Leap Ships [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 7]

by Michelle Levigne

  “Why would they take the stupid floor?” Rhiann grumbled. She shook her head, then turned a disgusted face to Bain.

  “Maybe there was equipment built into the floor,” he said with a shrug. The idea was beyond him, too.

  “I think maybe they had khrystal in their brains, not just their genes. It made them crazy."

  “Didn't your father say the first one did ... things that weren't right? Maybe it affects how you think."

  “She was fighting wicked people.” Rhiann shook her head again. “Next room!"

  Halfway down the hall, they came to a door they couldn't open. Rhiann tapped the keypad, trying multiple series of codes. Frustrated, she thumped the wall with her fist and called for her sister. Herin and the crewman joined them and the older girl pulled out her reader screen. In moments, she too exhausted the codes culled from the old records.

  “Maybe the keypad is broken,” Bain offered.

  “Maybe, but this—” Herin pointed at a tiny purple light flashing in the bottom left corner, “indicates that my codes don't match what's required."

  “That's stupid. We have all the codes. Everybody recorded all the codes just so we could come back here someday,” Rhiann said.

  “Maybe somebody died before they could record this code,” Bain offered.

  “Maybe this is somebody's private office or even their quarters,” the crewman offered. He flashed his light's beam on the keypad and studied it, frowning for a moment. “For all we know, somebody got in here after the mass exodus and deliberately changed some of the codes."

  “That's possible,” Herin admitted grudgingly. “Well, we're wasting time here. The goal is to see as much as we can, remember?” She stepped across the hall and down to the next door, which was open. The crewman winked at Rhiann and followed her.

  Two doors later, Bain noticed there were no more doors for a long gap of blank wall. He tried to estimate distance in the shadows; maybe twenty meters, maybe more. A shiver of anticipation ran up his spine as Rhiann tapped codes into the keypad next to the closed door. It slid open with a whoosh of rank air.

  Sunlight spilled out through the doorway into the hall and blinded them. Rhiann's shriek brought Herin and the crewman running.

  “Oh,” the older girl murmured. She stepped through the doorway first, ahead of her unusually reticent little sister.

  The entire outer wall—at least fifty meters away—was floor to ceiling window, looking out over the desert landscape. The centuries and sand and heat had scoured the material of the window, scratching and dulling and obscuring it so it was more a transparent whiteness than the clear, glass-like state it held when brand-new. Whatever it was had resisted the pounding of storms and kept the room airtight, evidenced by the gust of dead air when the door slid open.

  Along the walls, a floor-level trough of dry, sterile dirt and dusty, wooden, twisted black sticks showed where plants had grown. Troughs in faded, decorative white and green and blue plastic were scattered around the room.

  Faded, rainbow-colored panels in the ceiling showed where the light had been tinted to fall on the plants below to aid growing. Benches were placed against the troughs or in seating groups. Bain imagined what this place had looked like when the lights were on and plants grew tall and thick, turning this long room into a miniature forest.

  “There should be a fountain,” Rhiann said, breaking the silence that had caught all four of them for at least five solid minutes.

  “Rhi—” her sister began in a warning tone. Then Herin shook her head. “Try over there.” She beckoned toward the middle of the room, where there seemed to be a raised platform.

  Rhiann scurried through the maze of troughs and benches and Bain followed with some vague idea of keeping her out of trouble. She looked back at him once and smiled and held out her hand. Bain grasped it and they moved a little faster.

  The platform had three steps running along all six edges. Bain leaped them with one bound. Rhiann found it a little difficult, but his momentum pulled her along. He caught her when her foot caught on the top step. When the two turned around to look at what they had reached, Rhiann's hand trembled in his.

  A fountain sat in a basin in the middle of the platform. Made of age-darkened stone, stained by time and water, features smoothed by erosion, Bain could still make out what it had been—a tree with a bird of some kind perched in the topmost, bare branches. The bird had a smooth head, no plumage, and a hooked beak that made it a predator. At the base of the tree, a canine of some kind crouched, seemingly watching the people who would have sat on the edge of the fountain.

  “Herin, this is it!” Rhiann shouted.

  “I know,” her sister called back. Her voice came from the opposite end of the room from where they had left her.

  Bain turned and looked, and found Herin standing in front of a section of wall where the greenish plastic coating had been exchanged for glossy black. Even from that distance, he could see writing in the black. Rhiann grabbed his hand and they ran again.

  “Is it her?” Rhiann gasped when they caught up with Herin and the crewman.

  “It's her,” the crewman said in a choked voice.

  Bain could barely make out the writing in the black. It was a square two meters wide and two high. A shelf under the square had marks from several objects resting on it. Indentations at either end looked like they had been made to hold something. A few withered stalks of some ancient plant still lay on the shelf under the writing.

  “What does it say?” he asked.

  “Here lies Elin, our mother and protector, the guide of our dreams and the enemy of our fears.” Herin's voice cracked as she read the inscription, lightly tracing her gloved finger under the words.

  “Who's—"

  “Papa told you about the children who were attacked? The predecessors of Leapers? They're the ones who first learned to link with the computers.” Rhiann waited until Bain nodded. “All the adult Khybors except Elin were killed in the attack. When the children came out of the healing tanks, she was mother to them all. She took them away and taught them to survive in Norbra's worst desert when the dangers got bad."

  “When I was littler than you,” the crewman half-whispered, “I learned a poem lamenting the fact that they had to leave Mother Elin's body behind when they fled Norbra."

  “Why'd they bury her here, in the garden?” Bain wanted to know.

  “Back then—” Herin's voice cracked. She shuddered and turned away and started walking quickly, blindly toward the doorway. The others followed without thinking. “Back then, nobody buried Khybors. They just burned their bodies and used the ashes for fertilizer. When Elin died, the Khybors showed they were people too, and made her tomb a place of honor."

  “What are Khybors?” he half-whispered.

  “That's what people with khrystal were called, when they tried to make us not Human,” Rhiann said. She slid her hand into his again, and Bain held it tight.

  Herin reached the doorway ahead of them and let out a tiny growl of disgust. The doorway was closed. Bain turned around, feeling a flutter of panic, and looked back. He saw the open doorway at the other end of the room.

  “We'll just end up in the hallway again,” he said, and reached out to press the single control button next to the door. Bain fully expected it to not open, but it did.

  The doorway opened into a little landing, with stairs curving down into another lit area, not the hallway they expected.

  “Herin, can we?” Rhiann begged.

  “We'll have to run like the wind to get back to the stairway when your parents get there,” the crewman warned.

  “Why not?” Herin threw one more glance over her shoulder at the deserted indoor garden and the tomb, and took the first step down.

  At the bottom of the steps, something tickled at the back of Bain's brain. He had the nagging, uneasy sense that he had missed seeing something important. He hesitated for a moment, but Rhiann still held his hand and she yanked on it to keep him going. They
stepped through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs and into the hallway.

  “There's no dust,” Bain whispered.

  “What?” Herin asked, looking back over her shoulder.

  “There's no dust on the stairs."

  “But that's—” She stopped short and slowly tilted her head back, to gaze up at the ceiling.

  Bain opened his mouth to speak, but the words clogged in his throat.

  Light flooded the hallway, yet they stood in a hallway with closed doors all down the length. No windows let in the blinding sunlight outside. The light came from long strips of panels in the ceiling.

  “This is impossible,” the crewman said.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  “We have to get back to—” Herin began.

  Her words stopped short as the door directly behind her whooshed open. A man in black clothes, with coffee-and-cream skin and dark eyes, a shaven head and bristly black beard leaped out and snatched at her.

  The crewman stepped forward, shouting her name, and drew the wand from its holster at his belt. Another man appeared behind the first, saw the movement, and drew a gun. It spat a stream of red light and heat and pellets that screamed through the air and shattered the crewman's helmet and breather mask and turned his face into a mass of torn flesh and shattered bone.

  Herin shrieked in pure fury and brought both hands down together on the man attacking her. Her joined hands hit hard against the side of his head and knocked him sideways. As he sagged and went down against the doorframe, a third man appeared. He caught Herin from behind with a blow to the back that knocked her to the floor. Before she could struggled to her knees, he tore her helmet off and struck the back of her head with a short wand in his hand that crackled and gave off a single bright spark. Herin collapsed soundlessly.

  Rhiann saw her sister go down and screamed. She took one step toward Herin and Bain flung his arms around her, holding her back.

  “Good idea,” the man who had downed Herin said. He raised his head and took a step toward them.

  Unlike the other two men, with their shaved heads, he still had his hair, thick and curly and glossy black. He wore flowing black pants and calf-high boots, a scarlet shirt open to the waist, and a black vest over it. More weapons hung from his thick, utilitarian belt. A thick chain of raw gold nuggets hung around his neck and two heavy gold rings with chunky, uncut red and blue stones decorated his hands.

  Bain swallowed hard, trying to raise some spit in his suddenly dry mouth. If he had to speak, he knew he couldn't hesitate. These men were pirates. They could be generous and friendly on a whim—or deadly, ready to kill over something as ridiculous as not liking the style of a stranger's clothes.

  Sweat poured down Bain's back, though his mouth remained dry. He stared at the man, who grinned down at him and Rhiann. Recognition made Bain cold.

  Haddan Caderi. What was he doing so far from Erenon? Why was he here with these pirates?

  Stupid! Bain scolded himself. Why shouldn't he be here? He's a pirate. Lin even said his father was a pirate. He's probably their leader.

  What would Lin do in this situation? Bain sized up Caderi in the few seconds of silence and decided bravado was the best road to follow. He had to show no fear. He had to knock the pirate leader off balance and keep him off balance. He had to be a challenge, but not a threat.

  “It's good to see you again,” Bain said, and reached up to take off his helmet and breather mask.

  Rhiann squeaked a protest to that move, but Bain met the younger girl's eyes and shook his head, pressing his finger to his lips to signal silence.

  “Do I know you?” Caderi asked, his voice a lazy drawl with a hint of threat underneath it.

  “I'm Bain Kern. We met at the docks at your—at your estate several years ago,” Bain said. He decided not to say ‘your father's estate', in case the argument he had witnessed that night had become a major split.

  “That's supposed to help my memory?” He chuckled. A flicker of amusement lit his eyes. That was better than anger or wariness, Bain hoped.

  “Maybe you remember my captain, my kinswoman, Lin Fieran."

  “Lin,” Caderi breathed. He nodded. “You've grown up, boy. Is this your woman?” He gestured at Herin, crumpled on the floor a step behind him.

  “No. She's a friend."

  “What are you doing here?” He took another step closer and towered over Rhiann, peering closer into her helmet.

  “This is their ancestors’ home,” Bain said, deciding to impress the pirate leader was the best course to take.

  “Ancestors?” Caderi laughed. “Do you know how many centuries this research base has been closed? Do you have any idea the equipment we've found here? The level of technology?"

  “All the working equipment was taken away,” Rhiann blurted. Her hand squeezed Bain's to the point of pain. Her voice trembled a little, but he suddenly knew she wasn't afraid—she was furious. “The records say so. All the empty rooms up there prove that.” She pointed through the ceiling with her free hand.

  “Empty rooms? You've been up there?” Caderi let out a whistle of pure admiration. “It's taken my men months just to get into these three floors. How did you get in here?"

  “How did you?” Bain returned. “Watcher—the sensors should have warned us your ship was coming."

  “We've been here for six months now, exploring and working.” He chuckled and made a low bow. “Welcome to N'horba in the winter, my friends."

  * * * *

  Herin woke a few minutes after Caderi's man brought her, Bain and Rhiann to an empty room. The man she had knocked down stood guard in front of the open door, his back to them.

  The room looked like all the others they had opened on the floor above, except it was cleaned out and had a bit of scratchy carpeting and a cot. Bain sat on the floor in the corner and let Rhiann and Herin use the cot.

  Rhiann took off her helmet and leaned over her sister, patting her face and rubbing her hands and making little whimpering noises of sympathy. She smiled, lips trembling, when Herin moaned and pushed her hands away and grumbled for her to be quiet.

  “She's going to be all right,” she said unnecessarily to Bain.

  “That's a matter of opinion,” Herin said. She looked around their cell. “Bain?"

  “We're Caderi's prisoners right now. How do you feel?"

  “Who's Caderi?” she demanded. She struggled to sit up. Rhiann got out of the way so she could swing her legs over the side of the cot. The sisters held hands and faced him.

  “It's a long story.” Bain hurried on, warned by Herin's frown that she wouldn't stand for niceties. “He's the leader of a planet called Erenon in the Soledad System in the Conclave. Lin was friends with his father. She said he could be a good friend even if he was a pirate and couldn't be trusted out of her sight. I have the feeling Haddan is worse than his father."

  “Does that help us?"

  “Just ... his father wanted Lin to marry him so his children would be Spacers and he could control his own ships. Lin wouldn't. If Caderi finds out about you two...” Bain pressed a finger against his lips in emphasis for silence. “Don't let a Leaper marry him, whatever you do."

  “Marry him!” Herin made a derisive sound. The guard at the door looked in on them. She scowled and turned her back to him. He grinned and stepped back out into the hallway.

  “He wants is to breed his own captains so he doesn't have to obey the rules Spacers made. Or rules Leapers made."

  “It'll never happen. Leapers never leave their ships,” Herin declared. She shook her head, and winced when the movement aggravated the remains of her ache.

  “Except daughters of captains who don't inherit,” Rhiann corrected her. “They never want to stay on the ship if they can't be captains like their mothers."

  Bain pushed that information aside. What good did it do them?

  “Ganfer?” he said, trying to whisper so the guard wouldn't hear him. “Ganfer, can you hear me?” H
e pressed the contact button on his collar link and cupped his other hand around his mouth, trying to contain the sound.

  No response from the ship-brain. Were they too far underground to be found or sensed? Did Ganfer even hear him?

  “What shouldn't I know about Leapers?” Caderi asked, appearing suddenly in the doorway.

  He grinned at how the two girls startled at his entrance. Rhiann put herself in front of Herin and glared at the big man.

  “Little spitfire, aren't you?” He chucked her under the chin—and nearly got bitten. Caderi laughed louder. “If I'd seen how pretty you were, Mistress, I wouldn't have stunned you like that."

  “How would you have stunned me?” Herin snapped. “With your wit and personality?"

  “I would certainly try."

  “Or maybe your breath and body odor?"

  Caderi laughed, nearly rocking back on his heels. Bain clenched his fists in his lap and said a quick prayer for the right words to say. He knew, deep down in his gut, when Caderi was amused like this, it wasn't exactly a good thing for them.

  “Tell me, what are Leapers? And why shouldn't I know about them?” Caderi persisted when he caught his breath.

  He stepped up to the cot and rested one foot on the support bar only a hands’ width from Herin's leg. He towered over her, smiling, giving her that charming smile his father had used on Lin. Bain hadn't liked how he felt when Lin had smiled back at Mordor Caderi.

  “Leapers are people you shouldn't trifle with if you know what's good for you,” Herin responded. “Harm us, even irritate us, and it will be bad for the entire universe."

  “Oh? Such power? I could use an ally with power. Do you have many ships? Strong weapons? Good warriors?"

  “Not like that,” Bain hurried to say. “Leapers are better than Spacers."