Skye Object 3270a by Linda Nagata Page B

stopped to draw in a deep breath of forest air, filling herself with the scents of humus, sunlight, and unseen flowers. Then she let it all out again in a long, drawn-out whoop that echoed off the valley walls, “ Yee-oww! ”
    Ord startled, slipping halfway down her back. Buyu jumped so hard he almost fell down. Devi spun around as if the acid dragon were charging him from behind. Zia looked like she’d been frozen. One glance at their shocked faces and Skye started laughing so hard her belly hurt. “You . . . all,” she stammered, gasping for air, “are the most . . . depressing lot of ados I have ever run with. Look at this beautiful world! This is the first time we’ve ever been on any world . . . except for Buyu of course . . . but you all haven’t even looked at it yet! Open your eyes. Open your lungs! Stop moping, because if you think that warden’s going to slow us down, you don’t know me at all.”
    â€œIt occurs to me,” Devi said, “that I really don’t know you at all.”
    She winked at him, as Ord climbed back up on her shoulder, and tapped at her neck. “Something to look forward to, then.”
    â€œThis is serious, Skye.”
    â€œSooth. But we haven’t been defeated yet . . . unless you all have changed your minds?”
    That drew a chorus of denials.
    â€œSkye’s right,” Zia said. “We’re giving up too easily. There’s got to be a way to lose our warden.”
    Buyu shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
    â€œCould we split up?” Skye asked.
    â€œI’d be suspended for it,” Buyu said. “And the warden would only summon another.”
    Zia gazed anxiously into the forest on the southern side of the road, where the warden had disappeared. “Should we be talking about this?”
    â€œIt’s probably okay,” Devi said. “The wardens usually run themselves, though it is possible that some bored handler in the city could be monitoring what it sees and hears.”
    â€œWe should be careful,” Buyu said. “Did you see Sensei Matilé? She knew something was up.”
    Skye hit Buyu with a wicked smile. “Buyu, just for a minute, pretend you were Sensei Matilé, and you saw two nervous-looking ado boys with two nervous-looking ado girls, heading off for a day alone in the wilderness, and, my my!, how upset they are at having a warden along watching them. If you were as real as Sensei Matilé, what would you think?”
    There was silence for several seconds, and then Devi and Zia erupted in laughter, while Buyu flushed red up to his ears. It took him a few minutes before he could manage any response at all, and even then it was only to point out, “That still doesn’t solve our problem.”
    â€œI’m thinking about it,” Skye said. “Give me time.”

    After that, they talked and laughed on the long hike out of the valley. When they reached the crest of the ridge, they paused for a few minutes to look back at the huge black terminal building, and the massive gray pillar of the elevator column rising up into the sky like a giant shaft driven through the world’s heart. Skye squinted, but she could not make out the bulge of Silk 300 kilometers overhead.
    â€œSo which way from here?” Zia asked, gesturing with a juice bottle that she had scavenged from Buyu’s pack. The road ended at the ridgetop. It had been built by Silk’s original people a long time ago, and it never had been put to formal use. Modern Silkens traveled either by air or on foot, to cause the least disturbance to the biosphere.
    â€œThe acid dragon is supposed to be south,” Buyu said. “So let’s head the other way, up into the mountains. There’s a stream just over this ridge. We can follow it up. There are pools and waterfalls all the way. Lots of opportunity there.”
    Skye smiled at his choice of words. No one had