Ryan measured off the paces, then dropped into the trench. “Root’s here somewhere. Let’s get it found.” He took one of the digging tools they’d gotten from Cardamom and shoved it at the wall of earth in front of him.
The curved blade sank easily. Once the root was found, the digging would go fast. Ryan pulled the shovel free, smelling the deep, rank smell of the loam.
“Got some dead buried in here,” J.B. commented. He stepped back from his place farther down from Krysty and dragged a skeleton out of the wall by a bony foot. As the skeleton came free, it opened up a chasm in the soft earth. It also increased the general stink hovering inside the trench.
“Cardamom said there was,” Krysty reminded him. “They bury them all around the ville, adding to the compost. According to their beliefs, it helps return the nutrients to the soil, paying for the ones they took out.”
J.B. dropped the skeleton into the trench on top of the two freshly dead men, then went back to the wall, walking farther along.
“Here, Ryan.” Doc pulled his trenching tool free of the wall on the other side of the trench, spilling clods of dirt over his boots.
“You sure?” Ryan asked.
Doc swung the shovel home again. This time they all heard the dull thunk of contact being made.
Ryan brought his shovel over, adding his efforts to the old man’s. “Do it. We’re going to need a space wide enough we can walk through.” He wielded his shovel with a vengeance. Dirt fell at his feet, moist and crumbly.
“Lover.”
He glanced back at Krysty. The beautiful redhead’s face held a troubled expression. Her hair was standing out from her head, moving restlessly, and it wasn’t propelled just by the wind. “What is it?” Ryan asked.
“Something.” Krysty shook her head, obviously having a hard time finding the words or the certainty. She walked forward and placed her hand on the rough surface of the root, spreading her fingers to cover as much of it as she could. “This root’s alive. Alive in a way much like those tanglers.”
Ryan knew Krysty’s mutie senses put her beyond what normal people could decipher about all the intricacies of life. And she didn’t imagine things. “Meaning what?”
“Voices,” she said, as if her attention were focused on something far, far away. “I hear voices.”
“Whose voices?” Ryan asked.
“The voices of the roots,” Krysty replied. “I can hear the roots talking. To each other.” She put her other hand on the spot Doc and Ryan had cleared. Her brow wrinkled. “And something more. Some Other.”
She paused, then shook her head irritably. “I can’t say, lover. I just know that the Other is there, and is aware of itself even in the tangle of voices coming from the roots. It’s something different.”
“What about Mildred?” J.B. asked.
“I can’t tell.” Krysty remained with her gaze fixed on the exposed root. “There are people inside. A lot of them. The roots know they are supposed to keep them protected.”
Ryan looked at his lover, noting her sudden pallor. “You going to be okay in there, or are you going to have to stay out here?”
Krysty hesitated before answering. “I’ll be okay, lover, but the power of these roots is very strong. I can feel the spirit of Gaia in them. They’ve connected with something very old, or maybe they’ve been a part of it all along.” She took her hands back from the root. “One thing I am sure ofwhen you cut into that root, it’s hooked up to an alarm system of some sort that will warn Boldt.”
“You sure?” J.B. asked.
Krysty nodded. “I got a glimpse of it while I was feeling out the power of the roots.”
“Know what?” Jak questioned.
“No. But it felt alien from the roots, separate but connected.”
“Perhaps the roots are wired into one of the computers,” Doc conjectured. “There was some experimentation along those lines that I saw when I was back in the Totality Concept labs.”
“So he’s going to know we’re coming,” Ryan said.
“Someone’s coming,” Krysty corrected. “I don’t think he’ll know who.”