“Afraid of the Polypuses?” Addy asked.
“Or something else,” Lucien replied. “We shouldn’t assume we’re safe from them just because they helped us once. The one who led us here might not be as friendly. It may have lured us here.”
“So it led us here to... what? Kill us? Eat us?”
Lucien shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“The temperature in here is a balmy 300 K,” Garek said. “And I’m reading breathable air.”
“I guess we won’t be suffocating after all,” Addy said.
Garek nodded and twisted off his helmet with a hiss of escaping air. He took a deep breath, and a rare smile crossed his face. “Smells like a dream, too. Must be all those flowers outside.”
Lucien shot him a frown. “Just because our sensors aren’t detecting anything dangerous doesn’t mean the air’s safe to breathe.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Garek replied, and tucked his helmet under one arm. “Besides, Katawa fixed us up, remember?”
“Now you’re trusting him?” Lucien asked dubiously.
Garek shook his head. “No, but Katawa has nothing to gain from the atmosphere killing us. He obviously needs us to find that key and open the gateway.”
Lucien looked away, back to the overgrown field. “Any idea how we can get down there? We could jump out and use our grav boosters, but we’re going to fall sideways. Landing on our feat might not be so easy.”
“What about those?” Addy pointed to a row of circular openings to one side of where they stood.
Lucien spied translucent tubes snaking down from the openings to the ground. “They look like giant slides to me,” he said, walking up to the nearest one.
Addy walked over to stand by the slide next to his. “On three?” she asked.
“On two,” Lucien replied.
“One...”
“Two,” Lucien finished, and dove head-first down the slide.
Chapter 31
Astralis
Lucien busied himself while waiting for Tyra to come home by installing baby gates in their rental home. Atara stood over his shoulder, watching him work, while Theola was taking a nap in her room downstairs.
“Is it going to keep me from falling down the stairs, too?” Atara asked.
Lucien glanced over his shoulder at Atara while screwing the gate frame into the wall. He flashed her a smile and shook his head. “You already know how to use the stairs,” he said.
“But what if I trip?”
“That’s why you need to hold on to the railing.”
Lucien finished driving in the last screw and sat back on his haunches to admire his work. A bead of sweat trickled down from his hairline, itching maddeningly as it went. Lucien wiped his brow on his sweater sleeve, scratching the itch at the same time.
He swung the gate shut to test it, and the locking mechanism automatically clicked into place.
“How do I open it?” Atara asked.
“Like this. Watch.” Lucien pointed to the sliding catch at the top of the gate. “Slide this, and pull up at the same time.” He opened the gate and then shut it again with another click. “Now you try.”
Atara had to use both hands. She was barely tall enough to pull up on the gate, but she managed to wrench it open, her cheeks bulging with the effort.
“Wow... it’s hard,” she said.
“Well, if it were easy, then Theola could open it, too.”
Atara nodded sagely at that.
“Speaking of Theola...” Lucien checked the time on his ARCs. “We’d better go wake her up. She’s not going to sleep tonight if I let her sleep any longer. I’d better make her a bottle first, though,” Lucien said as he started down the stairs.
“If you don’t, she’s going to scream like her head’s been cut off!” Atara suggested, walking down behind him.
“Exactly,” Lucien said, frowning at the gruesome analogy.
“She always wakes up hungry,” Atara said.
“Yes, she does,” Lucien agreed absently.
“How can someone scream if their head is cut off?” Atara asked.
Lucien grimaced. “It’s just an expression, Atty.”
“Chickens can still run around without their heads,” Atara mused on their way to the kitchen.
“All right, that’s enough.”
“It’s true!” Atara insisted.
Lucien stopped on the landing halfway down the stairs and turned to her. “I don’t care if it’s true; that’s not what I’m objecting to. You shouldn’t focus on those things.”
“Why not?” Atara asked.
“Because it’s not okay. You might get desensitized.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means... never mind. Just think about nice stuff, all right?”
“Fine.” Atara went down the stairs in a huff, heading for the living room, while Lucien continued on to the kitchen. He made a bottle for Theola and then went to fetch her from her crib.
When he walked in, he found Atara standing beside the crib, watching Theola sleep.
“What are you doing?” Lucien asked, puzzled by her behavior.
Atara turned to him with a smile. “She looks so peaceful.”
Lucien stopped beside the crib to admire Theola, too. “She does,” he agreed.
“She’s not even waking up,” Atara said. Theola hadn’t stirred at the sound of their voices. “It’s like she’s dead.”
He shot Atara a cold look. “Why would you say something like that?” he demanded.
Atara’s lower lip quivered. “Why are you yelling?”
Lucien scowled and shook his head. “You don’t say things like that about your sister, do you understand me?”
Atara scowled right back, as if he was the bad guy. “Why not?”
Theola woke up at the sound of their arguing, and immediately began to cry. She sat up and popped her thumb in her mouth, watching them with big, wary blue eyes.
Lucien turned to Theola. “Come here, sweetheart,” he said, holding out his arms. She climbed to her feet and held out her arms in turn, waiting to be picked up. He scooped her into a one-armed embrace, and showed her the bottle of milk, and a smile sprang to her lips. She began bouncing on his hip trying to reach it.
“You want this?” he asked, shaking the bottle just out of reach.
Theola’s smile faded to a dramatic pout when the bottle didn’t immediately replace the thumb she’d been sucking. Her lower lip trembled briefly, and then she started crying.
Lucien laughed. “Okay, okay! Here you go.” He gave her the bottle, and she grabbed it with both hands, stuffing it into her mouth.
Lucien turned back to Atara, but she was gone. He left the room with a frown, wondering if he had been too hard on her. She was only five; she was bound to say strange things sometimes.
He walked with Theola down the hallway to the living room as she gulped her milk.
“Atara?” he called.
No answer.
“Where are you?”
Just as he reached the living room, his foot hooked under something, and he tripped. He was going to fall on top of Theola! He couldn’t put out his hands because one of them was holding her. He managed to thrust out his free hand to break their fall, and a sharp pain shot through his fingers as two of them bore all of his and Theola’s combined weight.
He cried out and crumpled to the floor, being careful to roll onto his back as he did so. Theola landed on top of him, still holding onto her bottle, but no longer sucking it. She grinned and started bouncing on his belly. She thought it was a game.
“Giddy-up...” he muttered, and Theola giggled enthusiastically, bouncing harder.
His hand wasn’t hurting anymore, but as he lifted it in front of his face, he saw that his pinky finger was broken—maybe his ring finger, too—and that whole side of his hand was swelling up badly.
Lucien grimaced. He wasn’t feeling any pain because of the shock. Using his good hand, he carefully lifte
d Theola off his stomach. Cradling his injured hand to his chest, he sat up to look for what had tripped him, but there was nothing on the floor. He did, however, see Atara standing there, leaning against the wall and watching him.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” she asked, as their eyes met. “How did you fall?”
Suddenly he saw Atara’s green eyes as cunning rather than innocent. First she’d frozen Theola with the open window, and now she’d tripped him—with Theola in his arms. It had to have been her. There was nothing on the floor, nothing else that could have done it. Was he the target this time, or was it Theola again?
Lucien felt a chill come over him. This was more than simple mischief or jealousy. Besides, Atara and Theola had more than a year together already, and Atara had never shown any signs of jealousy before. At least not to this extent.
“Atara...” he said slowly. She cocked her head to one side, her eyes full of concern, and a glitter of something else...
Amusement.
The chill Lucien had felt turned to solid ice, and he went suddenly very still.
“Did you trip me, honey?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light and clear of accusation.
Atara’s eyes flew wide and her lower lip began to tremble, but he could have sworn she was trying to hide a smile. “No!” she blurted out defiantly, and crossed her arms over her chest.
But he could see the lie gleaming in her eyes—the smug satisfaction. “Okay. I believe you,” Lucien said, lying back, and trying to pretend everything was normal. Behind that pretense, his mind raced with terror—fear of his own daughter. The Faros had done something to her. Somehow they’d changed her when they’d touched her, and if that was true, then the others had been changed, too: Chief Councilor Ellis, Admiral Stavos, General Graves... and who knew how many others.
“We’d better go to the hospital,” Lucien said slowly, trying to mask his thoughts before Atara realized he was on to her. “Daddy broke his finger, see?” he held up his hand for Atara to see.
She gasped at the sight of his swollen hand and walked up to him. She leaned in, pressing his hand to her lips, and smacked them in an exaggerated kiss. She retreated, grinning broadly at him. “All better!”
Lucien suppressed a shiver. Something told him her delight was in his pain, and not in the presumed healing powers of her kiss.
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy,” he said. “I’m going to need a doctor to fix this.”
Atara’s smile faded. “It’s that bad?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so, yes.” Lucien cast about for Theola and found her pottering around the coffee table, sucking her thumb and shaking her bottle. She was spraying milk everywhere. Lucien grimaced. He walked over and scooped her up in a one-armed embrace, balancing her against a hip that wasn’t designed for the task.
“Come on,” he said, keeping an eye on Atara to make sure she didn’t trip him again—or do something worse this time.
“Why do I have to go?” Atara whined.
Lucien’s patience snapped. “Because you’re five years old and I can’t leave you alone! Now let’s go! To the garage. March!”
Atara made a pouty face and walked through the living room to the foyer. Lucien made sure to keep her ahead of him, where he could watch her. When they reached the foyer, Atara opened the coat closet and pulled on her gloves and winter coat. Lucien gave the closet a skip, deciding to brave the cold. Between Theola and his broken finger, it would be too much trouble to put on his coat—or his gloves, for that matter. He cringed at the thought of squeezing broken fingers into a glove.
“Open the door, please,” Lucien said, nodding to the garage door in the foyer. Atara did as she was told, and they hurried through the garage to their shiny new hover car; a midnight-blue six-seater that Tyra had somehow found the time to purchase this morning while he was at his meeting with the other ex-Paragons. The car had arrived on autopilot with a pre-recorded message from her, just in time for Lucien to use it to pick up the girls from school and daycare. The invoice from the dealer indicated she’d also bought a matching black car for herself. They’d lost both of their old cars with their home when Fallside had depressurized.
Lucien used his ARCs to open the car doors as they approached. As soon they were seated inside, the car greeted him, “Welcome, Mr. Ortane! Where would you like to go this afternoon?”
“Winterside General Hospital, please.”
“Right away. Please buckle up,” the car replied in a congenial voice. Lucien dropped Theola in the car seat on the row of seats in front of him and awkwardly buckled her in, wincing as he occasionally brushed his broken finger against something. Feeling weak, he slumped back into his seat in the middle of the front-facing row of seats. Meanwhile, the car had already powered up and hovered a few inches into the air.
“Is this an emergency?” the driver program asked, as the car rotated on the spot to face the garage door, which was already rising to reveal a bright bar of daylight at the bottom.
Snow swirled in underneath, dusting the entrance. As the door finished opening, Lucien saw that it was snowing hard outside, and the frozen lake below their home was barely visible beyond the snow-caked trees.
“My scanners report that your cortisol and adrenaline levels are elevated in a way that is consistent with a serious injury,” the driver program went on, when Lucien didn’t immediately respond. “I can have EMTs waiting when we arrive,” the car suggested as it shot out of the garage.
“No, that’s all right,” Lucien said, and laid his head back against his seat with a pained grimace. He allowed his eyes to drift shut, waiting for the trip to be over.
“Does it hurt?” Atara asked.
Lucien cracked one eye open to regard her. She was smiling faintly at him and reaching for his injured hand with her index finger extended, as if to poke his broken finger. He jerked his arm away and cradled his hand protectively. “Are you crazy?” he demanded.
Atara’s eyes flashed with hurt, and her lower lip began to tremble once more.
He made an irritated noise in the back of his throat and shook his head. Forget his hand. The real medical emergency here was whatever the frek was wrong with Atara.
He was almost afraid to think about what that might be. They’d mind probed and scanned her thoroughly. She was supposed to be fine. Obviously they’d missed something. This wasn’t the innocent, loving five-year old he’d raised.
This was a devil in a child’s body.
Chapter 32
Mokar: Underworld
Lucien’s armor screeched against the sides of the tube, but the friction was barely enough to slow his descent. He felt gravity shifting, as if the world were sliding out from under him. Up and down became sideways, and he lost all sense of direction, spinning and rolling as he fell. He caught a glimpse of green plants through the translucent walls of the tube, and suspected he was close to the ground. His suit clocked his speed at over forty kilometers an hour. He gritted his teeth, bracing for impact.
He flew out of the tube and landed hard in the overgrown field of flowers he’d seen from the concourse. The jolt of the impact was enough to clack his teeth together, but the vegetation provided a nice cushion.
Lucien stood up and struggled through waist-high grass and flowers. He saw Addy get up beside him, and a split second later Garek and Brak both came flying out of tubes adjacent to hers.
Lucien activated his suit’s sensory suite and an array of floral smells flooded his helmet, making his nostrils flare. The plants felt rough and prickly against his thighs and torso.
He reached out to touch a spiky blue flower the size of his head, and received a sharp stab of electricity—the simulated prick of a thorn.
The flower reared at his touch and let out a high-pitched whistle, blowing air in his face and shrinking into itself as it did so. Lucien regarded it curiously, and he felt as though it might be regarding him back, though he couldn’t see any eyes.
“These plants seem more alive than us
ual,” Lucien said. “And some of them have nasty thorns. Watch yourself, Garek. I wouldn’t want to see what one of them could do to your exposed face. You might swell up like a puffer fish.”
Garek barked a laugh. “Probably make me prettier.”
Lucien snorted, but peripherally he noted that Garek was wearing his helmet again. He’d probably put it back on to avoid losing it on his way down the slide.
“Where to now?” Addy asked.
A piercing wail split the air, drawing their attention to a Mokari-sized bird circling the field up ahead. For all they knew it actually was a Mokari, but this bird was white rather than black, and it didn’t sound the same.
“I don’t know,” Lucien admitted, turning to look around and get his bearings.
The inside of the underworld curved up and away to all sides of them, divided in a farm-like patchwork of different-colored vegetation. In the distance, giant trees soared, each with just a handful of branches and one or two over-sized, opalescent leaves per branch. Towering mountains peeked over the treetops, sheer white cliffs striated with purple veins that might have been rivers. All of it curved up sharply, clinging to the inside of the sphere.
Lucien turned and glanced up at the concourse where they’d been standing moments ago. From the outside it looked like a low-rise apartment complex, but the rows of broken viewports lay perpendicular to the ground rather than parallel.
Looking up, he saw the blinding ball of light in the center of the sphere. It hung directly overhead, at the zenith of the sky. Its radiance blocked their view of the other side of the sphere.
The two black towers that Lucien had seen before now seemed to traverse the sky like two halves of a bridge, with the light source suspended in the middle.
“Let’s head for one of those towers,” Lucien suggested. “Whatever is generating that light might also be used to power the gateway we’re looking for.”
“Looks like a long hike,” Garek said, peering up at the nearest tower, and shielding his eyes against the glare of the artificial sun with one hand.
Dark Space Universe (Book 2): The Enemy Within Page 24