Unless …. Maybe they’d been given the data from the files like Gretchen had snooped into? Maybe there’d been something in there that made her seem like the best option?
Over Gretchen.
Who hadn’t been especially pretty—whatever Paul said. She’d just had youth on her side.
Roslyn doubted she was even into her twenties. Had been.
Poor thing. What a horrible, completely undeserved way to die!
Almost as if her mind had conjured a monster, a slight movement caught Roslyn’s attention and dragged her from her musings with a jolt of survival driven adrenaline.
That just seemed to drain her of any strength at all.
There was a monster perched on the supply cases Tor was propped against.
It took all she could do even to move her eyeballs low enough to meet Tor’s gaze.
He might not have noticed it creeping up on him, but he damned sure knew it was directly over him now!
She didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t know what she could do.
Or what would or might defuse the situation.
She could see, though, that the thing—the giant cross between a bat and a lion and a komodo dragon—was focused on her, that it was preparing to pounce—much like a cat where you could see the muscles in his legs bunching to spring.
She didn’t even know she was doing the same thing until it leapt. She screamed ear-splittingly, sprang up like she was spring loaded, and ran.
She’d covered half the distance to the jungle before she realized it wasn’t behind her.
She threw a terrified glance over her shoulder and discovered that Tor was wrestling the thing and Dylan trying to beat its head in with the butt of his rifle.
Running while looking back was never wise.
She slammed into something and rebounded, hitting the ground so hard dirt and debris flew up into her face and temporarily blinded her. Her fingers closed around a rock, though, as she grunted and shoved herself upright. Staggering to her feet, she raced back toward the battle and began hammering on the thing’s head with the rock.
Someone dragged her off after the first dozen blows or so and she discovered that, between them, she and Dylan had pretty well made mush of it.
She whipped a look from the monster to Tor and discovered blood was shooting between his fingers where he’d gripped his throat.
“Oh my god!” she screamed, trying to tear loose from Aurek and rush to him.
Aurek grabbed both of her arms and shook her. “Find the med kit!”
She nodded jerkily, racing to the supply containers and wrenching open one after another until she found it.
Aurek was coated in Tor’s blood when she made it to them.
That was when she saw it had bitten his arm half off.
A wave of dizziness washed over her as she stared at the gleaming metal skeleton revealed by the torn flesh.
Aurek snatched the bandaging from her and began to wrap it around the worst wounds tightly. The blood soaked through almost as fast as he wound it, but then it seemed to slow and then stop.
Roslyn stared, trying to make sense of that and then flicked a look at his face when it hit her that it might have stopped because his heart had—or because he ran out of fluids to pump.
Relieved when she saw his chest was still rising and falling, she burst into tears. “Is he …? Is he going to be ok?”
Aurek sat back on his heels, studying Tor for a time before he looked at her. “The wounds were … grievous, but the bleeding has stopped.”
Roslyn searched his face. “Does that mean he’ll be ok?”
He shook his head. “The nanos will repair the damage … if possible.”
Roslyn covered her mouth with her hand, feeling the tears dry up to form a hard, unswallowable knot in her throat.
“I have found the entrance to the chamber, but …. I think we must wait upon the nanos. He should not try to pass through the gateway now.”
Aurek and Dylan left after a bit to remove the carcass and then came back to move the containers into the chamber inside the temple since they’d been attacked twice by the wildlife and thought it would be better for all of them to have the protection.
They staggered their trips so that they had Roslyn and Tor in sight of one of the other while they worked.
Roslyn finally moved to Tor’s head and lifted it to her lap, trying to make him more comfortable. “I’m going to be so pissed off with you if you die because you were trying to save me,” she murmured, lightly brushing his tawny hair from his brow. It had grown a lot since they’d left Earth, she noticed.
Not that it had been military short to start with, but it was pretty shaggy now.
She met his gaze when she looked at his face again and her heart leapt with a combination of fear and hopefulness. “I’d ask how you’re feeling, but that would be just plain stupid.”
He swallowed audibly.
“Are you thirsty?”
She remembered there’d been a bite on his neck. It must be hurting like hell!
“Ok?” he asked hoarsely.
She thought she was going to burst into tears again. He’d nearly gotten killed and he couldn’t think about anything but her?
“I busted my ass trying to run and look backwards,” she said, embarrassed, “but otherwise I’m fine.”
He choked trying to laugh and then subsided with a frown that told her it did hurt.
Leaning down, she brushed her lips across his. “Don’t try to talk, ok?”
She wasn’t sure of how long she sat with him before Aurek and Dylan came to stand over the two of them.
She looked up questioningly.
“We will move him now,” Aurek said.
Roslyn didn’t really want to, but she’d discovered when she looked up that dusk was closing in.
She didn’t want either of them so exposed once it got dark.
Nodding, she settled his head on the ground and struggled to get up.
Dylan caught her and lifted her, setting her away.
She’d been sitting long enough it was painful to stand up.
All of the scrapes she’d gotten had solidified, too, and she could feel the burn of stretching raw skin.
Tor didn’t make a sound when Dylan lifted his head and shoulders and Aurek took his feet. She followed them as they made their way around the temple, hopeful that Tor was improving.
If he was, she couldn’t tell it when they settled him near a fire they’d built on the packed dirt floor.
There was a haze of smoke a few feet above waist level, but she could feel fresh currents of air … and smell stale air stirring with it.
There was a stone door, she discovered with a jolt of surprise. Seeing Aurek swivel it closed, she moved closer to study it and saw it used a mechanism she’d seen before—in ancient Earth ruins.
It was fairly simple, though, and she wasn’t going to jump to the conclusion that it must have originated here or on Earth when it could’ve been figured out by the inhabitants of both.
The stone was perfectly balanced.
She could move it herself.
Aurek wedged a ‘lock’ in place, sealing them in.
She looked at him, studying the shadows and flickering light of the fire dancing across his features.
That face wasn’t just beautiful to her. It was dear to her. She’d fallen in love with him at some point while she’d still believed he was a man and she couldn’t shake it now that she knew, absolutely, that he wasn’t.
She’d seen the metal Tor had instead of a human skeleton.
“What are you thinking?”
The question jolted her. It was the first time that he’d seemed to grasp, or at least acknowledge, that there was more to her than the exterior and the brain that controlled everything.
She was wondering if the man part was dominant enough that he could love her back.
It was hard to say when it would’ve been obvious to a complete moron tha
t the humanity that was supposed to be in him hadn’t been nurtured.
“I’m just worried about Tor,” she said after searching her mind for a response. “Do you think he’ll be ok?”
He glanced at Tor. “We will know soon.”
It seemed to her that he was trying to distance himself from Tor. “He’s kind of like a brother to you, isn’t he?”
He looked startled, but he shook his head. “I would not know.”
She felt a knot of compassion form in her throat, but she forced a faint smile. “Me either. But I’ve seen the way brothers act. You three are way more civilized.”
He looked surprised. “This is true?”
She crossed a finger over her heart. “Cross my heart.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It’s … a promise. Like a vow. Just something I used to see kids do.”
He met her gaze. “Our offspring will have true brothers.”
That rocked her. She couldn’t think of a thing to say. Fortunately, he didn’t wait around for a response. He went to the fire and settled their earlier kill on a spit over it.
Dylan unveiled some kind of roots that he’d apparently discovered while they were out hunting and gathering. He tossed them into the coals.
Then the two of them set to work making new bullets with the casings they’d collected.
She did hope the roots weren’t poisonous.
It sucked to have to guess if it was safe to eat every bite, but she supposed she would have to get used to it or just refuse to eat and starve to death.
Whatever it was, it tasted pretty damned good. The smell seemed to rouse Tor. He struggled to sit up. Aurek caught her when she would have rushed to him to help, shaking his head at her.
There were times when his highhandedness grated on her and that was one of them, but she supposed he wanted to see if Tor was able to do it without help.
He looked a little white faced when he sat up, but he braced himself and he ate most of the food Dylan handed to him before he lay down again.
It heartened her, convinced her he must be mending if he could sit up by himself and had an appetite for food.
She still wanted to cuddle him and coddle him that night, but Aurek refused to give up is right to use her as a cuddle pillow.
“You will give him pain if you roll on his wounds.”
“She will not,” Tor refuted him.
“Go to sleep,” Dylan growled, “or I will cuddle you.”
Rosyln uttered a snorting laugh, but it seemed to cool Tor’s engines. He said nothing else, and she truly relaxed for the first time in a very long time, feeling secure with them and even more secure in the ancient, crumbling temple that would have buried them alive it had suddenly given up and fell down.
Tor was up and about the business of preparing to depart when she woke up, still obviously stiff from the attack, but just as clearly mending very quickly.
Roslyn resolutely refused to think about why and how. She was just glad.
She settled to watch as Dylan and Aurek powered up the gateway. “Where are we going?” she asked tiredly.
Aurek flicked a glance at her, seemed to debate with himself and moved toward her. “Another world.”
“But not Earth?”
“I do not know. Unlikely, I think.”
“And we’re doing this because …? I mean is there a point?” She flopped her notebook. “I don’t even know why I’m still trying to collect data when it’ll probably never be seen or read or researched.”
Aurek frowned. “We are doing this because we must find a home. It is time.”
“For the baby?” That she doubted very much existed beyond his imagination.
If cyborgs actually had that.
He nodded, his expression closed now—because he could see her doubts.
“Who is guiding you? Who is giving you this information? How? Are they … sending radio waves?”
His lips tightened. “We were programmed to know.”
“By the government? Or the company?”
“The gods. The creators. The master race. Whatever you want to call them. Those who came before.”
“And left the code for the gate they had us build? The special suits for the wormhole? And you and Dylan and Tor?”
“Yes. We are the guardians sent to lead mankind home.”
Chapter Twelve
That comment totally blew Roslyn’s mind. It sounded like Aurek was saying that none of the people who’d thought they were in control actually were. That the aliens that had left the codes had made certain that everything went according to their plan by including the ‘guardians’. It was almost as if they understood human nature, knew they wouldn’t be able to resist developing the weapons—which she was sure the government had thought were super soldiers they could control.
Was that all of it, though?
And what did that mean to her?
What happened after they found this home they were looking for?
What would become of them when they had done everything the ‘master race’ had intended they do?
Would they simply let them go? These perfect killing machines their government had built and paid for?
She knew they wouldn’t.
She didn’t know if Aurek and Dylan and Tor realized it.
Maybe they did? Maybe they’d never actually planned to return to Earth because they knew what would be waiting for them there?
But what did that mean to her—for her?
Would they still want her if they discovered there would be no off-spring? Would they see any point in this ‘mating pod’ they talked about? The home they wanted?
It wasn’t that hard to imagine life without them—because she’d been there, done that, and it was a sad place.
Did she want to give up everything familiar for them? Saying they wanted her to?
She knew the answer. She really didn’t have to think about it all that hard.
The question was, how much of what they believed to be true actually was?
And if it transpired that they’d been lied to, what then?
They settled to eat before they left and Roslyn saw that they’d restocked the ‘empty larder’ with stuff from the local grocer. She hadn’t actually seen that much food just hanging from the trees, but apparently they’d come across a good bit in their food search.
She eyed it dubiously since nothing was actually recognizable to her, but she thought they would make sure it was safe to eat and nutritious even if it was disgusting.
It turned out that the food they portioned out for breakfast was actually good—at least as good as the meal they’d had the night before.
She was glad they’d taken the time to restock when they reached their next destination.
It was a dead world, or it looked like one to her—frozen like a snowball. There was no sign of life of any kind and Aurek warned her to leave her helmet alone. The air was toxic, the atmosphere too thin beyond the subzero temperatures.
And on top of that, the thin atmosphere wasn’t protecting the planet against solar radiation.
Or there’d been a massive nuclear war that had wiped everything out.
Roslyn was leaning toward the latter. She could see black ash in the occasional rock formations revealed by the howling wind that made it nearly impossible to see where they were going—for her anyway.
Aurek connected the four of them with rope to make certain they didn’t get lost and headed out as he always had—as if he knew exactly where he was going.
This time either he didn’t or the snow and ice was determined to thwart him. They stopped. He detached from the line and circled an ice castle-like formation and finally returned and began to dig through the munitions.
Unearthing a pipe bomb he’d apparently made at some point—because there was no way she was going to believe it was government issue!—he made them all move back, set it, and lit the fuse.
He nearly knocked her flat when she
stuck her head up to see what was going on almost in time to catch him full face when he charged the ‘bunker’ and leapt over it.
Thankfully, he missed and she ducked.
He looked severely put out with her, though, when he tackled her and covered her to protect her from the explosion.
When they got up, Roslyn saw that the bomb had reduced the ‘ice castle’ to a pile of rubble. She stared at it, wondering what the purpose was of blowing it up since it hadn’t really opened anything up. “Did you mean to do that?”
He threw her a sour look and trudged back and began to pick up and throw the ice boulders. Dylan and Tor joined him and in a few hours—about three past Roslyn freezing as stiff as a poker—they revealed a … well, a hole.
It was frozen over.
When Aurek stepped inside, he fell upon his ass and disappeared from sight.
Roslyn went into panic mode. Racing to the opening, she started screaming for Aurek. Fortunately for her, Dylan was fast enough to catch her before she could fall down the hole behind him.
“I have found it,” he responded via the com unit. “You will have to come down here.”
“We will send the supplies,” Dylan replied.
“Yes. First. Then Roslyn.” He paused. “Mayhap you should bring Roslyn.”
What did he mean by that, Roslyn wondered indignantly?
Like she couldn’t slide down an ice tube without killing herself?
Of course, she had no idea how far down it went or if it inclined even more steeply, meaning more speed, as it went down.
It was still insulting.
It was like the worse, most terrifying amusement park ride ever invented she decided when she got to the bottom—most of it in pitch black darkness—which made it seem that they were racing down at the speed of a bullet.
The screeching sound she heard all the way down, she discovered, was Dylan slowing them by digging his boots and his nails into the sides and bottom of the ice tube.
Aurek had set up some emergency lights Roslyn saw when they got to the bottom and he and Tor, who’d brought the last of the boxes down—the one filled with munitions—had stacked everything for transport.
It didn’t look like they’d be staying long.
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