I reached for it, taking the wooden vessel and pressing it to my lips. I said a silent prayer to anyone listening and felt the fluid hit my tongue, instantly tasting bitter liquid. I didn’t keel over, so Slate grabbed it and took his own sip.
Something was wrong. My vision began to blur, my mouth feeling numb. “Sla…t.” I tried to say his name, and he looked at me with a dulled panic.
The woman moved behind us, placing a hand on each of our heads before holding our faces forward to stare into the burning wood. The smoke danced heartily, and I forgot about the bitter drink. Instead, I focused on the flickering flames and the face that appeared within them.
Ten
“Dean Parker,” its voice said. “You’ve made it to your second challenge.” This face was more like an outline, much like the shadow essence of the Theos we’d seen a couple of times now.
“What do we have to do?” I asked, though my lips no longer moved.
“Take the map and follow it to the village.”
“What map? Did you drag these people from underwater to guide us?”
“I do not understand. There are no people on the land. The map is near me.” The face moved.
“They have us captive,” I started but remembered the thing I was talking to was nothing more than a pre-recorded message. I didn’t know how it had ended up in their fire. They must have thought of it as their god. I couldn’t imagine how a face within smoke and flames would seem like anything else.
The voice spoke again before vanishing. “Follow the path to the village.”
My tongue was dry and stuck to the top of my mouth. I shook my head, trying to get the fleeting remnants of the unpleasant drink out of my mind.
“Slate?” I asked and turned my head as the grip on it eased up. He was still looking into the fire.
“I’m here. The goal’s in the water,” Slate said with thick words.
“Good. I thought I was hallucinating.” I looked down into the bottom of the firepit and spotted a glint of green, otherwise covered in dark ash. They had a Theos artifact inside there, giving them the impression of a face in their fire. They probably kept the fire burning as an offering to it. I wanted to tell them they were praising a long-dead piece of technology, but I had no way of communicating at that point. Not until Mary came.
The female came back with a wide smile on her face and what appeared to be real joy. We’d brought the god out of its shell, and they were happy. She helped me to my feet, and others around cheered.
It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to stop them. Two of the women were between us and the fire, and one of them held the Relocator in her three-digit hand. She started to tap at it, the other looking curiously over her shoulder. I tried to blurt out a warning, but it was too late. The people were still cheering for their god’s appearance, and when her finger came down and tapped the screen, I noticed the two women’s arms were touching.
They both disappeared into thin air.
More quickly than I’d have thought possible, Slate and I each had blades at our throats. We threw our hands in the air.
“It wasn’t us. We’re not wizards!” I called, knowing they wouldn’t understand. I think our captor could understand the inflection, because her eyes softened slightly, but the cold metal didn’t move. It pricked my neck, sending a line of warm blood down toward my chest.
The ground beside us erupted like a small bomb had gone off. Mary! My eyes darted side to side as far as I could move them while keeping my head still, but I couldn’t see my wife anywhere. Another blast, this time to the right of Slate. People were starting to panic.
We heard an alien phrase uttered robotically. Mary was there with her translator on. She was hiding somewhere, though. The women looked around, seeing nothing. One of them walked to the fire to see if it was their god speaking.
The one holding the knife to my throat called back, her musical tone more strained than before. She got a reply from Mary, but I couldn’t hear what she’d said in English. The prick of the blade eased away from me, and I breathed a quick sigh of relief. Glancing over at Slate, I noticed his hand was in a tight fist, ready to attack, and I shook my head at him. He looked down, not happy with the order.
The women were moving away from us, toward the other side of the fire, where the voice was coming from. We got up from our knees, mine creaking with stiffness as I did so. Mary appeared from nowhere, right at the treeline of the open space. She was wearing her full EVA, holding a pulse rifle up, ready to attack if needed.
The females stopped in their tracks, startled at Mary’s sudden appearance. Even from the distance, I thought they recognized Mary’s feminine features, and they knew she was a woman. A powerful woman who could speak their language, had a weapon that could blast holes in the dirt, and could teleport. They must have thought she’d been the one to take the two disappearing locals away.
They got on their knees. The rest of the villagers did the same.
Mary picked up the new cloaking device Clare had given us and tucked it into a strap on her leg. It had done the trick. She strode toward us with purpose, her rifle held at ready just in case one of them did something stupid.
She tapped the translator off. “Hello, boys. Need some help?” She was loving this.
“I’d say we were doing fine on our own,” Slate said with a wry grin.
“It looks that way,” Mary said, running a gloved finger over the small nick on my neck. “Sorry I wasn’t here sooner, but I saw the Theos shadow in the fire and didn’t want to interrupt.”
The villager’s leader tentatively came up to us, her dark green hair shimmering in the sunlight. She spoke a phrase, and Mary turned the translator back on.
“Please repeat,” Mary said, and the woman did.
“Who are you?”
“We are visitors. What can you tell us about the water?” Mary asked.
“The water?”
“The ocean,” Mary said, lowering her rifle.
“The aquadomum.” I picked up the fact that her translation came through as a variation of Latin and wondered if it was just our device’s way of conveying an unknown phrase with the closest meaning.
“Come,” the woman said, turning around and walking away. Two of her armed friends followed behind us, but at a respectful distance. We passed by the onlookers. Some were still kneeling, while others just stared, trying to understand who or what we were.
The road led us to one of the cabins, where we entered through the door, and the woman pulled out an object from a desk on the far side of the main room. She beckoned us inside and waved her hand toward the wooden furniture, gesturing for us to sit. The space was small but cozy, the smell of wood sharp but pleasing.
She said something quickly out the door, and soon a tray of nuts and berries was brought in, with wooden glasses full of a colorful liquid.
“Boss, I’m not drinking anything else of theirs. Not after that last treat we had,” Slate said.
Mary disconnected her helmet but kept her earpiece in. She smiled as she took the offered beverage and passed one to their host, who accepted, and took a drink from it. Mary joined her. “Guys, this is pretty good. Tastes like a flower.”
I tried mine and found that was an apt description.
“What is your name?” Mary asked the woman.
“Aquleen,” she said proudly.
“I’m Mary, and this is Dean, and the big guy over there is Slate.”
“Are they your workers?” she asked, and I nearly laughed while Slate frowned.
“Well, I do make Dean do a lot of chores around the house, but…” She stopped herself as Aquleen just stared blankly at her. “They are not. They are equals.”
“But they are not egg-bearers.”
“You’re correct. What do you have to show us?” Mary asked, changing the subject.
Aquleen held a clear device in her hand, the size of a cell phone. It looked out of place in this rustic cabin. “This,” she spoke solemnly, “is
for you, I think. Long ago, my people, the Apop, were driven from our home. My mother’s mother’s mother recalls the stories of her mothers, and we know we used to live in the aquadomum. The Picas came and forced us out. We ended on the beach, learning we could be in air as well as water.”
I leaned forward, sipping the refreshing drink.
“We have tried to go back, to vanquish them, but failed every time. They still have our semrock. We were to protect it, or so said our writings, but we didn’t.”
Semrock had to be the seed for this world, the one the Theos had hidden for their game of hide and seek through space and time. It sounded like a different race had come and stolen their home. It looked like we had more to deal with than we had at Atrron. As with any game, I suspected each location would get incrementally more difficult.
Mary took the clear device and looked at it from both sides. She tapped the side of it and it lit up, lines forming on the small surface. “Look, guys. That’s the beach. There’s the cache box the Theos hid for us to find this stuff, which our new friends have already pilfered.”
Slate and I loomed over her, seeing the map zoom out and an icon eventually began to pulse. I pointed to the blinking red light on the screen. “That has to be the semrock.”
“At least we know where we’re going,” Slate said. “Mary, ask them what the Picas are, and where they came from.”
Mary asked, her words translating. Aquleen’s jaw clenched and her brow furrowed in anger. “They come from deep in the sea. They are evil creatures, and they have taken so many of those we love. You will perish should you go after the semrock.”
“What do they look like? Do they have weapons?” Mary asked.
“Weapons? They have their horns and teeth.” Aquleen moved across the room and took out a leather-bound book. She flipped through a few pages and passed Mary the volume. Clean drawings were etched on the taupe paper. The subjects were long and fish-like, with two horns stacked on their heads, one above the other. They had large mouths, like sharks.
“We’re going to go swimming to get this seed, and those things are under the water guarding it? I don’t think so,” Slate said. “Our pulse rifles won’t work under water. What are we going to do, stab them with a knife?”
I knew he didn’t love swimming, but we had no choice. It was our only way out unless we searched the planet for a portal, which would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
“We’ll figure it out,” Mary said, turning to Aquleen. “Do you have spears? Anything we can use against your foe?”
Aquleen nodded.
“Are you able to breathe underwater?” Mary continued, and the woman nodded again. “Perhaps someone could guide us, then? If we get the semrock, will the Picas leave?”
Aquleen stared at Mary, a sheen coming over her eyes. “You will help us get our home back?”
“We’ll try,” I said. “Will you guide us?”
She said that she would.
There was a commotion from outside, and the two women who’d disappeared using my Relocator were soon inside the cabin, talking over one another.
“Calm.” Aquleen held a hand up to silence them.
“It took us to the beach. The gods are with these strangers,” the shorter of the two said.
“That may be true. They seek to help us get our semrock back.”
They each gave us a doubtful look, and I stuck my hand out. The woman hesitantly placed it into my palm. “Is it a god gift?” she asked.
It had come from Kareem, who had been one amazing engineer. “Not a god, no. But from a friend.”
“We don’t have time to waste, Aquleen. Show us the spears, and let’s get your home back,” Mary said, taking charge of the situation. Under the circumstances, we knew they would take to following her lead more than Slate or mine.
“Come with me,” the green-haired woman said.
Eleven
The water was cool at first, but I was quickly acclimating to it. The mask we’d been gifted on the Atrron world fit perfectly, as if it was made for me. I saw Slate put his on, and it molded to his head, making the ideal seal.
We used the earpieces from our EVAs but left our suits in our tent, where Aquleen promised they would be guarded with her people’s lives. Otherwise, we had smallclothes from the villagers on. The shorts were tighter than I’d have liked, but I eyed Mary’s bathing suit with interest. Mary wore the map strapped to her forearm, and Slate and I held eight-foot-long spears in our hands. Aquleen looked fearless, like a warrior mermaid, as she quickly swam in the ocean, her thin clothing a sheer barrier to the cold.
Slate and I kept our heads above the water as we stood on the sandy bottom of the beach. He gave our guide an appraising look and winked at me.
I killed the mic for a second so our conversation would be private. “Would you focus, Slate? You just met someone, and here you are making googly eyes at a deadly fish-alien.”
“She doesn’t look like a fish to me. Don’t worry, I just hate swimming, and need a distraction to keep my mind from it.” Slate ducked under the water, and I marveled at the masks we had on. They didn’t need tanks to allow us to breathe. How they worked was beyond me, but these were gifts from a god-like race. After a few panicked breaths, I’d gotten used to it.
“Let’s go. We’ll check out the Theos box first, see if there’s anything left for us,” Mary said from a few yards away. She plunged under the water. I took one last look back at our beach and then dropped into the crystal-clear abyss.
Tiny colorful creatures swam around us as we moved deeper. I wasn’t the best swimmer in the world, but with light clothing and without my EVA boots on, I found myself having fun as I kicked forward, following the effortless flow of Aquleen in the lead.
Mary turned and looked at me through her mask, her hair loose now, causing it to float freely around her head. She was smiling widely, and I wished we were snorkeling at the Molokai crater in Maui, rather than heading into another dangerous situation together.
The ocean bed got lower and lower as we progressed, and when I looked upwards, I was almost blinded. The sunlight reflected across the clear ocean top, casting wide shadows below us.
“It’s just ahead,” Mary said through our earpieces, and I checked behind me to make sure Slate was keeping up. His bulky body was only a few yards away, and he gave me a thumbs-up with his free hand. It looked like he was enjoying it too. I only hoped we could get in and out without facing the deadly Picas.
Aquleen made it sound like they’d been forced out three generations ago, and no one had been back in years. Maybe the Picas had moved on, and we could just go down, get what we came for, and leave, letting her people go back to their underwater world.
We couldn’t communicate with her while we were under, but she was using easy-to-understand hand gestures. Pointing down, she swam quickly toward the white sand below, a school of tiny pink fish bursting apart as she passed by.
She’d told us she used to spend time visiting the empty box as a girl, that she felt a connection to it she didn’t get anywhere else. She’d sit and listen to stories from her grandmother about what life used to be like in their home underwater and dream of reclaiming it for her people. Before we left, she told Mary that this was her time. Her path had led her to this moment, and she wasn’t going to squander it.
Aquleen found the access along the ocean floor with ease and brushed away the sediment from the hatch. With a tug, she opened it, blue light reflecting off her face before she raced through the entrance, leaving Mary to follow. I let Slate ahead of me and stayed behind. When I was sure there was no threat nearby, I entered the small opening.
The box was about the same size as the one from the ice world, and it had blue stones lining the walls. They glowed softly, illuminating the space. We swam around the water-filled cavern, and after a few minutes of searching, we realized there was nothing left inside for us. This would have been where they’d found the box with the Theos, which currently resided in
their firepit back in town.
“Nothing here. They’ve picked it clean. I guess the Theos didn’t plan on this happening,” I said, swimming for the exit.
The three of us left, and Aquleen stayed behind for just a moment longer. Her green hair floated around her head while she stayed still, looking captivated by the box. It meant something to her, and we gave her a minute with her thoughts.
“I wonder what the Theos had in store for us if they didn’t expect the Picas to be at the end game. Or maybe they sent them, destroying this culture’s life as they knew it,” Mary said.
“I don’t know. They seem to be doing okay up there on land,” Slate said.
“How would you like to be taken from your home and transported somewhere else, with no way of going back?” I asked, quickly feeling a fool. That was exactly what had happened to us with Earth. New Spero was our home, but we’d never forget Earth for what it was. My heart suddenly felt heavy with loss. “Don’t answer that. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing changes, boss. We go in, assess the situation, kick ass where needed, return with the seed thing, and move on to the next world. One step closer to being finished.” Slate stuck his fist out, and I bumped it.
“I agree with Zeke,” Mary said, and Slate gave her a look that said “Really…Zeke?”
Aquleen darted past us, her legs kicking so quickly she could have been an Olympic swimmer fighting for a medal. She waved an arm for us to follow, and we took her advice, moving further into the ocean, away from the shore.
____________
The distance hadn’t seemed very far on the map, but an hour later, we were still moving through the water. We always swam at a slight downward angle as the ocean floor descended. I wondered how many miles we’d traveled and cringed at the idea of swimming all the way back. I’d brought the Relocator just in case that was our only option.
Aquleen showed no signs of slowing, and as she kicked her feet, I noticed her toes were webbed. It was obvious she wasn’t going at her maximum speed as she waited for us to catch up. She pointed forward, and I could make out what appeared to be a wall of stone underwater.
The Survivors: Books 1-6 Page 72
