The Eurynome Code: The Complete Series: A Space Opera Box Set

by K. Gorman

  With a thought, and more than a little concentration on her part, it vanished.

  But the soldier at the door didn’t move. Nor did he lower his gun. When he spoke, his tone was not light. “What are you doing?”

  Her heart froze. She jerked her attention back up and gave him another study.

  He hadn’t seen the light, had he?

  No. The gun wasn’t pointed at her. Instead, it seemed leveled toward the line of Lost—now former Lost—all taped down and unconscious in their chairs.

  A spike of ice jumped through her veins as she realized what he was seeing.

  They looked dead, not unconscious.

  Soo-jin, too, had followed his gaze. She tried to shrug it off. “What? Did you want them wandering around?”

  “What have you done to them?” The man’s voice rang clear with anger now. His gun jerked to her.

  “Whoa, whoa—” Soo-jin threw her hands up as his aim locked on her. “Buddy, all we did was tape them down. Tape. That’s all. Come check their vitals if you don’t believe me.”

  The soldier didn’t move for a long second. Didn’t say a word.

  Then he jerked the muzzle of his gun toward the opposite wall. “Move. Stay where I can see you.”

  “No problem.” Soo-jin eased back, hands never leaving the air. She didn’t look over as she passed Karin, walking backward along the wall.

  “Stop there,” the soldier said when she got to the corner. Then he jerked his gun briefly over to Karin. “You, don’t move.”

  Karin raised her hands on the table.

  With all her injuries, that was probably the best bet for her. Tension wriggled through her back and shoulders, and her breath came shaking and shallow. She wondered what she looked like. Wretched, probably. Wide-eyed and gaunt. Sweaty. Bruised. Blood, all of it hers, marking her skin. She could still taste it in her mouth, a mix of salt and copper.

  But, every fiber of her being focused on that gun.

  The whole room watched as he walked over, covering both of them with his gun. Then he bent over the first of the Lost—Mara, the last one she’d cleared—tore the glove off his right hand with his teeth, and pressed two fingers to the inside of her neck.

  The whole room held its breath, waiting. Karin didn’t dare look away. Her gaze flicked from the tip of his gun—still pointed at her—to his face, and to the fingers at Mara’s throat.

  After a few seconds, the gun lowered. He clicked something on its side, pushed it into a holster at his back, and crouched in front of her. “Why’s she unconscious?”

  “Don’t know. It happened a couple seconds after we taped them. Maybe a weird pressure point effect?”

  The man didn’t reply. He bent lower, pulling Mara’s palms upright, then checking her pulse again. After a moment, he dropped them and looked sideways, down the rest of the line. “They’re all unconscious?”

  “Yes,” Soo-jin said. “Happened a couple seconds after we taped them. You ever seen a lamb at a livestock auction? The way they kind of go limp when they put the ropes on? It was kind of like that.” She shifted. “We checked their vitals afterwards.”

  Karin schooled her expression. She was pretty sure that Soo-jin was making up the part about the limp lamb, but the soldier surprised her.

  “It’s Triclozine,” he said, bending forward to check the next person’s pulse.

  “What?”

  “Triclozine. What they use on the lambs. Keeps them quiet for transport.” He paused, counting under his breath. “You said you checked their vitals?”

  “Yes. Right after they…” Soo-jin gestured at the row. “You know.”

  “Uh huh.”

  A quiet shuffle sounded by one of the doors. Karin looked up in time to see Verina creep further into the room, her sunken, sharp features drawn into a thick frown and… was that irritation?

  “Karin—” Soo-jin waved to get her attention, sidestepping the soldier. “How are you? You look like you got banged up.”

  “Fine, I think. Just need a couple—er—” She stuttered as Soo-jin flashed her a meaningful look behind the soldier’s back. “My arm got hit again. Back, too. And my head’s still a bit dodgy from earlier—”

  “There’s a standard Medkit in the back office,” Soo-jin said. “Let’s get you checked out.” She flashed her gaze to the two sanctuary children. “Will you be all right without us?”

  Neither spoke. But after a few seconds, the girl gave a small nod, her eyes flicking to the soldier and back.

  “All right. We’ll be back. Come on, Kar,” she said, pronouncing it like ‘care.’ Soo-jin helped her to her feet and put an arm around her back.

  “Wait.”

  They froze as the soldier stood. He rummaged for something in his pocket, then held it out.

  “A couple extra Med-bands, military grade.” He gave her a quick glance over. “I noticed you had a few cuts. Come get me if you need anything more than basic. I’m the Med officer.”

  Ah. That probably explained how he knew about drugged lambs at agricultural exchanges.

  Soo-jin gave him a quick smile, then plucked the package from his fingers. “Thanks. We got a nanokit on the ship, so we’ll probably check her out there after preliminary…”

  “Good idea.” He gave her a half salute in farewell, then turned back to the line of former Lost. “I’ll see what I can do for them.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure they appreciate it.” Soo-jin paused, looking down the line. “You know, we appreciate it, too. They’re all very dear to us. This sanctuary isn’t just some religious retreat—we’re all family.”

  He waved her off. “Just doing my job, ma’am. It’s what I signed up for.”

  “Well, thank you, anyway.” Soo-jin pulled Karin toward the door. “We’ll be down the hall if you need us. Near the back. Bathroom behind the nursery.”

  As they shuffled toward the door—the right-hand one, with the hall they’d first come down—Jaxx raised his eyebrows in their direction. Soo-jin shot him a look as they got closer.

  “Stay here,” she hissed as they passed. “Bother him. Delay him.”

  Out in the hall, Soo-jin guided her down a ways. Then she abruptly turned to the left.

  “Let me guess,” Karin said dryly. “We won’t be in the bathroom behind the nursery with the Medkit?”

  “No,” Soo-jin replied. “We won’t be.”

  They moved—or, in Karin’s case, limped—quickly, going room to room and, where possible, avoiding the hallways. After the first room, where her light had flashed out of the solarium glass and illuminated the trees in a bright, solid strobe, they avoided rooms with windows, too.

  “Right. Nine left,” Soo-jin said as she moved toward the next door. Its hinges gave a creak as it opened. Her gaze scanned the room. “Make that three after this one.”

  They’d made their way almost back to the front, looping around through the nursery where they’d found several younger-looking Lost waiting among a colorful, foam-mat floor and strewn toys—Suns, they were hardly more than babies!—and across the two counseling rooms and another bathroom. Looking back down the hallway—the last room hadn’t offered an inner door to go through—she could just see the splayed lights from the dining hall.

  All was quiet, both inside and out.

  But Karin felt exposed. She pushed close to Soo-jin’s back and closed the door behind them.

  Immediately, all her instincts made her draw up short.

  She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the Lost. They were a mix of young and old in this room, scattered between three of the sanctuary’s now-characteristic long, dark folding tables that edged the walls. The scent of incense hung heavy in the air, giving her a heady feeling. Soo-jin’s light swept through the room, bumping across tables and chairs, paintings on the walls, and scattered cushions.

  It froze when it got to the altar at the far end.

  “Oh, what in Clio’s hell?”

  Most of the Lost stood throughout the room—two b
y the window, one wandering by a table near the closest wall, another looking up from a corner seat—but three of them sat directly in front of the altar. They hadn’t looked over when Soo-jin and Karin had entered the room.

  Instead, they stared upward into the altar’s image.

  “Are they… praying?” Karin asked.

  “No. Prayer here is a bit more… active.” Soo-jin shifted, her light swaying slightly. “Coincidence?”

  She didn’t answer that. Instead, Marc’s earlier words came to her mind.

  I don’t believe in coincidence.

  “Who is that?” she asked, indicating the painting embedded into the altar’s back.

  Soo-jin tipped her light up, revealing a serene-looking woman depicted in a similar ink wash technique as the rest of the sanctuary’s paintings, with thin lines and faded colors.

  “Gwa-eum, the Goddess of Mercy. AKA Guanyin, AKA Kannon, AKA… well, nevermind. She’s one of the… saints, I guess you’d call them. Buddhist in origin, I think. Original name was… Well, that doesn’t matter.” Soo-jin shook her head, as if to rid some thought. “Shall we… take a closer look?”

  She took a hesitant step forward, as if to punctuate her question.

  Karin nodded. “Yeah.” She glanced back to the closed door. “We don’t have much time.”

  “How long was I out for?” Soo-jin asked. “A few minutes?”

  “Maybe one or two,” she said. “You started moving soon after. Maybe they take longer because they were out longer?”

  She’d thought about this already, when the first few hadn’t awakened. It still worried her, but they’d done Med-checks on all of them.

  Soo-jin’s netlink flashed as she checked the time. “Then they could wake up at any time. We need to rush.” She nodded toward the windows in the outside wall. “Should we care about those? There’s no convenient bathroom or closet in here.”

  Karin gave the windows a lengthy gaze. Outside, the branches of the closest trees loomed dark and thick. Unfortunately, they weren’t at all close to the building—she could even see a flash of sky as she got closer. The light of the stars pulled at her skin.

  She wasn’t an expert on sight lines, but she didn’t think they were very far from the building’s front. Any light activity she did would be seen.

  “You think we could play it off as flashlights?”

  Soo-jin snorted. “Fuck no. Have you seen yourself? You go off like a flashbang.” She glanced upward. “Maybe the lights. How about I break a couple and we blame it on a power surge?”

  Karin arched a brow. “You think that would work?”

  “Well, they looked pretty tired. And that guy didn’t exactly press the whole ‘they fell unconscious because we taped them to a chair’ thing.” Soo-jin shrugged. “Maybe it’ll fly?”

  Somehow, she suspected they’d pay a bit more attention to the wake of unconscious bodies they’d just left in the other rooms. They hadn’t even bothered with tape for those ones, just left them on the floor in a semblance of a recovery position Soo-jin had read about once in the ship’s Med manual.

  And, once the former Lost started waking up…

  It didn’t matter how close the sanctuary kept her secret. It would not take the military very long to put the pieces together, and she and Soo-jin were the only ones who’d been around.

  She grimaced at the thought, then straightened her back.

  “Let’s just do this, then get out.” She wasn’t sure how they were going to do the latter, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She was already committed, and there were twenty soon-to-be-waking people about to condemn her.

  She reached for the first of the Lost, a man in his early forties, with thinning brown hair and a rumpled suit—by the looks of him, he hadn’t been surprised in his sleep—and turned him around to face Soo-jin. “Ready?”

  Soo-jin’s flashlight clunked as she set it down on the table. She brought up her knife and assumed a fighting post. “Ready.”

  Light flashed. The man went rigid, kicked out—but Karin jerked him off-balance, slamming her light straight into his chest. They’d gotten the hang of it over the past ten people. Most Lost seemed almost surprised when she attacked, and their struggles were easily offset. She’d only been hit twice since she’d started positioning herself behind them.

  The Shadows, on the other hand, were a different problem.

  Cornered by the light from her hands and her presence behind their former host, they burst out erratically.

  But Soo-jin was quick, and she had a keen blade. All of them fell.

  This one was no different.

  The Shadow burst from the man’s right shoulder. Karin shoved both herself and the man to the left. Her bad knee screamed as they slammed into the table, making its legs jump and groan against the floor.

  Soo-jin lunged forward, slashing.

  A second later, the Shadow lay in tatters.

  Then they each froze, cocking their ear to the hallway door, listening.

  After a few seconds of quiet, she lowered the man down to the floor.

  Then she limped back, favoring her good knee.

  “Tape,” Soo-jin said as Karin leaned against a back table. “We should have brought the tape.”

  “Yeah. Too bad it was on the table next to the soldier.” They’d tried to hold the Lost down before, but it had just proven harder for Soo-jin to kill the Shadow. Karin’s hold-from-the-back method was, unfortunately for her knee and all the other bruised and strained bits of her body, the best method.

  As Soo-jin shifted the man into a recovery position, she guided the next Lost in.

  But, just as she was getting into position, Soo-jin’s netlink beeped.

  She glanced at it, then brought it up. “Marc?”

  “We’re seeing weird lights coming out of the building. You guys all right?”

  Voices murmured in the background behind him. Karin thought she could make out some creative swearing. Even if he hadn’t been using his words carefully—not calling out Karin’s power openly—it was clear he was still with the military.

  “Yeah, we’re just trying to figure the weird power thing out,” Soo-jin said. “I think I broke a couple bulbs.”

  “All right. We’re almost done here. Be back soon.”

  The connection closed. Karin raised an eyebrow at Soo-jin. “You think they’re going to buy the light excuse?”

  “Not if they find a pulled battery or something in the back.” Soo-jin rolled her eyes. “Wish I knew what was keeping the lights out.” She gestured to the Lost Karin had pulled over—a small girl with wavy brown hair and dirt smudged on her nightgown, no older than six. “Is she next?”

  Karin pushed her forward. “Thought it’d be easier on the struggle.”

  “Then clearly, you’ve never tried to get one into bed.” She paused, then lifted her finger. “You know what? Let’s not tell Marc I said that.”

  It took Karin a few seconds to see the potential innuendo, but she just shrugged. She looped her arm around the girl’s neck and snugged her other arm into place on her chest, kneeling to get level. “Ready when you are.”

  Soo-jin rocked back, knife at the ready. “Go for it.”

  Light flashed. Karin caught a foot to the inside of her shin. Shadow flooded upwards. Soo-jin lunged with a grunt.

  The girl went rigid, then limp.

  Her mind buzzing with energy, Karin lowered her slowly to the floor, positioning her arms and legs as she’d seen Soo-jin do it.

  But, as she reached over to pull the girl’s other leg into place, movement by the wall caught her eye.

  The door to the room had opened.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A knife of ice drove straight into her chest. The light from the military ship back-lit the doorway, casting the soldier’s figure in a multitude of harsh, many-faceted shadows, but it wasn’t hard to recognize his face. It was the same officer who had come upon them in the dining hall.

  By the look of his
raised blaster and the way his mouth had downturned into a grim, unhappy line, she suspected his suspension of disbelief had reached its quota with them.

  Panic spiked her heart. What if he’d realized?

  Should have run when we’d had the chance. Should have never come here to begin with.

  But that was a coward’s thought. If she had, then all the lives at the sanctuary would have been forfeited. And she would have lost any sense of worth she’d thought she’d had.

  What was the point of having this power if she wasn’t going to use it?

  “No Shadows in here.” Soo-jin nodded toward the soldier’s blaster. “We double-cleared the place.”

  He didn’t immediately respond, but Karin thought Soo-jin’s words had shifted something in his expression.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t shifted happier.

  “You weren’t in the back,” he said slowly.

  His gaze switched between them, sizing them up, taking in the parts of the room, flicking between the remaining Lost in the room. He studied the unconscious body of the man Karin had just cleared, half-hidden under the table as it was. Then his gaze moved back inward, to the body of the child in her arms.

  Her jaw clenched, realizing.

  From his perspective, this looked very bad.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “We’re gathering the Lost,” Soo-jin cut in. “Like I said, we—”

  “Gathering them by knocking them out?”

  Although the man spoke quietly, evenly, there was a tempered edge beneath his tone that belied its face. Like a core of hot, churning magma beneath a quickly heating crust. He fixed one of those long, studying, fast-angering stares on Soo-jin and didn’t speak for long enough that Karin thought he might have counted to ten in his head.

  “I’ll ask again,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  Maybe it had something to do with the incense, or the light, or maybe even an adrenal effect from her injuries, but the room’s quiet seemed to close in on her. Everything became sharper. She became aware of her slow, shallow, held-in breath as it perched at the back of her throat. Outside, she could hear the sounds of the others coming back. Men shouting, the beams of high-powered flashlights snapping across the tops of the trees, casting the building’s outline against their dark boughs in a dancing line of shadow. A door closed in the back of the building. Closer, one of the Lost shuffled a few steps along one of the room’s side tables.