Instead of compounding her stupidityby falling apart and leaving herself open to attack, though, shekept her weapon close to hand and worked on cleaning the rootsshe’d dug and chopping them fine enough that there was hope theycould be cooked quickly to go with whatever meat Quan managed toround up.
She wanted, very badly, to go to thestream and check her trap, but, again, that was risky—especiallywhen the guys were all gone and preoccupied and she had no ideawhen they might make it back.
And she was too worried another squadof drone cyborgs might come—either because they were tracking thefirst ‘missing’ group or because they were building up in the areato launch an attack on a human militia group nearby.
She didn’t know anything about thegroup her sister was with beyond the fact that they’d moved theirbase camp as they always did whenever they had any outside contractor the group had been in a battle. It was the only thing that gavethem a chance of survival even if it wasn’t as reliable as theywould’ve liked.
But she thought they might have movedsouth. Or at least in a southerly direction. The heat of summer waswaning. Fall would be upon them and then winter and they alwayswintered somewhere in the southern areas where it was stillpossible to find enough food to feed a large group.
That made it seem unlikely that therewas a build up because some group of humans was being tracked orhad been spotted headed in this direction.
But it wasn’t impossible that a morenortherly group had begun to migrate south.
Salve to her conscience, she thoughtwryly, and not a particularly helpful salve if she wasright.
They could end up dead center ofwhatever battle was forming up.
And whether that was a good thing orbad depended upon what it was the guys had planned, but she wasleaning toward bad news.
It was already growing dark before theguys returned and Ultima had paced until she’d worn herself out,worrying about them, mentally kicking herself that she had no ideaat all of the direction they’d taken. So she couldn’t even attemptany sort of rescue.
Plagued by the suspicion that she’dbeen abandoned as being more trouble than she was worth.
She was so relieved when she heardthem and knew for certain that it was them that it was all shecould do to prevent herself from bursting into tears.
When she saw how worn down they allwere, though, it immediately redirected her attention fromself-pity to empathy for their exhaustion.
Very likely they’d neither eaten nordrunk anything the entire time because they were inclined to‘forget’ the needs of their bodies for sustenance.
Quan, she saw, was carrying a largestring of fish and her heart leapt.
“The trap?” she askedbreathlessly.
He grinned at her tiredly. “Yes. Avery clever contraption. And food I only had to clean for once …which is a good thing since I am nigh ready tocollapse.”
Ultima rushed to him and kissed himand took the fish. “Even better, they cook quickly,” she saidhappily, crossing to the place where she’d set up to make a fireand placing the fish on the rocks around it with the roots she’dgathered and cut.
It wasn’t the best of situations forcooking. There was nothing but makeshift cooking utensils and‘cookware’ and no seasonings. She couldn’t smoke the fish or fastcook it by heating the rocks first, but it was food, a good bit ofit compared to many of their meals and it was hot.
She enjoyed the hell out ofhers.
And from the looks of the men, theydid also. They looked far more lively after they’deaten.
Xi left to reconnoiter a path to thecreek to bathe after they’d finished.
Ultima was surprised but happy theguys had waited to include her when she could see they were hot andtired.
Xi stood guard while the othersbathed—wading in fully clothed to do what they could to clean theirclothing while they were at it and when they’d come out, they foundplaces to sit and wait on Xi to have a turn.
Quan led the way back, heading out infront of them to make certain they had a clear pathback.
It was probably the most carefulthey’d been in all the time they’d spent in the area and Ultimainstantly realized there was reason behind the extraprecautions.
When they reached their sheltersafely, they hung up their clothing to dry and all four of themsettled bare butts on the pallet that was primarilyUltima’s.
“Eml is building his armyup in this area,” Tau said without preamble. “We could notdetermine the reason behind it—whether it is because he has gottensome inkling that we are up to something or if it is somethingelse. Perhaps something your own military is workingon.”
There was a questioning lilt to hisvoice. Ultima shook her head. “We have no way to communicateelectronically even if it was safe to do it. It could be thatyou’re right. At least twice, I thought I heard troop movementsnearby. But my people tend to move toward the south to winterbecause we are very short on food and supplies of all kinds. Sothat’s possible.”
