Decrypted (Encrypted #2)

by Lindsay Buroker

Tikaya leaned around him and told the policemen, “I’m a citizen. This is my guest. Is there a problem?”

  She had never seen a whole squad of men and women drop their jaws in a synchronized stunned gape before. A seagull landed on a pier and squawked. The sound stirred some of the policemen into shutting their mouths.

  “Your guest is Fleet Admiral Federias Starcrest?” the squad leader asked. “The slaughtering bloodthirsty tyrant who decimated our ships during the war? The nonpareil war criminal of the high seas? The heinous Turgonian emperor’s most dangerous lackey?”

  Rias looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised in a question.

  “They recognize you,” Tikaya said. “And, uhm, they don’t like you.”

  “Yes, I gathered that. There were a lot of words in there you haven’t taught me yet though.”

  Curse him, he sounded amused. But then, she’d seen him grin maniacally in the middle of battle, despite being surrounded by people attempting to kill him—no, because he’d been surrounded by people attempting to kill him.

  “My people like vocabulary words,” Tikaya said, trying not to sound worried.

  The police advanced with wariness despite Rias’s easy humor—they likely had no trouble understanding him, as most Kyattese learned Turgonian and Nurian in school, and those working around the docks would have had practice speaking with visiting foreigners. Four policemen kept their weapons trained on him while two edged forward, one clenching a baton, the other gripping handcuffs.

  Rias let them shackle his hands behind his back. His eyebrow twitched when a policewoman took his knife, but he didn’t try to stop her.

  A third man stepped toward Tikaya. “You said you’re a citizen, ma’am?”

  His words elicited a faint sting. She had never sought glory or recognition, but it was disappointing that the common man had no idea about her and what she’d done to help her people during the war. Of course, the president had deliberately kept her identity secret, hoping the Turgonians wouldn’t figure out who the Kyattese code breaker was—and punish her. He’d underestimated their fact-finding abilities.

  “Tikaya Komitopis,” she said.

  Her ancestors had been among the original refugees who colonized the islands, so at least the policeman nodded in recognition at the family name.

  “You’ll need to come with us for questioning, ma’am.”

  “Me? Why?”

  Rias lifted an eyebrow. “You were planning to leave me to be tortured alone?”

  “I thought we might expedite the process if I could go straight to the president,” she said.

  “Expedited torture. Oh, good.”

  “No torture. I told you, we don’t do that anyway, but he owes me a favor.” Tikaya smiled, though she feared it did not reach her eyes. Rias would not face the sort of torture with which he was familiar, but she had no doubt he would be in for an ordeal—an image of sugarcanes being smashed in her family’s press came to mind—if she couldn’t get an appointment to see the president promptly.

  One of the policewomen cleared her throat. At first, Tikaya thought she’d issue a warning that they should speak in Kyattese instead of Turgonian. But, “President Mokkos is on Akatoo this week,” was what she said, naming the smallest of the Kyattese Islands, and the most distant. “He and his team are assessing the ongoing damage in Ititio Harbor due to the season’s increased lava flows.”

  Tikaya grimaced. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  Before the woman could answer, the squad leader lifted a hand and said, “It’s irrelevant. It takes months to get an appointment to see him, and I doubt your family name will hasten that process. You’ll deal with the magistrate. Come.”

  Tikaya wanted to state that her surname had nothing to do with anything, that it was her deeds that had earned her the right to see the president in a timely manner, but the police didn’t care to converse further. The squad swarmed around Rias, leading him away, and a pair of men stepped to either side of Tikaya, gesturing for her to follow. They did not otherwise restrain her, but that only made her feel guilty as she walked behind Rias, observing the handcuffs trapping his wrists behind his back.

  CHAPTER 2

  A breeze whispered down an alley outside the window, rustling fallen palm fronds and other debris, but failing to stir the air inside the muggy interrogation room. Strange to think that Tikaya should need to become readapted to the climate in which she’d been born, but she found herself noticing the heat and humidity. Long hours had passed since the police had deposited her in the room with nothing more interesting than a single bamboo chair and a pitcher of water to keep her occupied. She guessed the delay was a result of searches of her and Rias’s rucksacks. The black alien sphere that had helped her with translations was tucked inside hers, and his held a dagger that was, though simple, made of the same strange black alloy. Those finds had to have the police scratching their heads and wondering where she and Rias had been.

  Tired of pacing, Tikaya sat on the hard chair and attempted to work on language puzzles in her head. Her mind kept bringing up thoughts of Rias and what they might be doing to him. She wished the police hadn’t separated them.

  Finally, the door creaked open. The police chief entered, accompanied by a blonde-haired woman in a nondescript hemp dress. Perhaps thirty years old, she seemed familiar, and Tikaya tried to place her. She decided they’d studied at the Polytechnic at the same time.

  The woman flexed her fingers and a further realization came: she was a mental sciences practitioner. Tikaya had never been detained by the police—alas, she had been too busy studying in her youth to rebel against authority, professors, or even her parents—so she had no idea if it was normal for a telepath to attend a questioning. She did know there were laws against intruding upon citizen’s thoughts. However, strong telepaths could often sense emotions without actually delving into a person’s head.

  A young assistant brought in a second chair, and the chief settled in opposite of Tikaya. His chair had padding.

  “Ms. Komitopis.” The chief propped his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers. His green eyes regarded her solemnly from beneath thinning red hair and brows, the latter separated by deep worry lines. “We have a file on your kidnapping. It’s good that you’ve made your way home. Your parents will be relieved.”

  His tone was friendly. Why didn’t that reassure her?

  “Thank you. I’ll need to see them as soon as possible, of course, but it’s more urgent that I communicate with the president, in regard to my… guest. Will that be possible?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “He knows me,” Tikaya said. “I helped in the intelligence department during the war.”

  The chief’s lined face, pale despite the sunny clime, gave away little, and she couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. “The president isn’t on the big island currently.”

  “I know,” Tikaya said. “But surely I can send him a message?”

  “Let’s see how things progress here first, shall we?”

  Tikaya felt her fingers curl into fists and forced herself to unclench them. She almost missed the bluntly honest Turgonians. Captain Bocrest would have smashed her against a wall by now, but at least she would have known where she stood with him.

  Abruptly, she remembered the telepath, and alarm flared inside her chest. The woman had taken up an unobtrusive position near the door, mostly blocked from sight by the chief’s chair. Deliberate placement? Either way, Tikaya had best not let kindly thoughts about her former captors seep out. When she’d run into Parkonis, her ex-fiancé had been certain she’d been suffering from captive complex.

  “Why is she here?” Tikaya nodded toward the woman. “I haven’t signed a consent form.”

  “It’s her job to ascertain your emotional stability through sensing feelings.” The chief spoke pleasantly, even enthusiastically, as if they were discussing the promise of a plentiful coconut crop this season. “While strong thoughts may reach her net,
your defenses won’t be violated. Not during this preliminary investigation.”

  Tikaya stared at him. What did that mean? Later violation was a possibility?

  Sweat trickled down the inside of her arm. She forced herself to sit back and take a deep breath. If they wanted to read her thoughts, that could be a good thing. It could clear Rias of whatever suspicions they must have over his appearance.

  Maybe.

  She thought of Gali, the woman who had torn through her mind back in the tunnels and reached the wrong conclusion about Tikaya’s relationship with Rias. Having access to another’s thoughts did not make a telepath omniscient. People sometimes saw what they wanted to see and interpreted memories in such a way as to support their beliefs.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened since you disappeared?” the chief asked.

  Tikaya would have preferred to save the story for the president, but he wasn’t there, and she wanted to clear up whatever she could so she could go home. It stung to be so close, after having been so far, only to be denied a trip of a few miles to her family’s plantation. She wouldn’t go without Rias though. She had to make these people understand that he wasn’t a threat. So Tikaya spent the next hour telling the story. She didn’t go into many details about the ancient technology, as dangerous weapons remained in those tunnels, and she wanted to consult with the Polytechnic colleagues before revealing much—if anything—to the world in general. She also rushed through the announcement that she and Rias were… close. Before long everyone on the island would know, but the judging eyes of the chief and the telepath made her uncomfortable. She felt like a child caught doing something forbidden, and now she squirmed on the chair, awaiting her punishment.

  If the artifacts his people must have found intrigued the chief, one would never know. He didn’t ask any questions during that part of her story. In fact, he asked nothing at all until the end of the hour. The sole question, when it came, was, “What’s Admiral Starcrest’s purpose here?”

  “Me,” Tikaya said.

  “You.” The chief exchanged looks with the telepath.

  “Yes, me. We wish to…” Get married, Tikaya thought, though Rias hadn’t mentioned the idea since their night in Wolfhump, where they’d struggled to decode the alien artifact amidst a grisly pile of frozen bodies. And he’d been speaking hypothetically then. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for a commitment of that magnitude or perhaps he had doubts whether a permanent association could work out. She hoped that wasn’t the case, because she’d already started wondering what their children might look like. “We wish to be together,” Tikaya said. “I brought him here so I can introduce him to my family.”

  “Ms. Komitopis.” The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. “Surely you must have considered that he’s using you as a cover and is truly here for nefarious purposes?”

  Tikaya shook her head. “He was stripped of everything and exiled two years ago. He has no loyalty to the Turgonian emperor any more. He wants a new career and a new life. With me. We’re going to work on archaeological puzzles together. He’s very smart.”

  “Oh, nobody’s doubting that.”

  No, they were just doubting her intelligence. “He’s an honorable man. Why don’t you talk to him for a while? You might change your opinion.”

  “I don’t speak more than a few words of Turgonian.”

  “He knows some Kyattese.”

  The chief’s eyes narrowed. “Does he, now?”

  Un oh. Was Rias pretending otherwise to see what her people said when they thought he couldn’t understand? She could hardly blame him for such subterfuge. She wouldn’t open her mouth around potential enemies either. Unless—she snorted to herself—they intrigued her first with a puzzle. That was all it had taken for Captain Bocrest to convince her to speak.

  The chief withdrew a piece of paper from a pocket and unfolded it. He held it before Tikaya’s spectacles. “What do you know about this?”

  The drawing was familiar. Precise pen strokes delineated the cross-sections of an engine while neatly written equations lined the margins. Rias had been working on his blueprints whenever he had spare time.

  “He wants to build us a ship so we can launch our own expeditions, something with enough space to house a team of—”

  “It’s not a ship,” the chief said. “We had an engineer look over his drawings. It’s a vessel designed to travel underwater. Turgonian steam power alone wouldn’t suffice—the fire would eat up the limited oxygen—but if he had access to the energy orbs our mental scientists craft, he could make this a reality. Can you imagine the advantage that would give the Turgonians? They could drop anchor in our harbor, spying on us from beneath the surface, and we’d never know they were there.”

  “The war has been over for more than a year, sir,” Tikaya said. “If Rias wants to build a—” there was no Kyattese word, so she used the Turgonian one for the concept, “—submarine, it’s because he likes a challenge. He said it’s something his people haven’t managed for the very reasons you stated.”

  “You did know about it.” The chief’s eyes widened, and he glanced at the telepath again.

  “He doesn’t have any diabolical reasons for building it. I imagine being able to travel beneath the waves would be an advantage during storms.”

  “During storms.” The chief’s jaw tightened. “I understand you’re a linguistics professor, so I must assume you possess intelligence of some sort, but I question your wisdom. Perhaps being sheltered in academia has left you naive to the workings of the world.”

  Now it was Tikaya’s jaw that tightened. So much so that it ached.

  “Or,” the chief went on, “perhaps you’re in collusion with the Turgonians.”

  She forced herself to unclench her jaw. “Philologist,” she said calmly.

  “What?”

  “I’m a philologist, not a linguist. While I do speak numerous tongues, my specialty is dead languages.”

  The chief took several deep breaths. “I see. You don’t wish to cooperate. I’ll be forced to put collusion on my report.”

  “Cooperate, how?” Tikaya asked. “You haven’t asked me to do anything.”

  “Tell me why Admiral Starcrest is really here.”

  Tikaya sighed. “I can only tell you the truth, not what you want to hear.”

  “I see,” he said again. “Your family will be informed, and a plan will be discussed in regard to treatment for you.”

  “Treatment?” Tikaya mouthed, but he was already stalking out of the room.

  The door slammed shut. Outside the window, the debris in the alley rustled as a breeze stirred. The air also carried the faint sound of voices. The chief and someone else. No doubt, they were discussing Tikaya. She could not pick out many of the words, but thought she heard, “parents.” Would the police send a message, instructing them to come to the station? After all she had been through, Tikaya should have relished the thought, but dread curdled in her stomach, not just because of the threat of “treatment” that had been mentioned. Listening to the chief’s condescending accusations had been bad enough; hearing them on her mother and father’s tongues would hurt.

  “It’s not your fault,” the telepath said.

  Tikaya twitched. She had forgotten the woman was still in the room.

  “The Turgonians are masters of interrogation and brainwashing.” The woman strolled over to stand beside Tikaya. “Though they favor violence, it doesn’t surprise me that Admiral Starcrest would use charm to win a woman over. He’s a handsome man, after all.”

  True, though he had been a mess, buried beneath two years’ of hair and grime, when Tikaya first met him.

  The woman put a hand on Tikaya’s shoulder. Though Tikaya was not trained in the mental sciences, she sensed when someone was applying them nearby, and the hairs on her arms rose now.

  “It’s not your fault,” the telepath said, a soothing sensation accompanying her words. “You’re the victim here. We’ll have a therapist work with
you, and you’ll come to realize—”

  Tikaya lunged to her feet, breaking the contact. She whirled to face the woman. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Of course.” The telepath clasped her hands behind her back and bowed her head. “Too soon. I understand. You’ll need to be separated from him for a while before you return to your senses. With time, his influence over you will wane.”

  Tikaya tried the door. It was locked. She backed to the wall, folded her arms over her chest, and eyed the window again. She briefly toyed with the idea of kicking the woman’s legs out from beneath her, searching her for a key, and escaping if she had one. Except this was an island and it was home. Where would Tikaya go if not here?

  “You don’t need to stay with me,” she said. “I promise I won’t get lonely if you go.”

  The woman only smiled.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t busy sifting through Rias’s thoughts,” Tikaya muttered.

  “He didn’t consent to that. We asked.”

  No, he wouldn’t. She remembered a comment he’d made that he’d been tortured by Nurians that way once.

  “You gave him an option?” Tikaya asked.

  “We don’t force people.”

  Tikaya snorted. “Unless it’s for therapy?”

  The door opened, and she tensed.

  The chief strode in and glowered at her. “You’re free to go.”

  Tikaya dropped her arms and gawked. It couldn’t be that easy. “I’m not leaving without Rias.”

  “He can go too.”

  The telepath inhaled a startled breath.

  “What?” Tikaya asked.

  “There are provisos,” the chief said. “War criminals can’t be permitted to stroll the island unsupervised, but, yes, he can leave with you.”

  Too easy. This was too easy. “Who were you talking to outside the window?” Tikaya asked. “The president hasn’t returned, has he?”

  “High Minister Jikaymar,” the chief said in a clipped tone.

  The man Tikaya’s supervisor had reported to during the war and who had overseen the guerrilla efforts against the Turgonians. Yes, he would know who Tikaya was and how she’d helped the nation, but they had not spoken more than once or twice, and she had never received the impression he liked her or would go out of his way to do her a favor.