Read Judgment for Free Online

either didn’t hear her, or didn’t care.  
    “Listen,” he said. “You’re lucky to have got away from there. I wasn’t sure how I was going to extract you and your others without the distraction.”  
    Meaning the gunshot. Jeanine looked up, but again Cameron’s eyes silenced her.  
    “Our others. That’s what I’m talking about. We have to find them.”
    “No worries. My friend was in the opposite tunnel. I followed you; he meant to go in after them.”  
    “They could be in trouble.”  
    “You were the ones in trouble, my friend. Still are.” He seemed to perk his ears, listening for alien sounds echoing through the hallways.  
    Cameron flinched. Something cold touched his bare arm. It took him a moment, in the dark, to realize it had been the wet nose of a dog sitting silently by his side. A large black lab that seemed to belong to their new guide. But the dog required no instructions and behaved like a human. Cameron wasn’t sure if the animal was shepherding their group of three or herding it. It seemed calm enough, but Cameron wondered if that would change if he tried something the dreadlocked man didn’t want, like fleeing in pursuit of his friends.
    “I have a vehicle outside. It is sufficiently hidden. You were not going to escape on foot, as we saw you come. I am fairly confident that my friend has already ushered the rest of your people from the lower level. Go back now, and you will only increase your chances for peril. I am a competitive man. If my assistant returns with a greater percentage of those he was charged to save, I will be disappointed. So please, stay close. Even one of you getting eaten takes my record down to 50 percent.”  
    Cameron’s brow furrowed. He looked past Jeanine’s questioning face to the man’s, but his head was still forward.  
    “Why are you doing this?” In Cameron’s mind, nobody in the modern world acted out of kindness. They’d seen oppression in Heaven’s Veil, tyranny in Roman Sands, and nothing but defensive selfishness everywhere else they’d gone. To Cameron, these caves were supposed to be a hideout for their group and their group alone. Piper held the naive belief that they might find people here — and that if they did, those people would welcome their presence instead of killing them outright as threats.  
    “My dog likes you.”  
    Beside Cameron, the dog licked its lips, watching him with big, placid brown eyes.  
    “Come. The way is clear.”  
    The man walked. Cameron followed first with Coffey behind him. The dog, true to the man’s words, padded along silently at his side as if on a leash.  
    “Who are you?”  
    “My name is Peers.”
    “Is that a first or last name?”
    “I prefer the allure of a single name. Like Madonna.”  
    “What?”  
    “Basara,” Peers said.  
    Cameron assumed he’d just been given the man’s last name, though he could have it backward. Neither order was more obviously correct.
    “Come. We need to keep moving.”  
    Jeanine gripped Cameron’s arm. Their quarters were too tight for her to say anything unheard, but the grip and her eyes broadcast enough.  
    And Cameron attempted to silently answer: What’s our alternative? Being killed by Astrals?
    As if in answer, a sound percolated through the stone, its direction impossible to pinpoint. Tunnels went up, down, and to all sides. Echoes formed a soup.  
    They moved through the nexus, past an obvious upward staircase, and to another upward staircase farther on. Each of Peers’s turns had purpose as if he knew the place well. It took long minutes before they reached their first hint of daylight, and several times Cameron had been sure, based on sound, that Peers had been leading them into a den of purring Reptars. They stopped and went, ducked and trudged forward. Whenever they paused, the black dog sat at Cameron’s side and looked up at him.
    Peers was first up the next stairway, same as the other times, but now he stopped,