Between The Crystals

Ch 20 Patterns Come to Light

Even as the haze disappeared, a guard was walking over. The light on his scanner was reassuringly green. At least I didn't have a tracker on me. The guard from my village frowned, knowing I had left with six people this morning.

"Can I port you to where my group is?" I asked the man with the scanner. "It's not near any towns or fields, but we think there's a tracker in some acorns, and we don't want to jeopardize the Guard Station."

I held my breath as I waited for a reply, hoping he'd agree to the half-truth.

He frowned. "I'll come, but only if you bounce me back here soon. You're not the only group to find trackers in food today, and this is the only scanner here."

I held out my hand to him, breaking another rule as I offered a silent promise. He grumbled but took my hand. I ported back to find my group exactly as I had left them. A red light appeared on the scanner, just as we had feared.

Hints of exhaustion tugged at the edges of my mind, and I leaned against the crystal while watching the guard follow the dot directly to the basket. A hunter dumped the basket's contents into a carry net he had laid out during my absence.

The guard crouched down to scan the acorns, but the red dot pointed to the side, to the hunter. As a precaution, the scanner was moved above the acorns, but only one red light was present, and it still indicated the tracker was not in the acorns.

Standing up, the guard followed the scanner to the confused-looking hunter. The red dot guided him directly to the basket. The guard took the woven grass basket and turned it around, eventually pinpointing a particular seam.

He dug out the tracker bead and held it up as proof. "Is this the only place you've been today?"

"Other than a quick stop at an occupied location, yes," I replied without elaborating where the basket had come from.

"Good. This can stay here." He promptly tossed the tracker away.

Crackling in the distant bushes had us all stepping closer to the crystal. Several hands rested on my shoulders in case we had to bounce. The last two gatherers in our group emerged with rather full carry nets. When they noticed the guard, they began jogging over.

I breathed a sigh of relief at knowing all of my companions were safe. I hadn't lost any. We began grabbing everything we had collected. The acorns were already in a carry net, so the hunter just had to close the drawstrings. The two latest arrivals gave the empty grass basket a strange look as we left it at the base of a tree. Thankfully, they were smart enough to avoid asking questions with a guard present. His scanner remained green.

The guard was already focused on me and didn't see a hunter casually step to the side to block his view of the empty basket being left behind.

"Once everyone is ready, I can port you back," I told him.

He crossed his arms and pointedly waited as everyone quickly gathered around.

Once I was certain everyone was connected, I said, "Guard Station."

The air hazed around us. Less than two minutes had passed since my last bounce, and I could feel the drain in energy. The haze cleared, and two hunters guided me to the pile of hides nearby. My legs weren't wobbly, but I needed a rest after three back-to-back ports.

"Tracker was in a basket this time," the guard said as he walked over to the others on shift. "Those lizards are sure trying to track us down."

"You said others came here with trackers in their food?" I asked.