by Jade, Elsa
She cut a hard look at him. “I also have two ray guns. Maybe I’ll use those instead. And maybe you’ll trust me to know the difference.”
He opened his mouth to issue another order. And stopped himself. Maybe the time for leading was done, and he needed a partner instead of a follower. “I don’t want you in harm’s way. But I know that’s probably bubble thinking on my part.”
“Bubble thinking? Like wishful thinking.” She walked in silence beside him for a moment. “Tell you what. If there’s another way, I’ll take it.”
He’d have to be content with that.
When they reached the empty, crackling ground that ringed the first pool, she put her hand on his elbow, halting him. “I’ve heard the water in these springs can be bathtub temperature…or they can boil you alive. And the crust around the edge can break without warning.”
He nodded. “We have geothermal vents on Tritona that can be dangerous like this.”
Sidling closer, they knelt just beyond the rim of the pool. Mist drifted off the surface in hazy streamers that reached toward them like enticing fingers, but the water was so still that the pinpoints of starlight in the sky glittered as if coming from below.
“I’ve always heard that hot springs smell funny, like rotten eggs,” she murmured. “This smells like…like that seaweed treat you gave me, like the ocean. I know there was an inland sea across this whole area a few million years ago, but that’s long gone.”
“Maybe not as gone as you think.” He stretched out one arm, careful to keep his weight from damaging the thin border of mineralized earth built up around the edge of the crystalline pool.
“Don’t fall in,” she warned.
“Not yet anyway.” He hovered his hand above the glassy surface before dipping in. Concentric rings rippled outward from his touch though the water was so fine and clear that the reflection of the stars remained, dancing on the tiny waves. The water was pleasantly warm, like their vigorous hiking, but not hazardously hot, and the texture was strangely smooth. He touched one fingertip to his tongue.
Ridley’s eyebrows went up. “Want to share what you’re thinking?”
“The mineral composition here is the same as Marisol’s special water. Which may not be as unlikely as it first seems, since all streams share a source.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Okay, these Tritonan sayings are starting to get to me.”
“It’s not just a saying. All the waterways of a planet really do intermingle. But obviously, local conditions greatly impact the quality. So finding two distantly separated streams with the same composition…” He flicked his fingers at the pool, sparking a few more ripples from the raining droplets.
“You think these pools have something to do with Marisol’s Tritonan ancestors? And mine, I guess.” The note of doubt in her voice crept higher. “Your world is much, much farther than Sunset Falls to Yellowstone.”
He grimaced. “I don’t know. But when I breathe these waters, they are the same as the ones keeping your distant cousin Marisol alive. Almost the same as I breathe on Tritona.”
“You think some forgotten alien ship stopped here and—what? Made itself at home?”
“Your Tritonan blood came from somewhere,” he pointed out. “Somehow those ancestors met up with Earthers. A not so direct line to you.”
She shook her head, although he couldn’t tell whether she was rejecting the idea or trying to shake it into place. “This is a bit of a risk,” she muttered. “But I think we need to see.”
She pulled a flashlight from her pack then glanced at him. He gave her a nod, not so much of permission as acknowledgment.
Aiming the beam at an angle across the tranquil surface, she flicked on the light.
They both sucked in a gasp at the same time and shared a glance of amusement before redirecting their focus to the pool.
The pristine water that had serenely reflected the sky had been hiding depths beneath its mirrored surface. Though the ray of light bounced off to be scattered in the night, the indirect glow filtering down revealed a rough, slanting shaft into darkness. The water was so pure that the depth was hard to judge, even with his underwater experience. Definitely several of his body lengths.
Too far for Ridley. The peaceful beauty she’d noted became something ominous. As she let out another breath, harsher this time, the flashlight beam wavered, casting the depths of the pool into shadow again.
He put one hand on her shoulder to steady her. “We’re not going that way,” he reassured her. “The Cretarni ship certainly isn’t down there.”
“Of course not,” she said gruffly. “It wouldn’t fit in. Just like I don’t.” Leaning away from him, she braced her hand on the ground to push herself to her feet.
And the pressure broke through the mineral rim.
She let out a surprised little cry, and he grabbed for her, quicker than a moons-eel snatching prey. Only her fingertips brushed the surface, even lighter than his touch had been.
And the water retreated.
With a low whoosh, the pool emptied, faster than his grab, so fast neither of them had time to react beyond stumbling back on their haunches, staring.
A subterranean gurgle echoed beneath them, like a far-away laugh.
And then the silence was broken only by Ridley’s fast, shallow breathing and a few plinks of droplets falling away into the shaft, chasing the vanished water.
“What just happened?” Her whisper echoed in the newly revealed tunnel.
“You scared it away, hai-aku.” Relief that she hadn’t hurt herself made him dizzy himself.
She slanted a furious look at him before glancing back at the opening. “I’ve heard that water levels fluctuate at the park depending on rainfall and whatnot, but I didn’t realize it could just…disappear.” She sat farther back. “Maybe it’s going to come geysering back out.”
“If so, then I don’t have much time.” He took the flashlight from her slack hand and aimed it into the hole.
“Much time to wha—Wait, you’re not going down there, are you?”
“The soilers’ ship is at the other end of this valley, last we checked. This water is keeping the mixed blood of a Tritonan-Earther alive. And another Tritonan-Earther”—he gave her a long stare—“can control it with a touch.”
She sputtered. “I didn’t control it. It just went away.”
“If you accidentally summon it back while I’m down there, it’s fine.” He smiled at her. “I won’t drown.”
Her agitated sounds ceased. “Don’t.”
His amusement faded too. “I really won’t.”
“Don’t go,” she clarified. “We don’t know what’s down there. Except the water.” Her expression tightened. “We know that’s down there.”
“I have to go,” he said gently. “You know that.”
She lunged to her feet, looming over him, her gray eyes as stormy as a thundercloud. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “But I’m not letting you go alone.”
Her lips were pressed so hard together, they’d blanched almost white. The water that scared her so was gone—for the moment. But she knew as well as he did that it could return just as quickly.
He shook his head. “Ridley—”
“No, Maelstrom,” she snapped back. “We have this moment, and you’re right, we don’t know how long it will last. We have to take a shot.” She hesitated, then dredged up the thinnest smile. “At least I know which way to point.”
Slowly, he pushed to his feet as well, facing her. “I could go alone,” he told her, his voice cracking deep. “At least I’d know you’d be out of danger.”
“You could go,” she conceded. “But you’d never let me go alone. Maybe the only person in my life who wouldn’t. And that…that means something to me.” She straightened to her full height, and even though that left her staring up at him, still he somehow felt the resolute pounding of her heart on a level with his. “Maybe it seems like there’s less risk up here, standing with both
feet on solid ground, but you and I both know that’s not where the only danger lies.” Finally, her mouth softened, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth as she reached out slowly to flatten her palm over his chest. Testing that matched beat, the same one pulsing down through every twist and turn of his veins.
He thought the beating might tear them apart, as if all his strength and conviction were flowing away from her touch like the water had fled from her. “Ridley, all those fighters I lost, my Tritonyri brothers…”
She tightened her fist, clenching a handful of his tunic. “I’m not a fighter,” she admitted. “Or not just that. And not just Tritonyri either.” She gave him a real smile this time, wicked and full of teeth—his hai-aku. “And I’m definitely not your brother. We do this together.” She glanced down at the narrow hole beside them. “Maybe not side by side, but if you lead, I’ll be there right behind you.” She groaned. “Now I sound like one of those inspirational sayings.”
He scowled at her. “Inspiration won’t get us there. We need preparation. You have the external gill?” He waited until she shrugged off her pack and pawed through the contents, lifting one hand triumphantly with the extra gill. “Keep it in your hand the whole time we’re under there,” he said with implacable intensity, “even if you have to put the pistol away.”
“Hopefully the water won’t come back until we’re done with our exploration,” she said, swallowing hard.
“We both know not to rely on hope.” He closed her fingers over the gill pouch. “In hand. At all times. Got it?” When she nodded, no hint of insubordination in her serious gaze, he nodded back curtly. “You bite on the tab and the gases flow. Just breathe normally. If you panic…” The thought of her blacking out again, maybe in tight confines where he couldn’t get to her, choked off his words.
“I can’t say I won’t panic, since I’ve done so before.” She grimaced. “More than once. But if I do, I trust you to be there to breathe for me.”
The simple faith in her words and her gaze—breathe for me, by the swirling tides of Tritona’s deepest seas—nearly sent him to his knees. “But if I fail… Ah, Ridley, I can’t fail.”
“The promise isn’t that you’ll never fail,” she whispered. “It’s that you’ll be there.”
He let out a shuddering breath, all his objections vanishing at her touch. “You go first,” he commanded. “You have some connection to this place that I don’t, and it responds to you. Tell me the moment you sense anything awry.”
She nodded. “Not sure what’ll happen, but you’ll be the first to know.”
“Second,” he pointed out. “Since you’ll be first. And I’m proud to be your second.”
Her smile this time was a tentative thing, trembling like the dewdrops of water that lingered on the mineral rocks. “Into the deeps then?”
Rather than answering, he looped one arm around the small of her back and pulled her to his chest. She threaded both hands up behind his head and boosted herself up to his kiss.
It was rushed and urgent, one earthbound step from panic, the hard crush of their lips barely countered by the gentle tangle of tongues and breath. Though he willed the caress to last forever, after an endless rush, they both stepped back with a parting caress.
Her lashes fluttered. “Was that the breath of rising desire again?”
“Not this time.” He brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “This is just me. And you.” Reluctantly, he dropped his hand. This wasn’t the time or place, not with the mystery of the signal and the danger of the enemy ship.
But would he ever have a chance to focus on the riddle of Ridley?
Together they approached the edge of the pool, the minerals crackling under their boots.
“I thought we’d be breaking into a spaceship, not spelunking,” Ridley muttered. “Don’t suppose you brought a rope?”
“Always have a rope.” He unspooled a filament from his battle skin utility belt. “I’ll belay you on the way down.” With a few twists, he rigged up a cradle for her hips. He snugged it close, his fingers lingering beyond the minute he needed to assess the security. “Hold tight.”
“To you, yeah.” She wrapped her hands in her jacket to protect them from the line and leaned back against his grip.
As she stepped off into the shaft, he realized it was deeper than he’d guessed, but she scrambled down easily, barely weighing on the line though he judiciously kept it taught. At the bottom, she looked up at him and then ducked around a bend.
Much deeper than he’d thought. A sharp tug seemed to jerk the air right out of his lungs, but the line suddenly slackened. He reeled it up and quickly set the retracting claw so he could descend to join her.
The mineral-slick rock was trickier than she’d made it look, and his appreciation for her strength and boldness increased. Maybe water freaked her out, but everything else she charged with impunity. He slid around the bend where she’d disappeared and saw why she’d loosed the line.
The slanting shaft had leveled and smoothed, although a gradual downward gradient had drained all the water except for a few pocked holes still shimmering in the glow of her flashlight.
“It’s not natural,” she said. “This is engineered.”
The perfectly round tunnel was tall and wide enough for him to stand upright. He left the claw fastened at the top of the shaft and released the end attached to his belt. “Assuming we come back this way.”
She’d swung the flashlight toward him while he’d disconnected, and she made a sound of surprise when she glanced back down the tunnel. “Where’s that light coming from?”
“Bioluminescence implanted in the walls. Reacts to our presence. Obviously not as reliable as artificial lights, but the Tritonesse still use it in some of their ancient ceremonies.” He touched the shallow channel carved into the wall at shoulder height, and the squishy mass of algae brightened in a undulating wave all the way down the corridor.
“I can’t believe no one’s found this place.” Her voice bounced off the rock.
He consulted the datpad on his wrist. “It’s shielded. Not the same as our mimic shields, more like an older technology, but effectively embedded in the stone. I won’t be able to get a signal out to the Bathyal, and even a strong scan wouldn’t pick up the difference from a natural geothermal feature unless you knew what to look for.”
“And this is what the Cretarni were looking for? Outdated technology from your world, abandoned on mine? Somehow I doubt they came all this way, and lured us here as well, just for some iridescent goo.”
“Whatever they wanted, they couldn’t get it without you.”
“Me?” She blinked at him. In the pale purple-blue light of the algae, her eyes were nearly black, and his heart thudded at her suddenly alien appearance.
“You aren’t of Tritona or Earth. You’re something…extraordinary.” He gestured for her to lead on. “Let’s find out what.”
Chapter 16
You’re something extraordinary.
No one had ever said anything like that to Ridley, not ever. Definitely never while looking at her with such honest regard, very definitely never with the rush of desire still cascading through her blood.
Her alien blood.
So maybe not so much extraordinary as extraterrestrial. But she’d take it. Same as she wanted to take him up against the wet rock for another long, scorching kiss with the shimmering lights of the algae all around them.
She let out a slow breath. Maelstrom had told her he hadn’t used the pheromone on her, but something was making her whole body tingle. And the sensation was pulling her deeper.
Luckily, the corridor slanted that direction. Wherever the water had gone, she heard no trickle of it, but she kept the artificial gill in her hand. Her fingers clenched tight at the thought of a tidal wave sweeping back through the sunken hall. At least it wasn’t dark.
As they went deeper, the temperature rose. Not surprising in an area of geothermal activity such as Yellowstone, but she a
lmost longed for a bit of water to cool off. Just as she was about to suggest to Mael that they stop for a drink of the water they’d brought—or so she could dump it over her head—a whisper of cooler air seeped around them.
He put his hand on her shoulder, halting her. “Do you hear that?”
The faint sound made her stiffen. “Water.” She glanced back at him. Should they run for it?
He tightened his grip. “Where’s the gill?”
Mutely—she couldn’t have squeezed out a word even if she wanted to—she raised the mouthpiece and pouch.
Shifting his hold, he cupped his hand at her nape, his fingertips brushing the side of her neck. “And here, remember.”
She shivered at his touch. And at the reminder.
Rather than think of it, she resolutely set her steps one in front of the other on the path downward.
Alternating draughts of hot and cooler air teased them, and the distant sounds of water—dripping, sloshing, pouring—tortured her. But she couldn’t run, not with Mael’s big body like a cork stoppering the corridor behind her.
They’d been descending forever—although it had probably been only ten minutes—when the glow ahead of them became stronger than the algae. A breeze strong and cool enough to dry the sweat at her temples wafted past them. Part of her dearly wanted to escape back up the corridor with that wind, clamber up the thin line Mael had left dangling from the world she’d always known.
But in that light ahead of her was…
Yeah, she was going that way, wasn’t she?
Suddenly unwilling to let the fear have its way, she strode forward. Behind her, the thump of Mael’s steps couldn’t quite drown out her stuttering heartbeat.
Oh, why did she have to think of drowning right now—
She reached the glow and sucked in such a long breath she almost choked herself on air.
The shaft they’d journeyed down ended abruptly on a narrow ledge overlooking a canyon. A Grand Canyon, except buried underground and half filled with twinkling waves that reflected the light of long, twisted strands of luminescent algae hanging from the chamber ceiling. She couldn’t estimate the distance across the cavern—the algae wasn’t bright enough to completely light the shadows—but halfway across, strange pyramidal spires split the restless waves.
