Face to Face, Part 8
by Linda
"Devon, no. Please, don't take my dad away from me!"
Hearing True's cry, Devon turned. Recognizing that the girl was caught in a nightmare, she was not angered, but shocked. She would never dream of doing anything to separate Danziger from his daughter, and she thought True knew her well enough to believe that. But Devon realized that True's dreams were spawned by her illness, and healing her was the woman's first concern. Weighing her options, she decided that she would try to break the fever with cool compresses, since she felt the girl was probably too sick to move. Even if True was well enough to travel, after her early morning run and the Terrians' guidance to this spot, Devon didn't have the foggiest idea which direction she should choose to travel. And apparently her guides had left her stranded. Fortunately, as Devon looked around, she found plenty of puddles of cool rainwater to use in the compresses. The water may not have been as clean as Julia would have liked, but it would have to do since Devon could locate no other.
"Keep it together, Devon." She mumbled to herself as she tried to make her sick charge more comfortable with the blankets she had in the Dunerail. "Let's look on the bright side. True's on foot, so she can't be that far from camp. And I know every one's probably out looking for her. So my priority is getting her well, 'cause if anything happens to True, John Danziger will murder me." She paused and laughed to herself. "Hell, at this point, he'd probably do that anyway."
"When I get my hands on both those stubborn females, I'm going to wring their necks," Danziger muttered to himself.
"What was that?" Cynthia couldn't tell who the broad-shouldered blond man was talking to, but she was curious. It was obvious from the way everyone was acting that he had some kind of special relationship with her daughter, and like all moms -- even ones who had been exiled for a couple decades -- she was curious about her daughter's love life. She certainly had never imagined Devon with a man like John Danziger.
"Just threatening to kill your daughter and mine."
"Oh." Cynthia paused. "You must love them both a lot."
Danziger turned and glared at her, not missing her implication, and then merely picked up the pace, calling out his daughter's name.
In another part of the forest, Magus and Baines arrived at the spot where they had first met Cynthia Adair the previous day. They hopped off the ATV to take a rest and a closer look around, before continuing their hunt for Devon.
"Using the ATV, we certainly made better time than on foot." Magus smiled at Baines.
"Yeah, next time Danziger has an idea to repair vehicles, I think we should shoot him," Baines grinned. "Meanwhile I guess we'd better look for Devon."
"She went in that direction yesterday." Magus pointed out the natural path their friend had taken on her flight. "There's no tracks; I guess the rain washed them away."
"Hey Devon!" Baines yelled out in the vain hope their friend was close enough by to respond. When silence followed, he turned to Magus. "Guess we'd better take off in that direction and pray we're lucky."
"Yeah, I don't want to be in John's line of sight if we come back without her." Magus wished silently that Baines cared half as much for her as John so obviously did for Devon. Of course, the next trick would be getting either man to admit it freely.
"He really loves her. Y'know they finally kissed yesterday?"
"Nope." Magus briefly recalled her conversation with Devon. "How'd I miss out on that little tidbit of gossip?"
"I don't know. I wouldn't mention it to Danziger, though. He nearly took aim at Bess and me with a Magpro."
"Maybe we should create some gossip of our own...."
"Huh?"
"It's now or never," she muttered to herself. Magus mustered up her courage, walked over to Baines and kissed him on the lips, leaving the Ops man completely stunned.
"What was that?"
Magus climbed into the ATV's driver's seat, unwilling to answer his question. "We should get going. At this rate, we're never going to find Devon."
Baines wondered whether he should push the issue, and then decided he wasn't sure where he wanted it to go. So he climbed on the back of the ATV and the duo headed where they hoped they might find their friend and leader.
"Bess, do you think my Mom'll come back?" Uly looked at his lone camp companion with a worried gaze.
"Of course, she will, sweetie. Don't you worry about that."
"But what if she hates her mom so much that she never comes back?"
"Oh, Uly." Bess gave up the pretense of work to put her arms around the young boy. "Sometimes adults have to deal with things that are difficult for them, that they want to avoid. And that's why your mom probably left. She didn't want to deal with your grandmother. But part of being an adult is dealing with things that you don't want to even think about. And your mom's good at that. Look at how she's dealt with all the things that have happened to us since we got here. Your mom always has a solution or an idea; it's just sometimes she has to think about the problem for a while. That's all she's doing. But she would never, ever leave you."
"True did."
"Yes. But as grown-up as you guys like to think you are, True's still a child. Something must have happened to make her want to leave and so she did." Bess noticed Uly's gaze suddenly drop to the ground, where he became very interested in his shoes. "Whatever it is, hopefully we'll figure out what's bothering her or she'll share it, so John and the rest of the group can help her once we find her. Running away is not a solution."
"It is if the ship's about to crash!" Uly smiled.
"A little crash humor, huh? I guess that's true." Bess grinned back, making a mental note to have Devon try and get True's problem out of Uly when she returned. "I think that's what's called the exception that proves the rule."
"Hey, Morgan, can I ask you a question?"
Morgan merely grunted at Alonzo. Not a morning person, he was still angry his beauty sleep had been interrupted at an even more unconscionable hour than usual to look for Danziger's brat. "Irresponsible little twit," he mumbled to himself.
"Morgan!"
"What do you want?"
"What's marriage like?"
Morgan grinned, for despite his bad humor, he found the idea of a married Alonzo pretty funny. Despite his devotion to Julia, the man had a reputation galaxies wide. If the news ever spread, there would be women on several stations in mourning. Of course, Morgan thought to himself, given the wonders of cold sleep, those devoted masses were probably already dead.
"Morgan! Tell me."
"So the great Alonzo Solace, a man revered by women on at least seven stations not to mention those on planets I've probably never heard of, is asking little old me for advice."
"Morgan!" The name was barely distinguishable from the pilot's groan of frustration.
"What irony. What bliss." Morgan waved his arms around as if he were making a speech to the invisible masses. "Loverboy himself asking Morgan Martin how to handle his love life. I have to wonder why."
"Well, you're the only one I can ask." Alonzo was not amused by Morgan's antics and it more than showed on his face. "It's not like we have a run on married men."
Morgan smiled. "Does this mean you consider me a marital expert?" As Alonzo glanced down at the Magpro he was carrying, Morgan wondered if he was pushing the other man to the limits of his patience. "Well, um, I love marriage. There's an amazing certainty in knowing that you and someone else belong together forever, or at least however long your contract is. How long a contract did you guys agree to?"
"Uh, we didn't talk about that." A frown of concern entered Alonzo's face.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. "Well, at some point, you probably ought to. How long do you want it to be?"
"I should probably talk about it with Julia, huh?" At Morgan's nod, Alonzo picked up his pace, quickly outdistancing his companion. As Morgan grumbled and began to move slightly faster, Alonzo pictured Julia in his mind and mumbled one word. "Forever."
"We could search for her forever, and I don't think that we're going to find her. She doesn't have gear and we have no tracks. I don't think that there's any way for us to catch her."
Hours had passed, and Magus surveyed the territory around her in frustration. The pair had already taken several forks, guessing which way they thought Devon might have traveled without the benefit of any clues other than instinct.
"I hate to say this, but I think we'd better just call it a day. It's getting dark." Baines was equally frustrated and worried, although his thoughts would occasionally wander back to that surprise kiss his blond partner had bestowed on him. But he would tuck those thoughts away. Right now Devon's safety was their first and only priority.
"John's going to kill us."
"For what? We didn't run away."
"I don't know that he's exactly rational at the moment."
"We're just being safe. Plus we have no idea where she is. Maybe Devon's found her way back to camp on her own."
"Bess would have called us. I don't think they've found True either."
"What a rotten day."
The skies began to darken once again, foreshadowing yet another stormy night, while the pair called Bess to let her know their plans and then turned around their ATV and began the journey back to camp.
As the day changed into night, Devon sat in the cave with her young charge. Feeling the scalding temperature of True's forehead, Devon worried and fretted. She wondered what had caused True's illness and why the restless young girl was away from the watchful eyes of Eden Advance. True tossed and turned on the makeshift pallet Devon had created for her, and Devon carefully kept the cold compresses coming, praying she could break the fever without Julia Heller's medical expertise.
"Devon, I love Dad, too. Please don't take him away from me."
Devon walked back over to her charge and drew her into a hug, mindless of the risk she could be taking in terms of catching the unknown illness. She held True close to her, rocking her and remembering her own fears of abandonment, her tears when her mother finally did leave her in death.
"True, honey. Your Dad's not going to leave you, and neither am I. I love you, sweetheart." She repeatedly whispered the soothing words, stroking the young girl's hair, tears falling down both faces. "True, I love you and your Dad loves you, so we're just going to have to get you well and take you home. You know Danziger's never going to let you out of his sight again."
"We've got to keep searching."
All of the remaining members of Eden Advance were using their gear but Danziger couldn't bear to look any of them in the eye. He didn't want to see those quietly sympathetic looks, those exchanges that meant, 'Humor him, he may have lost everything.' He remembered those looks from when Ellie died, and he wasn't willing to endure them once again. So he switched his gear to audio. He would only have to hear the sympathy in their voices, rather than look them in the eye.
"John, it's going to storm again. I'm not saying we should stop searching forever, just for the night." Julia was getting really, really tired of her new role as group's sensible leader. She made a silent prayer for Devon's quick return. In the meantime, Danziger was her biggest concern. "True's smart. She's probably holed up somewhere herself to wait out the storm. We should do the same. We'll resume the search first thing in the morning."
"What about Devon?"
Magus and Baines exchanged a glance before Laura spoke into the communication system.
"It's hopeless, John. Devon has a far better chance of finding her way back to us than we do of finding her. All of her tracks were washed away by the rain. We would take paths and then double back, never knowing if we were getting closer or further away. The fact is, she's on the Dunerail and could be anywhere by now."
"So we're just going to give up?"
"Look, pal." Baines grieved for the pain Danziger was going through. They had been friends a long time. "Devon's as stubborn as they come. I don't think waiting for her to come back on her own steam is giving up. In the meantime, we'll redouble our search for True in the morning."
"You guys do whatever you want but I'm going to keep searching." Danziger cut off his gear before any of them could voice their objections, switching over to tracking so they could find him if they needed him. He turned to Cynthia. "You can go back to camp if you want. It's probably going to storm badly."
"Are you continuing the search?" Cynthia watched as the man nodded. Determined, she added, "Then so am I."
Author's Chapter Notes:
OK, everyone. Since I'm a really nice person (no comments, please, Vicky) and a couple people have mentioned that they will be leaving for the Con on Wednesday, I have decided to post two sections each day for through Wednesday to finish off this story. I am doing this out of the goodness of my heart, despite my bitter jealousy toward those who are traveling to New Mexico. Remember, send all comments and gratitude .
Linda
Linda