Erin M. Leaf (16 page)

A terrible suspicion abruptly
seized her. If Gideon’s people could create this incredible armor, and the
magnificent sand towers, as well as a portal to another planet, where were
their computers? She stopped walking and stared at Eran, too. He held more
answers than he’d offered, she knew it.

“Bea?” Theo turned, sensing her sudden
halt.

She ignored him and addressed Eran
directly. “Where are all the other people, Eran?”

“My lady?” he turned and bowed. “There
are very few people on Terrene anymore, not since the Sitnam came.”

“You said that before. But “very
few” doesn’t mean none. Why didn’t we see any other people in the tower?”

He looked at her, face neutral. “My
lady, I will be here with Ella and Ivy. They will not be alone.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not
what I meant.” She stalked toward him, the armor making her feel strong. “I
know you will care for them. I want to know if there is anyone else on this
planet.” She held his gaze. “Besides us.”

He didn’t look away. “I am here.”

Theo shoved forward suddenly and
grabbed Eran by the front of his tunic. The creamy material bunched up in his
fists. “Answer the question!”

Eran didn’t lose his composure. He
met Theo’s eyes with utter calm. That, more than anything else, convinced Bea
that he was hiding something. She put her hand on Theo’s arm, then slid it up
so that she was touching Eran, too. “Answer me.”

The servant glanced at Gideon.

Gideon walked forward. He reached
out and touched a finger to Eran’s forehead. “What are you?”

Eran’s eyes flashed silver and he
began to speak. “I am Eran ap-Cearvall, synthetic servant to the trio-bonded
masters of Cearvall: Gideon, Theo, and Bea Cearvall. I was constructed one
thousand years ago during the first Irruption of the Sitnam. My primary duty is
to protect and serve the trio-bonded masters of Cearvall.”

Bea gaped, but didn’t let go. “Where
are all the other Numah?”

He looked at her and his eyes
flashed again. “Perished. Gideon Cearvall is the only living Numah.”

Gideon dropped his hand, sucking in
a harsh breath.

Theo growled and tightened his
fingers. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“The transfer of loyalty from one
generation to the next requires the touch of all three trio-bonded masters of
Cearvall for biological identification and validation. Prior to that, I must
obey the last directives of the previous masters.”

Theo let go of him and backed up. “You’re
an artificial construct. A robot?”

Eran nodded. “Yes.”

“What about the doomsday weapon.
The one my mother was constructing?” Gideon asked.

“I have no information regarding
that weapon. My apologies, my lord.” Eran bowed his head.

Bea turned away and grabbed Gideon
by the arms. “It’s okay. You still have me and Theo.” She hugged him, not
caring about the armor between them. “And you have Ella and Ivy. You have
family. You will
always
have a
family.”

He shuddered. “We
need
to save Earth and I have no idea
how to do it.” He hugged her back, then looked at Theo. His face was wet.

“
Something
happened when we
touched the cube,” Bea said, thinking hard. “And the more complicated
technology here seems to require three activators. The three of us activated
the cube; we just didn’t expect it to do what it did.”

“You’re saying that maybe we have
the doomsday device, we just don’t know how to use it?” Theo asked.

She nodded. “It’s not like there
was a manual or anything.”

Gideon sighed. “We’re going back to
Earth regardless. If you’re right, Bea, I only hope we’re not too late.”

“I will keep them safe. It is what
I was designed to do, my lord,” Eran said to Theo. “And if you leave the
tesseract rima open, I will be able to transport them to Earth, even in your
absence. It is how I smuggled Lord Gideon to your planet.”

“How do we leave it open?” Bea
asked, standing in front of the runes. The cave wall didn’t look any different.
She was having a hard time believing that they’d traveled to another planet,
simply by touching a wall with scribbles etched into it.

“When you return to Earth,
reactivate the portal, but do not step through.”

“That’s like leaving the door open
for the enemy.” Theo frowned.

Eran shrugged. “You can also come
back at a later time and open the tesseract rima. I can easily check the portal
from Terrene at regular intervals.”

Gideon moved closer to the wall. “We
don’t have a choice. If we can neutralize the cave system on Earth, it should
be safe enough to leave the portal open.”

“What do you mean by ‘neutralize’?”
Theo asked.

“We can collapse the entrance to
the cave. The Sitnam won’t bother searching it if it looks like a pile of
rubble. Ella and Ivy can clear the rubble if they need to,” Gideon explained. “It
might take a while, but it’s doable.”

Eran bowed. “I can help them clear
the cave.”

“Okay, that’s the plan. Let’s get
to it,” Theo said, slapping a hand on the first rune.

Bea pursed her lips and touched the
second rune,
Earth
.

Gideon reached out and touched the
last rune,
Cearvall.
The cave wall flared silver this time, and Bea
could actually sense the portal opening. The transfer from Terrene to Earth
felt slower, but more comprehensible, this time. It was as if she could control
it, rather than just being flung into the wave of energy.

“We’re here,” Gideon said, staring
at the wall.

Bea gasped, suddenly feeling
lighter. “He’s right.” She turned, spine tensing, but there was no one else in
the cave. A black stain lay along the floor near the entrance tunnel.
That
must have been where the Sitnam was injured,
she thought, suppressing a
wave of revulsion.

“Okay, let’s reopen the portal,”
Gideon said. He placed his hand on the rune.

Bea and Theo followed suit. This
time, when she felt the tingle that represented the moment they’d begin to
travel, she resisted, and stepped back.

“That’s unpleasant,” Gideon
muttered, dropping his hand as well.

“Agreed,” Theo said, brushing his
hand along his leg as if that would wipe off the feeling of leaving something
undone.

Bea stared at the wall. It was both
there and not-there, at the same time. If she squinted, she could see the rock
waver, like heat rising from a sun-baked road. “That’s really weird.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have time to
stare at it,” Gideon said, nudging her arm.

Exasperating man,
she thought, giving him
a half-smile. He grinned back at her, then headed towards the tunnel.

“It’s clear,” he said.

Bea took a deep breath and followed
him.

****

Gideon inched down the tunnel,
palms itching for his favorite gun, even though he knew it wouldn’t be much
help if they ran into one of the Sitnam. It certainly hadn’t helped him before.

“How are we going to collapse the
tunnel?” Bea asked. She put her hand on the small of his back, following
closely.

“I’ve got explosives at the house,”
Theo said, bringing up the rear. “We just need to go get them and bring them
back.”

Bea shook her head. “I should’ve
known.”

“No need,” Gideon said, shoving a
rock aside. Behind it lay his detonator. He’d already wired the cave tunnel for
collapse.

“What the hell?” Theo asked, going
to one knee. “You already have it set up?”

“Paranoia is my very good friend,”
Gideon said.

Bea looked at the device, frowning.
“Why?”

Gideon shrugged. “I’ve been coming
here for years.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

He rolled his shoulders, trying to
settle the armor better. “I don’t know. I had weird dreams. Maybe they’re
memories, now that we know about the Sitnam. It just felt like something I had
to do.”

“We don’t have time to
psycho-analyze it. Let’s move on,” Theo said, giving Gideon the look he knew
meant
we’re going to discuss this later, when we’re not about to die.

Gideon smiled and started walking
again, under no illusions that his bond-mates were going to let this go. Right
now, though, the entrance to the tunnel was just ahead. Sunlight slanted across
his eyes, but the mask of his armor filtered out the harsh light. He hugged the
wall as he moved, watching for anything that didn’t belong. They edged out into
the light, going slow so nothing could surprise them. When a smudge of inky
black suddenly appeared on his left, down trail, Gideon tensed. The black
coalesced into a Sitnam, directly below the cave entrance. “Shit,” he muttered.
“Enemy at two o’clock. Using cloaking tech.”

“I see it,” Bea whispered.

Before Gideon could do anything,
the creature spotted them.

“Fuck!” Theo exclaimed, shoving Bea
behind him.

The alien vaulted the ravine in one
leap. Gideon instinctively raised his arm, defensive without a gun. Fire-ice
ran down his skin, and something low and deep vibrated through his bones. The
Sitnam paused, claws out. The vibration intensified. Gideon clenched his teeth.
Bea groaned behind him.

The Sitnam opened its mouth, as if
in a scream, and then abruptly disintegrated. It looked like someone had pulled
a string and collapsed the exoskeleton into itself. Gideon stared as the
vibration stopped. All that was left of the alien was a shattered pile of
scales and slowly disintegrating blood.

Bea pushed out from behind him. “Oh
my God. What just happened?” She stared at the alien, then looked at her arms. “It
felt like someone was trying to peel the skin off my arms.”

Gideon couldn’t move. He had no
idea what the fuck had just happened.

Theo walked forward and poked a toe
at the Sitnam. When he looked up, his eyes flashed silver in the sunlight. “I
think the weapon is inside of us.” He glanced down at the mess on the ground
again. “And it sure as hell works.”

****

“Just for the record, I think this
is a horrible idea,” Theo said, shoving aside a broken chair.

“We have no other way to amplify
the sound waves,” Gideon argued, not for the first time.

They were in the ruins of the local
radio station. Luckily, the aliens hadn’t destroyed the antenna. They just
needed to restore some sort of power and use the station to broadcast the
weapon.

“We have no idea how extensive the
irruption is,” Bea said, pulling a laptop out of the rubble in the corner. Part
of the building had been destroyed. “And we have no idea if this weapon
can
be broadcast. It worked when we were attacked, because we used it instinctively.
I don’t know how we’d get it to work over the radio.” She willed the armor to
fold back over her fingers, then rubbed her face. She wasn’t tired, exactly,
but she certainly felt overwhelmed.

“Here, I found a battery backup for
the computer,” Gideon said, dragging a small device out of the closet.

Bea shook her head. “I think they
took out the cell towers. There’s no way to get any wireless connection running
right now. And most of the electronics are toast.” She went over to the closet
and began to look at the pile of equipment inside. “Help me with this,” she
said, pulling on an old ham radio. “Maybe we can use this to figure out where
the irruption occurred, if there’s anyone on the other end.”

Gideon gave her a hand and soon they
had it set up on the table. The battery backup had been adapted to run the
radio already, so all they had to do was plug it in and pray.

“Do either of you know how to use
this thing?” Bea asked the men.

Theo turned it on, then began
turning the knob. “I used to use one when I was a kid.” He held one of the
earphones next to his ear and used his other hand to search for active
frequencies. After a moment, he froze.

“What?” Bea asked.

“I think I’m getting something.” He
flicked a switch and static came from the tiny speaker on the device. It soon
morphed into a squeal that had Bea wincing, but then they heard a voice.

“Mayday, mayday, alien incursion at
mile marker 34, assistance requested,” a male voice said. “All our ammo is gone
and we’ve got one of those big ships bearing down on us from the south. Is
anyone out there?”

Theo pushed a button and spoke into
the ancient microphone. “Copy that, alien incursion at mile marker 34. How many
of you are there?”

Gideon spoke in a hushed voice to
Bea. “If we can get there, we can probably stop them. That’s about ten miles
from here.”

“We’ve got twenty people, some
women and children. Can you assist?” the man asked.

“Gives us a half hour,” Theo
replied.