Read Online Wine of the Gods 05: Spy Wars by Pam Uphoff - Free Book Online Page B

eyes open. The two women had been insatiable. "Are we insane? Why didn't we run last night? We haven't the faintest idea where they are taking us."
    "Home to Mother?" Bran snickered. "We really do need to study these people. Up till now all we've done is beat up a couple of them, and occasionally eavesdrop. I mean, what sorts of names are these? Egto, Idre, Kael?"
    "All four letter names. If you call those names. They sound like some scrambled code. But one of the soldiers called his sergeant Neartuone, so that's not universal."
    "I thought he said Near to One? Sort of like a title."
    They wrangled over their insufficient data and slept off and on for hours before the sausage-like vehicles slowed and stopped. They rocked back and forth like a carriage with people stepping in and out, then sat there, still. Oscar closed his eyes and tracked the Oners, and when they settled off a small distance, maneuvered the last coffin carefully side ways so they could get past it, and carefully opened the hatch. Yes. It was dark. They hustled off into the grass and brush to relieve their bladders.
    "All right. Maybe I'll survive this madness after all." Bran looked around. "If I don't starve. I'm not sure we ought to cut too far into their supplies."
    "C'mon." Oscar led him around camp and way downwind before cutting across and sneaking close enough to an undersized deer to snap out a slice and kill it.
    Oscar gathered wood for a fire, while Bran took care of the butchering. They stuffed themselves on half seared meat and argued about whether the creature was a deer or a goat.
    "The antlers are all wrong for a deer. And it's a female, shouldn't have antlers at all. It's got to be a type of wild goat." Bran pulled the last chunk off his skewer and popped it in his mouth.
    "Two long horns . . . you know, apart from the color it's a bit like some of the Black Goats. Maybe we just ate Dydit's cousin."
    "Yuck. You would think something hideous like that." Bran swallowed his mouthful anyway.
    "Whatever it is, we're going to regret eating so much of it tomorrow." Oscar buried the fire and they left the rest of the animal to scavengers as they walked back to the Oners camp. They stayed out in the brush most of the night, then swiped some food cans from the other floater before they snuck into the storage compartment in the predawn as the camp stirred.
    The vehicle only moved for half the day, or more accurately, the motion changed mid-day. A recognizable rocking, a relaxing all though his body. "We're on a boat." He sank down and listened to the sea for awhile. "Half of them are all over on that side of the boat, and half are in another boat behind us."
    Bran finally poked him. "I don't care if it's broad daylight, I need to get out of here."
    They shifted the coffin again, and opened the hatch carefully. Nothing in sight but the rail of a boat and open ocean. Bran warped light and slithered out. They checked the odd boat carefully. It had two long thin hulls, connected by a braced cross platform. The masts and sails were in the center part, the Oners in the other hull. This side fit the floating vehicle perfectly. Oscar looked around and spotted the other ship behind them. "So long as we keep down and the other ship doesn't come around to starboard, we can sit out here." He reached back into the compartment for a couple of cans. "Hungry?"

Chapter Ten
    15 March 3488/ L ate Winter 1361
    Gate Camp, Asia, Comet Fall
     
    "Their uniforms match the pictures we have of the city police in Karista." Damien frowned down at the dead body. "Shot, you say?"
    "Oui. And then kept just above freezing." The Army doctor snorted. "I may not be a real coroner, but I do know a body lying out in just below zero for less than half an hour shouldn't be cold all the way through. Stomach contents were different between the three of them, they didn't eat in a mess or anyplace with a limited selection of food. Apart from that, there's not much to say."
    "H mm. I wonder if