Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“Is she there in that corner with you?” asked Mother.

Rigg nodded and truthfully said, “She’s right here.”

“She’s not—sharing space with you, is she?” asked Mother. “Because if I have these men ram these iron bars into your body, she’ll be forced into visibility and the two of you will make a nasty explosion. Are you thinking that will be your revenge? That the explosion will kill everyone in this room?”

Rigg did not have to pretend to feel wounded. “Don’t you know either of us, Mother? We love you. We would never do something that might hurt you.”

“Stop,” she said to the men. “No, keep moving the bars, you fools, jus

t stop pressing forward.” The men obeyed her. “Rigg, you see there’s no escape. I know you know exactly where she is. Step away from her and allow your deaths to have dignity.”

“In other words, you have a use for our bodies.”

“Of course I do,” said Mother. “But I can make do without them. As I will. I will leave the room now. When the door closes behind me, they will pierce your body—and Param’s. It’s a shame I wasn’t able to say good-bye to her. But . . . no matter.”

Mother turned and headed for the door.

Rigg smiled at the soldiers. “You know that she’s just given orders for you to do something that will blow you all to bits, don’t you?”

But the soldiers seemed not to care. Rigg looked more closely—their eyes had a bit of a glazed-over look, and he realized now that they had been drugged. They could take brutal action, could follow orders—but could not recognize when those orders would lead directly to their deaths.

The door opened. The soldiers stopped waving the iron bars and prepared to thrust them like lances.

“Now would be a good time,” said Rigg.

He could hear a faint grinding of ancient machinery in the wall behind him. But nothing resulted from it.

We really should have tested the mechanism, thought Rigg. Just because it looks just like four other secret entrances to the passages doesn’t mean it’s in the same condition.

The soldiers leaned back, ready to make their lunges.

There was a metallic clang right behind him, and Rigg ducked. A section of floor, beginning right under his feet and extending along the outside wall, suddenly rose up as the wall behind him tipped back. For a moment the strip of floor and strip of wall made a V that swung from one side to the other. Then it was dark, Rigg was lying on his back, and there were half a dozen thunking sounds as the iron bars were bashed into the wall.

“Sorry,” said Param softly. “One of them was standing on the end of the floor section. The counterbalances couldn’t handle his weight and yours too. But when he shifted his weight to his back foot in order to lunge, then I could pop it up.”

“You heard everything?” asked Rigg.

“Yes,” said Param. But she added nothing, and her voice didn’t even sound upset. Was it possible she had known all along what a moral vacuum Mother was?

“I think we need to get out of here before they start throwing axes into all the walls to find the whole system.”

“Oh, most of the walls are stone.”

“But some of them aren’t,” said Rigg.

“They’ll put the soldiers in a line around the house,” said Param.

“At first.”

“And by the time they realize their mistake.”

“That’s the plan, yes,” said Rigg—recognizing his own explanations in the words she now said. “But General Citizen is smarter than most people.”

“I know,” said Param. “So he won’t count on his soldiers to catch you. He’s like Mother—he’ll have a plan that makes us come right to him, whether we want to or not.”

“You might have mentioned this before,” said Rigg.

“You didn’t tell me till now that it was General Citizen.”