She had realized it at about the same time it had dawned on her that he was kissing her, not breathing for her, but she saw no reason to admit that. Not that she felt like Mark had any right to question her in the first place! As far as she was concerned the date had ended the minute he’d abandoned her top side to go off exploring.
Glancing away from Mark, she saw the others were staring at her with varying degrees of accusation, and her temper erupted. “You needn’t be looking at me so damned accusingly! I didn’t get any of you into this mess! You got yourselves into it, and got me into it, too, I might add! I happen to be the only one here that isn’t used to diving and I would very happily have stayed on the damned boat if all of you hadn’t left me there by myself.”
They had the grace to look away guiltily, but she was still angry that they behaved as if she was fraternizing with the enemy when she hadn’t done anything but try to survive. Was it her fault the guy had taken advantage of her mindless panic? Why should she feel guilty that she’d actually enjoyed it?
Moving to the wall where the other women were seated, she put some distance between herself and the others and sat down. She still felt unaccountably weak from her ordeal and found herself struggling against the urge to burst into tears.
“What are we going to do now?” Shelley asked after a prolonged silence. “We can’t stay here. We have to think of a way to get out.”
“Hey!” Mark said nastily. “We’re all open to suggestions! Unfortunately, none of us can breathe water like they do and they took the damned tanks.”
Cassie looked up at him in surprise. Right up until he’d said that, she hadn’t realized she’d been relieved of her tank, as well. Not that it mattered since the thing was empty, and she suspected theirs would’ve been close to empty, but she couldn’t even remember when he’d taken it off of her. Truthfully, she’d been so mindless with terror she couldn’t remember much of anything from the moment she’d found the merman staring back at her when she’d pushed away from him.
Remembering the wave that had shoved her into him to begin with, though, brought her prior impressions back to mind. “Has anybody noticed the vibrations?” she asked uneasily.
Shelley gave her a look. “Yes, we’ve all noticed. Carl seems to think it might be the shocks of an underwater quake. That’s why I want to get the hell out of here.” She glanced around at the men. “One of the reasons, anyway.”
Cassie frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s a quake.”
Carl sent her an irritated look. “You a specialist?”
She glared at him at his tone. “It’s been constant since I first noticed it,” she said tightly. “Nothing I’ve ever heard about quakes seemed to point to the constant vibrations I’ve been feeling.”
“She’s got you there,” Mark retorted. “Although I have to wonder how you noticed anything the way you were wrapped around that guy.”
Cassie studied him for a long moment, wrestling with her temper. They were all scared and lashing out with their tempers and it wasn’t helping matters at all.
Nevertheless, she found his possessiveness too irritating to ignore. “Let’s just get one thing straight right now, Mark Sanderson! Your possessive attitude has been duly noted and isn’t appreciated! I do not belong to you. This was a date—a first date—and as far as I’m concerned it ended when you left me on that damned boat to go exploring, knowing we had a storm bearing down us! So I don’t, definitely don’t, feel like taking this shit from you about me being with that merman—like I … enticed him or something!
“I thought he was a statue. I was looking at him and the next thing I knew he was looking back at me! I tried to get away, but he caught me—the same way you were all caught, I assume.
“Even if I was flirting with him—which I wasn’t—it still wouldn’t be any of your damned business!”
Mark reddened. “I guess this means ‘every man for himself’ then?”
“Oh, you really are an asshole!” Linda snapped. “I don’t blame her for dumping you!”
“Up yours, Sanchez!” Mark snapped and stalked to the other side of the room.
“Fighting among ourselves isn’t going to help anything,” Carl put it. “We need to be constructive, people.”
“Well, in the words of the asshole, we’re all open to suggestions, great leader,” David said testily. “I don’t know how it went down for the rest of you, but I tangled with one of those things, and, as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think three of us could take one of them down. Then there’s the little problem of no air. I could make it to the top, I think, but it would have to be a fast climb and we don’t have anything on the boat for the bends.”
Carl stared at him angrily for several moments and finally moved to settle against the wall like everyone else.
There were no furnishings in the room at all. After studying over that for a little while, Cassie finally decided that where ever they were the place wasn’t a prison cell.
She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She supposed it didn’t actually make a hell of a lot of difference, but she felt better about it not being a prison cell until it dawned on her that it was just one room and there was no place to relieve themselves if anybody had the need.
She wished she hadn’t thought about it because the moment the ‘suggestion’ popped into her mind she noticed her bladder was beginning to get uncomfortable. “Do you think they’ll keep us here long?” she asked no one in particular.
“I don’t know why we’re here at all,” Shelly retorted. “How can we guess how long we’ll be here when we don’t know why?”
“Snooping,” Jimmy said succinctly. “They’re aliens and they caught us snooping around their ship and they’re not going to let us go at all.”
“Shit, Jimmy!” Carl snapped. “Don’t start with that crap!”
“Well, what the hell do you think they are?” Jimmy demanded.
“This isn’t a ship,” Shelly said pointedly. “Look around. It’s obviously a building.”
“On the ocean floor?” David pointed out, his voice laced with skepticism.
“Don’t tell me you agree with him,” Linda demanded.
“They aren’t human.”
“Who says they aren’t?” Cassie asked irritably. “Just because they don’t look like any of the races we’re familiar with doesn’t mean they’re not human.”
“Oh! Come on, woman! You kiss that thing and now you think you know it’s human?”
Cassie narrowed her eyes at Mark’s comment. “Fine! Have it your way! I kissed
him! He felt human, damn it! He tasted human! He kissed like a human—except better,” she added nastily.
“Really?” Shelly asked, obviously intrigued. “They are … gorgeous.”
“She’s lost her mind. They must be able to control minds or something,” David growled savagely, pushing himself to his feet and stalking across the room to join Mark.
Shelley exchanged a long look with Cassie and finally shrugged. “I’m just saying ….”
“Just don’t,” Carl snapped. “We’re in danger. Yes, I can see where you might think they look good—I’ll concede that much—but they’re not human and it would be really dangerous for you to think of them that way.”
Linda stared at him speculatively for a moment. “You agree with Jimmy? You think they’re aliens, too?”
He returned her look for a moment and finally shrugged irritably. “How the fuck would I know? All I do know is that they’re not human … Did anybody understand anything that thing said?”
“It sounded like Greek to me,” David put in.
“Well, at least we can all agree on that,” Carl said dryly. “It was Greek to me, too, but that ain’t very helpful.”
“Naw, man! I’m serious. It sounded like Greek.”
That comment caught everyone’s attention. “You can speak Greek?” Jimmy asked, obviously impressed.
David reddened. “I can’t
speak Greek, but I used to work for this Greek couple.
They talked in their native tongue to each other all the time. What he said sounded a lot like that. I think it’s Greek.”
Carl rolled his eyes. “Well, even if it is, that isn’t helpful worth a shit! We can’t speak Greek.”
Cassie thought that over. “Maybe Mark was right? Maybe this is Atlantis? I mean, the language—the architecture—doesn’t it seem like it has a strong Greek influence?”
“The Atlanteans were Atlanteans, not Greek. It was just the ancient Greeks that wrote about Atlantis.”
Cassie frowned. “So? This place still has a strong Greek influence. Doesn’t that suggest they had contact with them sometime in the past?”
Carl shrugged. “Maybe … but I still don’t see anything helpful about that information, even if you’re right.”
“Maybe and maybe not, but it might mean they have some familiarity with other people that were around back then.”
David frowned. “Unless there were people around that were speaking English, I doubt it would matter if they had.”
“The Romans!” Cassie said pointedly. “They spoke Latin, and English is based on Latin, and so are the romance languages—like Spanish.”
Everyone turned to look at Linda. She stared back at them blankly for a moment and then with irritation. “I don’t speak Spanish.”
Shelly gaped at her. “How can you not speak Spanish when your name’s Sanchez?”
Linda glared at her. “Your last name’s German. Do you speak German?”
“No, but ….”
“I rest my case.”
* * * *
What language do you think they’re speaking? It doesn’t sound like anything I’m familiar with.
Raen shrugged. Are you recording it?
Jadin gave him an offended look. Of course.
Why not check to see if the computer has had any luck translating, then, instead of speculating?
Sending Raen an irritated glance, Jadin focused on the computer. Translation?
Still collating. Shall I play what I have decoded? the computer responded.
Jadin threw a laughing glance at his friend when the computer translated the discussion about Raen’s ‘sharing air’ with the female called Cassie. Raen, however, did not look amused.
The one called Mark seems to think she is his woman, Raen commented.
Jadin eyed Raen speculatively and finally shrugged. She does not seem to agree.
Raen’s frown deepened. I am not sure it was wise to leave them all together.
Jadin tamped his amusement with an effort and shrugged off handedly. It was the
only room that was dry that we could pump air in to at such short notice. We will have to make other arrangements if we are to hold them long … unless our people manage to raise the ship before they run out of air.
Raen glanced at him sharply. As far as we know they have done nothing more
than wander into the city. Unless I find out otherwise, we will let them go long before air is an issue for them. Keep a close eye on them. I do not think they are stupid enough to try to leave, knowing how deep we are, but you never know with humans.
Jadin nodded, knowing it was an order, not a request. You do not want to stay a
while longer and observe? he asked, all innocence. Unless I miss my guess, the one
called Cassie is starting to feel a little uncomfortably warm. I am thinking she will be coming out of that strange suit she is wearing before long.
Raen sent him an amused glance. In mixed company? I doubt it. If anything they
seem more inhibited about their bodies than they used to be.
Jadin turned to watch him as he moved to the doorway of the observation room.
Where are you going? he asked curiously.
Raen paused and turned to frown at Jadin but finally shrugged off his irritation.
They said ‘ancient’ Greeks. I am going to see if I can figure out just how gods bedamned long we have been down here waiting for the Mother world to send help.
He stopped by communications on the way out to speak with Kadar. Did no one
think to turn the gods bedamned alert off? The vibrations are rattling my brain.
Kadar glanced at him in surprise. It is off. I turned it off myself.
Raen sent him a perturbed look. What is the source of the tremors then?
The mother ship is probing for us, Kadar responded with a shrug.
They have found us, Raen retorted dryly as he headed out the door. I feel it in my
bones.
Kadar stared after him blankly a moment and then chuckled. Aye, I am feeling it
in my bones, too. It will rattle my teeth from my head if they keep it up much longer.
Struggling to ignore the sonic waves pelting him now that he knew the source and purpose of them, Raen headed for the nearest egress from the ship. The more distance he put between himself and the woman, he discovered, the less tense he felt. That realization didn’t particularly please him.
Then again, he was irritated with himself anyway. He didn’t know where the impulse had come from to kiss the woman, but he figured as impulses went it was probably one of the stupidest that had ever hit him.
He’d had no use for humans before the cataclysm that had sent their city to the bottom of the sea and divided their people—with nearly half of them abandoning ship to take their chances on living among the primitives—he saw no reason to feel any differently now only because they appeared somewhat more advanced than they had been.
Very likely those who’d chosen to live among them had been butchered by the gods bedamned savages—Kira, Omar, and Le were no doubt long dead and gone. He’d accepted that likelihood and the certainty that he would never see them again as soon as he’d discovered his brothers and his woman were missing and knew what they’d done.
He could not abandon his post and go after them, though. The city had been in chaos from the moment the meteor shower struck, the citizens terrified, running around in a blind panic with no notion of where to go or what to do to save themselves. It had taken all he and his men could do to round them up and herd them into the stasis chambers before their floating city sank.
He supposed they’d counted on that when they’d decided to betray him.
Truthfully, he wasn’t certain he would have gone after them if he could have—his brothers, maybe—Kira—he wasn’t at all sure.
He supposed he would have felt compelled to if it had been possible. He had bonded with Kira’s other chosen, had learned to look upon them as if they were true brothers—not like his blood brother, but the ties had been strong.
Kira was another matter.
She’d long since killed the love he’d felt for her when they’d first joined. In truth, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d decided she wasn’t worth dying over, he thought he might have been more than a little tempted to strangle her.
The fury he’d felt when he’d discovered she’d aborted their child--his child—for no better reason than because she hadn’t wanted to chance ruining her beautiful body rushed over him as if it had only been the day before that he’d discovered it.
For him, it had been little more than that—only a matter of days before the cataclysm when he’d gone into stasis. It didn’t matter how long it had actually been. In his mind it was no more than that and it was still just as fresh and painful as if it had just happened.
She could’ve prevented the pregnancy if she hadn’t wanted his child. There was no excuse for what she’d done—none. He knew it had been premeditated maliciousness on her part—all of it—getting pregnant to start with and then aborting it—all calculated to avenge herself against him for wrongs she’d imagined.
He’d been stupid enough when they’d first united to believe her possessiveness was a sign of her love for him. He’d been wrong. It was only a sign of possessiveness, a sense of ownership. She hadn’t cared about him. She was incapabl
e of caring about anyone but herself. She’d figured she owned him, though, and she’d watched him like a hawk, interpreting everything he did as a sign of faithlessness.
If he left their home because he couldn’t stand to listen to her harping any longer and couldn’t trust himself to keep his temper in check, he was fleeing to his mistress. If he was late in returning home because of his duties, he was with another woman. If he didn’t want her because he was worn out from working twelve hours straight to earn enough credits to buy her the things she wanted, he had expended himself on some other woman.
He should have realized sooner that she wouldn’t have been so quick to question his motives and morals if her own hadn’t been questionable. By the time he’d realized that she was painting him with her own brush, though, doing what she constantly accused him of, she’d already lost the power to hurt him.
He hadn’t loved her when she’d left. He wasn’t even certain when he’d finally stopped loving her. He was certain of when he’d begun to hate her, though. That was when she’d informed him she’d aborted his child.
He shook his head, trying to shake the thoughts as he emerged from the ship at last and glanced around at the crumbling remains of what had once been a beautiful city.
Slowly, it sank into his mind that it looked far worse than it had directly after the meteor had struck. All of the damage wasn’t from that impact.
Time had done this.
Coldness swept over him as he moved through the ruins of the city and paused now and then to run a hand over the broken stones of a building, feeling the smoothed edges of the stones, rounded now when once the edges had been crisp and sharp.
Hundreds of years, then, he realized, feeling stunned, disbelieving even though he knew it would have taken that for the ocean to smooth the stones.
Almost as soon as he made that connection, though, he noticed formations of coral had grown up around the perimeter of the ship.
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