A light they would have to extinguish.
Jak heard a low whistle coming from Blake’s direction, followed by two, more distant, replies. For his own part, Jak whistled low, cracked by the dryness of his mouth and throat. He turned and headed back to where he had left the others, maintaining his crouching run even though it was almost certain that they were alone along the top of the valley and were safe from observation.
Ant and Dee were already with Blake when Jak arrived back. The four men quickly exchanged what they had seen. It all added up to the same thing: Sunchild had something in mind, but there was no immediate attack and there was no increased guard.
“Okay,” Blake decided, “we head back to the main party, tell them what we’ve seen.”
“They’ll be exhausted after coming through in this heat,” Ant began.
“Mebbe Harv’ll let them rest before the attack, cool down in the night.”
Blake laughed shortly. “Hell no, boys. You know Harv better than that. He’ll just want to go in hell for leather. Hit ’em hard and hit ’em fast. Just in case.”
Jak kept silent, but wondered why Harvey would want to risk additional losses by sending in people who were tired and not one hundred percent after such a long journey. He suspected it may have something to do with the fact that Alien would, as the fair baron he was, put himself in the front line of the action. The older man would be weary, and Jak knew that he wasn’t a good fighter. More than that, the baron had a woman back in Raw who was in some way connected to the sec chief, and to whatever was going on behind that metal door.
And just mebbe it had something to do with that and with whatever had happened to Dean. Because Jak was as certain as could be that the boy wasn’t in Samtvogel.
All this went through his mind as they began the journey back toward the two-lane blacktop. They had spent almost half an hour on their survey, which meant that the war party should only be about fifteen minutes away. If the light had been better, then they could possibly have seen the party advancing. But as it was, the sun had now set, and the cold air closed around Jak like a vise, colder somehow after the intense heat of the day.
As they marched back, it was as much the thought of Dean being trapped still in Raw as the fall in temperature that made the albino shiver.
THERE WAS A BLACKNESS.
A blackness like the thickest blanket placed over him, a blackness that enveloped his face, cutting off air, as well as light, wrapping itself around his head until it blocked out sound. Blocked out everything, so that the only impressions he had of anything around him were the faintest of impressions, muffled in the blackness.
But gradually it improved. Gradually, things began to filter back. Slowly at first, but then with an increasing speed until the sound became too loud, every last breath from his own body like the rasping of a saw on metal, every step in the room like the pounding of a hammer on a wall. The light became stronger than staring directly into the sun, creeping through his closed eyelids until he screwed his eyes tight, so tight that he felt he would pop his eyeballs back into his forebrain.
And the taste. Like raw earth and salt as his own sweat and dust from the air around coated his tongue, matting on his taste buds.
The air suddenly came back to him, acrid with sweat and fear, great drafts of air, the slightest breeze like a hurricane in his nostrils, the previous struggle for air now replaced with the fear that he would drown in the onrush of oxygen.
All the time he tried to move his arms and legs. But they were constrained still. At first he couldn’t tell, as his body felt detached from his consciousness, and then as his body and senses became overly sensitized it felt as though every muscle and tendon were borne down by their own weight, pained by its own sensitivity.