Jak stopped trying to choke her into senselessness. She was staring up at him with a strained smile on her face.
“Stupe,” he said, astonished. “Triple stupe.”
Mildred laughed softly. “No, I think she’s in love with you. Though that might make her more than a triple stupe.”
“Let her up,” Krysty said.
Jak complied and Sunlata pushed herself to a sitting position.
Doc chuckled. “We’re of such a novelty value, especially you, Jak, that whatever loyalty she may have to Joe’s cause is vitiated.”
“I’m betting she doesn’t have much loyalty at all,” Krysty said. “He’s fairly new here and has caused a split in the society. Mebbe she’ll help us.”
Using sign language and the few words of Lakota that J.B. could speak, they were able to get Sunlata to understand that Krysty wanted to visit the crystal chamber.
Sunlata frowned for a moment, tapping her full underlip, then her dark eyes brightened with the enthusiasm of an idea. Pointing to Krysty with one hand, she tugged at her doeskin smock and mantle with the other.
“She’s suggesting I wear her clothes,” Krysty said. She pointed to Sunlata’s black tresses, then her own fiery mane, and shrugged questioningly.
Sunlata pulled up her fringed mantle over her head like a hood and nodded.
Krysty smiled. “I suppose it’s worth a chance.”
She nodded at Sunlata, and the young woman stripped out of her clothes so quickly not even Doc had the time to avert his eyes.
“Uninhibited little minx, isn’t she?” he mumbled.
As Sunlata sat naked and beaming at her from a corner, Krysty put on her clothes. She didn’t take any of her own off except for her boots so she could pull on the high moccasins. With Mildred’s help, she pulled the mantle over her head and tucked all of her red hair beneath it. J.B. emptied the bowls and kicked dirt over their contents.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said, picking up the bowls. Sunlata sat very close to Jak, smiling gayly as though she were part of a vastly amusing game.
Pushing through the pelt covering, Krysty quickly scanned the area for a sentry and she saw one. He was a young man, a teenager, standing about two hundred feet away. He leaned on a lance, his shoulders slouched. He was humming to himself, obviously extremely bored with the duty. He glanced up at Krysty, then glanced away disinterestedly.
As she walked unhurriedly through the forested avenues, she realized that Joe had set a hard task for himself, to turn a basically trusting, unwarlike people into soldiers. The young guard was probably the best choice out of an undisciplined lot.
She heard more shots, and more angry shouts from Joe somewhere to her left, and she turned in the opposite direction. She might have been able to fool a boy with her haphazard disguise, but she knew she would give herself away to Joe if he caught the briefest of glimpse of her.
She followed a circuitous route between the gargantuan tree trunks and finally reached the one that had served as their quarters. She entered carefully, eyes down, but she encountered no one. She assumed almost everyone was either taking part in the blaster lessons or observing.
Krysty stepped into the crystal chamber and put down the bowls, moving to one of the translucent mineral points. She put both hands around it and pressed her forehead against it, then closed her eyes to begin her preparations.
A rich warmth blanketed her as she followed the route of blood through her circulatory system, tracing the autonomic functions back to the controlling portion of her brain.
She slowed her respiration rate and concentrated on the mantra to Gaia her mother had taught her.
Her heartbeat speeded up, then slowed, and at the same time she increased the amount of adrenaline into her bloodstream.
Krysty’s mind went here and there through her body, adjusting it, manipulating it, honing and revitalizing her reflexes and responses. The warmth spread from the center of her belly, flowed through her arms and legs. Her fingertips and toes tingled with energy.
She repeated the invocation, and in her mind’s eye she saw a white blossom opening, the petals reaching out to engulf her. She felt as if she were floating, hovering between the solid material world and one made of warm, insubstantial light.