He gave the fire a thoughtful appraisal. “Of course not. That’s between us.” A pause. “Makes you even more amazing.”
“How’s that?”
“Is there anything you can’t withstand? You come across as invincible . . . but there must be moments when you wonder if it’s even worth getting out of bed, let alone continuing to be a pillar of strength for the rest of us.”
She laughed at that. “Yeah. There are those days.”
“My turn to ask. What do you want from me?”
Now, there was a twist. She let her gaze melt into his, was reassured that it was unflinching, honest. “I had fun today.”
“You didn’t see how close we came to being a meal on the river when the big monster was eaten at the last moment by the bigger monster.”
“You didn’t see how close that sidewinder came to grabbing your boot when I swung you up over that last ledge.”
“Okay, so we had fun. Seriously, Tal, what do you want in a man?”
“I guess I want today. Well, all but the fall off that cliff. I still hurt all over from that.” Again she met his earnest gaze. “I mean it. After you got your wits back from Demon possession, I had fun. You and I were a team, getting off the gravel bar, getting up the cleft in the basalt, figuring our way around danger. I enjoyed a sense of exhilaration I haven’t had . . . well, since the academy I guess.”
“Explain that. You’ve been in the bush plenty. You’ve had close calls up the yazoo. What made today different?”
It hit her like thrown rock. “I wasn’t taking care of anyone.”
He read her amazement. A slow smile spread across his lips.
She verbalized her thoughts: “I mean, yes. I was taking care of you, but you were just as involved in taking care of me. I sort of had that with Trish back before the quetzal TriNA started screwing with my life. The difference was, I was always the lead, and Trish had my back. You and I today, we switched off. With the exception of Kylee and Tip, there’s no other human being on the planet that could have done what we did today.”
The realization was like magic.
The look in Dek’s yellow-green eyes added to her revelation. The man was practically beaming. “Victory,” he whispered in self-satisfaction.
“That’s not all there is to a relationship,” she told him.
“No,” he agreed. “But predator-filled rivers and clefts thick with deadly man-eaters is a start. There’s also holding someone’s heart in one’s hands and realizing it’s the most precious thing in the universe.”
His gaze was now boring into hers. Firelight shone on the pink scar tissue on his cheek.
“And you think you’re the one to hold my heart?”
“I was convinced of it as early as Tyson Station, but after today, I know it more than ever.”
She tossed another section of mundo branch on the fire to keep the blaze up and predators away. “That’s you, right now. In possession of yourself. You told me earlier today that the different strains of TriNA were still working it out. What if Demon starts pulling out the old Derek Taglioni? The one who trolled courtesans through Corporate high society as a way to show off? That guy worries me. Before I let you get close enough to see, let alone hold any heart of mine, I have to know that guy’s dead.”
Dek pursed his lips, chewed on them for moment as a frown lined his forehead. Finally, he nodded as if to himself. “Yeah, that makes two of us.”
“That’s giving in pretty quickly. Why no dying protestation of love?”
His eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Because I’ve come across the stars to find a woman I love more than life itself. Having done that, I don’t want a bunch of alien chemicals to screw it up. And I don’t know what’s going on with the quetzal stuff inside me. I can sense rather than feel it, like a churning, and it’s been fingering around the edges of my mind, as if trying to judge me.”
“Judge you how?”
Dek frowned again, deeper, eyes narrowing in concentration. As if to something inside, he said, “Because I’m back on the rim again. And before I let you ruin my life, I’ll toss us all off the edge. And this time, there won’t be any water at the bottom. Just hard and unforgiving rocks.”
64
The look in Michaela Hailwood’s eyes should have frightened Felix. Instead, he was more worried about the deep-seated ache just down below the corners of his jaw. He hadn’t been able to figure out what it meant. Just that the sides of his mouth hurt, and if he pushed on either side of his neck, he could trace the pain down to just above his collarbone.
And the sound had changed. Like the Voice had promised, he could hear more now. A faint singing, like a changing, fluttering harmony that surrounded the Pod. It sort of sounded like Shin’s symphony music that he used to play on Ashanti, but different. And there were deep bass sounds, like a reassuring thrumming that crept up from the sea and through the pilings.
“Felix?” Michaela asked, leaning her dark face down to stare into his eyes. The woman looked scared. That, more than anything, had him slightly unsettled.
“Do you hear the music?” he asked, head cocked. “It’s coming from the water.”
“I don’t hear anything. And we’re way above the water.”
Well, maybe she couldn’t. Used to be that he couldn’t either, and they had him locked in the containment room on the second floor. This was supposed to be for lab specimens, and now he was in here. There was nothing to do but look at the walls, hear the music, and he was hungry.
“Felix? Do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you kill Bill Martin?”
“I didn’t. I wasn’t there until the last.”
“What do you mean, you weren’t there until the last?”
“It was already done. Someone had done a study on Bill. You know, dissected. Like we did with the tube in science club. But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t there until after it was all over.”
Michaela’s expression pinched, her eyes going hard. “Listen to me, Felix. Your fingerprints are on the vibraknife. In Bill’s blood. You know what fingerprints are? Those are the little lines on the pads of your fingers and palms. Yours are distinct. No one anywhere has the same little ridges. That was your hand on the vibraknife.”
“Okay. But it wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?”
“I guess it must have been the Voice.”
“Whose voice? Someone on the Pod? Your mother’s, maybe Yee’s?”
“No, it’s a different Voice.”
“Do you hear it now?”
“No. It’s just listening. Wondering.”
“The Voice listens and wonders?”
“Yes. It’s learning.”
At the word, Michaela seemed to start, her forehead lining. She studied him for a moment, then asked, “Do you feel bad about what happened to Bill?”
“I liked him a lot. All of us kids did. He was always nice.”
“Then why did you cut open the back of his leg?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did, Felix?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was the Voice.”
He saw the flash of fear behind Michaela’s dark eyes. She seemed to swell as she drew a deep breath. Took a moment, like Mother did when she was finding the right words. “What made you go to the kitchen in the first place?”
“I didn’t. I was asleep in bed. And then I was there. And there was all this blood. But the Voice said it was okay. And it was. I could feel it.”
“You don’t remember going to the kitchen?”
“No!” Felix cried. “Don’t you get it? I didn’t cut Bill up. I was asleep. And then I was there. The Voice was learning. Like we did with the tube. It’s how science is done.”
“And you don’t feel bad about Bill? My God, Felix, you were covered with hi
s blood.”
He could see that Michaela was getting upset. “I didn’t get bloody. I was already that way. And I knew it would make Mother mad, so I went to the shower and washed it all off. Then I went to bed.”
“You went to bed?”
Why did grownups always repeat things? “Yes. The Voice said it was okay. And I didn’t want Mother to worry. She and me, we’re already sad. That thing grabbed Father and took him away to eat him. People are dying. Everyone is scared. Sheena and me, we’re just trying to figure it out. It’s just got to be science.”
“Wait, easy. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you scared. I know you miss your father. I just need to know. We all do. Why did you kill Bill?”
He felt the welling tears. “I didn’t! I wasn’t there!”
Michaela’s gaze went vacant, which was when Felix realized someone was talking to her on her com. She shifted uneasily, cradling her broken arm in its sling.
She asked, “Does the Voice ever do other things? Things you don’t know it’s doing?”
Feeling better, he said, “Sure. It does all kinds of things.”
“Like what?”
He lifted his arm. Twisted his hand back and forth. “Like that. I can tell my hand, say, ‘Don’t move.’ And the Voice will make it move anyway. Or open doors and things. It’s like I’m me, but not me. Like I’m not driving my body. Pretty zambo.”
“Pretty zambo?” she whispered under her breath, gaze vacant as something was said into her ear com. “Felix, what do you think the Voice is? Where does it come from?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just there. In my head. It’s not really a voice. More of a feeling, I guess. Sort of there and not there, except when it’s moving me around.”
“And how long have you felt this ‘there and not there’ feeling?”
“Since science club? Maybe before. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
“Does the Voice ever tell you to do things you don’t want to?”
How did he answer that? “It kind of just does things.”
“Like with Bill?”
“I didn’t hurt Bill! I swear.”
Michaela’s worry-hard eyes seemed to bore into him. They were terrible eyes. Eyes that burned right through him. Made him squirm in the chair until tears started to well in his vision.
“I want my mother!”
“You’ll see her in a bit,” Michaela told him in that short, “I’m angry” adult voice.
“I didn’t do it! The Voice said it would be okay. I was in bed, and then I was there. Don’t you see?”
But Michaela stood, her face gone hard, cold.
“Yes, I see. I almost pray it’s TriNA instead of psychosis,” she muttered as she walked out of the room and closed the door.
As Felix wondered what psychosis was and stared at the door, he rubbed the sore places on the side of his throat. They had started to feel puffy now, as well as tender. On top of everything, they kept hurting worse and worse.
The Voice told him, “It won’t be long now.”
65
The shift in the chime brought Dek awake from crazy and tumultuous dreams. Quetzal dreams where he hunted silently in dim forest shadows mixed with human images, memories of his past, as well as bits of pieces of Kylee through Rocket’s eyes. Then he’d be in Talina’s mother’s kitchen, or some insane Mayan ballcourt in Mexico. Once he was at a military-style graduation ceremony; another time a dark-haired, sloe-eyed young man was saying, “Hey, I don’t want to see you again. I’m with Beth now,” and his heart was breaking as he called, “Bucky? Hey, don’t do this to me!” But the guy only stalked away.
Bucky? Beth? Who the hell?
Something screamed in agony out in the trees.
Dek blinked his eyes open. Crap! Capella’s light was burning red on the undersides of the clouds drifting in from the Gulf. The eastern sky glowed—a rumpled-looking silhouette of black treetops in the distant lowlands marking the horizon.
A pop from the fireplace reminded him of where they were: exposed on weathered bedrock. At the lip of a sheer dropoff into Two Falls River Gorge. The aches in his body—in addition to the bruises and tortured muscles from his river adventures the day before—proved just how unforgiving basalt could be. When he looked at his fingers, they were scabbed, scuffed, and abused from the hard climb. A warm weight on his stomach made him glance down. Talina’s wealth of black hair spilled across his chest; her head lay full on his belly. Dek savored how Tal’s shoulder pressed against his side, and her arm draped across his crotch. The woman had drawn her knees up against his hip.
Okay, maybe sleeping on hard basalt had its positive points. That, or was this just his dreams come true?
The deal had been that they’d sit back-to-back in order to keep watch through the night and toss wood on the fire. After all, given the number of diurnal predators, who knew what kind of nocturnal beasts might come creeping or flying in out of the darkness. Tal’s infrared sight was excellent, and Dek, to his amazement, found that he had night vision in a way he’d never had. But after the climb, they’d been exhausted. Needed the rest. And a fire was safety when they didn’t know the local predators.
So, how had Talina’s head come to be on his stomach? When had he fallen asleep?
He let his memory drift back to the gravel bar the day before. He replayed Talina’s every move as she stripped off her overalls, baring that remarkable body. How the sun had played on her skin as she stood beside the crystalline river and shot him a conspiratorial smile.
At the thought, another of those anonymous memories appeared in his head: Talina, naked as she bathed in a pool of water beside a river. A camp on a gravel bar. A stormy and dark night. Thunder booming. Rain lashed the dark river, pattered on a broadleaf-vine shelter overhead. A fire crackled just beyond the shelter where the remains of a crest cooked. Lightning flashed to illuminate the clouds like giant white lanterns and silvered the rain-stippled river.
Dek could see the guy, ruggedly handsome, head shaved. Realized he lived the memory as Talina, who curled into the crook of the man’s arm. Heard the guy say, “Talina Perez, I’d cross a thousand galaxies just to sit here and share your company.”
She shifted, reached up to pull the man’s lips to hers.
The tingle grew down in his pelvis; he felt the longing, the need for another human being. Talina’s desperate fingers were pulling at the man’s jacket, peeling it from his shoulders as the . . .
The image burst when one of the four-winged canyon fliers rose above the edge of the cliff, gave him a surprised three-eyed stare, and squawked.
Dek jerked. Talina started, instantly awake, and rolled off his stomach to pull at her pistol.
“It’s all right,” Dek told her. “I was having a dream.”
“Oh?” Talina tossed her hair back, rubbed her eyes, and climbed wearily to her feet.
“Gravel bar. Different from the one we were on. Lightning and rain, a broadleaf-vine shelter. I was you. Weird. There was a man there. Said something about crossing a thousand galaxies . . .”
He stopped at the startled and panicked flash of her eyes.
“That was real, wasn’t it?” he asked softly. “You lived that.”
She took a deep breath, walked over to stare down into the morning-dark depths of the canyon. “Wow. Well, I guess it’s not all that unexpected.” She turned, fixing him with a hostile stare. “Just how far did that memory go?”
“You were pulling at the guy’s jacket when I jerked you awake. I can guess where it was going. That was Cap, wasn’t it? The guy looked like a marine.”
She closed her eyes, obviously upset. Jerked a brief nod.
“It’s all right, Tal.” He stood, walked over, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Look at me.” When her uncertain eyes fixed on his, he added, “Remember the part from last night ab
out holding a person’s heart in my hands? You see, this is the part of love that I never understood. Never would have if I hadn’t survived Ashanti, hadn’t come to you.”
“Want to get to the point?”
“That’s quetzal TriNA sharing your memory, and there’s probably going to be a lot more as I come to grips with this stuff. But the thing that I understand now? It’s how far I will go to protect you. I promise to respect your memories. I will not pass judgement. That’s part of your heart, and I will honor and cherish it. I give you my word.”
He saw the welling of her tears and pulled her close, reveling in the feel of her firm body against his.
In the end, she pushed back, wiping the wetness from her eyes, and gave him a wary smile. “I’ll take that promise. Listen. I did things. Stuff I’m not proud of. Like Pak and Paolo. That Talina? That woman? She’s not necessarily who I am today.”
“Way ahead of you. I, uh, sort of have the same problem, as you’re now well aware. God help me if you ever get memories of the man I was. You’d puke and put a bullet in my head just out of principle. Humans live messy lives. Some of us learn, and while we can’t change the sins of the past, we can learn from them. Use what shames us to make us better people.”
She gave him a halfhearted nod. “Yeah, well I was falling in love with Cap. That night on the river? That was special for the both of us.”
“I know. I could only hope to be so lucky.”
She gave him a wink. “Keep talking like you are, and you just might.” A pause. “But, in the meantime, come on. It’s light enough that we can see mobbers before they see us. Let’s go find my rifle and your pistol. I’m half-starved, getting thirsty, and there’s breakfast at the dome.”
“You’ve got it.” He reached down for his newly crafted spear.
As she started off along the canyon rim, she called back, “Thank God it was Cap. Could have been worse. Could have been good old Bucky Berkholtz.”
Bucky? The guy who’d run off with Beth at that graduation?
Dek was smart enough to bite his tongue before he said anything that would have gotten him shot or tossed off the cliff.
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