She opened the drain, and the tub slowly emptied. Hurrying, Shara opened all the windows and turned on the ceiling fans to blow out the fumes.
She dumped the acid containers in the outside trash, and when she returned, the tub had completely drained. In the shower, she rinsed the remaining acid from the spheres with water, her palms sweaty.
She reached for a towel to dry the spheres. The towel wouldn’t come free. Shara looked up to see Cade gripping the towel, his eyes glazed with confusion as the last of the alcohol haze burned away. “What are you doing?”
Her heart jammed up her throat. “I . . . I thought the salt might damage the spheres, so I washed them.”
“What stinks? Why are you wearing a mask?”
“I didn’t like the smell of the soap so I . . .” She hated the leak of panic in her voice. Even to her, the excuse sounded lame.
Cade released the towel and folded his arms over his chest. He shot her the most forbidding, freezing glare that could have formed glaciers. Whether his anger had caused the alcohol to disperse through his system or his head had cleared due to his body chemistry, he was clearly suspicious as hell.
She swallowed hard. Hoped the guilt didn’t show in her eyes. And didn’t say anything.
“What’s that smell?” he asked, his tone harsh.
She pulled off the mask. The reek of acid fumes hit her immediately. “There must be a gas leak in the building.”
“You’re lying,” he sneered. “That’s not gas. It’s . . . acid.” His eyes narrowed, and his expression raked her with hostile fury. “You tried to destroy the spheres, didn’t you?”
His anger flayed her. But she had to bear this agony. Nauseous and shaky, she somehow found the strength to square her shoulders and lift her chin. “I couldn’t allow you to unleash this nasty thing that might take out Earth.”
Glowering, taut with anger, he pointed to the bed. His voice cracked with contempt and pain as if he’d been sucker punched. “So everything we did in there, everything you said to me was a lie?”
“No,” she sputtered, struggling to control her panic. She felt so sick her heart ached. She couldn’t believe how badly she wanted to throw herself into his arms. But just as she’d blown her one opportunity to stop him, she’d lost the right to ask for comfort.
“No?” He glowered at her. “That’s all you have to say?”
She’d failed. Miserably. Utterly and completely failed. She’d ruined everything. “What was between us was real. But I couldn’t put my own feelings ahead of everyone else’s lives. Your spheres will destroy Earth.”
His curt voice lashed her. “You don’t know that. Our best scientists concur—”
“Jules has seen utter destruction.” Shara slumped against the tub, sick at heart, hands shaking. The pain on his face whipped her as badly as her failure. “If you activate the portal, the Lamenium will explode, crash Haven into Earth.”
“Jules is wrong.” Anger still ticking in a muscle in his jaw, nevertheless, Cade held out his hand to her, a gesture of truce. “And I’ll prove it.”
She ignored his hand and shook her head. “You’re going to kill us all.”
61
Trevor used a tape recorder to interview Shara Weston during the shuttle trip back to Haven. It took three hours for her to fill him in, and Trevor realized he had the story of the century, maybe the millennium.
Shara had even told him how she’d attempted to stop Cade, taking all the blame for her failure, and Trevor had seen the pain in her eyes, understood she’d fallen in love with the alien. Shara hadn’t given him any evidence that her story was true. However, Trevor had never seen a spacecraft as advanced as this shuttle—one that could create its own wormhole.
Besides, if Cade opened a portal to Rama, all of Earth would see the gateway, and that would verify her tale.
Trevor wanted to speak to Cade, but the man had taken the spheres to the pilot’s seat and hadn’t once come aft to their part of the shuttle—not even to eat. Trevor used the time to digest what Shara had told him.
My God, a real live alien had been in their solar system—two of them, brothers fighting a war here that would affect their home world.
“So where do you think Jamar is now?”
Shara shivered. “I don’t know. But after hearing what he did to Teresa, plus Cade’s stories about his behavior on Rama and the brutality you’ve pinned on him, I’d prefer not to meet him. But he’s out there. He’s going to try to stop Cade. And heaven help me, I don’t know if I want him to succeed or not.”
“How do you defeat a man with his power of Quait?” Trevor asked.
“With another man who has that same power.”
Trevor cocked his head and looked at her. “And what about Jules’s vision?”
Shara Weston’s beautiful eyes held his. “Perhaps I simply can’t face the enormity of my failure. But I’m hoping that Jules had that vision so we could prevent a disaster. Perhaps by recovering the second sphere we’ve already changed what she saw in her vision.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then you won’t be able to file your story. There won’t be anyone left on Earth to read it.”
62
Not quite recovered from shuttle lag, Shara was finally back on Haven. Cade wasn’t talking to her. She supposed she should be lucky that he’d taken her with him to Haven.
She still felt sick every time she recalled the hurt in his eyes when he’d realized what she’d tried to do. And while he seemed to understand that from her point of view she’d had no choice, he most certainly hadn’t forgiven her.
They’d stopped briefly at the space station to pick up Jules and Lyle. She’d checked in with Teresa Alverez, who’d finally left the hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.
Never had her asteroid hosted so many guests since she’d purchased it. Cade slept on the living room sofa. Jules and Lyle had moved into the guest bedroom, and Trevor camped out on a futon on the back patio.
After breakfast, while Cade showed Lyle and Trevor how he’d reprogrammed the spheres to protect Earth, Jules and Shara had taken a walk along the beach.
Shara allowed the tropical sunlight to filter into her bones, gave the lapping waves a chance to calm her overwrought nerves, and dug her toes into the damp sand as they walked just above the high-tide mark. Palm trees rustled, and a dolphin in the bay swam into the warmer waters to sun and play. For a moment it was easy to believe everything was right in the universe—that she and Cade were still on speaking terms, that he wasn’t about to explode the Lamenium, that the portal’s opening wouldn’t cause the end of planet Earth.
Jules waited until they’d walked far enough from the house and the men couldn’t possibly overhear before speaking. Although she appeared calm, her voice caught, snagged on the words. “I had another vision.”
Shara’s heart skipped a beat. “It was bad?”
“I saw the Earth from the viewpoint of space.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
Jules shook her head. “Haven erupted, but not like you’d expect.”
“What do you mean?” Shara stopped and dug her toes into the sand.
Jules stopped, too. She gazed at the cone that towered above them at the far end of the island. Greenery covered the Lamenium mine’s lower half, but the top was steep and barren. “If Haven did explode, I’d expect it to smoke, rumble, and the mine’s cone to burst.”
“That’s not what you saw?”
Jules shook her head. “It was so strange. The mine erupted . . . sideways. Haven shot into the Earth. And the Pacific Ocean looked like an egg that cracked, the fractures filling with lava, but the splits, the eruptions spread across the Earth’s crust—not upwards.”
The hair on the back of Shara’s neck prickled. “What did Lyle say?”
“He said that my vision is scientifically impossible.” Tears ran down Jules’s face, and she angrily brushed them away with the back of her wrist. “If w
e can’t stop Jamar—”
“Jamar!” Shara’s heart skipped a beat. “What! Seriously, Jamar?” She turned to face Jules. “You told me you thought it was Cade we had to stop.”
Jules’s face whitened. “The vision in changing. I think . . . I think I was wrong.”
“But Jamar’s not the man conspiring with Lyle in my kitchen to tap into the power of the Lamenium. Jamar isn’t trying to use the portal to send salt to another world. Jamar isn’t bent on using alien technology to save his own people despite the consequences here.”
“True. But Jamar wants to stop Cade. I think my first vision is still valid. The one with all of us on your asteroid, the Lamenium exploding. But—”
“What?”
“Both Lyle and Cade insist that the possibility of the Lamenium causing your asteroid to crash into Earth is infinitesimal.”
“Are you saying Earth is no longer in danger?”
Jules shook her head. “I saw Jamar do something to one of the spheres.”
“Cade altered the programming to stop anything dangerous from coming through. It’s possible Jamar programmed another one.”
“To deliberately cause the asteroid to crash into Earth?” Jules’s eyes windened, and her hand came up to her mouth.
Shara shook so hard she felt sick. Had she betrayed Cade for no reason? All along her instincts had told her Cade was the good guy. Her heart told her to trust him. But she hadn’t listened . . . and now Jules’s new vision had proved she’d hurt Cade for no damn reason. Upset, angry with herself, and emotionally spent, Shara had to force words from her mouth. “We need to tell Cade, Lyle, and Trevor about your new vision.”
“Let’s go find them,” Jules agreed.
Shara peered at her house. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“It sounded like a shout.”
Jules frowned and narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Shara took Jules’s hand and led her off the beach and into the cover of the trees. “Let’s check it out carefully and not go running in.”
They sneaked up to the house, silently, listening for signs of trouble. But there were no more shouts. Shara heard nothing more than the lilting breeze, the rustle of palm fronds, and the lapping of waves on the beach. Heart thumping, she shoved open the door. Would they be greeted by blood, fallen bodies, or Jamar?
Quietly, they moved from room to room.
Jules pointed out the obvious. “Cade, Lyle, and Trevor are gone.”
63
Lyle wanted to discuss Raman science. Trevor had asked about the social and political implications of opening the portal. Cade didn’t have time for debate.
He needed to get the job done. Now.
As soon as the women headed up the beach, he’d placed both spheres into the backpack, strapped the heavy load onto his shoulders, and, with Lyle and Trevor on his heels, headed out the back door. The trek to the mine was about a mile. At first they traversed level ground and about ten minutes later reached the bottom of the cone.
Lyle tipped a water bottle to his lips and then handed it to Cade. “Jules asked me to come here to offer my expertise.”
“I appreciate that.” Cade accepted the water, took a swig, and handed back the bottle to Lyle. “But I’m not a scientist. I can’t tell you how the spheres work any better than the average Terran can explain how a holovid works.”
“Surely you know the general principles,” Lyle insisted. “And Shara told me that you altered the program so only salt can go through.”
“What I did is as easy as flipping the holovid channel. It doesn’t mean I understand it.”
“How do you start and run the portal?” Lyle asked, his curiosity evident.
He shared what little information he had. “Once activated, the system’s self-operating. These spheres are made up of sophisticated nano technology that will seek out one another in the Lamenium flow, coordinate the explosion, control the energy, and open the portal to both Earth and Rama. Once activated, the portal will pump seawater into machinery which will extract the salt from Earth’s ocean, transport it light years away, and rain it down over Rama.”
Trevor took notes and eyed Cade. “Why don’t we wait for the women to join us?”
“I’m expecting trouble.” Cade spoke the truth. “They’ll be safer if they aren’t near us.”
“No one’s going to be safe if Haven’s Lamenium explodes,” Lyle argued. “While I know it’s unlikely, Jules envisioned the entire asteroid crashing into Earth and—”
“That’s not possible.” Cade shook his head and started the uphill climb. On this part of the cone, the trees and shrubs had claimed a foothold. As the cone steepened, as they climbed higher, the plant life would yield to hardened Lamenium crust. “The spheres will descend into the mine and encourage the gas pressure to build. When enough forces gather, the energy will fuel the portal. The energy can’t spread outward.”
“So you say,” Lyle muttered.
“What kind of trouble are you expecting then?” Trevor asked.
Cade noted he always kept his voice recorder turned on and tried to speak carefully, fully aware that whatever he said might be heard by billions in just a few days. He should have been just as careful around Shara.
If that acid had ruined the spheres, she would have stopped his mission. He might understand her fear, but that didn’t excuse what she’d tried to do. That she’d caused no harm didn’t make up for the fact that she’d set herself against him. And her betrayal slashed him like the sharpest blade.
Cade’s voice hardened. “Jamar followed me from Rama to Earth to prevent the portal from opening.” Cade shifted the straps on his pack. As the grade steepened, the load changed, and the straps dug into his flesh. “Did your research clue you in to where Jamar might be based?”
“While his attacks were on several worlds, the earliest ones were on Earth, probably in the South Pacific,” Trevor answered, his face sweating, his breath coming in hard draws of air.
“Can you be any more specific?” Cade asked.
Trevor shook his head. Sweat drizzled down his brow, and sweat stains appeared under his arms. Lyle’s breath came in great gasps, and he stopped frequently. “Guess I’m not used to this heat.”
Trevor stopped, removed his hat and sunglasses, wiped the perspiration from his face, and stared at the mine’s rim. “How much farther?”
Cade set down his pack. “The distances are difficult to judge without landmarks.” They’d reached the uppermost and steepest part of the climb. The vegetation was no longer sparse—it was nonexistent. And the sun’s heat reflected off the black crusty Lamenium, baking them.
Cade could feel the heat rising through his shoes. Beside the rim were several large pockmarked black boulders that would provide some shade. He searched the beaches below, wondering if the women had yet discovered their disappearance, but didn’t see them.
But Cade wasn’t waiting to convince anyone that he could safely open the portal. His conscience twinged over the fact that Shara had never given her permission to use her asteroid—but his people were willing to trade with her in repayment. And once he opened the portal, and she understood that the science really worked, he felt certain Shara would come to an agreement with his people—although he didn’t know what would happen between them.
The last two hundred feet felt like a ninety-degree ascent. Gamely, Lyle and Trevor kept up, but they weren’t carrying the tremendous weight on their backs. Cade’s lungs strained, and his calves cramped.
They shared the last of the water before enduring the final surge. Physically spent, Cade reached the rim first, kneeled, plucked a sphere from his pack, and heaved it into the Lamenium mine. Trevor joined Cade. Finally, Lyle pulled himself up just in time to watch the silver sphere sink into the Lamenium dust far below.
Cade placed his hand on the second sphere.
Quait grabbed him.
Immobilized him.
Jamar stepped
out from behind the large rocks, a sneer of triumph lighting his eyes. His lips twisted in an evil smirk.
Stars. Cade was powerless against the First. Everything inside him bled red as rage burned through his veins. He’d failed. Now, all he could taste was bitter defeat.
May the stars have mercy on them all.
Beside him, Lyle, the poor bastard, was frozen in Quait, too.
Jamar had snatched victory from them at the very last second. It was wrong. Awful. Catastrophic.
Cade strained. He didn’t stand a hope in hell of fighting Jamar. The First was too strong, too experienced.
And yet . . . he could manage tiny jerks.
Cade kicked out, deliberately knocked the reporter off balance. Trevor gasped and tumbled backward, rolling down the cone like an out-of-control snowboarder, maybe carrying him far enough to stay out of Jamar’s reach.
Once Cade would have felt like a bug flattened by a freight train in Jamar’s Quait; now he felt like an insect caught on flypaper. He could twitch feebly, but couldn’t break free.
Perhaps a tiny jerk . . . would be enough.
With every ounce of Quait he could summon, Cade strained to nudge the backpack over the lip.
Jamar would kill him, but his mission would succeed. Cade nudged the pack with his foot, but to his horror, instead of going over the edge and falling into the crater, the pack slid the other way—down the cone—plunging and bouncing in Trevor’s general direction.
“Fool. You stand no chance of success,” Jamar sneered, lifted the one remaining steel ball—and he tossed it into the mine.
Confused, Cade eyed Jamar. The First’s actions made no sense. Cade would have thrown in all three pieces if he had them. So why would the First who wanted to stop Cade do such a thing? Cade didn’t even consider that the man had had a change of heart. Jamar had no heart.
“What have you done?”
Lunar Heat: 1 (The Heat Series) Page 27