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wolves before she sees them, noticing the
mass-panting sound that isn t right for
people or caribou. She looks down and
sees the low, bounding shapes and knows
this is not good.
Kirsten is afraid the herd, the pack,
and her injured sister will all disappear
into the darkness before she can do
anything, and she ll never be able to catch
up. She starts yelling and shouting and
kicking at the underbrush as she runs,
hoping to make enough noise to break up
the party, frighten the wolves, and
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interrupt this whole chain of events she
has unintentionally started. The wolves
hear the yelling but it s far behind them
and may not be any of their business. The
caribou hears the yelling but its attention
is much more sharply focused on the
panting sound made by the hot breath on
its heels. Alby hears the yelling, and feels
glad he has a sound to guide him back to
the girls although the yeller sounds very
unhappy. Lisa hears the yelling, and
starts to yell too, which drives the poor
caribou right to the edge of a heart attack.
This new yelling baffles the wolves but
they still tighten the circle and ready
themselves for the takedown, when
suddenly a powerful shockwave races
along the rocky ground, rattles the leaves
in the trees, makes the air thicken and
blur, deafens the wolves, causes the girls
ears to ring, and knocks Alby flat on his
back. The caribou bucks violently, throws
Lisa to the ground, and pelts away,
clicking. The wolves yelp and dash away
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into the trees, tails between their legs.
Alby picks himself up, shakes his head to
clear the daze, and widens his eyes in
disbelief was that a belch?
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Seventeen
The train ride was rather
uncomfortable, as the cars were designed
to hold cans, but Oili didn t appear to
mind. On the contrary, as soon as the
train started moving, she assumed a grin
so wide it made it difficult for her to talk.
How does it know when to go? Alvy
shouted over the din of the wheels on the
rails and the cans on the cars.
Lock the doors from the inside, wait
a few seconds, it just goes! Oili yells back,
her speech slightly slurred by the force of
her smile.
How does it know when to stop?
Alvy yells again.
Oili s knuckles are white as she
grips the front lip of her car with one hand
and the rear lip with the other. Maybe her
whole body is tense that way. It ll stop
when we get&
The force of the stop sends Alvy out
of her car, clear over Oili in her car, and
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into a painful landing on top of the can in
the car in front of Oili. She catches
herself making an angry growling noise
like a polecat. She takes a deep breath,
tries to calm herself, and peels herself up
off the can, concerned for the state of her
spine.
Oili is still wearing the idiot grin,
surrounded by a weird halo in the bright
electric light of the train tunnel. Alvy
pinches the bridge of her nose, hoping she
hasn t been hit on the head once too often
in the course of the last couple of days.
Oili strides past her, stepping lightly from
can to can. Alvy tries to keep up. It
hurts.
At the very front of the train is a
squat chunk of metal that looks like a
steel brick with wheels. Alvy supposes it s
an electric tractor under a big ugly cover,
but it seems to work well as a platform.
Oili is standing on it, fooling with
something over her head.
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There s a clank, and then a metal
door scrapes open, and all the lights go
out. It s quiet out there, and Alvy can see
a few stars and shadowy tree shapes.
Oili hops out, and Alvy crawls out.
Will Oili ever stop grinning like that?
Oili slams the door behind them.
There is a groan from below their feet, and
then cans start popping up out of a hole in
the ground, rolling and spilling
dangerously around them. Oili starts to
laugh, and she keeps on laughing until
she s doubled over, tears running down
her cheeks. Alvy watches her, feet wide
apart, arms crossed, scowling.
Everybody out! Oili says when she
finally catches her breath. Let s go have
some fun! She starts humming and
rolling a can.
Alvy has had it with rolling cans.
She stalks along behind Oili, in no hurry
to catch up. Oili stops at the edge of a
deep hollow.
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Alvy thinks something about the
night-sounds is all wrong here. Or is it
the air? Is it the air that has suddenly
gone wrong?
Oili has taken a couple of sections of
pipe out of some improbable pocket of her
coveralls, and she s screwing the sections
together. Alvy hopes it s a gun. That s
really the only thing that s been missing
from these events.
But Oili uses the screwed-together
pipe to pry up the ring on the top of the
can, and then uses the pipe for leverage to
pull the ring and bend open the can. A
predictable stench issues forth. Why
won t she stop that confounded humming?
Next out of the miraculous coveralls
is a length of rubber tubing, doubled over,
knotted at one end, and dangling some
long laces. Oili jogs over to the foot of a
sapling and ties the laces to it, then
trots almost skips to another sapling
and ties again. She s obviously done this
before.
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The tubing is dangling in a catenary
between the two saplings. Alvy can see
what s coming, and she doesn t like it.
Oili begins to roll up her sleeves, and she
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