Dad’s delirious ravings seemed incredible to those men, and Diego knew they hadn’t really believed him either when he had tried to tell them about the cavern, even though he was obviously unhurt. In a way he didn’t blame them. Now the whole thing seemed like a dream to him-or it would have, except that his father had emerged from the same time and place looking as if he were still trapped in a nightmare.
Diego wasn’t sure exactly what he and his father had gone through. All he knew was that their experience of that time in the cave had to have been wildly different for Dad than it had been for him, because while he felt fine, something awful had happened to Dad in there. Even after the icicles had melted from his hair, it remained white, and his face was drawn and sunken, like a skull’s, the skin dried and far more wrinkled than it had been. The worst part was that except for the initial babblings, he wasn’t responding too much of anything, just staring straight ahead, as if he couldn’t see at all. The doctors said he was in some kind of severe shock, but how could that be? He and Diego had been together, and whatever it was Diego had experienced, it hadn’t been anything to produce such an effect-at least not in him.
At first, he had told the rescuers and the company investigators everything, but when he saw their immediate skepticism, he had sense enough to clam up, beginning to doubt and second-guess his own perceptions. He needed to sort it all out, and he didn’t intend to say any more until he was sure Dad would be tended to by someone who cared about him as more than an employee or a subject for study. Unfortunately, civilian dependent teenaged sons didn’t have much clout with the company hierarchy. Dad needed Steve, and he needed him quick.
And maybe when Steve came Diego could talk with him and go over everything again in his own mind. But right now he shied away from thinking about it.
One thing was for sure, and that was that the company investigators weren’t going to be able to answer any of Diego’s questions. They were too busy third-degreeing everyone for answers to listen to questions.
The girl was looking at him funny. Most of the time she stared straight ahead, pretending to listen to the men as they talked amongst themselves or barked questions at Lavelle. But when they were looking the other way, or at each other, the girl’s eyes slid sideways, trying to meet his, and her mouth opened, as if she were about to speak.
Finally she got up and went outside, and he thought she had to go check on her snocle or pee or something. When she came back, she casually sat down beside him. None of the company men seemed to notice.
“I’m Bunny,” she said, sideways out of her mouth.
“I know. I heard them talking to you. I’m Diego.” He realized he was talking out of the side of his mouth, too. But he felt relieved that someone was finally talking to him rather than around him, and he knew immediately that this girl understood that what had happened to him and his father was not just another academic problem or fact-finding mission.
Her eyes gleamed the same way the dogs’ eyes had gleamed in the darkness, and her lowered voice reminded him of the whisper of the sled runners on the snow.
“I know,” she said. “Are you scared?”
“No-well, scared about Dad, maybe. But otherwise, no.”
“You ought to be,” she said in a tone that implied she knew something he didn’t know.
“Why? Is it going to storm again or something?”
“Probably. But I don’t mean that, I mean them,” she said, nodding to Colonel Giancarlo and the others.
Diego shrugged. “They’re just doing their jobs, trying to find out what happened,” he said. He watched Giancarlo’s fierce expression as the colonel tried for the fiftieth time to catch Lavelle in a lie, and added, “Not that they seem to believe anybody.”
“They’re like that. Look, I’ll be around. If you need anything, let me know, okay? I mean, with your da sick, is your mum going to come down here, too? Does she need a place to stay? My people would help.”