Trapped On Talonque: (A Sectors SF romance)

by Veronica Scott

  “Of course not.” Bithia sounded annoyed that he could joke. “Since you brought them to the fresh air, the effect should wear off by morning, I imagine, at the outside. Abandon this absurd idea of freeing me. Save yourself and your friends.”

  “There were weapons, by the way.” To avoid the confrontation over her refusal to discuss her own escape, Nate stalled for time. “I was glad to get my hands on those. Improves our odds.”

  “Weapons?” She was completely taken aback by the information. “You must be mistaken. Let me see.”

  He visualized himself holding the Mark One. He blocked the details of how the weapons had been found and of the bodies of her fellow explorers. Now was not the time to go into that subject.

  He read the shock in her mind. “What would cause my father to provide these to the team? I didn’t even know we had such a thing. Was there—was there any kind of a message or sign left for me?”

  “Nothing recognizable.” Nate maintained his mental block on the details of the ancient murder scene in the alien storehouse. “We searched in a grid pattern, as much as we had time for, but I imagine we wouldn’t have known what we were scanning for unless it was obvious. We can’t go back there. Too big a risk.”

  “At least we agree on one point,” she said.

  He got a mental image of her shaking her head and frowning as her voice continued. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

  He didn’t confirm or deny her suspicion.

  “It doesn’t matter. Keep your secrets. Why am I wasting time?” Bithia was plainly irritated with herself. “You’re distracting me. Please get out of here before you’re trapped. Save yourself, with my blessing.”

  “Not without you.” Nate made his voice as flat and uncompromising as he could. He spoke the declaration aloud and in his mind.

  “You mustn’t stay!”

  “Neither can you. Sarbordon will kill you in the most painful, gruesome way he can devise when he gets back to the palace. We both know how he thinks. Having been thwarted of his desire for your father’s possessions, he’ll seek revenge on you. I know that for a fact, and so do you. I intend to see he never touches you.”

  “Stubborn—”

  Nate spoke out loud again, for emphasis. “I’m not going anywhere without you. Or rather, without you making a choice, one way or the other.”

  “Choice?” She sounded taken aback, a little frightened.

  Nate nodded, even though Bithia’s eyes were closed. “I can’t walk away and leave you here to suffer and die. Not an option.”

  “We waste too much time on this debate.”

  A crisp picture came into his head of patterns to the right and below the ones the ruler had traced on each of the earlier visits to the chamber. Opening his eyes, Nate walked to the engraved control panels. Extending his left hand, he touched the embossed dot marking the circuit’s beginning.

  Why do you wait? Set me free, as you promised. Bithia’s voice was a soft whisper in his mind.

  Nate watched the dot glow under his fingertip, pulsing green to black and back again. The hum from the device altered on a subliminal level, as if gathering power for the change in status. He shook his head and carefully lifted his finger away, afraid of triggering the system inadvertently.

  “Bithia,” he said, forcing himself to project patience he didn’t feel. “I don’t want to kill you. Don’t lie to me. Don’t make me your inadvertent assassin. You’re not being fair to me, and you’re dishonoring the trust we’ve shared until now.” Nate sensed she was preparing to counter his argument. Now it was his turn not to allow her to get a thought in edgewise. “If death by healing device is your choice, I’ll carry it out,” he said, keeping himself under iron control, emotions locked, not sure he could bring himself to take the action required. “At least do me the courtesy of telling me that all you want from me is death. Don’t you trust me? Does what we’ve shared time and again in the dreamspace mean so little? I hope I mean more to you than a means to commit suicide.”

  There was stubborn silence in his head again, with the sensation of her deep thinking simmering just out of his mental “hearing.”

  Nate spun slowly on his heel to face the shifting, glowing curtain and peer through it to her. “I’m right, aren’t I?” he said out loud. “If I trace that circuit you showed me, you’ll die, won’t you? After all this time, all this waiting, what we’ve shared—you’d slip into death and leave me behind to mourn.”

  “How dare you sound critical of my choice? What do you know of the terrible, clawing loneliness I endure and could now end?”

  He followed up on her angry question. “I can’t presume to know exactly what you’ve been through. I didn’t mean to sound as if I was judging you,” he said. “I understand your grief, your loneliness for people and a way of life long gone.”

  “What have I to live on for?” Her bitter lament broke harshly across his mind, a physical pain in his head. “Why should you ask me to continue this existence? Why should I ask it of myself? To what conceivable end should I choose to go on, to live, when you can give me an easy death?”

  Nate hesitated, reluctant to advance his one and only argument, afraid his heartfelt plea wasn’t going to be enough to convince her. What if he failed to divert her from the direction her emotions—her fear—were plainly flowing? He’d never played a game where his personal stakes were so high, where he cared so much about one outcome and one only. His ability to be detached, not influenced on any personal level, was one of his strengths. He didn’t allow people other than his own family and Thom to become close to him. To matter. The depth of his emotions now where Bithia was concerned was a fearsome vulnerability, terrifying in a way physical danger could never match.

  After a moment, she spoke again, her mental tones flat. “I’ve been here for so long, locked in this living hell, beholden to whoever came in and traced the circuits, forced to answer their demands, their questions, knowing my answers would most likely mean death and destruction for people, no matter what I said. Making things up to save myself further pain, because I was afraid to suffer! I don’t deserve to live—let me die.” She wept, tears running down her pale cheeks, huge sobs shaking her body even under the iron control of the device. “My father never meant for all this to happen.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t,” Nate said. “He’s not to blame for all the events since the day he left. And neither are you.”

  “I’m past my appointed time. At least peace waits for me on the other side of death. No one and nothing wait for me in life.”

  There was a heartbeat of total silence in the chamber.

  “I wait for you.” Nate wasn’t sure he’d actually said the words. Her comment stung bitterly. Taking a deep breath, he forged ahead. “Live for me—live with me, in my world. You must know I’ve been waiting for you, living for you, since the first time my men and I were dragged in here and the king cranked this damn machine to high volume. He was torturing you and accidentally tormenting me, but at the same time linking us. You can’t deny the emotions we shared, all those nights we exchanged thoughts. The connection was real, the link between us is real, this moment is real, dammit. You and I have a life to live together, if you find the resolve in your heart to trust me. Let me set you free.”

  “I trust you, but it’s not possible,” she said. “It can’t be possible—”

  “Why not? I don’t know what had to happen to bring the two of us to this place, this time…but we’re together. I have to believe it was meant.” Nate closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his ragged nerves.

  This conversation, this naked exposure of his emotions was the hardest thing he’d ever done, bar none, especially in the face of her denial of their bond. He never revealed this much of his personal side to anyone, not even to Thom, who was like a brother to him after all these years of camaraderie and shared danger. He’d rather face a whole nest of Mawreg barehanded than have to deal with this conversation, but the rest of
his life, his happiness, depended on finishing what he’d launched into here. She was afraid, panicked. The idea of living without her scared him.

  “Please, take the chance.” He was afraid she was slipping away from him, and time was running out. Either she found the courage to let him power down the machine and free her, or he’d be discovered and killed. Or she’d die at his hand, by her own request, which he would honor. He’d sworn he would, and Nate never went back on his word. Killing her would be the worst thing he’d ever done in his entire life, and it would break him. He’d do it if death was all she’d accept from him. He realized he loved her enough to let her go, to smooth the way for her.

  He tried one last time to reach the part of her inner self he was counting on to hold hope and a will to go on living. To want a future with him. “You saved my life when the guards whipped me to the edge of death, when all I wanted was to sink into the pain and die, remember? Now it’s my turn to save you.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Can’t what?” Her question confused him, and he puzzled over the non sequitur.

  “Can’t—live. What if, when you cut the power, I die anyway?” Her voice trembled and broke on the last two words like a frightened child’s.

  Nate fought his triumph at hearing her admit at least a possibility of leaving the chamber. Everything I desire depends on choosing my next words carefully. “I won’t let myself believe even the remote possibility. The device has functioned since your father left you here to recuperate. When you’ve been awakened, you’ve been fine, right? Why would the mechanism fail its purpose now? Trust your father’s technology. When I hit the off switch, you’ll walk free, I swear.”

  “But the device no longer gives me the blessed sleep. I awaken on my own more and more often.”

  “Only since I came and we shared minds, shared the dreamspace, isn’t that so?” Nate refused to yield on any point she tried to raise. He wanted fiercely to believe his own assurances, wanted the truth to be what he was saying to her. He tried to remember any report on ancient sites he’d ever scanned, how the devices and unknown machines continued to work long after their makers vanished from the star lanes. He strove to project his own knowledge to her as subliminal reassurance. “You and I are linked. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, and I don’t care. For me, it’s enough to know we are. I can’t give you back the life you were originally destined to live with your own people, but I can offer you a fresh start, new possibilities, with me. Now tell me the right way to cut the power to this damn thing, and let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m afraid.” Her voice in his mind was low, trembling.

  I know, sweetheart. He pressed his open hand against the green light barrier, wishing with all his heart he could touch her, hold her hand and give her reassurance.

  “Life is about taking risks. You wouldn’t have been here on this planet as an explorer alongside your father if your people weren’t like mine. We never give up, not ever, not while there’s breath in the body and action to be taken. I know you refused to admit defeat all these years, however long it may have been. You had hope, you wanted to live, admit it. Don’t falter now, when we have the future together within reach.”

  “If only—” Her thought broke off abruptly.

  Nate waited. Ultimately, this had to be her decision. He’d find the strength to abide by her choice, no matter what it cost him.

  With a flash of insight, the right words came to him. “I swear I’ll take care of you for the rest of our lives, if you want me. But if I’m wrong, and the worst does happen…” His voice shook at the sudden awful mental picture of her aging a millennium in a moment, but then he forced himself to shove the fear aside, to go on calmly. “You’ll die in the arms of a man who loves you, not pinned to a goddamn table like a specimen in a lab. Nor on one of Huitlani’s bloodstained altars with Lolanta’s gloating face as the last thing you ever see.”

  Bithia was crying again. He felt like the lowest creature on the planet pushing her so hard, but there wasn’t time for more prolonged contemplation of alternatives. If he left her behind in this chamber, alive under the device’s spell, Sarbordon would cut the power and have his way, inflicting as much pain and suffering as he could. Not an option in Nate’s mind.

  He was well aware Bithia could see his mental pictures, because he wasn’t shielding the potential sequence of events, ugly though it was.

  Suddenly, so sharply it literally hurt his head and left an afterimage on his retinas, he had the vision of a different circuit. The implication was clear that if he traced the new set of symbols, Bithia would rise from the couch imprisoning her for countless centuries. The circuit was on the far side of the chamber. Nate spun, found the set of symbols and, without further hesitation, he did what needed to be done.

  The hum in the chamber stopped.

  The sudden silence was deafening.

  Nate held his breath, afraid to look in those first heartbeats. Committing that one simple act terrified him more than anything he’d ever faced, even on his most dangerous missions. Taking a deep breath, he pivoted, crossed the floor to the couch, going past the boundary where the curtain of light had stopped him before.

  “Bithia?”

  Her chest was rising and falling slowly. She put one hand to her forehead, then the other, rubbing her temples. “Nate?” Her voice sounded rusty, hoarse, but with the same lilt her mental communications had contained.

  “Right here.” He couldn’t keep the triumph out of his voice.

  Bithia opened her eyes, focusing on him, lavender-blue pupils huge, expression bewildered, long lashes starred together from her recent tears. “You’re real? Not a dream?”

  “Here in the flesh. I told you it would be all right.”

  “I—I’m sorry I doubted you. Doubted us.” She worked to sit, hands slipping on the slick surface of the cushions.

  Suddenly feeling awkward, Nate reached to help her. She seemed to experience the same reserve, shrinking away from his touch, but then—after a long, tremulous breath—she reached out to him and he gathered her into a long embrace, holding her close. The contact was enough for now, giving comfort in this first moment of actually being together. Her body felt cold, hypothermic, but warmed gradually as she clung to him, absorbing his heat.

  “You were frightened of the unknown. I understood.” Nate leaned over to kiss her gently on the forehead. “Can you stand?” He kept one arm behind her back as a brace.

  “Let’s find out.” Bithia gathered herself and swung her legs over the side of the couch. With Nate’s strong arm to steady her, she straightened and swayed before flashing him a triumphant grin. The next moment, her knees buckled, and Nate caught her in his arms. He shifted to set her on the couch, and instantly she protested.

  “No! I won’t take the chance of being held by the device.”

  Moving away from the couch, holding her effortlessly in his arms, he said, “I understand your qualms. Let me carry you until you regain your strength.”

  “You can’t carry me to the mountains.”

  “We can steal kemat, maybe from the royal stables. Have you ever ridden?”

  “Once or twice, a long time ago.”

  Startled by the idea after all the emotional tension of a few moments ago, Nate realized she was teasing him. He laughed, and she joined in the mirth, together for the first time outside of a dream, her head resting on his shoulder. He was happy.

  A moment later Thom clattered down the stairs and through the entryway, Atletl and Celixia right behind him. “Sorry to interrupt, but the alarm is up out there. All hell is breaking loose.”

  From her position safely in Nate’s arms, Bithia studied the sergeant with interest. “This is your friend you told me about?”

  “Sergeant Thom Curran at your service, ma’am.” He snapped off a crisp salute. “My thanks for rescuing us in the first place. Now if we could get out of here…”

  “The Lady must eat,” Celixia said from beh
ind Thom.

  Nate set Bithia on her feet, keeping his arm around her waist for support. “We’ll get her something, steal food from the marketplace—”

  The priestess cut Nate off. “She must eat of the sacred food her father left and drink from the Two Wines.”

  “There isn’t time—”

  “Wait, I—I think she may be right,” Bithia said slowly. “I have a memory of my father telling me Hialar would have things I’d need to ingest when I emerged from the device’s care to stabilize my system.”

  “Does she have to eat it here, or can we do this on the go?” Thom asked, his patience apparently at the breaking point. “This ain’t exactly the place for a picnic. The enemy is pounding on the damn door up there. If one of the priestesses can get the words and tone right, they’ll be in here with us. Too close in here to use the Mark Ones. Don’t think the lady and Celixia are going to do well in hand-to-hand combat. We need to try to find another exit, another tunnel, something.”

  “You’re right.” Nate looked over at Celixia. “We have to be guided by you. Does the red box hold what she needs? And can she eat it as we go?”

  “My family kept its secrets well, despite the efforts of Sarbordon’s people.” Celixia was proud, triumphant even. “He believed he knew everything from poring over the ancient tablets. As if those contained all the knowledge of the Hialar.”

  “I grow light-headed, dizzy,” Bithia said, her tone alarmed. She touched her forehead again and leaned more heavily on Nate’s arm.

  “Sit on the stair, and Celixia can fix you the required nutrients.” Nate addressed his next remarks to the frowning, fidgeting Thom. “We have to strategize anyway. There’s not any practical way we can fight our way out the front door. And we don’t know if there’s a back door.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Bithia squeezed his hand. “Of course there’s another way out of the chamber.”