Hallie drove the ATV off the road and around the edge of the ancient trees so that they were hidden from the road, settled among more trees.
“Do you want to find a place to camp?” Hallie asked. It made sense. From what they’d learned so far, New Hope was likely to also be a dangerous place to visit. If they camped overnight, they could head to Reunion in the morning and get Rhodda to fix the radio, call for back-up, or at least let the director know what was going on. She glanced down at the fuel gauge. It was still more than half full, which she judged was more than enough to get them to Reunion, and possibly most of the way back to New Hope as well, and that was assuming there was no spare fuel in the cargo compartment behind her. A glance over her shoulder suggested that there was at least one spare fuel can in the back.
“We need to work out what we’re doing next,” Girard said. He leant forward slightly, eyes on Rhodda. “We managed to get away from the governor’s men. Are the gunners in New Hope going to try and shoot us as well?”
“Probably not,” Rhodda said, sounding reluctant. “Nicholas is the one who wanted the Conclave seat. I don’t think he’d harm you.”
She was telling the truth, even though Hallie could tell that she really didn’t want to. She frowned, eyes on the older woman. “But you seemed to think both places are dangerous?”
“They are,” Rhodda confirmed, and grimaced. “For me, and my people, that is.”
Hallie exchanged glances with Girard, wondering just what else Rhodda had left out of her previous information.
“So we should be safe in New Hope?” Girard asked. Hallie knew him well enough to sense the impatience and irritation under his apparently calm voice. Some of it seemed to registerwith Rhodda as the other woman shifted her weight slightly, away from both Hallie and Girard.
“That would be my guess,” she said, staring out the front of the ATV. That was truthful, if not exactly reassuring. Rhodda glanced at Hallie and briefly looked back at Girard, adding: “It’s a human-only settlement, so you won’t exactly be welcome.” And that was also honest. Hallie found it interesting that Rhodda didn’t seem to realise she was sitting with twohochlen.
“I’d like to hear what this Nicolas has to say for himself,” Hallie said, turning so she could meet Girard’s gaze. “And see what happened to the other settlers from Reunion.”
“Agreed. Alright, we’ll head into New Hope,” Girard agreed.
Hallie turned the vehicle back onto the road and as they followed the curve around the ancient trees, she caught the strong trace of salt in the air letting her know the sea wasn’t far away.
Once past the trees, the road straightened out and for a moment Hallie thought they were about to drive into the sea as all she could see ahead of her was choppy blue water. She eased her foot off the accelerator in instinctive reaction before she realised that view was deceptive. The shore was still a short distance away and before then, the road went down a shallow dip then rose up to disappear through a brick-and-wooden wall into the midst of a collection of buildings.
The settlement of New Hope sprawled across the gently undulating land between the forest edge and the sea shore. It didn’t look like much, Hallie had to admit. There were a few finer-looking houses, with stone or brick walls, gathered together in a group on slightly higher ground to one side. Each of those houses stood in its own space with its grounds surrounded by walls and well-tended garden plots. The rest of the houses were an odd mix. Some looked as if they’d been made out of shipping containers, others had half-brick walls and tiled roofs,still more had the kind of wooden walls and thatched roofs that the settlers in Reunion seemed to have been trying to create.
As they got closer to the settlement, Hallie realised that the paths and roads inside the wall were formed of packed earth, which surprised her. The settlement had been formed about twenty years ago. More than long enough for the settlers to have made paved roads. She was also surprised to see a few stone-built water wells at road junctions, as if the residents still relied on water drawn from the ground rather than delivered in pipes. Which made her wonder just how far advanced New Hope was compared to Reunion, and just what the settlers had been doing in the decades since Paradise had been claimed.
As the ATV approached the gates, a quartet of armed men appeared. They were dressed in almost identical outfits to the ones that Vinny and his men had been wearing. So much so that Hallie wondered, for a horrible moment, if Vinny had somehow beaten them here and was waiting to drag them off to see Jonah.
But she didn’t recognise these men. They looked younger than the men Vinny had brought with him. Younger and somehow more innocent. She couldn’t see any evidence of blood stains, for one thing.
They were blocking the path, so Hallie drew the ATV to a halt and stayed where she was in the driving seat as four guns were levelled at the vehicle.
“Who are you?” one of the men asked. He seemed to be the oldest of the group. A burly man, almost as wide as he was tall, with all of the bulk formed of muscle, most of his face concealed by a thick beard that matched his close-cropped dark brown hair.
“I am Special Investigator Girard Abbott,” Girard said. He had got out of the ATV and was standing next to Hallie, holding up his badge. “I want to speak to whoever is in charge here.”
“Special what, now?” the man asked, frown drawing his thick brows together.
“Special Investigator Abbott,” Girard said, still holding up his badge. He nodded to Hallie without taking his eyes off the man. “My colleague and I have been sent by the Conclave to find out what’s been going on here.”
The burly man grunted, brows still drawn together, and cast his eyes over Hallie and Rhodda. Hallie wondered if Rhodda might say something, or the man might recognise her, but apart from a tightening of his mouth when his eyes lingered on the older woman, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he stayed silent, apparently deep in thought. Hallie gave Girard credit for a great deal of patience as he didn’t move or press the man further. After a pause long enough for Hallie to become acutely aware of just how large a couple of the guns were, and how nervous the men holding them looked, the burly man gave a brisk nod.
“I’ll send word to Master Nicholas.” The man turned to another of the quartet and gave him instructions in a low voice that had the young man running off back into the settlement. The burly man turned back to Girard. “You can come in, but you’ll need to leave the rig here. It’s not one of ours and we don’t want more trouble.”
Hallie realised he was talking about the ATV. She turned the engine off and got out, Rhodda following her. As she did so she realised that she and Girard’s hadn’t followed Rhodda’s suggestion to raid the storage compartments on the ATV while they were on the move and gather supplies to replace the ones they had left behind in their packs. Too late now.
“Leave the keys,” the man added.
“They’re in the ignition,” Hallie told him. He gave her a brief look which she couldn’t read. Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to speak. Then he waved his gun, gesturing for them to move inside the gates.
Hallie exchanged a glance with Girard before moving forward. The man’s tone so far had been just the polite side of hostile, which hadn’t been all that surprising for a human-only enclave, and which she supposed was better than some of the alternatives. If the burly man and his companions decided to use force, she was fairly certain that she and Girard would be able to deal with that. Not least because she and Girard still had their weapons. Perhaps the leader of the group thought that because the weapons were in holsters they were not a threat, which suggested a lack of imagination, if that was the case. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed, which would be a worrying oversight for someone supposed to be on guard duty.
Once inside the open gates, Hallie became aware that the other two men were openly staring at her and Girard. Or, rather, at Girard. She wondered if either of them had ever seen ahochlenbefore, let alone interacted with one and wondered, too, if she still seemed more human thanhochlen. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, still not sure where she fit into the world now she was acknowledged both as one of the elite and Cotovatre’s heir. She’d had enough dealings with the elite to know she didn’t fit comfortably into their high society, but that she would most likely be tolerated because of her ancestor. The humans wouldn’t care about her ancestor, but they would care she wasn’t one of them. She should be used to not quite fitting in. After all, she’d been cast out of her blood family. Her oddness hadn’t mattered as much in low city, which was home to an extraordinary variety of people, human and non-human. But she definitely didn’t fit in here, where the population was restricted to one type of people only.
“Are you expecting trouble?” Girard asked, his tone that of someone making conversation.
