Jainan came up beside him and followed his gaze. His heart sank.
It was a stunning view, objectively. The patch of snow they had crashed on was halfway up a mountainside. The ledge dropped away ten meters or so from the crash site, and beyond it lay a tumbled progression of black rock ledges half-covered in snow drifts—and beyond that, a panorama of towering peaks and pine-clad valleys. They’d left Hvaren Base at least a hundred kilometers behind them, and it must be double that again to Arlusk. This was untouched wilderness.
It wasn’t hopeless. Jainan rubbed his upper arm convulsively, hoarding the sliver of warmth. Bel and Internal Security were both expecting them. Even if they’d changed their flight plan, it would be fairly easy to guess where they’d gone, and the crash was visible from the air. There would be shelter in the flybug.
Kiem still hadn’t said anything. Jainan risked a glance at him.
Kiem was staring at the expanse of wilderness with a thoughtful frown. He caught Jainan’s glance and shook himself. “Well,” he said again, “we definitely bought ourselves time to appreciate the scenery.”
“Mm,” Jainan said, gripping his other arm.
“Oh shit, you’re freezing,” Kiem said, turning to him. He made to lift his arm as if to put it around Jainan’s shoulders, then seemed to think better of it. “I’m freezing, come to think of it. I’m standing here like an idiot, sorry. There are clothes in the flybug. Let’s kit up, then we can think about moving.”
Clothes in the flybug. Of course there were. Their outdoor coats were packed in their luggage, for a start—how had Jainan not remembered that? He must be mildly concussed. Jainan moved mechanically back to the flybug, feeling his limbs loosen as the stim tab released into his blood, and watched Kiem wrench the hold open. Taam would have been in a towering rage by now. Kiem … wasn’t. Yet.
“Hey! Jainan!” Kiem waved a bundle of fur above his head. “Found your coat!”
The yet echoed oddly in his mind. Jainan put it aside and went over, holding out his hands.
Kiem tossed the coat over. Jainan noticed him grimace after, because apparently even three stim tabs didn’t cover all his muscle pain. For some reason Kiem had pulled all the luggage out of the flybug and onto the ground, and now he half climbed into the hold through the bent hatch, so far that his feet dangled in midair. “Nearly got it,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. “Just a—ah, here we are.” There was a scraping noise, and Kiem drew back out of the hatch with a piece of hold casing in his hand.
Jainan leaned over to peer in, his breaths coming short in the cold. “Why is there a hidden compartment in your flybug?” he said. It was filled with fluorescent fabric packs.
“Huh?” Kiem gave him a puzzled look. “This is just the—wait. I forgot you didn’t grow up here.” He reached in again and pulled out a square orange pack. “You missed the survival modules back in prime five. I guess Thean schools don’t do them? All flycraft have this stuff built in by law.” He pulled a tab at the corner of the pack and orange fabric cascaded out, morphing into a padded, waterproof overjacket. He dropped it on top of the scattered luggage and dived in for the other packs. “Tent,” he called, throwing out another, larger pack. “Food—it’s going to taste like industrial waste, but it’s that or pine needles. Hey, a backpack! Only one, though.” He pulled himself half out and looked around. “Sorry, this is going to take a little while. Pick out the warmest jacket. Uh … you should probably change first.”
“Change clothes?” Jainan said. It was below freezing, and though the breeze was slight, it was turning the cold from a blunt weapon into a lethal one. “But—” He clamped his mouth shut on the last word. Iskaners from this region were experts on winter weather. Kiem didn’t need questioning.
“Your inner layer’s soaked from melting snow,” Kiem said. “That’s why you’re still shivering. We’ve got dry clothes, might as well use them.”
“Oh.” Jainan looked down at his coat and realized that his clammy clothes were making the relentless cold even worse. He took a breath, pulled off his coat, and made himself strip off his shirt.
Kiem turned his back, crouching down to inspect the pile of equipment. Jainan wondered if that was politeness or just a disinclination to look at his body.
Jainan made short work of it, despite the trembling and fingers that fumbled catches. He had to double-layer some thin fabric; he had packed for short spells outside, not the winter night that was on its way. A few meters away, Kiem’s polite detachment had turned into a flurry of activity as he checked fabric for holes and tested straps. Jainan finished dressing and stepped away so as not to distract him.
The breeze was numbing Jainan’s cheeks. He had found his outdoor gloves in his luggage; they made his hands too bulky for his pockets, so he clamped them under his arms as he crouched down to examine the remains of the engine.
Several minutes later, Kiem popped his head over the hull. “I think we’re good,” he said. “This stuff hasn’t been checked in a while, but it looks okay. We’re still in the signal dead zone, so I suppose the emergency beacon’s useless. The dashboard map’s not still working, is it?”
Jainan turned from the wreckage and opened his hand to show the glowing hemisphere of the flybug’s map resting in his palm. “I was just thinking that,” he said. “It has some charge, though no signal. I don’t know where we are.”
“Untracked wilderness,” Kiem said, incongruously cheerful. “Kind of illegally, too, since you’re not supposed to land in landscape reservations. Some hikers would kill to be us.” He inspected the miniature map in Jainan’s hand more closely and tried a command sign, but its sensors had died. He poked it instead. “I didn’t know they disconnected.”
“It was brute force,” Jainan said, gesturing at the bits of wreckage he’d used as makeshift tools. “I salvaged the pyro from the engine and melted the connectors. It doesn’t project anymore.”
“Neat job,” Kiem said. He examined the tiny crystal screen. “Okay, I think I have a plan.” He pointed to a line across the map that Jainan had to look closely to see. “That has to be the rail line. It cuts east-west, so if we’re in the general area I think we are and we head south, we should hit it within two or three days. They strip out the tacime alongside it so passengers can have signal. Our wristbands should pick up the moment we get in range. Then we call for help.”
Two or three days. They had ten days before Unification Day. The ceremonies were taking place on Carissi Station, a space habitat in orbit around Thea, and it would take seventy-two hours on a shuttle to get there from Iskat. They could still make it in time. Jainan didn’t want to think about the consequences if neither of the treaty representatives turned up to the ceremonies. “Yes,” he said. Kiem looked at him. After a moment, Jainan said, “Was there something else?”
“Uh.” Kiem cleared his throat. “It’s just. I’m not sure if that meant ‘Yes, that sounds good,’ or ‘Yes, I suppose we could ignore the glaring holes in that plan.’”