The Catalyst (Targon Tales) (18 page)

“You are rebels, then?” Caelyn asked. “Just so I know what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“Not today,” Seth said tersely. “There are blankets in that storage room and the area beyond there is warmer. There is a tap in that first room over there, so at least we have some water. See if you can find some containers to fill up in case we lose power. Let’s try to get a little rest and stay warm.”

The group moved into the hallway where they picked up stacks of the rough material from the storage room and from there settled into a corner of the back hall. There were some startled cries when, true to Seth’s prediction, the overhead lights dimmed dramatically and several backup units came on when the main power supply to the compound was cut. Nova thought about the Rhuwacs roaming the lightless tunnels of the prison and shuddered visibly. A Rhuwac’s sense of smell would find a Union soldier far sooner than any night vision eyepieces they might carry.

“How are you holding up?” Seth asked, noting her pallor even in the dimmed, orange-tinted light of the emergency lamps.

Nova handed a few more cloaks to the last of the women in the hall and then sat down on the remaining stacks in the storage room. She looked up at him. “You realize they’ve probably blown the Dutchman to bits? I didn’t want to mention that out there.”

“It’s a long way from here. And there are civilians in Ge’er. They won’t risk an air strike over the town. And, short of that, they can’t really harm the ship.”

“They can wait for us to return there.”

“Yes, they probably will.” He closed the door to the hall against the cold draft and came to sit beside her. “Alternate plan, Nova. If we get captured by Air Command, you and Caelyn will have to try to convince your mighty leaders in some other way to avoid damage to Naiya. You may have to spend the rest of your life jamming needles into your arm. It’s not the end.”

“Could be for you.”

He shrugged. “Still less painful than being caught by Rhuwacs. And you will still have evidence against Drackon and Rellius. That’s worth something.”

She flinched when the hoarse screams in the tunnels began again. One of them ended in a high-pitched shriek, abruptly cut off. “I think they’re turning on each other,” she said. “Probably hungry.”

“They’re not cannibals.”

“There are other prisoners. You saw that... thing bite that man.”

He grimaced.

“Why did they not stop, Seth!” she cried suddenly. “Why did they not stand down when I was recognized! Those were Union pilots. Not just any pilots. Vanguard! But they went ahead anyway, knowing we had civilians down here. That’s just wrong. That just can’t be happening!”

He put a hand on her arm, afraid to touch any more of her than that. “Do the math, Nova. What’s a handful of civilians compared to a whole nest of rebels and a Rhuwac training camp? Who knows what else Tharron is hiding in this maze. You’re collateral damage. This isn’t news to you.”

“Well, I don’t want any more part of this.” She covered her ears with her hands when yet another howl tore through the dark. One of the women in the other room cried out in fear. “This is hell, I’m sure of it. I’m cold and tired and hungry. And there are monsters out there in the dark and worse monsters flying over our heads dropping bombs into mine shafts. It’s just hell.”

Seth put an arm around her shoulders. He had never seen her quite so despondent. “Come on, Red, hold together. You’ve seen worse than this. We’re safe here. Don’t quit on me now.”

“What I’m quitting is this damn army,” she said. “I’ve had it. I finally get out of Bellac and where do I end up? In this stinking Rhuwac pit. With my own people shooting at us! I can’t do this anymore. And don’t act like collateral damage means nothing to you. If it did you wouldn’t be risking your neck over a bunch of prisoners.”

“I’m risking my neck for you.” He picked up one of the cloaks and wrapped it around her. “You just happen to be a package deal with a couple of million squid, a Delphian and a dozen pleasure slaves.”

She looked up at him, wordless.

“You know,” he said. “My people don’t have your concept of hell, but if this is hell there isn’t anyone with whom I’d rather be caught in it.”

“You mean that?”

“Yeah, I mean that.” His smile was a sad one. “For all it’s worth now.”

She watched her hand reach up to brush a strand of hair from his eyes. He closed them when she stroked her fingers across his cheek. “It’s worth a lot,” she said after a while. “I’ve been an idiot. No one’s ever done what you have for me. And I treat you like...”

“A rebel?”

“Yeah,” she said, a trembling smile on her lips. “But I don’t care anymore. You are not like them, I know that. I’ve always known that. I have no right to think anything I do is better than the choices you’ve made. I’m sorry. I don’t—”

He leaned over to touch his lips to hers, stopping her words with a soft, undemanding kiss. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “Just don’t.” He kissed her again, moving slowly and gently as if they had never kissed before. He took a deep breath. “I’ve always loved you, you know. I suppose I always will.”

This time he did not object when she pulled him down to stretch out beside her on the bales of cloth. She opened her coat and then his and slipped her arms around him to feel his warmth and share her own with him. He smiled and pulled some of the cloaks over them.

But she tilted her face up to be kissed and soon they no longer felt the cold in this room, or hear the noises from the halls or cared much about the distant explosions still rumbling through the tunnels. Some time passed before they began to remove the other’s clothes, almost timidly working through their layers until her lips touched his skin. His impressive knowledge of a woman’s body deserted him and each touch was a new discovery, a permission asked and a permission granted. Their eyes held when he moved over her and entered her slowly, carefully as though she would break in his arms. Their recent rough lovemaking aboard the Dutchman felt like an exercise in physical release compared to this tender embrace.

He held back until neither of them required a gentle touch any longer and then let her sweep him away on a wave of passion that he had not found with any woman but her. They remained entwined and silent long after the last blissful shudder had calmed.

He raised his head to kiss her softly. “Hell isn’t so bad, is it?”

“Not when you’re there.”

“Friends?” he said. It was not an idle question this time.

She smiled. “Friends.”

Chapter Eleven

Hours later Seth made his way through a tangle of sleeping or at least resting prisoners to find Caelyn among them. He finally had to resort to pinching the Delphian’s ear before reaching him in that fathomless depth that his people called sleep. The Bellac who had curled up next to Caelyn mumbled in protest when he sat up, blinking tiredly.

“Is it time to go?” he said, disoriented.

Seth gestured for him to follow. They left the prisoners and went to the storage room where Nova still slept.

Caelyn went to her at once. “What’s wrong with her?” He knelt beside their makeshift pallet and put his hand on her forehead. She was breathing in shallow gasps and her pale lips were as blue-tinted as his own.

“She needs medicine. It’s on the Dutchman. We didn’t exactly intend to spend the night here and I suppose we both forgot. She’ll suffocate without it.”

“She needs oxygen?”

“Yes.”

Caelyn raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that an energetic act of copulation will burn a great deal of oxygen, right?”

Seth had the grace to blush. “Can you help her?”

“I can try to slow her down a little. Keeping her cold will help.” He pulled away all but one blanket, then turned to study Seth for a moment. “Maybe it’s time to give yourselves up to whoever is chasing you. The Air Command force here will have medics. And oxygen. Whatever you did isn’t worth risking her life.”

“We can’t do that. We have to get to Naiya. And you know that the Union will not just let us go there on our own.”

“Then leave her here!”

“We can’t do that, either. She’s carrying your catalyst.”

Caelyn stared at him, shocked. “What?”

“The tank you were shipping on the
Dyona
broke and the Naiyad transferred the catalyst to her before it died. It’s what’s killing her now. It wasn’t this bad before. We have to get back to my ship.”

“Go. Get ready.” Caelyn turned to Nova and placed a hand on her chest, over her heart, the other on her forehead. His thumb rested on the neural interface at her temple. He closed his eyes. “She’s Human. I have no idea if this is going to work, so you better hurry.”

Seth went to rouse some of the women and then bundled up to leave the relative safety of the cargo area. The skimmer he investigated was serviceable and he programmed a low but tolerable temperature before returning to the building carved into the cliff. By the time he got there, Nova was awake and fairly coherent and had traded her clothes for some of the prison garb. Seth, too, removed his weather gear and shared it with the prisoners in exchange for a battered one-piece and a tattered cloak long enough to hide his guns.

Finally he pulled the Dutchman’s com unit from his upper arm and sat down to reprogram it. Nova crawled into his lap as he did so and buried her face in the curve of his neck. “There’s my fearsome warrior,” he said lightly but threw a worried glance at Caelyn. She was cold and limp and each breath seemed a longer draw than the last.

“I’m going to transfer the ship’s command codes to you, Caelyn,” Seth said, holding his arms awkwardly around Nova to work with the device. “No one will suspect trickery from a Delphian. If we get caught tell them we’re both ill with something nasty.” He pushed his sleeve up to let his wrist array scan the surface of Caelyn’s hand. “Can you do this, Delphi?”

“Just hold up your end, Centauri.”

Seth lifted Nova into his arms and they made their way to the loading dock door. Some of the captives came to see them off, gasping when a blast of wintry air pushed into the space. Caelyn invoked several of his many gods, unused to such temperatures even during the coldest of Delphian seasons. Nova made no sound when they walked down a short ramp to the waiting skimmer. The women closed the bay door behind them and they were left in the frozen landscape, hearing only the ceaseless wind howling through the canyons. There were no sounds of battle out here, nor did they see airships above.

“I hope they haven’t all gone already,” Caelyn said. Seth climbed into the car’s passenger seat and waited for Caelyn to lift Nova into his lap and tuck a blanket around them.

Seth reached for the skimmer’s interface and attached it to his neural node while the Delphian took the helm. “Head north along the bottom of the cliff,” he instructed, reading the vehicle’s sensors. “There are about forty life forms up at Ge’en. Lots of hardware. Some of the ships are Union issue. Clean-up crew, probably.”

Caelyn hovered the skimmer off the ground and they were soon racing northwards. He followed Seth’s direction to climb the vehicle up along a ridge and toward the canyon sheltering the decrepit mining town. Seth groaned when he saw several armed guards near the Dutchman.

They stopped as close as they could before one of them raised a hand along with a gun. Caelyn powered the vehicle down and raised the canopy. Nova grumbled unintelligibly when the gust of bitter air hit them.

Caelyn wasted no time in climbing out of the skimmer, like most Delphians paying no heed to a gun in a Union soldier’s hands. He walked to Seth’s side of the car and took Nova from his arms. “Surely you are not going to stand in my way, young woman,” he said to the soldier. “This Human is in need of immediate medical attention.”

The Centauri did not move. “You’ll have to identify yourself,” she said, her voice muffled by the mask protecting her face. Another guard stopped Seth when he had climbed out of the car.

Caelyn’s expression was as cold as the wind biting their skin. “If you think that after weeks in this pit I have anything even remotely resembling whatever identification you feel is acceptable then perhaps you require additional training. I am FennTar Mo’ghar Chiet Phan Caelyn on a scientific expedition and I, along with my technicians, was abducted several weeks ago. My ship here was taken as well. Now if you will stand aside to let me reclaim my property and get these people to safety, you will have saved some lives today. However, I cannot guarantee that whatever is afflicting them isn’t contagious.”

She looked uncertainly at the disheveled woman hanging limply in Caelyn’s arms. “Where are you taking them?”

“At this point I am hoping your medical department aboard whatever carrier has brought you here is better equipped than the medicine supply on my ship. Beyond that is really none of your concern. If you are looking for something to do, you will find sixteen more captives waiting for help at the loading docks south of here. Up until now it would appear that none of your company has even managed to locate that exit. No wonder so many of these despicable rebels elude capture.”

Seth groaned and slumped against the skimmer, surely close to fainting.

Caelyn looked worried. “Will you have these people freeze to death while you decide on protocol? You can contact our Clan Council on Delphi to ascertain my identity. They will be interested as to why I am being waylaid once again.”

She scowled at him, clearly undecided. Detaining an already badly mistreated Delphian could easily result in an incident of considerable proportion. Even she was aware of the Union’s careful maneuverings to improve their fragile relation with that planet. Hostility on her part would undoubtedly be reported, as Caelyn’s veiled threat had made clear.

At last she waved him away. “Proceed directly to the base ship in orbit. I will advise them of your arrival and make sure you are received by a medical team as a possible HazMat situation. Do not deviate from a direct course there.”

“Thank you, officer,” Caelyn said in a dignified tone. He walked the few steps to the Dutchman and pressed his hand to its key plate as if he did so daily. “And please be sure to evacuate those captives immediately. Some of them also require medical attention.”