“Everyone dead quiet,” Ryan ordered. “I’ll kill the first person who makes a sound.”
The midmorning forest was silent. Not a bird flew anywhere near them. Not a squirrel chattered in the high branches. The lightest breeze rippled the tops of the pines all around, and the air carried the faint flavor of salt from the nearby ocean. The sun sailed across a cloudless sky, peeking down and casting dappled shadows.
Krysty’s lips moved, the words just audible to the watchers. “Gaia, help me here. Aid me, Gaia, and lend me your strength for this action, only to save another’s life.” Her green eyes were closed, and she was deliberately controlling her breathing.
“That hunk of wood must weigh three or four hundred pounds, easy,” Ellison muttered, not loud enough to disturb Krysty’s preparation. “Just can’t be done.”
Ryan glanced sideways at the sec man, who caught the look and shook his head slowly.
“Can’t get no air, Dad!” The boy’s voice was ragged with blind fear.
But it didn’t disturb Krysty, who had locked herself into the trance that she needed, moving below the great branch, touching it gently with the tips of her fingers, tensing herself.
“Gaia, help me with your power now!”
Chapter Seventeen
Ryan had seen Krysty use her mysterious, mutie powers just a few times before. On each occasion it had left her totally exhausted, drained of all energy, needing care and rest to restore her to normal.
He had watched as she performed acts that transcended all the normal laws of motion, energy and strength, and seen the toll it took.
But he had never known her take on a challenge that was so obviously impossible. The sec man was right. Trader was right. There was no way on God’s earth that a hundred-and-fifty-pound, five-foot-eleven-inch woman could even begin to move the mass of dead wood that hung over Dean, waiting for the slightest nudge to tumble and smear him into the dirt.
Krysty stood below the behemoth of timber, slightly crouched, taking the strain on her shoulders, steadying the branch with both hands.
J.B. was in charge of Trader, Abe and the sec men, waiting to try to step in if there was anything that they could do to help. Ryan and Jak were less than six feet away from Krysty, all of their concentration focused on the trapped boy, ready to move in at the first sign of movement from the broken tree.
In the stillness there was the sudden, harsh, explosive sucking in of air, a fraction of a second of utter silence, followed by the faint creaking of the wood as it beganso slowlyto move.
Ryan’s concentration was so total that he didn’t even hear the startled exclamation of amazement from many of the watchers. His eyes were on Dean, and the rough bark of the dead branch that held him pinned.
His son had slipped into unconsciousness, his eyes closed, his face suddenly pale.
“Ready, Jak?” Ryan whispered.
“Yes.”
It was moving.
He risked a glance up at Krysty, then looked quickly away, shocked at the naked agony that was etched deep in her face. Her bright green eyes were wide open, staring blindly, her mouth in a rictus of pain, teeth clenched so hard he expected to see them splinter and break. A vein throbbed prominently across her forehead, on the left side. She wasn’t breathing at all, gradually straightened her back under the immense deadweight of the wood.
For a moment she supported the entire bulk, rock-solid, not even staggering.
“Now,” Ryan said, diving in past her legs, Jak moving on the other side. Both of them grabbed Dean by an arm and started to pull him free.
For a single fraction of stretched time, nothing at all happened. The boy’s lower half still seemed totally pinned down, immovable. Ryan braced himself, his boots slipping in the wet dirt, heaving until the muscles in his shoulders and back felt like cracking. Jak was fighting alongside him, whistling between his teeth with the enormous effort.
“Quick!” The single word was hissed in a voice that bore a vague resemblance to Krysty’s, but it sounded as though it came through thick fog, from an infinite distance, a lonely and desperate voice.
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