Asha rose up on her toes, angling around Zee to get a better look at the speaker.
“… she will destroy you with arrows of fire…”
The old woman suddenly lifted her gaze and looked directly at Asha. The shock of recognition was so powerful that her body failed to respond to the impulse to shrink out of view.
“Ophelia,” whispered Asha, leaning against Zee’s back. “My god, that’s her—Stella Engle.”
“Sure is,” murmured Zee. She didn’t sound surprised, which struck Asha as odd considering everyone believed Engle was dead.
“… and you, Manti,” continued the old woman, “will embrace the angel whose fire will consume you and your house and her as well unless you loose her arrows into the sky…”
“Did you catch that?” asked Zee.
It had taken a moment to sink in after the first shock. But yes, she’d heard. Ophelia had called the man Manti.
Zee bent to pick up a rock and started around the base of the arch.
“What are you doing?” Asha whispered.
“Come on!” Zee took off at a run.
Ophelia launched at the stranger, and he was too busy fighting her off to notice Zee separating from the shadow of the monument.
The rock struck home with a nauseating thud—Zee could hit a rabbit from ten meters away. But before the man’s body hit the ground there was an explosion of motion. Something ejected from him: a fabric covering that encased and inflated. By the time they reached him, what had looked like fabric had hardened into something resembling an almond shell—oblong, pitted, and the same color as the sand. Shreds of the man’s clothing littered the ground around him.
“What the hell?” cried Zee.
Asha approached the woman slowly. “Stella?”
She watched Asha through wide, bloodshot eyes. Blood from a cut in her forehead ribboned down one temple and cheekbone. Her face was so weathered it resembled the desert’s microbiotic crust.
“It’s okay,” Asha soothed. “We won’t hurt you.”
The old woman pounced on her, and Asha yelped as she knotted her bony fingers in Asha’s shirt.
“Easy, Stella!” called Zee, coming over to help.
She grasped the slight shoulders, but Stella ignored Zee and tugged Asha closer. “His ship will return,” she rasped, misting Asha’s cheeks with saliva. “You must be ready.”
Then she shoved Asha away—hard, for a woman who must be more than seventy years old—tore herself free from Zee’s grasp, and turned and ran under the arch.
“Wait!” cried Asha, starting after her, but Zee caught her arm.
“We can go after her later. Come take a look at this.”
They examined the almond shell and found it was completely sealed. Experimental attempts to dent or break it failed to even make a mark.
“Do you think he’s alive in there?” asked Zee.
“Assuming you didn’t kill him with that rock, you mean?”
“Assuming that.”
“How should I know?”
“I thought you were the expert on them!”
“I’m the expert on them twenty years ago. I don’t know anything about their technology.”
“Guess, Ash.” Zee used the same shortened version of Asha’s name her father always had. It hurt to hear it. But Zee was the only one who seemed to understand the pain of Asha’s loss, and Asha never corrected her.
Asha eyed the shell again. “I don’t know that the rock was absolutely necessary. But good shot.”
“Trust me, it was necessary.” She grinned. “And thanks.”
Asha rolled her eyes. Zee was a decade her senior, but you’d never know it by her behavior. Maybe because of her age—she’d been nine at the time of the Bio Holocaust—she hadn’t adapted well to a life of relative confinement.
“I’d say he’s alive,” said Asha. “We think the Manti were experimenting with blending plant and animal DNA with robotics and artificial intelligence. It’s probably some kind of armor that was triggered by the sudden blow. I’d say this thing is going to break down at some point and let him out.”
Zee nodded. “Makes sense to me. So the more important question is what is he doing here?”
“Maybe he was trying to take Stella.” Asha scanned the expansive blue sky, frowning. “She seemed to think he has a ship that’s coming back. I didn’t think they ever came this close.”
Zee knelt next to the shell. She glanced up at Asha. “This could be our chance.”
Zee was right—it was the opportunity they’d been waiting for. A better one than they could have hoped for.
“You still want to do this?” asked Zee.
The day Asha learned her father had been taken, she’d decided she was going after him. She’d been ready to walk alone into the desert when Zee approached her, befriending her at first, but eventually sharing her plans to turn Sanctuary against its governing council. Zee was also eager to get people into the Manti capital, and she’d collaborated with Asha on her plan, beginning with training her in self-defense.
But it turned out infiltrating Granada was more complicated than Asha had anticipated. She had been warned almost from birth that anyone leaving Sanctuary would be picked up by the Manti, and so had assumed procuring a ride to their city would be as easy as wandering out past the reservoir. But Zee told her the threat of Manti abduction had been exaggerated to protect the post-holocaust generation—from the hazards of the desert, as well as their enemies. The truth was the Manti ships did not appear according to any predictable schedule. Sometimes they didn’t see one for weeks.
Even if Asha did manage to get picked up, she had to do so without raising suspicions. The Manti had heightened senses, and clearly at this point their technology was far superior. Zee had fixed on the idea of sending sleeper agents, who couldn’t reveal what they didn’t know. An Archive connection she would never name had furnished her with every piece of data on hypnosis. She’d been experimenting on Asha for months.
They’d already come up with a command for sleeping, incorporating the code name “Ophelia” to create a phrase no one else was likely to say and trigger Asha by accident. For waking they chose a visual cue from the Archive—an image of a structure she was certain to see at some point once she’d reached Granada.
The plan was full of holes. The Manti might simply kill her. Or she might arrive in the city safely, but never find her father. She might find him dead.
But the alternative was to do nothing, and she’d been doing that long enough.
“Yeah,” replied Asha. “I still want to do this.”
* * *
Asha’s heart thumped heavily, rattling the hollow-feeling places in her chest. She turned to study Pax’s profile, ignoring the conversation he was carrying on with his sister over the com.
She marveled at the peril she’d placed herself in. She and Zee had been like children, playing a game they didn’t understand. That plan to leave her on the beach in that thin cotton dress, hoping Pax wouldn’t view her as a threat and kill her, when the real danger had lain in triggering those overpowering mating instincts of his.
As her heartbeat slowed, instincts gradually acknowledging that she was in no immediate danger, her recent experiences began to merge with her restored memory. Had her father learned the truth about the Manti’s agreement with the governing council? Had her mother agreed to, or even ordered, her father’s abduction?
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t afford to speculate about that right now. More important to focus on Pax. Because Pax might very well have been the one to transport him. Which meant Pax knew where he was.
“I think you’re an idiot, Brother, but no more than I am myself.” Iris’s words pulled Asha’s attention back to their conversation. “I won’t give you away, but I need something in exchange.”
Pax frowned. “What’s that?”
There was hesitation on Iris’s end. “Can you shut off Banshee’s AI?”
Now hesitation on P
ax’s end. “AI offline, Banshee.”
“Yes, Captain, AI offline.”
“What is this about, Iris?”
“Carrick.”
Pax sat forward in the pilot’s chair. “What about him?”
“I don’t want him going to the geneticists.”
Pax studied the image of Iris on the console. “Why?”
Iris’s sigh was audible over the com. Her gaze shifted away. “Because he’s unusual and handy in a fight and I don’t want him to end up in a hundred labeled jars.”
“They’re not likely to kill him, Iris.”
Her gaze came back to Pax, and she frowned. “They’re not likely to kill Asha, either. But for some reason you find it distasteful her parts might get rearranged in interrogation.”
Asha shuddered, and Pax’s gaze flickered toward her. She couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Pax had said Beck’s people were human, but clearly he hadn’t told her everything.
“What is it you want me to do?” asked Pax.
“Help me make sure he’s not taken into custody. We’ve compiled that damned DNA record, so if we don’t, he’ll go straight to DAB-lab.”
“That damned DNA record was your idea. You knew what he was. You knew he’d end up at Sustainable Transgenics.”
“I only knew he wasn’t Manti or human. And I thought I could let go of this.” A pause, and then, “I tried.”
“Interesting.”
“Shut up, Pax. My idea is for him to escape as soon as we leave the ship. He’s an unknown quantity. No one will suspect we’re involved. If he can make it down into the lower city he’ll be safe for a while. Until I can figure out what to do about him.”b_d
Pax groaned. “You’re serious about this.”
“Serious as you are.”
“Did you tell him what he is?”
“Yes.”
“How did he take it?”
“Hard to say. He’s not … expressive.”
“I’m willing to bet he is when he wants to be. You’ve spoken to him about your plan, I assume.”
“Not yet.”
“Iris! We’ll be on the ground in minutes. What if he refuses to leave the others? He strikes me as the type. And he’ll have information that could hurt you.”
“Easy enough to deny. And he’s going to be separated from the others anyway. Probably permanently. I just need to make that clear to him.”
“He’s going to blame us for that. He’s going to blame you, Iris.”
“I need you to trust me to manage him, Pax.”
“Fine,” said Pax, blowing out a sigh of defeat. “I’ve got to bring Banshee’s AI back online so no one notices the gap. I’ve already mucked around with the log too much.”
“Be sure to send Father the report from your meeting with Sanctuary’s council. And let him know we both have other business, so he won’t expect to see us right away.”
“He’ll want to hear about Nefertiti and the wasps. We’ll have to get back quickly.”
“I don’t exactly have a plan, Pax.” Hesitation had crept into Iris’s tone.
“We’ll have to wing it. Won’t be the first time.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way of talking you into letting them take Asha with the others. Just until we get back.”
“You’re right, there’s not. See you in a minute.”
Pax sighed, and before he could bring Banshee back into the conversation, Asha asked, “What is Carrick?”
* * *
Pax sank his hands into the console as the ship approached the city. “Wolf transgenic. We’ve never found one before.”
“This is another big risk you’re taking.”
He met her gaze. “Yes.”
As she studied him, he noticed something different about her. She looked … not less frightened, exactly. More resigned?
“The two of you are close,” she said.
“We take care of each other. We always have. Do you have sisters or brothers?”
She shook her head. “I’m close to my father. I was.” Pain creased her forehead as she frowned.
He shifted his attention back to the ship, fingers connecting with sensors within the console, guiding them into position for a vertical landing.
“Stay close to me when we leave Banshee,” he said, “and especially if we end up down in the city. I know you can take care of yourself. But you’re an outsider here, and some will sense it. They may be curious about you. Or worse.”
“Okay,” she agreed. But her expression was frustratingly neutral. The last thing he needed was for her to bolt.
“Banshee online,” said Pax, and the AI confirmed. “Take the landing.”
Pax disengaged from the console, and Asha asked, “What is this village like? Where you’re taking the others.”
He folded his arms, considering her question as well as the deep, rich brown of her eyes. She had a good heart, to continue to take an interest in the fate of the others with her own so uncertain.
“Al Campo is run by DAB-lab, where the geneticists work. The lab monitors the people there and provides for their needs, but they’re mostly left to themselves.”
“Mostly.” She pronounced the word in a knowing way. She had a healthy skepticism. But then she’d just had her world upended.
“They are studied. Some of them undergo medical testing. Nothing inhumane.”
“Will they ever be released?”
Pax glanced at the window as Banshee set down on the pad, rocking the cockpit gently.
“Most of them will not.” He rose to his feet. “Time to go.”
He had to stay sharp now, which required pushing the enigmatic girl and her questions to the back of his mind. Granada had been notified they were transporting human cargo, and a Guard escort would be waiting for them on the pad.
He wasn’t sure when over the past twenty-four hours he’d decided he wasn’t turning Asha over to anyone, and that he would conceal her story. He knew she didn’t understand his decision, and he only half understood it himself. But what he did know was the Guard would make her talk, and they wouldn’t care whether they got the information they started out looking for—or how many pieces she was in when they finished.
No one in the Guard was going to question his authority to escort Asha personally, but the priest had complicated everything.
Asha trailed the tips of her fingers along the wall as they moved through the corridor, and something about it caught at his heart.
“Good-bye, Banshee,” she said as they stepped onto the boarding ramp.
He wondered whether the ship would reply despite his ban on communication with her. A moment later Banshee trilled a programmed response: “Be well, Asha.” She wouldn’t know it was programmed, and he found that he was glad for that. He’d sensed the growing bond between his captive and his ship, and knew that for some reason Asha found it comforting. He didn’t want to take that away from her.
His own developing bond—and the questionable course of action it had propelled him into—was of greater concern. He needed processing time for that, but the necessity of agreeing to help his sister with Carrick meant he wasn’t going to get it.
His focus on Asha had left him zero spare cycles for trying to understand what was going on with his sister. He had the barest fragment of a theory that she’d developed an attachment to the wolf man in fighting alongside him at the abbey. Iris was deeply loyal, and her decisions about where to place her loyalty did not always conform to duty or propriety.
All he could do at this point was be ready for anything.
“Remember,” he murmured to Asha as they exited the ship, “stay close.”
The landing pad had been built specifically for use by the royal household, in a cleared area between two hills—the Alhambra perched atop one, and the old Moorish quarter, the Albayzín, blanketed the other.
The Albayzín was home to both the most creative members of Manti society—artists, writers, architects—and, m
ore recently, to the growing religious fringe. His father’s policy toward the latter had been to ignore and later to scoff, with the belief the majority of Granada’s citizens would follow the Alhambra’s example. But the group was becoming more vocal, and there’d been rumors of planned violence. So far the amir had dismissed all this as paranoia, but there was no question tension was growing in that quarter, and his father had no tolerance for anyone, human or Manti, who presented a threat to what he’d achieved. When the amir finally did decide to clamp down on the zealots, innocent people would suffer, and the community would never be the same. Which would be a shame. The Manti had no history separate from their creators, and only a fledgling culture. Loss of the artist community would be a major blow.
The Albayzín’s galleries and music venues had once drawn patrons from all over the city, but mainstream Manti society was increasingly keeping its distance, especially after dark. Even the Guard avoided the area. For the moment, the Moorish quarter was the perfect place to hide a fugitive. Today was market day as well, which meant crowded, noisy streets.
Pax guided Asha toward Nefertiti, and they waited for Iris to come down the ramp. Since the baffling conversation with his sister, he’d been trying to work out a believable rationale for escorting Carrick to the genetics facility himself. It was their best chance of staging an escape.
When Iris reached them she raised her eyebrows in a significant way, and that seemed to spark the chaos that followed. As the Guard marched toward the launch pad, a dark blur throttled down Nefertiti’s ramp, shoving Pax roughly aside.
Despite knowing what the blur was, his heart vaulted out of his chest as Carrick scooped an arm around Asha’s waist and dragged her down the ramp. Pax shouted with alarm as the priest jumped from the pad to the platform, several meters down. He straightened with his arm coiled around Asha, the point of a knife pressed against her throat.
“Carrick!” snarled Pax. He jumped from the pad, landing on his feet a couple meters from the priest.
“Pax!” Iris shouted.
“Don’t come any closer,” warned Carrick in that low, imperturbable tone.
Rage boiled in Pax, almost beyond the point of recovery. Rage at Carrick, rage at himself, rage at Iris. But as his sister shouted his name again, reason swam the swirling, scorching divide to whisper in his ear: Iris planned this.
The Ophelia Prophecy Page 11
