Read Online The Archivist by Tom D Wright - Free Book Online

foolish urge to brush the hair out of her face.
    Taking my electric light, I head back into the cave and examine the ship for anything else I might want to recover. If something was important enough that Intellinet sent a ship for it, then it’s likely these spare parts in the small hold are valuable. I grab some of everything, like a sort of grab-and-dash jewelry store robbery and stash as much as I can in one of the extra packs.
    Tracing the wires back from where I cut out the generator, the thin cables lead to several small devices that I cannot identify. They look like fins, and I do not see anything else that could be any sort of stabilizer or control, so I add those as well.
    Professor Leasson can puzzle over them back at the Archives.
    Danae is gone when I exit the cave, but she emerges from some bushes on the far side of the small clearing. She gives me a brief smile as she sits by the fire and cleans up.
    “How did you sleep?” I ask as I retrieve a thin, twelve-inch handle from my pack, along with some leather shoelaces and a short rope.
    “Better than I expected,” she says without looking up.
    “Good. We have a long way to go, so I want to get started as soon as possible,” I say, as I unfold the titanium saw blade.
    Without waiting for a response, I hunt around the edge of the clearing for several sturdy saplings that are just the right size. The fog is thinning by the time I have cleaned and trimmed them to length. Danae helps me lash them together with the laces and I add some crosspieces for the pack frame. Finally, I use the rope to attach a long strap to the frame so I can sling it over my shoulder.
    A few minutes later, the goons’ packs, filled with the generator and parts, are tied onto the crude travois, along with my own pack and Doc’s. As I cinch the last knots in place, I tell Danae it is almost time for us to go. Pulling this thing will be a bit tricky until we get back down to the flat trail, but at least the return trip is nearly all downhill.
    We sit by the dying fire and chew on a breakfast of jerky and some kind of fried biscuits that I picked up in Port Sadelow, made of flour, nuts, raisins and some assorted seeds. Not exactly bed and breakfast cuisine, but it will get us back to town.
    Before we leave, I break up the fire and kick a thick layer of dirt over the remaining embers. I doubt I will ever return to this site but just in case, I cover the front of the cave with dead brush.
    Then I step into the travois and pull the front crossbeam up to my waist, looping the strap over one shoulder to help support the dead weight. It does not feel too heavy right now, but I know that as the hours go by the apparent weight will increase exponentially, so Danae gets to carry my walking stick.
    Some beams of light manage to push through the thinning fog as we trudge silently back along the path we came up the day before. When we pass the small ridge where Wally lies buried, I glimpse his cairn. I can be loyal, sometimes to a fault, but I try not to let myself get sentimental while on retrievals. Still, I do pause to catch my breath and adjust the travois before we continue.
    The forest trail from the cave down to the road is narrow enough that we have to walk single file, and strenuous enough that neither of us wastes any breath talking unnecessarily. The sun has burnt off the last of the clouds by the time we get down to the public road, and although we are under a thick canopy of tree boughs, it is warm enough that I take off my duster.
    We make much better time on the open byway; I figure we will reach Port Sadelow by mid-afternoon. The wide road allows us to walk side by side, and soon after we start down the dusty road, Danae breaks the silence.
    “Do you have a ship waiting to pick you up when we get back to town?” she asks.
    “Not exactly. Normally, I would use my sat phone about now to contact the Archives and arrange for a pickup. But when your buddies ambushed us yesterday, I lost