“Then you are sorely mistaken.”
Her expression cracks. “I don’twantto be a gladiator slave. But if we can’t think of anything else?—”
“We will.” I grab her shoulders with desperate urgency and immediately worry that I am holding her tightly enough to hurt, but when I lessen my grip, Lydia steps closer, resting her cheek against my chest. I wrap all four arms around her, scudding terrified that if I were to let her go, she would do something horrifyingly heroic and desperately heartbreaking.
“I don’t want us to fuck this up,” Lydia says, “because you and I can’t do anything without fighting.”
I close my eyes, hating that she is being reasonable. Hating that she is being intelligent and brave. And hating myself for what I am about to suggest.
“Mayhaps…we have been looking at this from the wrong direction. We do not need an elaborate plan to lure Atakis and his crew off their ship. If they were to see you, they would chase you.”
“Oh, yeah.” Lydia tips her head back to look up at me, her cheek still resting on my chest. “You’re right. I could show myself to them, and then, when they follow…we could set a trap? I could lead them into the house. I could even lead them into the caves.”
We return to the caves, making a mental inventory of supplies and analyzing the best locations for a possible trap. It is with increasing desperation that we enter the first of the lakecaves, debating whether Atakis and his crew are greedy enough to follow Lydia all the way down here.
“What about this?” she calls from the other side of the lake, pointing toward the net used to drag the algae from the black water. “Back on Earth, we’re always making traps out of nets.” She turns her gaze ceiling-ward. “If we could string it from the roof, maybe we could drop it onto their heads.”
I follow her gaze. The ceiling is covered in stalactites, but mayhaps I could drill a hook into the stone. “You have made one of these traps before?” I understand Humans are a barbarian species without advanced space travel. Yet I had not judged her to be so primitive as to still be using net traps.
“Well, not exactly. But I’ve seen it done. You know, inmovies.”
“Akh…move-ings?” I test the unfamiliar word.
“Broadcasts, I mean.”
“Educational broadcasts?” I am determined to remain hopeful.
“More like fictional broadcasts.”
I am less hopeful, but she raises a hand before I can respond.
“That doesn’t mean they don’t work,” she argues. “Lots of fiction is based on fact.”
“Right…”
She glares in response to my obvious distrust. “Well, Mr. Genius, you think of a plan, then.”
“We…that is…we could…” I cast around for inspiration and find nothing of interest except the net. I hurry around the lake’s edge to Lydia’s side, the metallic footsteps of my boots on the grated walkway echoing through the cave. I collect an armful of net, running the featherlight mesh through my fingers. For all that it is not heavy, it is durable and never rusts, no matter how thick the air is with humidity.
“It would make a good trap material,” I agree. Atakis and his crew would be hard-pressed to untangle themselves if we were to drop it onto their heads. “The main problem will be convincing them to walk under the net. If we were to hang it from the ceiling, one glance up would alert them to its presence. How do your broadcasts solve such a problem?”
“Well, usually this kind of chase happens in a forest where there are a lot of trees, and the net is hidden in the branches overhead.”
“We have trees.”
“Or sometimes they lay the net on the ground, I think, and cover it with leaf litter so it’s not obvious. And when someone walks over it—” She mimes the net lifting up to encase its victim.
“There is not a cleared space large enough in the forest cavern for us to lay the net on the ground. I could cut down some trees, but it would take time. And we would have to make a mechanism to lift the net.” Such tech might have been easy for Roan to design. Not for me.
“What if we were to lay the net over the lake?” Lydia suggests. “If they were to fall into the water, the net would tangle around them. Does it float when it’s not filled with algae?”
“It does.” I look at the lake. “But it would be visible.”
“Not if we turned off the lights.”
“Atakis would be an even bigger fool than I believe him to be if he were to rush into a dark cave.”
“Okay.” She grips my arm, straightening. “How about we lay the net over the lake and turn off all the lights but one?” She indicates the light at the farthest end of the cave with her free hand. “And then I could stand under that light, like a spotlight. Atakis would see me and run forward, straight into the water.”
