Chapter 65

Drex rose from his vigil at the monitors.  It had been two days since the arrival of the Coellum and it remained unclear how safe it might be to make any moves.  Katherine had learned a new name, Commander Tavon Voss, who seemed to be the leader of the landing force.  His addresses over the publically accessible transmissions had let them know a few things, but only a very few things.  They knew that Chieftain Dol was dead.  His body, or what was left of it after the fire had been extingushed, had been identified.  The cause of the fire, however, was still a mystery.  Amnon Saxe was dead.  This was a terrible blow to Katherine, but at least she couldlet go of the hope that he might come through the door at some point.

Voss reminded his listeners often that the Coellum were not on Merlain to take over, but to root out those who were determined to keep the other realms under the weight of their misguided power.   He reminded them that Zungher Dol was not a native Merlain, but that he’d been a rebel on Coellum who sought the peaceful Merlain to put his cancerous theories into practice.  He said that once the champions of the Dol government were rounded up and a new Merlain government could be put in place, they would leave.  Voss would end each transmission asking if anyone knew of the whereabouts of the Princess Lillian to contact them.

It was this last part that was driving Katherine up a wall.  Lillian was right there.  She was tending to her day and night.  Drex kept insisting that until she was safe to move under her own power, it was not safe to move.  He felt he needed the real princess to use as the ticket to pass from the safe house to the Colleum command center untouched.  Lillian was improving, but after only two days of recovery, she was still not able to cross the room without nearly fainting.

As for Evan, he’d become almost useless.  He had no dragons to slay, no wrongs to be righted, and even his caged animal energy had cooled till he spent his time staring blankly out of the window.  It was the same as when he’d stopped being a detective back in Athens.  As much as Katherine had a hard time with the active detective part of Evan, the brooding, purposeless recluse was even less attractive.  Katherine hoped and suspected that this behavior wouldn’t last long.  Soon, Evan would figure out some other bit of trouble in which to ply his mind.

So, it did not surprise her that on the second evening, as they sat silently munching on the meager rations from the safe house provisions, Evan suggested that they start taking a proactive approach.

“They way I see it,” he began, “we’re just sitting here, doing nothing.  Provisions are only getting lower.  And all the while Voss is looking for Lillian.  She’s right here, but we have no way to tell anyone.”

Drex silently chewed his food and swallowed.  “She’s not ready.  Voss is looking for anyone attached to Dol’s government, which is a lot of people.  I’m dressed with government clothes.  Both of you are clothed in government clothes.  We walk out of here.  We get picked up.  We give them the story they want to hear, ‘We have your princess.’  You think we’ll be believed if we don’t have her with us?  It’s possible, I suppose, but I don’t want to risk it.  I want us to wait a couple more days, let Lillian get more strength in her.  Then we move.”

“It’s not that don’t see the logic in what you’re saying,” Evan said.  “It’s just, Katherine, didn’t you say, what did you say about the provisions?”

Katherine was surprised to be included into the discussion.  “I honestly don’t remember.  Everything’s a blur.”

“She said that we’re running… What I’m saying is, we may not be able to stay here a couple more days.  Our provisions run out, we lose our health, Lillian stops improving, we’ll have missed our window if we sit on our hands.”

Drex slid his eyes over to Evan, “I assume you aren’t speaking without a plan.  What is it?”

Evan adjusted in his seat to better face Drex.  Katherine recognized this as the caged animal in Evan starting to wake up.  She stabbed at another morsel of food.  “It’s almost dark now, yes?” Evan said.  “We go out, you and me, tonight.  We start setting up a, I don’t know the term here, but a perimeter.  We haven’t heard any military activity all day, which means they’ve either moved on or drawn down.  Either way, as long as we are stuck in here, we don’t know what the conditions are out there.  You and me, we go out there, under cover of dark, and see what we can see.  If it gets dicey, we know to cool our jets.  But, if it’s calm as lake water out there, we might be able to start moving Lillian toward Commander Voss.”

“You’re going to get caught,” Katherine said, not looking at the men.

“How you figure that?” Evan asked.

“I don’t figure that.  I just assume with Amnon and Keetha dead, our luck hasn’t been so hot.  We step out there, wouldn’t we run the risk of being picked up by either trigger-happy Coellum or trigger-happy Merlain?  We have more enemies than we have friends.”

“I think we have to assume all of our friends are here in the house,” Drex smiled in a sad way.

“We can’t just sit here and waste away.”

Drex set his utensil down.  “I see that I’m going to say no, but that I’m not the leader Amnon Saxe was.  You see me as a peer and so you think you have as much right to lead what’s left of us as anyone else.  So, I’m going to say no, and you’re going to continue to convince me.  I’m going to keep saying no, and you’re going to keep at me till I say yes.  So, I’ll say yes now to save the headache.  How about that?”

“You make me sound like a nag.” Evan said, returning to his plate.

“I tell a lie?”

Evan didn’t answer.  “So, when should we leave?”

“I don’t know,” Drex said, “You’re the leader of this group.  You tell us.”

Katherine watched Evan swallow this insult and try to move on without erupting into a shouting match.  She was proud of him.  He hadn’t always shown such restraint in similar situations.

“We wait a little longer.  Till the sky is as dark as possible.  You and I head out, see what we can see.  Come back here and make some plans.  Do you still have cameras?  Some kind of viewing device we can use to send back images here?”

Drex nodded.

“Okay, now we’re cooking.  We take those.  Get a visual on the area.  That’ll help with the plans.

“What I’m I supposed to do Eisenhower?” Katherine said.

“You stay here.”

“Of course.  Why should I be any help to you out there?”

Evan pushed back another surge of emotion.  “It’s not that.  Lillian has responded so well to your care.  You’re a natural at it, Katherine.  She doesn’t need to be unattended for a moment.  Plus, as you said, should we get picked up, which we won’t, don’t give me that look, Lillian won’t be abandoned at a point when she is almost back to full strength.”

“She’s a long way from full strength,” Katherine said.  “I just want to make that clear.  I don’t know what full strength for her is, nor do I know how long it would take someone to heal from whatever took it out of her.  But it’s a long walk from here to, do we know where this Voss guy is?”

“Based on what I’ve seen in the transmissions, he’s likely set up a post in or near the city plaza.”

“Would we take Amnon’s transport there or walk?” Katherine looked at the two men.

“I think walk,” Evan said after a moment.  “We might manage to all squeeze in there, but what we would gain in speed, we would lose in maneuverability.”

Katherine looked at Drex.  It seemed Drex could be convinced either way.

“So, anyway, that’s my two cents.  I’ll stay here and do the womanly nursemaid thing.”  Katherine stood and began to clear the table.

She placed the dishes in the kitchen area before poking her head into Lillian’s room.  The princess was sleeping.  Katherine hoped saving her was worth all of this trouble.  She went back to cleaning the dishes as the mummer of Drex and Evan planning droned on behind her.

The dining area was spic and span by the time Evan announced he and Drex were headed out.  He asked Katherine if she needed anything from him before they left.  She thought it was kind of him to ask, but still so hurt at not being deemed worthy to go on the adventure that she said nothing.  Then, after giving his wife a quick peck on her cheek, Evan lead Drex out the front door and into the night.