Paradox by A. J. Paquette Page B

too much to ask?”
    “It’s really not,” Chen says. “It’s not too much at all. If you ask me, this whole thing totally sucks.” But he doesn’t volunteer anything further, and finally Ysa continues.
    “We’re not allowed to talk about it. Any of those things you said—what and who and why and all that. Really. It’s part of the mission, and it’s important.
Really
important. We can’t say anything more about it than that, and even that much”—she shoots a glower at Chen—“is more than we should have said.”
    “Are you kidding me?”
    “Trust me,” Ysa says. “It’s all going to make sense. We just have to get to the end.”
    Todd cuts in. “The colony, zero hour, end of the countdown. Right?”
    “Zero hour,” Chen agrees, but his voice sounds strained. “When everything becomes clear. Now can we get back to the forced march, people?”
    A red haze pulses on the edge of Ana’s vision. For a few moments she doesn’t trust herself to speak. But the confusion and fear she can see on Chen’s and Ysa’s faces make it clear how serious they are.
What the hell is going on?
    “Fine,” she says, forcing herself to take slow, measured breaths. “Let’s get going.” She throws a glance at Todd to see his reaction to this whole debacle, but his back is turned and he’s already climbing.
    She looks at her circlet. Ten hours to go. Is she really supposed to wait until then?
Well, there’s more than one way to season the soup
, she thinks, and the expression jars her, like something distantly misremembered, but she knows what she’s taking from it right now.
    There’s knowledge to be had, things that she desperately wants to—
has to
—know. But Ana knows how to be patient. She can work different ways toward a goal. She can set a course and come around at it from the sides, can work toward an end result without letting on, without making it obvious—and without ever giving up.
    She’ll bide her time. But she
will
get to the bottom of this.
    With that thought resolved to her satisfaction, Ana looks up and down the slope and is surprised both by how far she has come and by the distance yet to scale. They’re maybe halfway up the mountain, and it looks like the most challenging portion of the climb is still to come.
    “It just gets better from here,” Chen croons, doing a little tap dance. “Come on, mountain baby, do your worst!”
    With a groan Ana rotates her sore shoulder, grateful that the pain is staying manageable, then tackles the slope. “How did you guys get out, anyway?” she says after a few minutes. Safe topics. Baby steps. “That cave was completely blocked off.”
    “The two caves are connected,” Todd calls from up ahead. “I got them out the way you and I got in.”
    “It’s a warren in there,” Ysa says, panting slightly.
    “You got to them from
inside
the caves?” Ana can’t believe it. “But how did you guys find your way around?”
    “Sheer genius,” Chen says, tapping the side of his forehead.
    Todd flashes a grin over his shoulder. “Ignore him. As you noted, it took a while. What matters is, we’re all out safely, and back together.”
    Mountain climbing in a group, Ana quickly discovers, is vastly more entertaining than doing so alone. Even her own brooding funk grows lighter the farther they go. Chen moves easily into the lead, keeping up a rolling prattle all the while, often stopping to wait for the rest of them to catch up. Ana’s not sure if he’s being inclusive by not going too far ahead, or if he just doesn’t want to lose the laugh track to his ongoing comedy routine.
    They’re covering ground at a good pace, still loosely following the lava stream toward the summit. Chen seems to take his position as guide very seriously, sometimes leadingthem off to the side on unlikely looking detours that always end up at easier climbing spots. He’s obviously done his research on this place.
    As Ana stops to catch her breath, Chen does a flying