by Jade, Elsa
He’d accidentally broken transgalactic law by revealing his presence to a closed-worlder, and he’d deliberately gone against his commander’s orders, and now Tritona’s chance to survive depended on this edgy, broken air-breather?
There was no trench deep enough to dive away from his own fear.
“If you’re suffering no lingering aftereffects of our experiment last night, then we should reconnoiter the grounds before I contact my commander.”
With a short nod, she fell into step beside him and they exited the front of the house into the gray day.
She averted her gaze from the fountain but her voice was steady when she asked, “If your journey here was meant to be a first date and honeymoon rolled into one, why are you still in military mode now?”
“Don’t you find it odd that we were brought together under confusing circumstances, luring us in with what we most need?” He angled them off toward one side of the house. “Maybe your experiences have been different, but I’ve found that if something seems too good to be true—”
“—it is too good to be true,” she finished. “Yeah, it’s like that on this planet too.”
He couldn’t help but flash her a grin, pleased that she seemed to be accepting the truth of other worlds beyond her own. The smile slipped away though as he contemplated her shock at seeing his gills. How could she not know about her own?
Last night, when he’d carried her unconscious into the empty bedroom that bore her scent, he’d been baffled at what he’d seen. He’d stripped off her soaked clothes and tucked her chilled body into the big bed. Not quite as nice as wrapping oneself in a broad leaf of blanket weed and being rocked to sleep by the gentle waves in one of Tritona’s many tropical lagoons, but not terrible.
He’d checked her neck and found that her gill filaments were as neatly tucked away as his own, imperceptible in the slender column of her throat. He’d peeked under the covers just long enough to examine her hands and feet for webbing between the digits that might indicate recessive genes for a water-breathing species. But except for the calluses of a hard worker, he found no other signs that she might’ve been a good candidate for becoming the alien mate of a water world in need.
Toweling off her wet hair had been the work of a moment, the short, fine strands tickling his fingers. Though her pulse and breathing were normal, she didn’t rouse even when he whispered her name.
So he stayed until the sun rose and he could sneak around to the front door as she’d suggested. He’d been about to suggest to the other Earther females to look in on her when she’d spied him through the doorway.
Now, as they reconnoitered around the large house, he considered what it all meant. Maybe it was miscommunication about this Wavercrest Syndrome. If a transgalactic charitable organization was clandestinely working on this Earth to bring technological advances including medical care to its oblivious people, perhaps that organization had crossed lines with the Intergalactic Dating Agency. But Tritona didn’t need more lost and wounded aid cases. After years of war, they had enough of their own.
And if someone had sabotaged the dating profiles by swapping willing IDA brides for unwitting victims of some fraud… He’d never recover from this failure.
And neither would Tritona.
They finished their circuit of the house and returned to the front fountain, having spotted nothing untoward. Although Ridley had pointed out how a natural fold of the slope in the backyard allowed for a nearly invisible approach from the tree line almost to the house.
“You’re probably just making me paranoid,” she complained. “But I noticed it from my room this morning when I…” She slanted a glance at him. “When I was making sure I was alone.”
He returned her gaze. “I stayed with you until morning, hoping you’d wake, so we could talk.”
She snorted. “Well, that’s not creepy at all. But…thanks, I guess, for waiting to flap your fringe until Marisol and Lana were there too, so I didn’t have to wonder if I was imagining it all.”
“Do you always doubt your senses?”
“Only since I drowned.” Her gaze fixed on the stone statue. With the tranquil pool reflecting the gray sky, the white fish-woman seemed to be floating in a sea of clouds.
He stiffened. “I wouldn’t have let you drown.”
“Not last night.” Ridley’s shoulders slumped. “I was competing to join a special operation force. We had a night dive, something I’d done a thousand times before, but this time, I… I suppose I panicked. I can’t explain it. I was feeling strong even though the tests were grueling, physically and mentally. I needed to show them that I had what they wanted. I knew the other guys were above me but coming fast and hard, so I…” She bowed her head, rubbing one hand along her neck. “I ditched my tank and took off my mask.”
Maelstrom studied the white clench of her knuckles. Right above where he’d seen her gills. “Why did you do that?”
Despite his carefully neutral tone, her head snapped up. “I don’t know! I thought I could stay ahead of them if I was faster, smaller, more…tricky.”
“Did it work?”
She glared at him. “Nooo. I drowned. The guys I was trying to beat had to haul my ass to the surface. I fought them the whole way. Like I was trying to go deeper or something. They got to practice their resuscitation training, and I washed out of the program. Got banished to the driest desk duty possible since apparently I am susceptible to nitrogen narcosis.”
“But you’d dived many times before with no problem. You just tried to push yourself too deep.”
“Pushed myself right out of my Navy career.” She tucked her hands under her armpits in a tight, uncomfortable hug. “Managed to get a job in underwater hull cleaning. It’s all bright lights, dry suits, and air hoses with surface compressors, just a few feet from the surface. I thought I’d bore myself out of the urge…”
“What urge?”
“To drown,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “You weren’t trying to drown with me. You said you wanted to dive.”
“Dive. Die.” Her scowl was as fierce as her grip had been, tangled in his hair. “It’s only the one letter difference.”
“Tritonyri spawnlings are born in the deepest, safest trenches. But as they grow and can compete in the water column, they are drawn to the sunlit surface, even though that’s where the most danger waits.” He shrugged. “Maybe you are just an upside-down Tritonyri.” He gave her a wry smile, waiting to see how she’d respond.
Her slow blink wasn’t very encouraging. “If your whole world or whatever suffers from Wavercrest Syndrome, I think your mission here is doomed.”
Her assessment slammed into his gut with more force than seemed possible, regardless of the special force she’d wanted to join. She wasn’t wrong.
“I need to contact my commander,” he told her. “Hopefully he’s heard from the IDA.”
She waved one hand dismissively. “I’m going to find Thomas, see about redirecting one of the outdoor cams toward that backyard approach.” She strode off without waiting for his reply.
He watched her go for a moment, his heartbeat thudding with each stomp of her stiff, self-conscious steps. She had at least rudimentary gills, she was drawn to the deeps instinctively, and she was increasingly unsuited to life on her world.
Maybe this mismatch wasn’t so mistaken after all.
With effort, he turned his attention to the compact personal data compiler strapped to his forearm. The datpad blinked a compromised connection warning. They’d been told that the territory around Sunset Falls contained unusual geological qualities that interfered with even the most advanced tech. It was one of the reason the Big Sky IDA outpost was sited here, to help disguise the alien-to-Earthers affairs. So he limited his transmission to text only.
Plus, he didn’t want to look his commander in the eye.
Any comms from IDA? he sent.
The reply was swift. None. Unclear if message was received at all.
>
So who had dangled this lure? And why? The uncertainty tingled at his nerve endings.
Thinking of a stop at the local outpost, he tapped.
Agreed. Will join you.
Belay. So far, he was the only one of their company who’d truly broken closed-world protocols. Any blame for failure would lie with him. No need to risk exposure. Since that sounded faintly guilty, he added, Freeing Sting from the ship not currently advised. He added the squiggling symbol of a stone-toothed eelver to indicate his amusement.
Coriolis’s reply with the ideograph of an eyeless deep-sea gorefish made Maelstrom wince. So much for the attempt at humor.
He tapped quickly, Will check in soon.
He was on his own. And considering how his last mission had gone, maybe that was for the best.
Chapter 7
Ridley had just finished working with Thomas to cover the blind spot in the backyard when Maelstrom strode up to them. All her warning bells chimed, whether that was because he was an alien, because he said he was an alien, or because… Well, maybe because warning bells weren’t the only thing chiming in her.
The memory of his mouth on hers, the steadiness of his gaze as he asked her about the fear, the knowledge that he’d stayed with her when she’d freaked herself out so badly. It all added up to something definitely surprising and unfamiliar, but not exactly extraterrestrial.
Not wanting to examine any of that too closely, instead she showed him their new security measures. “No one at the IDA is answering Marisol’s emails, texts, or phone calls,” she told him. “So maybe you’re paranoid, but it does seem strange that after bringing us all here, they ghosted us.”
“There will be no ghosts,” he said, “unless I am the one to loose them.”
She blinked at the ruthless edge in his voice. “Ghosting is a colloquial term for not answering our hails. Let’s not go zero to lethal without cause.”
After a moment, he inclined his head. “Not without cause.” Another beat, and then he added, “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
She couldn’t help but give him a wry smile. “Little late for that.” She gestured at the closed-circuit camera board in the butler’s pantry just off the kitchen. “As you can see, we’re well alarmed.”
He studied the panel for a moment, gave a terse nod, then glanced at Thomas. “You’ll oversee their protection? I must leave briefly.”
Thomas sniffed in clear affront. “I joined the elder Miss Wavercrest’s household in my youth and pledged myself to her granddaughter as well. I won’t be abdicating my responsibilities at this late date.”
Ridley tapped her foot. “Uh yeah, I can just watch myself, okay? Always have, always will.”
Maelstrom angled his big body toward her though it took another moment for him to release the butler from his assessing stare. “You might not have passed the test to join that special force you wanted so badly,” he told her. “But you’re part of this IDA mystery now, whether you want to be or not. So for this mission, we work together.” When his icy eyes clashed with her glare, she felt it down to her bones. “Even if you don’t know how.”
“You’re not my commanding officer,” she reminded him, hot enough to melt a hole in that ice. “And you’re as clueless as the rest of us. So don’t get all high and mighty when you’ve got nothing to stand on.”
“Yeah,” Thomas muttered under his breath. Very under his breath.
Maelstrom straightened himself to his full height, the better to look down on them. “As long as you stay inside and stay vigilant. I’ll be back soon.” He focused on her. “I require Earther transportation. What is the access code to the wheeled cruiser that brought you here?”
She lifted both eyebrows. “You want my car? Just where are you going?”
“My commander also hasn’t received a reply from the IDA, but they have an outpost in Sunset Falls. Since the geology in this area is known to interfere with some forms of electronic communication, I plan to use their front door.” He slanted a glance at her. “As you’ve suggested before.”
“I’ll get my stuff.”
“Stuff?” He tilted his head. “Do you mean keys?”
“Keys, coat, snacks for the road, small weapons.” She glanced at Thomas. “Please let Marisol and Lana know we’ll check in as soon as we learn anything.”
While Maelstrom sputtered, Thomas nodded once and slipped away.
The man/alien/being/nightmare who’d upended her world crossed his arms over his chest. “I go alone.”
Ridley matched his glare. “You’re part of this mystery now,” she parroted back at him. “Whether you want to be or not.”
If possible, his iceberg eyes turned even harder and colder. “I had a squadron,” he reminded her. “Most of them died in Tritona’s war. The ones that survived the battle…” For just an instant, a glimmer crossed over his eyes, and she feared he was crying. Then the opalescent sheen flicked away again, and she realized it was the glint of protective membranes over his eyes.
Alien, her mind whispered. But the tight anger and sorrow in his tone felt all too familiar to her lonely heart.
She shoved it all away except for the one point that really mattered. “It’s my car. I’m going with you.”
A low, almost imperceptible sound raised shivers over her skin, and she realized he was growling, an almost sub-acoustic warning.
“If we’re in this together,” she said with a low growl of her own, “we go together.”
“I don’t want to risk you,” he said, “or anyone else if I fail.”
She’d met more than a few men who were tired of war, haunted by loss, but for a moment, it had almost sounded as if Maelstrom meant he cared about her. Perversely, it made her want to go with him even more. “The risk isn’t yours alone,” she argued. “Certainly not here and I’m betting not where you came from either. I already told you not to be high and mighty. Hell, I bet you don’t even know which side of an Earth road to drive on, do you?” She smirked at him. “Ain’t no roads in space or in the ocean.”
That pearly shield flicked across his eyes again, and she realized that for him it was a sign of real distress.
“How bad was your war?” The question popped out of her uncensored, and she wished she could pull it back. When he remained stubbornly mute, she reminded him, “You said your world is on a timeline, so do you really want to waste it arguing with me?”
“Very well,” he said tersely. “You can come. But you listen to me, and obey.”
Not that she owed him anything, but she hustled off to grab her coat and keys. Thomas met them at the front door with a go bag. His mouth was pulled down in a disapproving frown and his gaze flicked between them. “Miss Wavercrest says you must stay in contact and return here right away if you encounter anything untoward.”
“Untoward?” Ridley tilted her head. “You mean worse than strange syndromes, arrogant aliens, or vanishing dating apps?”
His lips twitched. “Or worse. She’s worried she’s brought you into something dangerous.”
“We all want answers,” she assured him. “And I hear we’re on the same team.”
She waved Maelstrom toward the rental car. The Wavercrest foundation had paid for an upgrade, but the sedan suddenly looked ridiculously small as he folded himself into the passenger seat. He said nothing as she wheeled them out of the drive and back toward the county road.
“You should know, Earth men aren’t so grouchy about letting a woman drive,” she told him.
He watched her hands on the wheel and foot on the pedals. “Really?”
She hesitated. Kind of a dick move to lie about her planet, maybe. She wouldn’t want anyone doing that to her. “They should be okay with it,” she said firmly. “And so should you.”
“It’s not about driving,” he said softly. “It’s about dying.” He slanted a glance at her. “Not much difference between those two words either.”
“You really think it’s going to be that dangerous?”
They were silent for a while as she drove back toward the main road, leaving the Wavercrest compound behind them.
It seemed impossible that she was going to believe him. But those glowing bubbles, his shuttering eyes, the way he’d breathed for her… She could tell herself there was some other explanation—or that her mental troubles had suddenly gotten much worse—but…she believed him.
Maybe adding delusion to her phobia wasn’t the best life choice but she’d made worse ones.
She tapped her thumb on the steering wheel. “So which way are we going? I don’t know Sunset Falls at all.”
He pulled back his sleeve, displaying a device that looked like a cross between a smart watch and a cell phone strapped to his wrist. He tapped at the display. “Follow this path and take the first turn off to the southwest.” When she wrinkled her nose in uncertainty, he lowered his hand. “I’ll just point.”
She drummed her fingers harder. “So, will we see spaceships or real aliens?”
He huffed out a breath. “I’m not a real alien?”
“You still look a lot like us. Like, no tentacles or anything.” She blinked. “Unless…”
“No tentacles.” He angled his shoulders back into the seat, some of the tension going out of him. “Not personally anyway. There are many what you would call humanoid species in the universe. This”—he flicked one finger in a gesture across his body—“is a versatile template for evolutionary forces, both natural and imposed. Tactilely manipulative digits, complex and inquisitive neural networking, telomerically limited lifespans that compel an intrinsic urge to struggle against entropy, even a predisposition to progressive thinking that propels a species outward to explore.”