Dark Of The Woods

would roll, but at least he and Leah would get by unscathed.
    He hoped.
    "Have they gone by and—" she began.
    He shushed her.
    Outside, the faint sound of footsteps, breathing, and a few muttered commands passed as if down a line in chain communication, echoed in the night and found their way through the shell of the snow cave.
    Davis sat very still, as if the slightest movement might cause the drift in which they hid to collapse and blow away on the wind, leaving them exposed and defenseless.
    The voices faded; the footsteps faded; the breathing sounds were gone…
    The wind replaced all of them.
    "I think it worked," she whispered.
    "Let's wait," he said.
    The time went by so slowly that he felt he was going to have to scream to get it moving again. He remembered how, when he was hollowing out the drift to make a place to hide, the minutes went by so rapidly. If time were not only so subjective, but objective as well, maybe a man would not have so much trouble in life!
    Then the sound of footsteps came again.
    They were slower, more purposeful, and accompanied by commands shouted by the officers to search into the trees as well as to all sides. Every few steps there was a commanded halt when, Davis imagined, every rock and snowflake received an intimate scrutiny. He wondered whether the wind had done its job well enough to allow the seal to their snow chamber to pass that close investigation.
    Then the footsteps drew even with them and another halt-and-examine period was called for.
    Leah took his hand, snuggled against him.
    Time passed.
    He wondered how quickly he could activate Proteus and get him working, then remembered that Proteus could not be used against other men, even if they did mean you harm.
    "Advance!" a voice called. Immediately, the line walked several more paces, past the entrance to their hideout before stopping for another examination of the terrain immediately before it. They were safe. The command had ordered a second search of the valley, had sent tired men back to tackle an even more tiring chore than that which they had just finished. And both times, their dugout had withstood scrutiny and had not aroused any suspicions.
    He was about to turn to Leah to ask what they could do to celebrate the occasion and still remain inside a cramped hole inside a hollow snowdrift on top of a mountain, in subzero weather—but he heard her light, fluttering snore and discovered she had fallen asleep even as the line had been passing them. He shook his head, chuckled, unable to envision the sort of steel nerves that would have allowed sleep at a moment like that, even if sleep was so terribly in need.
    Gently, he unfolded the heat radiating blanket, pulled it around them, aligned the heat makers, and settled down for a night's rest. It was very likely that the Alliance would hang around through the earliest of the daylight hours, just to check the place over one more time, in full light, before admitting the fugitives had slipped through their grasp. But if the entrance seal had been sufficiently covered now, it would even be more obscured in the morning. By tomorrow afternoon, they should be able to break out, rested and fed, and continue the journey. There was the possibility that they could find themselves coming up on the tail end of the Alliance search party, which would now be ahead of them; but as long as they stayed in territory the troops had thoroughly searched, they were safe. And then there was the chance…
    … sleep found him in the middle of the thought.
    It was a dreamless night until, near wakefulness, he began to have a nightmare in which he was caught by Alliance troops, shackled and led away to be turned over to the rep who had promised to destroy him. In the port city, he was taken down into dungeons beneath the gray block building of the government headquarters and chained to a wall where he was beaten, severely, again and again by an assortment of guards. Then the rep had him transferred to a cot where he was tightly lashed, and the ancient Chinese water torture was applied. Drop by drop, the liquid splashed on his forehead, ran down his face and neck. The sound of it grew from an almost inaudible tick to a resounding, crashing boom that was driving him insane. All the while, he marveled at the effectiveness of so ancient and simple a torture in a time when science and man were so developed and sophisticated. It seemed anachronistic. But it worked. Drop… by… drop… booming…