Page 17 of Latham
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He watched her from across the gorge, proud of her. He knew she must be forcing herself to do what was required and it didn’t escape him there was a long pause between her entering the zipline tower and actually making the leap. Helaine was halfway across, well past the white water river that cut through the landscape below when he narrowed his eyes and the first touch of fear invaded his heart. Was her progress slowing?
Looking beyond her to the other side of the ravine, he stared in disbelief as the cliff edge began to crumble and the zipline tower tilted. Nothing could keep it from toppling into the gorge as gravity did its deadly work. Helaine was screaming now, falling with the zipline. He prayed to his gods she was detaching herself from the line but couldn’t remember if he’d told her to do that. He grabbed his rucksack and got it safely on his back, tracking her as she fell. It appeared she’d triggered her antigrav. Certainly the rate of fall slowed but as entangled as she was in the line now, the antigrav was struggling.
With no hesitation Latham ran to the edge of the zipline platform in which he’d been waiting. It would probably get dragged into the abyss as well since the lines hadn’t ruptured but that wasn’t his problem now. Never taking his eyes off Helaine, he launched himself into thin air, trying to get as much forward progress as he could since the antigrav allowed only limited maneuvering while cushioning downward movement. She was out of sight, having crashed into the tree canopy far below.
Concentrating on making the antigrav take him where he wanted to go, Latham prayed to the Ardannan gods again. Surely they couldn’t be so cruel to let him find his fated mate and then rip her away. This is all my fault, beginning to end. He had to douse the terror which threatened to overwhelm him. Him of all people, the coolest head in combat, but where Helaine was concerned he had no reserve of calm to call upon. She’d become everything to him in just a few days.
The antigrav pulses sputtered and he fell the last ten feet or so onto the ground cover in the gorge but close to the stand of trees where Helaine landed. The heavy zipline lay across the turf like a dead snake, twisted and coiled. It only took Latham a moment to detach the now useless antigrav plate and break into a run toward the trees. His famptror was pushing to manifest, angry and scared at the disaster involving their mate but he resisted the call as he sprinted. Helaine didn’t need the bear to defend her right now—she needed the man to take care of her.
When he reached the big tree where she lay crumpled in the interlocking branches, he breathed a sigh of relief to find she hadn’t plummeted all the way to the ground. He could see the antigrav blinking from where he stood so his hopes rose. If the AG had done even part of its job, she might have made it through the fall without serious injuries. He shed the rucksack and pulled out his field first aid kit, not that there was much in there to be helpful in a case like this but better than nothing. Clipping the kit to his belt, he climbed the tree, allowing the wickedly curved famptror claws to appear on his hands since they aided his ascent. Helaine lay about twenty feet above the ground.
“I’m coming, sweetheart,” he called, in case she was conscious. “Don’t move, okay?”
There was no response which didn’t surprise him. Even if she escaped serious injury she’d had the breath knocked out of her for sure. With caution he climbed the last few feet until he was level with her. She was lying in a nest of interwoven, smaller branches and the zipline lay across her body, entangled in the trees.
“Helaine?”
She moaned and moved slightly.
“Try to stay still right now, ok? You did a good job finding a soft landing spot. Let me get you free of the damn line and then we’ll see what’s what.” He inched out along the biggest branch until the point where the intertwined branches she lay in dipped alarmingly and then he backed off. He was able to reach out and get the line off, tossing it to the side, where it plummeted the rest of the way with a thump, disturbing a few furry arboreal creatures who chittered and scolded.
Latham set his first aid pack on the branch beside him and pulled out his multisensor. It was a top of the line military model he’d bought on the black market after getting out of the service and would be able to tell him if Helaine had internal injuries. Fortunately the readouts stayed in the green as he scanned from a few inches above her body, taking note of the damage he could see. She had cuts and bruises and an obviously broken leg.
“Will I live?” she asked in a faint voice with an attempt at a smile that brought unwanted tears to his eyes, which he savagely blinked away.
“Won’t lie, you’re gonna have spectacular bruises for a week or so but the sensor reports nothing damaged internally. How’s your head?”
“I have a headache,” she said, unsurprisingly, raising one hand to her forehead. “But it’s lost in the general aches and pains all over. My—my leg is the worst.”
“It’s broken and once I get you down from your airy perch here I’m gonna have to set it, which will hurt, I can’t lie. Did you black out at all?”
“Maybe briefly, after I hit the tree here but my helmet protected me pretty much.”
“All right, good. Try not to tense up too much while I get you free and to the ground. We can take the helmet off once we’re safely out of the tree.”
“Special snowflake,” she said. “I am one after all.”
He remembered their conversation prior to her first zipline experience and wished he’d never made the flippant remark. “You’re special to me in all the ways, sweetheart, and I’ll never try to minimize your fears and concerns in the future, no matter how high the odds.”
“Damn straight.” Her voice was a weak echo of her usual strength but she stuck her tongue out at him, which made him chuckle despite the dire situation. He was glad Helaine had managed to retain her good spirits despite what she’d suffered.
Extricating her from the branches was a nightmare. Latham didn’t want her aggravating her broken leg and he didn’t want her to fall through the informal web of branches. By the time they were done and he had her on his back for the descent, she’d blacked out once from pain, screamed more than once and was crying as she clung to him, which tore at his heart but it was best to get her where he could treat her properly so he grimly kept going.
Helaine didn’t complain or criticize him or make any recriminations about the decision to risk the zipline which in all honesty he felt she certainly could have. She clung to him with all the strength she had remaining until he was on the ground and could lay her on a bank of mossy green flowers. He was able to do a more thorough check and scan and confirmed his initial finding. He had black market painkillers in the med kit as well and gave Helaine an inject before he set her leg and splinted it. She passed out during the procedure which was just as well.
The spot they were in wasn’t the best place to camp but he didn’t want to move her if he didn’t have to, so he set about constructing a shelter from fallen branches and making her as comfortable as he could. He cleaned her cuts and daubed antibiotic on them, sealing the worst up with medical glue. By the time he had a fire blazing she was stirring on the edge of consciousness and he brought her a nutrient drink.
“Can’t let yourself get dehydrated,” he said as he handed it to her.
“Thank you for coming after me,” she said as she sat up with his help and leaned her back against the tree trunk.
“Of course.” He gave her a gentle kiss. “I thought my heart would never start beating again after I saw you fall. Good job getting the antigrav operational.”
“It took me too long to remember.” She rested her head against the tree. She was pale and shaky and he was concerned about her having to endure a night out here in the wild. She needed a proper bed and medical treatment. “I couldn’t maneuver though, not with the zipline tangling on me. What happened anyway? Why did it fall?”
“The cliff edge crumbled and took the tower down with it,” he said. The scene was engraved on his memory and he’d remember the horror of Helaine falling as long as he lived. “This is all my fault. I don’t know how you can forgive me for screwing up so badly. If anyone was going to fall, it should have been me.”
