The Seas of Time (A Love Across Stars Series Novel)

by Christine Castle

  The guards at the head of the group stopped, and the women huddled in a bunch now that there was more space. At least the guards had let them keep the jumpsuits on. There was a damp chill in here that seemed to be working its way clear into Talia’s bones.

  More women streamed in behind them, with their own set of guards. Probably the women from the Echo dome. One of the girls from Talia’s group rushed to one of the Echo women, and they tearfully threw their arms around each other.

  Talia edged toward one side of the group. “Hey, Benjamin.” She kept her voice low and cast her eyes around, hoping the other guards wouldn’t notice she was trying to talk to him. “What is this, some kind of deep sea hotel or something?”

  “Piece of a wreck,” he mumbled, clearly not wanting to get in trouble. “Enclosed in a deep water submersible and then cleaned up and outfitted.”

  Talia wasn’t so sure about the claim of “cleaned up.” The floor was slippery with dirty slime, and it smelled like the same air had been sealed up in here for decades. Actually, it probably had, if Benjamin’s explanation was true. She watched as three or four dozen more women came in, presumably the women who’d been on the other submarine.

  “Where are they taking us?” she asked.

  “Going to let you get washed up,” he said. “Then the clinic.”

  Her stomach dropped. The clinic must be where they were going to do the procedures to take eggs from the women’s ovaries. She wasn’t sure what kind of medical equipment they might have down here, but she couldn’t imagine that they’d have a sterile procedure room. She frowned . . . They couldn’t be harvesting the women’s eggs already. Wasn’t there usually a course of drugs to stimulate egg production?

  Talia turned to Janelle. “Do you know anyone who’s ever been an egg donor? Or gone through in vitro to get pregnant?”

  Janelle shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “I don’t think they can just jab a needle into an ovary and suck out eggs. There are drugs to affect hormone levels and cause the release of a bunch of eggs.” Talia’s brow furrowed and Janelle’s expression mirrored hers. “My cousin had to do IVF to get pregnant. It was a long time ago, and I don’t really remember the details. And I haven’t done my ob-gyn rotation yet.”

  “So they’re going to pump us full of drugs and then stick needles in our ovaries?” Janelle’s eyes were widening, the panic returning to her face.

  “No, no. That’s not what I’m getting at. The drugs take time. It’s not something you can do in a day or even a week. I don’t think, anyway.”

  “Quiet!” barked one of the men Talia didn’t recognize.

  Talia tried to remember anything she could about her cousin’s procedure, but she’d been a teenager at the time and hadn’t paid much attention. And anyway, Ballard’s people—the people who lived down here and were supposedly the descendants of time travelers—might have technology and procedures that were much more advanced. Maybe they could do it quickly.

  But she hoped not. She had no intention of letting anyone near her ovaries, and if the drugs took time, then she had a better shot of figuring out how to escape.

  The thought of these men taking her eggs—the beginnings of her possible future children—sickened her. She and the other women weren’t human gumball machines, existing for whoever wanted to come along and take pieces of them. An angry flush flared up her chest and neck. The whole idea was so disgustingly invasive.

  As the women were led up two flights of stairs, she tried to keep track of the turns and floors so she’d be able to get back to where Ballard had disappeared. If this was indeed part of a wrecked cruise ship as Benjamin said, she had no idea where the “brig” might be. The ship’s maps wouldn’t be any help, either, even if they were still intact. She needed more information.

  She put on her most tearful look and turned to Benjamin. “They’re not going to kill Ballard, are they? He didn’t do anything wrong, he was only trying to help.” She sniffled, hoping the young Private would be moved by her act.

  “No, no, they won’t do that,” Benjamin whispered, his red-blonde brows drawn together in alarm.

  Talia squeezed her eyes closed and covered her face with her hands, pretending to cry. With trembling lips, she let her hands drop. “But they’ll probably torture him, won’t they?”

  Benjamin cast a furtive look at the guards behind them, and then leaned in. “They just want to question him. Don’t worry, he’ll still get food and water and all that.”

  “Okay,” Talia nodded and sniffled again and gave him a grateful look. “Do you know where he’s being held? I’d hate to think he’s handcuffed to a pipe somewhere, or has to sleep on the dirty floor or something.” She let her face crinkle in concern and hoped it looked like she was on the verge of another sob.

  “Nah, he’ll be in one of the staterooms with a couple of guards posted outside.” Benjamin gave her a little smile and a reassuring nod.

  “Oh, thank you.” She smiled back. “He’s a good man, and he was just trying to do the right thing. You’ve really eased my mind. Thank you so much.” She swiped her fingers under her eyes, wiping away imaginary tears.

  Benjamin nodded again, stood up straighter, and puffed his chest out a little, clearly pleased to have helped.

  Ballard would probably be kept away from the women. An isolated room with a couple of guards in front of the door might not be hard to identify. The more difficult part would be getting away and then sneaking through the ship without getting caught.

  The guards at the front of the group stopped them in a dark hallway that reminded Talia a little of the stateroom levels on a cruise she, Janelle, and a few other friends had taken after graduating from college.

  “Four girls to a room,” one of the men called out to them. “There are working showers. Use them or not—it’s up to you. Either way, you’re going to wait for us to open your doors. Keep quiet and don’t try anything.”

  The guards began opening doors and pushing groups of four women through each one. Talia did a quick count, moved over, and positioned herself next to Janelle to make sure they’d end up in the same room.

  Inside the room, that was even mustier than the hallway, the light flickered on. It was indeed a windowless cruise stateroom, with a bare platform that had once been a double bed, and a built-in dresser with no drawers. A narrow door stood partway open, revealing a tiny bathroom.

  The door slammed shut as soon as a fourth woman—Midori, Talia recognized—was pushed inside. She grabbed Talia’s arm. “I heard you’re going to get us out of here,” Midori said.

  The other young woman—Jin-Hee, if Talia recalled correctly—gave Talia a sadly hopeful look. “You are?”

  “Shh.” Talia tipped her head at the door. “We don’t want the guards to hear us.”

  “So? What’s the plan?” Midori whispered.

  Talia turned to Jin-Hee. “Why don’t you go use the shower first?” The poor girl looked barely seventeen. Her eyes were glassy and she jumped at every noise. She nodded and went into the tiny bathroom and closed the door.

  Talia looked at Janelle and Midori. “I need to sneak out of here. I’ve got to get Ballard out of jail.”

  Midori gave her a knowing look. “That sexy one? He likes you.”

  Talia felt her cheeks heating and tried to ignore the faint flutter in her chest. “He’s the only one who’s willing to help us. We need to try to figure out how many guards are out there, whether they’re walking up and down the hallway or just standing there, that kind of thing.”

  “One of us should look through the peephole and another should put an ear to the door to listen,” Janelle suggested.

  Talia nodded. “I’ll look. You listen.”

  She moved to the door and tipped her eye to the peephole. It was foggy with scum, but she could see well enough to make out a man leaning against the wall across the hallway. After a minute or so, he pushed away from the wall and strolled away to the right. There was a murmu
r of male voices from that direction and some low laughter. The guard eventually moved back to her line of sight and then off to the left and then back again. While she watched, she worked one of the keys over her wrist, wearing the set like a bracelet so she didn’t have to continue hiding her hand in her sleeve.

  “What do you hear?” she asked Janelle, who was crouched lower on the door with the side of her head pressed against the door.

  “Four different voices so far,” Janelle whispered.

  Talia had hoped that if there were only two guards, they could create a diversion—maybe have Midori fake a seizure—and Talia could sneak away. That wouldn’t work if there were several men out there.

  A few minutes later, Jin-Hee emerged from the bathroom. “No towels or soap,” she said. “But the water is hot.” Her eyes looked brighter than before. She stood in only her bikini, holding her jumpsuit away from her still-damp body.

  Midori went in, and Talia leaned away from the door to give Jin-Hee a quick update. She nodded and sat on the bed platform, her legs pulled up and her arms wrapped around her shins, watching Talia and Janelle with round eyes.

  When it was Talia’s turn in the shower, she left her jumpsuit on even though it probably wouldn’t stay totally dry in the bathroom where there was no curtain to keep the shower from splashing all over. But she felt the need to keep all the things she now carried within her reach.

  In the compact bathroom, she undressed and stuffed her things inside the rusted medicine cabinet, then pulled her hair up into a bun and twisted her hair elastic around it. No point in having sopping wet hair dripping down her back, especially if there wasn’t anything to wash it with. She was doubly glad she hadn’t bothered with her hair when she realized the water coming from the shower head was salty. Not as salty as straight sea water, but it wouldn’t have improved the state of the tangly, stiff mess on her head anyway.

  The water was luxuriously warm, and she turned it up as hot as she could stand.

  Her mind shifted to Ballard, and how she might possibly get to him. If she couldn’t get away while they were here in the stateroom, she’d have to slip away at some other point. But she hated to wait. If she could somehow hide in here when the guards took the women to the clinic, or wherever they were going next, she wouldn’t have to worry about creating a diversion or sneaking past them. She could simply wait for everyone to leave.

  But the guards wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave with three girls when four had gone into the stateroom. Except . . . there was a lock pad on the bathroom door, as well as on the exterior doors. She’d heard the locks activate after the stateroom door had closed, locking them in. But low-ranking guards didn’t carry keys. A higher-ranking officer had probably locked all the rooms and then left.

  A plan began to form in her mind.

  She turned off the shower and stood in the steamy bathroom, letting water run down her body. After drip-drying for a couple of minutes, she pulled her bikini on over her damp skin. Before she left the bathroom, she found the keys in the bundle of her jumpsuit and swiped them across the lock panel. There was a soft click, and when she tried the door it was locked. She couldn’t help a broad grin.

  After Janelle showered, Talia gathered the women on the bed platform, against the wall as far from the door as they could get, so she could tell them what she had in mind. She showed them the keys. “See that panel next to the bathroom door? It’s a lock mechanism, and these keys will activate it. I’m pretty sure the guards outside don’t have keys, only a few of the higher-ranking guys do. We’re going to lock the bathroom door, and then smash the panel with, um—” She looked around. There wasn’t anything movable in the room.

  “How about if we pry it away from the wall using Ballard’s knife?” Janelle suggested. “That would be a lot quieter than smashing it.”

  “That should work.” Talia nodded. “When they come to let us out, you’re going to tell them that I’m locked inside the bathroom. Say you haven’t heard anything and you think I’m passed out in there. I’ll be hiding in there.” She pointed to the built-in closet near the door. “If things go our way, I’ll have an opportunity to slip by them, and I can probably hide in a different room for a bit if I have to.”

  “It would be even better if we had something to prop against the bathroom door on the inside,” Midori said. “Something that would make it harder for them to just kick it in.”

  They began combing the room for anything that might work. After a few minutes, Jin-Hee poked her head out of the bathroom. “The original flip lock is still here. If we had a piece of string, we could tie it around the little finger catch, close the door, and then pull the string to flip it over.”

  Talia grinned. “Brilliant!”

  A faint smile passed over Jin-Hee’s pale face.

  Talia used Ballard’s knife to fray an edge of her jumpsuit, and pulled out a suitably long thread. It took a few tries, but they eventually got the lock to flip into place. She waved the keys over the panel and heard that lock activate, and then wedged the point of the knife under the edge of the panel. It popped off in one piece, with no wires.

  “We need to hide this,” Talia said, holding up the panel.

  Midori bent to peer at the bottom of the bathroom door. “How about just sliding it under the door into the bathroom?”

  Talia nudged it through, then straightened and looked at each of the girls in turn. “Go along with them, but watch for me and Ballard and be ready.”

  They didn’t want to take the chance that the guards might suddenly open the door to let them out, so Talia curled up on the floor of the closet and pulled the door closed. The other three women lay down on the bed platform, and they all dozed.

  When someone banged at the stateroom door and then it swung open and smacked into the closet door, Talia’s eyelids sprang open and she inhaled sharply as her heart began to thump, already anticipating putting the plan into action. She reached for the gun at her feet and clutched it tightly in both hands. She tried to even out her breathing and keep perfectly still as she listened.

  “Let’s move it, ladies!” an unfamiliar male voice called from the hallway.

  There was a shuffling of movement and a soft cough as Talia’s roommates rose and moved past where she was hiding.

  From the hallway: “Wait a minute, isn’t there supposed to be another one?”

  Someone else swore. “Yeah, should be four.”

  “She’s in the bathroom,” came Janelle’s voice. “She’s been in there a long time. The door’s stuck. We couldn’t get in. She probably passed out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” one man asked.

  “Um, because you told us to stay quiet,” Midori said, her tone clearly indicating that the answer should have been obvious.

  Heavy footsteps came into the room and the bathroom door rattled. “Hey! Girl! You awake in there?” Another curse. “Lock pad didn’t misfire, there isn’t even one in here. She must have locked it from the inside.”

  Another voice from the hallway: “Take these ones with the others and go on ahead. Lee and I will work on getting that door open. We’re gonna catch hell for this.”

  There was a firm slam against the bathroom door followed by a splintering sound, but the door held.

  Cold sweat beaded on Talia’s forehead. She needed the men to leave. At least long enough for her to get out of the closet and hide in a different room.

  Another slam against the bathroom door, harder this time.

  “Hey Lee, got any bright ideas?”

  Another set of footsteps into the stateroom.

  “Try using your knife to pry it.” Talia recognized Private Lee’s voice.

  There was some shuffling and then more splintering.

  “It’s loosened, but I think it’s latched.”

  “Hey girl, if you’re awake you might want to move away from the door, cause I’m about to kick it in!”

  Talia couldn’t wait any longer. Clutching the keys in one hand and
the gun in the other, she burst from the closet just as the bathroom door flew inward.

  The two young Privates whirled on her and froze with surprise. She flicked a glance at the bed platform where they’d put down their rifles and aimed the gun at them. “Don’t move.”

  One of the men, whom she didn’t recognize, frowned at her and then stuck his head into the bathroom. “Hey, it’s empty.”

  Lee wasn’t as slow-thinking as his colleague. He spun, going for his rifle. Talia darted through the doorway, pulled the stateroom door closed, and slapped the keys on the lock panel outside. The lock slid into place a split second before the door handle started rattling.

  “Open this door!” hollered Lee. “Where’d she get a gun and those keys?”

  Her heart in her throat, Talia turned and sped down the hallway, retracing the route by which the women had been brought into the ship and then up to this level. She was risking running into someone, but she couldn’t afford to get completely lost.

  As she slid on the slippery floor, she let a frustrated breath out through her clenched teeth. That hadn’t gone as gracefully as she’d hoped. Now the two Privates knew about her keys and the gun Ballard had given her. When they eventually got out of the stateroom and reported their discovery, Ballard would probably get into even more trouble.

  She had to get him out right away.

  On the level below, she paused. If it was another stateroom level, Ballard could be here somewhere. Hearing hurried footsteps on the floor above, she risked a glance down the hallway. No guards posted, which she hoped meant Ballard wasn’t there. She started to turn to go down to the level where they’d come in—the lobby level as she thought of it—when she heard pounding footfalls approaching from below.

  She spun and ran to the first door she saw, keyed it open, and quietly pulled it shut behind her. She locked it just in case someone decided to try to take a look inside. Her shaky, panting breaths were so loud she could barely hear anything else. Trying to breathe slowly and evenly through her nose, she leaned against the door to listen. After several seconds of quiet, she unlocked it and opened it a hair. Lots of running footsteps above. She couldn’t afford to linger here.