Chapter 23

Adam and Thomas got a welcome surprise when they awoke to find the gleaming A3000 waiting for them only ten yards from their camp fire. Their inherited memories helped them identify immediately what it was and how to operate it.

"Yesss! Ben must have gathered enough material to manufacture it. This means that we can get back to the caves much quicker and without all the walking," said Thomas, clearly delighted that he was no longer going to have to expend all the effort walking home would have taken.

"Yeah, but there's something funny going on here. I don't like it! Why has he sent it for us? It just means that we'll be able to make him pay that much quicker for not telling us about Lillian. Why would he do that?" asked Adam hotly.

Thomas shrugged and began gathering his few belongings. He was just happy to avoid the long slog home and wasn't interested in questioning their good fortune.

"Maybe it's rigged so that we have an unfortunate accident on the way home," suggested Adam, still suspicious of Ben's motives.

"There's only one way to find out," replied Thomas, "door open."

The door of the A3000 swung open and Thomas climbed aboard. Adam hesitated a few moments, but then followed suit. Thomas ordered the doors to close and then mentally commanded the hover craft to head for the caves at its maximum speed.

The water twins slept late and then had another relaxing bathe in the stream before eating an early lunch and then packing up.

"If we make the same time as yesterday, we should be back at the caves just before the light gives out," said Ben.

"Have you checked on Adam and Thomas?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, they're in the hover craft and speeding homewards. At the rate they seem to be going, they'll be at the caves before we are."

"I hope Adam has managed to get things out of his system. It would be nice to get back to everybody just working as a team to make life easier," said Sarah.

"Mhm," Ben agreed absently.

An idea had just popped into Ben's head and he was completely distracted. He was a pace or two behind Sarah as they walked, so she couldn't see the sudden look of excitement on his face.

Adam and Thomas didn't stop the A3000 to eat, but instead merely chewed on some cold meat as the little bubble vehicle sped through the countryside. They made excellent time and were back at the caves with almost an hour of daylight still remaining.

As the hover craft slowed and came to a halt outside the caves, there were exclamations of joy from both Elizabeth and Hannah. The girls abandoned the children and darted forward to welcome their mates back. Hannah in particular studied Adam to see what kind of mood he was in after being away for nearly four weeks.

"Where is he?" Adam snarled.

Elizabeth and Hannah were both taken aback by the venom in those three words. They couldn't understand why Adam was so angry still.

"What do you mean? You went after him, why would he be here?" asked Hannah.

"No, not David. Where's that bastard Ben?" demanded Adam.

There could be no doubting the depth of feeling in the way Adam was talking, but neither of the girls could understand why he would be so mad at Ben.

"Ben's away getting more material so we can replicate another hover craft," answered Elizabeth. "What has he done to upset you?"

"You mean he still hasn't told you?" barked Adam.

"Adam, stop talking in riddles! Hasn't told us what?" asked Hannah.

"I was right all along. David did take Lillian and Ben must have known that. If he can 'see' people from miles away like he says he can, then he must have known David had her. The bastard was supposed to be keeping an eye on David — he promised us that he was doing that! How was it possible for the sneaky little bastard to walk into our camp and take my daughter?"

Hannah and Elizabeth were stunned by what Adam was suggesting and it took them a few moments to recover enough to speak. Those moments were taken up by more ranting from Adam — mostly about what he wanted to do to either David or Ben when he got his hands on them.

"That's just not possible!" snapped Hannah at last. "We asked Ben if David had Lillian and he said no. You must be wrong Adam, why do you think David has her?"

"We found a drawing she had made in David's cave, but if that's not enough proof for you, we both saw her!"

Hannah and Elizabeth swung their attention to Thomas for confirmation and he nodded.

"We followed him for three weeks and when we caught up with him at last we saw Lillian sitting on the back of his horse. There's no doubt that David took her," he said.

"But why would Ben lie about something like this? Why wouldn't he try to help us get Lillian back safely?" asked Hannah almost to herself.

"Why indeed! That's just what I want to find out, now where is he?" demanded Adam.

"I told you, he's off getting more materials for the replicator. He should be back sometime in the next day or so," Hannah replied.

Her face had taken on a dazed look as she tried to come to terms with the awful news Adam had shared.

"I still don't understand," she almost whispered. "Why would Ben keep this from us? How could he do such a thing?"

"As far as I'm concerned he's as much to blame as David! He was the one who was supposed to be keeping an eye on David so he could warn us. I mean, the sneaky little bastard could have walked in here with his gun and shot all of us! We've lost a daughter and it's as much Ben's fault as it is David's in my book. For that, he's going to have to pay!" growled Adam.

"No, Adam! There must be another explanation, Ben wouldn't do this. Not Ben," argued Elizabeth.

"What other explanation can there be? Fact - David took Lillian, both Thomas and I saw that with our own eyes. Fact — Ben can watch people from miles away — he proved that to us. Fact — Ben told us all that he would keep an eye on David to make sure we weren't in danger.

"Even if he somehow missed David sneaking up on us, even if he somehow missed David taking Lillian, he must have been able to see whether David had her after the event. We asked him to check on David and he should have told us then, but he didn't!"

The others found it hard to argue with what Adam was saying. Ben had demonstrated his ability to connect to people and Hannah and Elizabeth both had experience now of using the metal nugget too. They couldn't understand how it would be possible for Ben to watch David and not know that he had taken Lillian.

"Who sent the hover craft to pick us up?" Adam asked.

"It was Ben's idea. He has been following you on your journey and knew where to send it. He said it would make sure you got home to us quicker," answered Hannah.

"Okay. That means he doesn't realise that we know that David took Lillian. It's the only scenario that makes sense. Why would he want us home quicker if he knew we had found out about Lillian?"

"What are you going to do to him?" asked Elizabeth.

"Beat him, kill him, banish him — I don't know! But I'll tell you one thing, the first thing I'm going to do is take those fucking nuggets away from him!" snarled Adam.

Elizabeth and Hannah at last became aware of how all the shouting, expressed anger and naked aggression was affecting the children and they shooed them back into the communal cave.

Adam remained outside with his spear, knife and axe all within easy reach. He was thinking furiously and came to a conclusion. Getting up, he returned to the cave.

"Listen everybody. When Ben and Sarah get back we should all pretend we don't know about Lillian. That way we might find out what Ben's up to and we can also try to find out how much Sarah knows. Maybe we can trick Ben, but we should try to get as much information as possible before we have to confront him.

"At the very least I need to know if David is still alive and if he has Lillian. I'll beat him to death if I have to to get that out of him, but we should try to trick him first."

"Are you sure you can control yourself long enough to try to trick him?" asked Hannah doubtfully.

Adam gave her a hard look.

"This is our daughter we're talking about. I can do whatever it takes to get her back."

Ben's idea had been growing and taking shape all afternoon as he and Sarah walked back towards the caves. He knew his twin and the others would be impressed with what he had come up with and the potential benefits for everybody were almost unlimited.

"Why didn't any of us think about doing this before? It's so obvious! We've got replicators and we've got an entire planet's worth of resources. All we need to do is use the replicators to produce drones and we can set them to work to mine, refine, manufacture, build, maintain — everything! The sky's the limit!"

By now Sarah knew that something was going on inside her twin's head, but she knew him well enough to wait for him to share it. He would choose his own time and she didn't want to spoil his surprise.

Using his nuggets to constantly check the path ahead for trouble had become second nature to Ben and he did so periodically as they walked. When they were only a few miles away from the caves he made a routine check and Sarah saw him come to an abrupt halt.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked with concern.

"Link with me," Ben said by way of reply.

Sarah gripped her pouch and linked with him. They were both now looking down at the bubble shaped hover craft sitting outside the caves and beyond that stood both sets of twins, barely in the mouth of the communal cave.

As they watched Sarah heard what Adam was saying. She heard him clearly.

"Listen everybody. When Ben and Sarah get back we should all pretend we don't know about Lillian. That way we might find out what Ben's up to and we can also try to find out how much Sarah knows. Maybe we can trick Ben, but we should try to get as much information as possible before we have to confront him."

Sarah gasped out loud. Adam and the others knew about David and Lillian and they were planning something against her and Ben. Her frantic worry meant that she missed the next few things that Adam said, but the grim look on his face was enough to let her know how much trouble they were in.

"I'm going to break the link." she heard Ben say and then the view of the cave and the twins was gone.

"Well it looks as if Adam and Thomas are back before us just as I predicted," said Ben.

"Ben! They know! How can you be so calm? We're in big trouble, did you see the expression on Adam's face? He means to hurt you, really hurt you. What are we going to do?" whined Sarah.

"I suggest we go along with the little plan that Adam seems to be cooking up. If they're going to play a game and pretend they don't know about Lillian, then we can play the same game long enough to find an answer to all of this. As for Adam, don't worry. If he thinks he can take me then he's kidding himself. He's not big enough or ugly enough to take me one on one. Don't worry, everything will work out fine."

"But how are we going to explain not telling them about David having Lillian? They'll only keep the game going for so long, how do we explain when they eventually confront us?"

"That's easy. I'll lie. I'll simply say that every time I checked on David there was no sign of Lillian with him. That's possible, particularly if I was only checking on him for a few seconds every few days. How can any of them argue with that? They can't know for sure that I saw Lillian."

Sarah looked doubtful and Ben could read her expression.

"Look, none of them really know how the nuggets work. Hannah is the only one that has any experience (Ben was still unaware that Elizabeth had actually linked with them before) of using one and that's been limited. I can claim that the view I have when I link is pretty limited — limited to the head and shoulders of the person I'm watching.

"If that were true it would be highly unlikely that I would see Lillian."

"They won't believe that. The way you've described things in the past makes it clear you can see more than just a person's face. You described what each of the twins was doing outside the cave, remember? When you proved the nuggets worked you had them all go outside the cave and do something and then you told them what they did. No, they're not going to believe the 'view' is so limited."

"Okay, I'll stick with my first idea then. I'll just say that Lillian was never around whenever I checked on David. All they can say to that is that they don't believe me. They can't prove anything and if I keep denying it then what can they do?"

Sarah still wasn't convinced, but she couldn't come up with a better alternative. Ben took her hand in his and started walking again.

"Don't worry, everything's going to be okay. I promise," he said.

To a casual observer, the welcome that Ben and Sarah received when they reached the caves seemed genuine enough. The water twins knew better though and they could sense the underlying tension coming from the other couples.

"Thanks for saving us another long walk by sending the A3000," Adam said as he slapped Ben on the back.

"No problem, I've done enough walking in the past few years to know how much of a pain it is. With the materials I've got in the pod we should be able to replicate another one and that should make life easier for all of us," Ben replied, trying to keep his voice as natural as he could.

Despite being sceptical about Ben's plan, it was typical of Sarah to throw herself into it with all that she had. For that reason she led with what was almost a direct challenge to the others.

"We know what happened to David because Ben was 'watching' over you, but did you find any trace of Lillian at all?" she asked.

Her question threw Adam and both of the water twins could see a moment of doubt flit across his face.