But she couldn't will away the sense that something was very wrong, so for the moment, she’d come to an agreement with herself. Feel what she needed to feel. And survive anyway.
Or at least try.
Step one was to learn as much as she could about her new surroundings. The room they were in was conical, maybe two and a half stories high, but with eight distinct levels of ridges spiraling up the side of the walls.
All around, the flutter of wings and skittering of legs hummed like a heartbeat. She’d only caught the quickest of glances of anyone alive on this ship other than the Rohtet, but as far she knew, the aliens who had taken them only stood about one-fifth the height of humans. And just like the bodies she'd seen on Torque's ship, the live versions far more closely related to insects than anything humanoid. Clearly the intellect of this species far surpassed that of anything with six legs back on earth, but the partitioned bodies and protruding antenna made for an undeniable comparison.
It would almost be fascinating if Safa knew what they wanted with her and the others.
Safa’s stomach lurched when the ship stopped moving without warning, barely decelerating before coming to a complete stop. She barely managed to keep her insides where they belonged. Wherever they were being taken, they had arrived.
Ready or not, answers had to be coming soon. There was some comfort to be found in knowing that if these aliens had wanted to kill their hostages outright, they could have done it already. Safa’s mind only came around to the possibility of torture when the entire western side of the room folded down to reveal an even larger chamber beyond.
The invitation was clear. They were supposed to move from this space to the next. But why? Safa could not talk her feet into moving forward.
Everything in Safa’s body was overwhelmed by stimulus, though she was herself enough to realize that it was only her survival instinct that was keeping her from completely panicking.
The buzzing noise intensified after nearly a minute of Safa and the others remaining in place. Safa couldn’t help but think that the longer their group remained inactive, the more their chances for survival began to diminish.
“I’m not going in there,” one of the Rohtet said, breaking the silence that had started to feel almost comforting. “If we go in there, we aren’t coming out again.”
“Neha,” one of the others said, his voice low and soothing. “I’m not sure we’re any safer here.”
The buzzing intensified, taking on a frenzied edge. Was this anger from the insects, aliens, or something else altogether?
Safa wasn’t used to having this many questions and so few answers. She had never extensively studied insect behavior beyond a few nights down the rabbit hole of researching a stray train of thought, but she knew enough to extrapolate what their behavior might look like if they were intelligent enough to build space-capable vessels and fighter ships.
They were listening to every word. Whatever their plan had been in taking captives, they were beginning to get impatient.
“We should go,” Safa said, not bothering to quiet her voice. “We won't learn anything else staying here.”
"Yes," the second male Rohtet stepped toward her. “The small human is right. We’ve been brought to this place for a reason, and it is time we learned what it was. This race, whoever they are, have been attacking us since we arrived. But shortly after your people joined us, their tactics became considerably more aggressive. Now we are here. If we are to meet our end now, I intend to do it with my eyes facing the enemy.” He glanced down toward Safa whose head was a whole foot lower than his own. “I am Terssin. This is Shan, the ambassador’s assistant,” he nodded toward the other male, “and this is Neha, our chief engineer.”
Safa looked from one to the next. “I’m Safa. I’m the lead scientist on board the Lexiconis. I had been working with some of your people to combine our information and see if there was a solution we were missing on how to escape the void.”
The woman shook her head emphatically. “We have tried every option already. So far, anything we do only seems to attract more of those who would seek to destroy us and take what we have.”
“I am the first to admit how much I do not know, but we were starting to make progress. Moments later, I was here. And I struggle to believe that was a coincidence. Terssin. If you don’t mind my asking. What is your role on board your ship?”
“I am the head of security,” the man said, considering Safa. “And I see your point. With only four of us taken, the odds of it being four individuals who were somehow involved with either our escape or the defense of our ship is a sign. The question is what we intend to do about it.”
“We play along,” Safa said, her tone not leaving any room for debate. “We do not have the upper hand right now. We don’t even know why we’re here. I suggest we keep moving forward until we know more.” With an extra twinge of guilt, Safa suspected Oliver would have fared far better if he’d been the one to be taken.
As one, each of the Rohtet turned to look at her, surprise in their eyes like they’d only barely realized she was there. And they absolutely had not considered that she might be the one to take charge. But they were still standing in place, still making no progress. She had to do something, whether the aliens she’d been aligned with decided to play along wasn’t her problem.
And yes, she was still quietly grateful when she looked back over her shoulder a moment later to find they were right behind her.
The room they stepped into was nearly identical to the chamber of the ship they’d just left, but more than ten times the size. Safa stood just ahead of the Rohtet, glad that their large forms weren’t blocking her view of what was ahead. She needed to take it all in, and to remember every possible detail. There was no way to know what information would be useful later.
“Is this a space station?” Neha wondered aloud from behind her. “It’s massive, but there is so much unused space.” Nobody answered, but Safa didn’t think the other woman had been expecting anything definitive to come from them. At least there was more light here than the room they’d just come from. Safa’s eyes were still wincing in protest, but adjusting quickly.
Once they’d stepped several meters beyond the ship they’d come from, the door slid closed behind them at the same time, a burst of heat came from just ahead. Safa only had the briefest of instants to consider that a weapon was being used against them before a pile of devices appeared just ahead.
Safa recognized the computers instantly, even seeing them completely out of the context she’d come to expect. There was one from the Lexiconis, another two from the city-ship. Possibly one from Torque's people. It was easy enough to extrapolate the rest.
“What is this?” Shan whispered.
“I suspect that our hosts can hear us no matter how quietly we speak,” the head of security said before Safa felt the need to try to hypothesize about exactly what these aliens were and were not capable of.
“Attention,” a voice shook through the chamber, coming at them from all sides. “You. Know. How. To. Leave?” Safa recognized the words instantly. Each one was spoken in perfect English, distorted only by the way it echoed around the massive empty space that surrounded her. It was Safa’s own voice saying both know and how. A recording? The word “you” had been said in Oliver’s voice. “To” was maybe Sprocket. “Leave?” Torque, perhaps? Speaking English instead of being translated. Safa didn’t know for sure how this message had come to be, but the intention of the aliens was clear. They wanted her to get them out of the void.
Another message played, this time in the Rohtet’s native language. Safa caught the translation through her new implant, watching the horrified faces of her companions once they realized what was happening. These aliens obviously weren't familiar with the translation technology used by other races, but still had no problem understanding what was being said.
“We don’t know how to leave this place,” Safa said slowly, trying to be as clear as possible.
“Wrong,” Gwynn’s voice snapped back at her, immediately putting Safa on the offensive. Gwynn didn't usually speak to her this way. No one had, not really. Not in a long time.
The aliens didn’t bother translating for the Rohtet. She was speaking for them all now.
"No," Safa said, voice calm. "We do not have the answers you're seeking. We were making progress, but that is all. We did not have all the information required." Safa stayed perfectly still, not even breathing after that last statement. If somehow these aliens had the ability to tell when someone was lying, this was when she'd find out. They hadn't had a direct solution yet, nothing they could test or use. But Safa had only just realized that between the humans, the Rohtet and the remnants of Torque's computer system, they might just have everything they needed.
Which wasn't to say she would have everything she needed here. She had Evie's ring and the information it held on her, but whether that was a small miracle or a twist of bad luck that had brought it here with her, she didn't know yet. But without knowing what information of theirs the aliens had acquired, she could make no promises about how much was really possible.
By taking Safa from the Rohtet when they had, the aliens could have potentially destroyed what little chance any of them had for survival.
"Show. Us." Safa's own voice. Then Evie’s.
Yes. That was the question Safa feared even knowing it was coming. She and the Rohtet had been brought here to give these aliens what they could not give for themselves. What were the ethical implications of helping a species that had been wantonly destroying others to help themselves?
Evie turned her head to look at the Rohtet that were still with her. This wasn't a decision she should make on her own. If they were going to do this—and that was where Safa was leaning—they were going to do it as a team.
"Can this be done?" Shan asked, looking between Safa and Neha. "We could negotiate for our release, get us all out of here together."
Safa had been thinking the same thing, but there was no time to comment before a deafening buzzing grew in the dark space above them.
From up above, a swarm of aliens spiraled downward under the power of their own wings, their formation tight and elegant as they dropped from the sky, intent on a target.
The alien swarm surrounded Shan as Safa counted her own heartbeats, wanting desperately to jump in and do something, but completely unable to move her own feet. He never so much as screamed out.
The aliens retreated. Shan's corpse lay spread-eagled on the ground, bleeding and mutilated almost beyond recognition.
The voice that came next spoke in the Rohtet language, spitting out five words like poison. "There will be no negotiations," Terssin translated, unnecessarily. His pale skin had taken on a bluish hue.
Safa forced herself to look at Shan's swollen body. "Fine." She took a slow breath, trying to steady her own heart before speaking again. Whatever the next words out of her mouth were, there was no guarantee they wouldn't be her last. "I'll help." She wouldn't speak for the others. "But if you saw everything, you know we don't have the answer yet. If you have information, I need it. Whatever you have, I need it."
"Acceptable." Her own voice again. What did it say about this species that they found the words they needed most often in Safa's voice.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but figuring out the next puzzle. In that moment, Safa wished she could tell herself she had some sort of brilliant plan to thwart the aliens, rescue everyone, and save the day. She had nothing. But as the aliens began delivering their own stockpile of information via transport, she was getting more information by the second.
And with information, anything was possible.
Chapter Twenty-Five – Oliver
Two days had passed with no sign of Safa or the others. Feeling like a failure on every level, Oliver had barely eaten or slept beyond what the others had forced on him.
They'd made no progress in finding their missing people in the time since the attack, and the Rohtet weren't exactly going above and beyond to be helpful. Three of their people had been taken, along with countless pieces of information and technology, and still … nothing. A rescue mission would risk too many, so it wasn’t even an option.
Rather than showing any desire to get back what they had lost, the Rohtet were far more concerned with finding a way out of the void. The good of the species over the good of any one individual seemed to be their driving force.
If all Oliver's people had been safe and accounted for, maybe he would have got on board with this ideology. But not anymore. He wanted out of the void more than anything, but he wouldn't do it at the expense of one of his crew.
Of those remaining who had come from the Lexiconis, not one single person had brought up the possibility that Safa was already dead. Unless they were faced with concrete evidence, it wasn't an idea Oliver was willing to entertain.
So far, he hadn't even got control of his own ship back, let alone the information that the Rohtet had gathered about their enemy and where the ship that had taken Safa and the others had gone.
So long as blood was moving through his veins, he would keep going, exploring every possible option. If he ran out of options, he was prepared to start back at the top of his list all over again.
But on a ship as big as this one, the list of people, technological possibilities, and hidden connections, was nearly endless.
Just finding a path to his next meeting had taken several not-so-chance encounters, two bribes and a promise of absolute secrecy. But as Oliver knocked on the door of what he'd been told was an empty familial abode, he couldn't help but feel a little hope too.
He stepped inside without waiting for an answer. The knock had been a human habit more than an actual instruction, but he couldn't see any harm in announcing himself. Just in case his contact was feeling as jumpy as he was.
The room he found beyond the door was well-decorated for somewhere not in use, with elaborate furniture and art, all made up from the same white metal that the Rohtet used in so many of their designs.
It was the person sitting at the table across from the door he was surprised to see.
"I was told I'd be meeting with Ambassador Pfersa," Oliver said as he closed the door.
The Rohtet man across from him stood, revealing a muscular frame.
"My mother was called to a last-minute meeting she could not avoid, and sent me in her place. My name is Illyrian and I very much hope I can be of some help to you."
Oliver frowned for an instant before pulling back the expression. There was no point in showing his disappointment at not getting access to the ambassador directly. When he'd spoken with her assistant, he'd been told more than once that there was every possibility she couldn’t have taken this meeting at all, at least not anywhere that they could be sure they wouldn't be overheard.
Assessing the man in front of him, Oliver did his best to ascertain whether this was a waste of time. Despite being the ambassador's son, as far as Oliver could tell, this man was anything but a child. Illyrian stood a few inches taller than Oliver, putting him on the shorter side of the Rohtet. There was an almost silver sheen to both his skin and the gray markings that crisscrossed his skin, matching the fuzz of short-cropped hair on top of his head. He stood, completely stoic, with his hands crossed behind his back, waiting for Oliver to make the next move.
The odds were that this meeting would lead to the same result as all that had come before it. It would probably be a waste of time.
But it was still the best option Oliver had come up with so far.
"Your mother … she wants to help?"
Illyrian hummed a quick response that Oliver couldn't begin to decipher. But he must have read the confusion on the other man's face as he soon added. "Yes. Although she's uncertain how much she can do. But Shan has worked with her for years, longer than my entire lifetime. She has come to both rely on him and think of him as a friend, a sentiment I very much share. One of my earliest memor
ies is …" Illyrian stopped short. "No. It is not important now."
"Please," Oliver said. "Continue." Illyrian was likely right in that the details of some childhood memory wouldn't matter for much now. But after two days, this was the most time any of the Rohtet had been willing to give him on anything even remotely related to the abduction. In the end, he hoped it would be worth it to lose a few minutes now to strengthen a hopefully useful connection later.
"When I was a boy, our ship spent several years in a heavily populated region of space. We were encountering new races almost every week, and my mother was almost never home. I saw Shan more than I saw her as he was always stopping into our home to grab whatever my mother had forgotten. I had never had any siblings, and it would have been difficult not to notice how often I was alone."
Illyrian paused, leaving Oliver itching to fill the gap in the conversation and hopefully reassure the young Rohtet man that he was very much interested in learning more.
"Where was your mother's partner in all this?" Over the past few days he had seen enough of daily Rohtet life to realize that their family life closely resembled that of the humans. In most family units, there were two parents, not necessarily always a male and female pairing, and usually three or more children.
"My father left on a hazad when I was small, right around the time my mother would have been expected to have her next child."
There was no chance for Oliver to ask what any of that meant before Illyrian continued his own story. "Shan started making a point of staying for a few extra minutes each time he visited, but he knew what I really longed for. One day when I got home from my lessons, I found he'd installed a massive screen, taking up an entire wall in the central room of her home. He'd created a two-way connection between me and my mother's office. When she was taking a meeting, the connection was severed, but if she was simply working on paperwork or correspondence, the two of us could talk like we were both in the same place, sharing our days when she couldn't be there directly. It saved me from spending far too much of my time without guidance, though I still looked forward to Shan's visits as well. So if there's anything I can do to help return him home to us and to his young family, I am more than happy to try."
Into the Void (Beyond Humanity Book 1) Page 19
