Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  “Have you made any head­way?”

  She hes­it­ated, as if she were de­cid­ing what to share with him. “Yes.”

  Holy Refuge, why didn’t she say any­thing sooner? “Well, what is it? What do they say?”

  “The lan­guage is a lot like the hiero­glyph­ics used by the an­cient Egyp­tians.”

  “Who?”

  “A race of people who used to in­habit Old Earth.”

  An­cient Egyp­tians? Why hadn’t he ever heard of them? Doubt teased him. Maybe this young wo­man had no idea what she was do­ing. Maybe she was mak­ing it up in an ef­fort to win her free­dom. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they be here, par­secs away?”

  Eri blew dust off of a pyr­amid with an eye in the middle. “Ac­tu­ally, it makes per­fect sense. Their an­cient myth­o­logy talks of vis­it­ors from the heav­ens, and these ali­ens could have been whom they re­ferred to. Who­ever carved these sym­bols wor­shipped this golden sub­stance.”

  She poin­ted to a sym­bol of a ramp with a ball in the middle. “Look here: this is an Ahket. It rep­res­ents the ho­ri­zon from which the sun emerged and dis­ap­peared. It’s also a rep­res­ent­a­tion of the passing of time.” She poin­ted to a cross with an oval on top of it. “And look at this one. It’s an ankh, the sym­bol for eternal life.”

  The more she talked, the more Weaver be­lieved her. “Yes, but what do they have to do with the golden li­quid? What do they mean?”

  “If I’m de­ci­pher­ing the in­scrip­tion cor­rectly, the golden li­quid is an ex­tremely volat­ile en­ergy source, ex­ist­ing out­side of time. Per­haps that’s why it trig­gers memor­ies in all of us.”

  He thought of Snipe fall­ing into the li­quid, and of the sus­pi­cions Striver had of their father’s dis­ap­pear­ance. Even though Striver had never spoken to Weaver about it, Weaver knew Striver thought their father’s dis­ap­pear­ance had some­thing to do with the golden li­quid. His heart quickened, eager to learn the truth. “So when people fall into it, where do they go?”

  “An­other di­men­sion?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a philo­sopher. All I can tell you is what the sym­bols al­lude to. They say this sub­stance con­tains all of time, and sim­ul­tan­eously, it’s the ex­act op­pos­ite, ex­ist­ing without the bound­ar­ies of time. Out­side the rib­bon of time it­self.”

  Weaver’s head swam with non­sense. “Hold on, where are the be­ings who carved the sym­bols now? Why would they just leave it be­hind?”

  Eri poin­ted to a stick with two branches on either side, poin­ted up. “This is Ka. It means soul or spirit. The an­cient Egyp­tians be­lieved their Ka would live on, even after they died.”

  She fol­lowed the sym­bols around the peri­meter of the pool “Now look here.” Two-legged be­ings with strange an­imal heads stepped onto a plat­form and dis­ap­peared. Above the hiero­glyph was that an­cient sym­bol for soul. “I think they stepped into the li­quid, hop­ing they’d live forever in the un­do­ing of time.”

  Weaver poin­ted to the li­quid. “You’re telling me they’re in there?”

  “Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?”

  “No.” Weaver shook his head, try­ing to ab­sorb everything she told him. “This is all very in­ter­est­ing, Eri, but none of it helps us. What can the golden li­quid do?”

  Eri sat back on her heels and tapped her fin­ger on the last sym­bol. “I don’t know. In my opin­ion, this sub­stance is too dan­ger­ous to mess with. It cuts through the fab­ric of time and space.”

  Weaver’s stom­ach churned with this new in­form­a­tion, his mind tick­ing away, mulling over how to use this power­ful, dan­ger­ous sub­stance for his own pur­poses. “Can it be con­tained and con­trolled?”

  “Ob­vi­ously it’s mov­able.” Eri stuck the stick into it and when she pulled it out, the end dripped golden tears on the cav­ern floor. “But how it re­acts with other en­ergy sources, I have no idea.”

  Weaver’s eyes widened, un­able to con­tain his ex­cite­ment. “Whatever it does, it’s power­ful stuff.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Inevitables

  Striver tightened the swamp reeds along the Death Stalker bow he and Weaver had de­signed. His skin burned, rubbed raw by mend­ing every used bow in the vil­lage, but the pain was noth­ing com­pared to the hurt twist­ing in­side of him from the be­trayal of his brother and the loss of Eri. He shoved the agony back to the deeper part of his soul, block­ad­ing his emo­tions for a later time. A battle loomed, and he had to pro­tect his people first. The two hun­dred Death Stalk­ers he’d spread on the floor of the coun­cil room seemed like a minus­cule lot.

  A ruffle of feath­ers came with the wind. Phoenix ap­peared as a winged shadow in the door­way. “May I come in?”

  “Cer­tainly.”

  The bird­man had been present the day he was born, and every day after that, so it was fit­ting he’d be there on the day when it would all end. “You can help me dis­trib­ute the bows.”

  Phoenix walked by the weapons as if they meant noth­ing and put his long, clawed fin­gers over Striver’s shoulder. “You are brave to stay and fight.”

  Striver shrugged. “Brave or stu­pid. I’ve evac­u­ated most of the vil­lage to the caves. Those who stay and join us do so by free will alone.”

  Phoenix nod­ded. “That is why I am here. The Guard­i­ans will fight by your side.”

  Striver stopped weav­ing the reeds and glanced up at the bird­man. “What?”

  “The Guard­i­ans have al­ways fol­lowed you, de­ter­ring the Law­less as much as we can.”

  “But this is dif­fer­ent.” Striver shook his head. “You can’t get in­volved in any­thing vi­ol­ent to­ward an­other liv­ing thing.”

  Phoenix spread his wing. “Who said we’d be vi­ol­ent? We’re just bring­ing our nets.”

  Striver sighed with frus­tra­tion. Phoenix sac­ri­ficed too much. “This may be our end, and yours as well. You have more to lose. Hu­mans will take over this planet, whether we win or not, but the Guard­i­ans are scarce. Who knows if any other colony ships made it to other plan­ets from your dy­ing home world?”

  “We’d like to have a say in which hu­mans we choose to share our planet with.” Phoenix tilted his head and his eyes sparkled.

  Striver sighed, shak­ing his head. “We’re not go­ing to win, no mat­ter who comes for us.”

  Phoenix whistled a melody fol­lowed by a gentle coo­ing sound. “You can­not pre­dict the fu­ture. Many strands of the tapestry have still yet to be linked for an ac­cur­ate pic­ture to de­velop.”

  Striver col­lec­ted the first row of bows. “I wish I had your faith.”

  Phoenix ruffled his feath­ers. “I wish I had your pas­sion.”

  Striver paused, glan­cing back at the Guard­ian with a ques­tion­ing look. They never even so much as showed a hint of want­ing some­thing that hu­mans had. They could fly, for Refuge’s sake! And live for hun­dreds of years.

  “Why? My emo­tions tear me apart.”

  “They make you who you are. They give you strength, con­vic­tion of pur­pose.”

  “You have those already.”

  “Yes, but mostly through lo­gic. Pas­sion is a power­ful driv­ing force. Don’t hold your emo­tions back. Use them to achieve suc­cess.”

  Phoenix’s speech stirred de­term­in­a­tion in Striver’s heart. He put a hand on the bird­man’s wing, feel­ing the soft fea­tures that covered a soul with a hard, iron will. Phoenix was both gentle and strong, a true as­set to their colony. “If it will keep you safe, old friend, I’ll try my best.”

  …

  They des­cen­ded the rope lad­der to meet the oth­ers who’d chosen to stay. The main square was full of vil­la­gers. Striver’s chest swelled and tightened as he scanned the crowd. So many had come to fight, and he was re­spons­ible for every one of their lives. Had he made the right de­
cision?

  Ri­ley stood with his bag full of poison-tipped ar­rows and an apo­lo­getic look on his face. Striver ap­proached him care­fully, still feel­ing the sting of the welt on his cheek. “You sure about this?”

  “Sure as any­thing. I want to de­fend my home.”

  “What about Riptide? How is she do­ing?”

  “You can ask me that your­self, be­cause I’m right here.” Riptide walked into the moon­light from the shad­ows with cam­ou­flage painted across her face, hold­ing a spear. “Al­though I ques­tion your ro­mantic choices, I’ve never ques­tioned you as a leader.”

  “Thank you, Riptide.” She kept her dis­tance, re­spect­ing his space. Maybe someday she’d come to re­spect whom he’d chosen. If they ever saw Eri again.

  I will find her. I have to.

  Carven pushed through the crowd and Striver shook his head, rais­ing a hand to hold him back. “Not you, old friend. You have a fam­ily to watch over.”

  Carven smiled a sad smile, ad­just­ing his belt of carving knives he used to pre­pare the roas­ted swamp boars. He took Striver’s hand in his own. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “We can’t win this.”

  Carven pat­ted him on the back. “Don’t count your swil­low wisps be­fore they hatch. Be­sides, we have Mars.” He ges­tured over his shoulder. The burly wo­man had carved a spiked ham­mer out of wood and flint blades. Hold­ing the weapon with black streaks painted across her face, she gave Striver a fe­ro­cious grin. “She looks like she could eat Law­less for din­ner and spit them back out again.”

  Litus broke through the crowd, check­ing his wrist loc­ator. “The com­mander asked me to hold tight for now, but I’m to meet up with her forces if need be.”

  Striver had grown to trust Litus, and now he re­lied on him to provide vi­tal in­form­a­tion. He re­minded him­self the man walked a thin line between help­ing them and stay­ing true to his own people. Striver would not want to stand in Litus’s boots. He had his own thin line to walk between sav­ing Eri and pro­tect­ing his tribe. “When do you ex­pect they’ll at­tack?”

  Litus glanced up at the ship in the sky and shrugged. “Any­time.”

  “How will we know when they move?”

  Riptide gasped be­hind them. Striver fol­lowed her gaze to the sky. The ship moved, grow­ing lar­ger with each second. A deep rum­bling stirred his gut, mak­ing him feel tied to the ship and its fate. The hull broke through the at­mo­sphere, red and or­ange flames lick­ing at the nose as it barreled down on Law­less lands.

  …

  Eri watched the swirls of golden li­quid eddy around the rim of the pool. Time. Oodles of it, stretch­ing back­ward and for­ward into the fu­ture. If only she could bor­row some, freeze the mo­ment to make a plan. She had to get to Weaver be­fore their time ran out.

  Weaver sat by her scribbles in the sand, rest­ing his head in both hands with his el­bows propped on his knees. She still had no idea what his plan was, but it didn’t look like it was go­ing well.

  She could tell the golden li­quid made him feel guilty about his past. Which meant there was still hope for him.

  Just get right to it. Open the wound and see if he re­acts. Get him where it hurts most to wake him up, make him feel again. Eri took in a deep breath. “You know Striver would do any­thing for you.”

  Weaver cast her a sus­pi­cious glance.

  “He saved your life in this very cave. He dragged you all the way back home, and look what you did in re­turn.”

  Weaver’s shoulders rose and fell as he sighed. He didn’t look up again. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “Fine. We won’t talk about him.” She kicked her boot against a rock, feign­ing in­terest in the etch­ings. She had other tac­tics up her sleeve. “You think you’re spe­cial, that no one else knows your pain.” She traced a sym­bol and blew the dust off the tip of her fin­ger. “I know what it’s like to be on the out­side, to be the odd one out.”

  He spat in the sand. “You don’t know noth­ing.”

  “Don’t I?” An­ger hardened in­side her and she clenched her fists to­gether. “I’m an il­legal DNA cross­ing, a product of a mis­matched pair­ing. Don’t tell me I don’t know what it feels like to be thought of as in­ferior my whole damn life.”

  Weaver sat up, star­ing at her as if see­ing someone else in dis­guise. Her ad­ren­aline surged. She’d grabbed his at­ten­tion.

  “What do you mean, il­legal DNA cross­ing?”

  “Every­one is paired with cer­tain lifemates on the Her­it­age, and each pair­ing is based on the con­di­tions that will cre­ate the strongest genes without in­breed­ing. When you have such a small DNA pool, you have to be care­ful.” She checked to make sure he was still listen­ing. He watched her like a child find­ing videos of Old Earth for the first time.

  “Well, my par­ents weren’t care­ful. They fell in love, de­fied the sys­tem, and cre­ated me without any ge­netic en­gin­eer­ing at all. Do you know what that does to a per­son? Think­ing every­one else had an ad­vant­age, that they were some­how smarter, taller, stronger?”

  Weaver ex­haled like he had been hold­ing his breath. “Wow, that sucks boar drop­pings.”

  “You bet it does.” Eri ac­tu­ally felt bet­ter get­ting her feel­ings off of her chest. Al­though she’d told Striver, he wouldn’t un­der­stand like Weaver would. The dif­fer­ence between her and Weaver was how they took it. She over­came her pre­ju­dices on Haven 6, whereas he still fought with his. As much as she des­pised him, she pit­ied him as well. Now she un­der­stood why Striver had fought so vehe­mently to keep Weaver with them. It must have been hard for Weaver to fol­low in his brother’s foot­steps, al­ways fall­ing short. She wanted to help him, bring him back from des­pair to a place where he could find peace.

  Eri poin­ted her fin­ger at him, then at her­self. “We’re alike, you and I. I’m try­ing to find a way to live in Striver’s vil­lage, and you’re try­ing to find your place here among the Law­less. We’re both shed­ding our pre­vi­ous skins, at­tempt­ing to live without pre­con­ceived no­tions get­ting in the way.” She walked up to him and whispered un­der her breath, “Maybe we can help each other?”

  Weaver shrugged, a spark of in­terest in his em­er­ald eyes. “I don’t know.”

  At least it wasn’t an ab­so­lute “no.” Eri placed her hand on his arm, press­ing the is­sue into the wound in his heart. “You owe it to Striver to keep me safe. You know that.”

  “I owe no one noth­ing.” He pulled his arm away, a flicker of re­morse cross­ing his face.

  She was so close. A few more minutes and he’d come around.

  Voices echoed from the tun­nel con­nect­ing to the cav­ern. Eri snapped her head up. Crusty stood with his bow cocked and ready to fire. “Don’t try any­thing rash, little lady.”

  How long had the old man been awake? Eri bit down on her lower lip.

  Too late. Time’s run out.

  Weaver rose to his feet be­side her. He whispered un­der his breath, “Don’t tell Jolt any­thing. You open your mouth and we’re both dead.”

  Eri clenched her fists un­til her nails dug into her skin. Maybe it wasn’t Jolt. Just an­other watch­man to re­place Crusty.

  The first thing she saw was the golden light re­flect­ing off Jolt’s white scar, mak­ing her in­sides squirm. The leader entered the cave car­ry­ing Tank’s gal­lium crys­tal void ray. His eyes were wild, his muscles tensed. Sweat glistened in the pock­marks of his face. Be­hind him, other Law­less men and wo­men car­ry­ing her team’s lasers filed in. The air crackled with hushed voices, anxi­ety, and fear.

  Crusty lowered his bow. “What’s wrong, boss?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. That mother boar of a ship is com­ing straight for us, and all we have are a few lasers.” His pier­cing eyes traveled to Eri. “I need to know how the golden li­quid works, and I need it now.”
r />   Eri stared, frozen with in­ac­tion. She had to trust Weaver. Don’t say a thing.

  “Did you fig­ure it out or do I have to blow your hand off?”

  “She’s got it all de­coded, boss.” Crusty gave her a wink.

  Eri cast a wicked stare to­ward him. He hadn’t been sleep­ing. He’d listened in the whole time.

  Jolt walked across the cave and Eri backed up un­til she stood be­side the golden pool. One step back and she’d be re­liv­ing her thir­teenth birth­day party for all etern­ity.

  His free hand grabbed the front of her shirt and he picked her up un­til her feet skimmed the floor. “If you send someone into this li­quid, can they come back?”

  Eri squirmed, the pres­sure on her chest in­creas­ing un­til she couldn’t breathe. “I don’t think so.”

  “Not good enough. Can they come back or not?”

  The Egyp­tians didn’t be­lieve in their bod­ies con­tinu­ing on forever, only their souls. If you entered the li­quid, you lost your phys­ical home and entered an­other di­men­sion en­tirely. It was the only way it could work.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  If she were wrong, he wouldn’t know it un­til she was long gone or dead.

  His grip tightened, pulling her tu­nic tighter around her chest. “Does it work with your weapons’ ca­pa­city?”

  “What?”

  He shook her un­til her teeth rattled. “Will it ruin these weapons or make them stronger?”

  The li­quid could be moved, be­cause she’d seen it drip on the cav­ern floor. The sym­bols al­luded to an en­ergy source, so it was pos­sible it would re­act with the gal­lium crys­tals in the weapons, in­tensi­fy­ing their mag­ni­fic­a­tion. De­pend­ing on the ab­sorp­tion prop­er­ties, it could even change the nature of the crys­tals and make the gun more power­ful than she or Jolt could ever ima­gine.

  Eri paused. If she were wrong, Jolt would be a puddle of sludge. But if she were right, he’d have more fire­power than any­thing on the Her­it­age. In one shot, he could make ten men dis­ap­pear. As much as she didn’t like her people in­vad­ing, she didn’t want the Law­less to win.