Dai Song no longer showed the hostility toward Xu Huo that he had before, but his attitude hadn't changed much. He replied, "The other three are dead. We didn't run into Qiu Ming or Cao Qinglin."
Xu Huo said nothing. If Qiu Ming and Cao Qinglin hadn't gone looking for other Dr. Dorrs, they should have reached Second City by now. If they hadn't, something had probably happened to them.
Even if they had made it to Second City, though, they probably wouldn't come along to the new District Government.
He set the matter aside after asking. As agreed, he wouldn't ask how many people would come along to protect Dr. Dorr; Gemini City could make its own arrangements.
Not many people had come from Gemini City—just Dai Song and two other players. The three followed Xu Huo to the scar-handed player's group. Mistaken for new recruits, they were allowed to stay without much questioning.
Aliens were rampant in Zone 023, so taking shortcuts was difficult. The safest option was to use the roads built between cities, but they were only relatively safe. There wasn't much protection around them. If conditions allowed, someone might spray a little repellent on a regular basis; otherwise, they were just dirt roads worn down by traffic. Still, with so many people using them, they were a little safer than other routes.
So the route agreed upon by the upright man, the scar-handed player, and the others connected more than ten cities. With suitable transportation and everyone taking turns resting, they could reach the city where the new District Government was located in as little as twenty days.
Considering how long it took to travel between the two Gemini Cities, whether by a direct route or a detour, twenty days to cross the entire high-temperature