuming . . . oh damn.
What was that?
Electricity crackled across the miles, accompanied by crisp words, made almost incomprehensible with
static. She could take those words, take them and twist them into a rope, a lifeline.
Swiftly, she bent, whispered her own message in answer to the demand she heard.
"They're coming!" she hissed at Demetria, who had returned from briefing her scouts. She nodded. And
checked the positions of her staff, her bow, and her arrows. At least the sword was sheathed. For now.
A scout, scarcely more than a girl, rushed up to them, crouched over. Demetria hissed something that
brought the scout's eyebrows up in surprise.
"We've got visitors," the warrior said.
"How're they armed?"
Demetria shrugged. "The usual. Bows. Arrows." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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