Part 18 (1/2)

This made all of the cheerful women laugh, for some reason. Roz found herself silently praying for sleet.

Chris pulled over and switched off the engine. He looked at Tony. 'You're in charge,' he said.

The Tzun took Chris's communicator and fiddled with it for a moment. 'This will lead you to his tracking signal,' he said. 'The wood is only a kilometre thick, though it's about five kilometres long. Joel isn't more than a klick from here.'

'What do I do if I run into a soldier?'

'Pretend you got lost,' said the Tzun. 'Don't let them get hold of your communicator under any circ.u.mstances.'

Chris nodded. 'What will you do if you run into a soldier?'

Tony produced a long, silver wand with an oddly shaped, flat piece of metal on the end. 'I haven't used one of these since the incursion.'

'What is it? Some kind of, um, probe?'

The Tzun's hologram smiled weirdly.

Benny shook the Doctor's shoulder. 'G'way,' he said, 'I'm sleeping.'

'No, you're not,' she said.

He blinked awake, looking up at her and Isaac. 'Oh,' he said.

'How did you find me?'

'The usual way - we just followed the trail of disturbances. The hotel owner let us in.'

'Mmm.'

'Are you all right?'

'Doctor?'

'Yes?'

'You and Isaac need to talk.'

'Mmm.'

'Doctor?'

'Five more minutes.'

There was no way to move silently through the forest. No way that Chris knew about, anyway. He settled for crunching along, listening hard with one ear while he held the communicator to the other.

There was some kind of tracking doohickey in Joel's communicator, sending out little quantum pulses that the other communicators could follow. Chris heard it as a soft pinging, Dopplering up as he moved in the right direction.

There was no sign of the soldiers. With luck, they'd already given up and gone home.

It wasn't more than ten minutes before the communicator started pinging wildly, indicating close proximity. Chris switched it off, looking around, puzzled. There was no sign of Joel. He hoped the boy (boy? - he wasn't much younger than Chris) hadn't just dropped his communicator.

'Over here,' someone whispered.

Chris spun around, and saw Joel peeking out from under a fallen tree, his pale face framed by the leaves. 'Wow,' he whispered, hunkering down to help him out. 'You sure were hidden. Any sign of the soldiers?'

'I haven't heard the chopper take off.' The boy was shaking all over. His clothes were soaked. 'But I haven't heard them for maybe twenty minutes.'

'Let's get you back to the car.' Joel nodded stiffly. Chris took out his communicator. 'Tony?' he whispered.

'I'm afraid I can't talk right now!' spluttered the device.

There was a shot, not too far away.

'Oy gevalt,' said Joel.

'Run for the road,' said Chris. 'You'll see the car.'

Joel obediently wobbled off through the forest as quickly as he could manage. Chris ran towards the shot, wondering what he was going to do.

He almost ran right into one of the soldiers. The man was standing stock-still, his mouth hanging open, staring off into the trees. Chris waved a hand in front of the man's face.

Nothing.

Tony nipped out from behind a tree and jiggled his wand about. 'He's just reliving some childhood experiences,' he said. 'He'll be fine. Where's Joel?'

'I sent him back to the car.'

'Let's go.'

Chris followed the Tzun through the tangled branches.

Suddenly, there was another shot. He looked around wildly.