Earthseed

laughed and poked her gently in the side. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
    “I’m not.”
    “You are.”
    “You’re always with her. It’s natural to wonder.”
    “She’ll find somebody else. Ho can have her. It doesn’t matter to her where she gets it.”
    Zoheret looked down. He said it as if Bonnie were something he could use and throw away. The pleasant spell had been broken.
    They walked silently for a while. Manuel shot her one last look and then darted ahead.

    It was still light when they reached forested land; they were not far from their goal now. Zoheret would sleep in her own room that night. Manuel had been trying to make her look foolish; she felt as though he was using her in some game of his own. Perhaps it was Bonnie who had grown tired of him.
    She could hear voices. Annie turned and shouted, “There’s someone up there.” They hurried forward to a small clearing; Zoheret pushed past Dmitri for a view.
    The Red team was in the clearing. Most of them still wore their red scarves around their necks, but their clothes were shredded and torn. Four members of the Red team were lying on makeshift stretchers made of tree limbs, ponchos, and torn pieces of clothing. Kagami, lying stiff and still, was one of the injured.
    Zoheret ran to her friend’s side. Kagami opened her almond-shaped eyes; she tried to smile, then bit her lower lip. Zoheret knelt and took her hand. “What happened?”
    Kagami shook her head. Gowon hurried over. “I’ll tell you what happened.” He looked around at the others. “The Brown team boobytrapped us, at a ravine on the path leading up to the river. They’d covered part of it with leaves and twigs and we didn’t see it until too late. Maybe Ho was hoping you’d fall into it.” Gowon made fists of his hands.
    “We weren’t going to take that route,” Kagami said weakly.
    “We were going to take the long way around the lake,” Gowon continued, “but we’d lost too much time getting there, so we decided to head up to the river instead. We were going pretty fast when we came to the ravine. Brendan broke a leg. Kagami has a couple of fractured ribs. I think Federico’s hurt bad—he’s dizzy, and he passed out a couple of times. Karl has a sprain and his leg’s swollen.” He paused. “It took us time to make stretchers. Then we made a splint for Brendan and bound up Kagami’s ribs. When we got to the river, we saw that the tree was down and we couldn’t cross, so we had to go all the way around. That’s why we only got this far. When I catch up with Ho—”
    “Why did his team let him do this?” Annie asked.
    “You ought to know. Anyone who didn’t want to help was probably too scared to stand up to him.”
    Zoheret stroked Kagami’s hand. Anoki and Willem had been with Ho. She looked up at Gowon. “Why didn’t you send someone for help?”
    “We were going to. But they wouldn’t let us.” He waved a hand at the injured. “They made us promise to finish the Competition, even if we can’t win now. Kagami said we had to show we could do it. We’ve been taking turns with the stretchers.”
    Zoheret gazed at her injured roommate, then at Manuel, who was fidgeting. She turned back to Gowon. “Come on. We’ll help you carry them.”
    “Wait a minute,” Manuel said. “We can still win, you know. They can get there by themselves, and we can tell Ship to get a cart ready to take them to the infirmary.”
    Something snapped inside Zoheret. “You go ahead and do that,” she shouted. “But I’m going to help them. We don’t have our time recorded until we’re all through, so you just go ahead, because you’ll have to wait for me anyway.”
    “I’ll help, too,” Annie said. A few others murmured in agreement.
    “I’ll help, too,” Gervais said. He faced Manuel. “If we all help, we can move them more quickly. If winning means leaving them behind, I don’t want to win.”
    Manuel gave in. Zoheret helped Gervais lift Kagami’s stretcher; Robert and Jorge held its sides. She rested the poles against her shoulders. Manuel stepped back into the shade of the trees, took the map from his pocket, and tore it into little pieces, scattering the white flakes.

    They reached their goal by dark. Gowon and another boy had gone on ahead; a medicart with four cots was waiting at the door. The young people put the four stretchers on the cots; Jennifer climbed in after them. The cart rolled down the corridor.
    Zoheret glanced at Manuel.