Huw drove into town carefully, hunting for the diner he'd spotted the day before. He steered the youngsters to a booth at the back before ordering a huge breakfast-fried eggs, bacon, half a ton of hash browns, fried tomatoes, and a large mug of coffee. "Go on, pig out," he told Elena and Hulius, "you're going to be sorry you didn't later."
"Why should I?" asked Elena, as the waitress ambled off towards the kitchen. "I'll be sorry if I'm fat and ugly before my wedding night!"
Huw glanced at his brother: Yul was studiously silent, but Huw could just about read his mind.
"Oh!" She glared at him. "Men!" Yul winked at him, then froze as the waitress reappeared with a jug of coffee. "No sense of humor," she humphed.
"Okay, so we're humor-impaired" Huw started on his hash browns. "Listen, we-" he paused until the waitress was out of earshot "-it depends what orders we receive, alright? It's possible his grace will tell me to sit tight until he can send a support team... but I don't think it's likely. From what I can gather, we're shorthanded everywhere and anyone who isn't essential is being pulled in for the corvee, supporting security operations, or running interference. So my best bet is, he'll read my report and say 'carry on.' But until I get confirmation of that, we're not going across."
Elena stabbed viciously at her solitary fried egg. "To what end are we going?"
"To see if that stuff Yul found really is the remains of a roadbed. To look around and get some idea of the vegetation, so I can brief a real tree doctor when we've got time to talk to one. To plant a weather station and seismograph. To very quietly see if there's any sign of inhabitation. To boldly go where no Clan explorer has gone before. Is that enough to start with?"
"Eh." Yul paused with his coffee mug raised. "That's a lot to bite off."
"That's why all three of us are going, this time." Huw took another mouthful. "And we're all taking full packs instead of piggybacking. That ties us down for an hour, minimum, if we run into trouble, but going by your first trip, there didn't seem to be anybody home. We might have wildlife trouble, bears or wolves, but that shouldn't be enough to require an immediate withdrawal. So unless the duke says 'no,' we're going camping."
They managed to finish their breakfast without discussing any other matters of import. Unfortunately for Huw, this created a zone of silence that Elena felt compelled to fill with enthusiastic chirping about Christina Aguilera and friends, which Hulius punctuated with nods and grunts of such transparently self-serving attentiveness that Huw began to darkly consider purchasing a dog collar and leash to present to his brother's new keeper.
Back at the rented house, Huw got down to the serious job of redistributing their packs and making sure everything they'd need found a niche in one rucksack or another. It didn't take long to put everything together: what took time was double-checking, asking
"Okay, wait in the yard," said Huw. He walked back inside and re-set the burglar alarm. "Got your lockets?" This time there was no need for the flash card, no need to keep all their hands free for emergencies. "On my mark: three, two, one..."
The world shifted color, from harsh sunlight on brown-parched grass to overcast pine-needle green. Huw glanced round. A moment earlier he'd been sweating into his open three-layer North Face jacket: the chill hit him like a punch in the ribs and a slap in the face. There were trees everywhere. Elena stepped out from behind a waist-high tangle of brush and dead branches and looked at him. A moment later Hulius popped into place, his heavy pack looming over his head like an astronaut's oxygen supply. "All clear?" Huw asked, ignoring the pounding in his temples.
"Yup." Yul hefted the meter-long spike with the black box of the radio beacon on top, and rammed it into the ground.
"It looks like it's going to rain," Elena complained, looking up at the overcast just visible between the treetops. "And it's cold."
Huw zipped his jacket up, then slid his pack onto the ground carefully. "Yul, you have the watch. Elena, if you could start unpacking the tent?" He unhooked the scanner from his telemetry belt and set it running, hunting through megahertz for the proverbial needle in a thunderstorm, then began to unpack the weather station.
"I have the watch, bro." Yul's backpack thudded heavily as it landed in a mat of ferns, followed by the metallic clack as he chambered a round in his hunting rifle. "No bear's going to sneak up on you without my permission."
