“You’re my early warning system,” she reminded him. “I’m counting on you to let me know if there’s trouble in the vicinity.”
He fluttered off the circular floor and bounced up onto an emerald green rock near the stream. He began to investigate a vine full of green orchids that hung from a tree limb.
She wandered over to a nearby palm and availed herself of the privacy offered by the broad, fluted fronds. Fontana might be out like a light, but it was the principle of the thing. She hardly knew the man. Sure, they were married and he had just saved her life and the sexual chemistry between them worked both ways and she was definitely falling headfirst into love. Still, you just didn’t pee in front of a man you had only known a couple of days.
When she was finished, she washed her hands in the little stream and went to join Elvis on his rock. She leaned forward and plucked one of the emerald orchids.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said.
In fact, now that she’d had a chance to grow accustomed to the sights and sounds, she was beginning to relax and take in the sheer, otherworldly beauty of the rain forest.
“It’s not so bad,” she said to Elvis. “Magical, in fact.”
He clutched the dangling vine in all six paws and pushed himself off the edge of the rock. The makeshift swing carried him out over the grotto pool in a graceful arc. When the return arc brought him back within reach, Sierra caught him, much to his delight.
Laughing, she launched him into another swing. He chortled gleefully.
“When we get out of here, I’ll ask Jake to build you your very own swing,” she said. Then she stopped. Jake was gone, possibly dead. Why was she suddenly thinking about him?
In fact, now that his name had popped into her mind, she could not stop thinking about him. A little rush of intense awareness shot through her. She knew this edgy sensation well. It was her intuition kicking in, warning her to pay attention. There was something Jake had said . . .
And then the storm broke. Green lightning flashed. The rain hit. She grabbed Elvis and hurried back into the crystal gazebo.
Chapter 25
FONTANA CAME AWAKE TO THE FAMILIAR LOW ROAR OF A jungle downpour. He sat up abruptly and shoved his fingers through his hair. He contemplated the rain with grim resignation.
The warm deluge was coming down the way it always did in the jungle, in a relentless torrent. The atmosphere bordered on steamy. He couldn’t see more than a couple of feet beyond the edge of the gazebo.
“Figures,” he said. “Given my luck lately.”
“You’re awake.” Sierra came toward him, holding out an energy bar. “How do you feel? Are you hungry?”
She had put on his shirt. It looked good on her. Not that she wouldn’t look good in anything or, preferably, nothing at all, but the fact that it was his shirt that she was wearing gave him a sense of satisfaction. His woman in his shirt. And he was stuck here with her in the crystal ruin while the rain forest did its thing. Maybe his luck wasn’t so bad after all.
“Starved,” he said. He took the energy bar, ripped off the wrapper, and ate almost half of it in one bite. “I’m always hungry after a heavy burn,” he explained around the mouthful.
Elvis chortled a greeting and scampered over to say hello. Fontana patted him in the vicinity of what should have been the top of his head. “How’s it going, King?”
Elvis bounced a little.
Fontana popped the last of the energy bar into his mouth, got to his feet, and stretched.
“How long has it been raining?” he asked.
“An hour, maybe longer,” Sierra said.
“Well, one thing’s for sure. We’re going to be here for a while. You can’t move in the jungle in these conditions. The really bad news is that by the time the rain lets up, it will probably be night. We sure as hell aren’t going to try traveling after dark.”
“But it was nearly three AM when we left your house. It’s late morning now.”
“Not down here, it isn’t. This place is on a different, artificial schedule. I’ll be right back,” he added, stepping off the platform into the rain.
“Wait, where are you going?” she asked anxiously.
“Where do you think I’m going? I need to take a leak.”
She turned pink. “But you’ll get soaked. You’re already soaked.”
“I’ll dry off fast once I’m back in the gazebo.”
He didn’t have to go far to find the privacy he thought he probably needed, not for his sake, but for hers. You just didn’t take a leak in front of a woman you had only known a couple of days, especially a classy lady like Sierra.
When he returned a moment later, she was sitting cross-legged on the second bedroll, a can of Curtain Cola in her hands. She had poured some of the cola into a cup for Elvis.
“Want some?” she asked. She held up a second can. “It’s the only caffeine I could find.”
“Underground you can’t keep a fire going long enough to heat water for coffee,” he explained. “Another side effect of the heavy psi.”
He stepped up onto the platform and took the can of cola she offered. By the time he was halfway through with it, his clothes were almost dry.
“Wow.” Sierra watched the process with amazement. “I don’t believe it. A minute ago you were drenched to the skin. Now your shirt isn’t even damp.”
“Another weird effect of the quartz,” he explained.
He sat beside her. Together they watched the rain come down in sheets. An unfamiliar sensation settled softly on him. He had to search for the word, but when he found it, he knew instantly that it was the right one: contentment . He could not recall ever having felt content before in his entire life. It was a strange but surprisingly pleasant feeling. Wholly unwarranted, too, he reminded himself. He still had a drug ring to take down, a bunch of guys in motorcycle leathers had tried to roast them alive in his own house tonight, and there were at least two seriously dangerous alien devices floating around that could generate controlled beams of ultraviolet dissonance energy.
Still, sitting here with Sierra, watching the rain, he felt a soul-satisfying sense of contentment. He could stay here with her forever, he thought.
“How did you find this place?” Sierra asked.
“After I bought the house, I started spending as much of my spare time as possible down in the catacombs. The former owner was obsessed with charting the sector near his personal hole-in-the-wall. He left maps in his journal. He was a tangler, so he had already cleared the illusion traps. That meant I didn’t have to bring one in to do the job.”
She nodded. “I have a friend who is a tangler. She’s a para-archaeologist. She loves going down into the tunnels.”
Tangler was the common term for an ephemeral-energy para-resonator, a person who possessed the psychic ability to resonate and control ephemeral energy.
Ephemeral energy was another form of alien psi. It was found in the catacombs in the form of illusion traps. For reasons known only to themselves, the aliens had set dangerous psychic snares throughout the tunnels. The shadow traps were frequently found in doorways and the entrances to chambers.
“The experts think the traps were intended as security devices,” Fontana said. “If you don’t have a natural talent for sensing them the way a tangler can, they’re damn hard to spot. The only visible evidence is a faint shadow.”
“That’s all?”
“It’s usually enough, if you know what you’re doing. The ambient psi light in the tunnels creates no natural shadows.”
“So if you see one, beware?”
He nodded and drank more cola. “The problem is that shadows in the catacombs are easily missed, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing them aboveground. People tend not to notice them in the underworld environment.”
She looked out at the driving rain. “Are there any illusion traps in the jungle?”
“None have been found so far. Good thing, too, given that it would be impossible to spot them visua
lly. The jungle is full of shadows.”
“You said you found the rain forest gate a few weeks ago. When did you discover this ruin?”
“I stumbled across it a few days later while exploring,” he said.
She gave him one of her deep, knowing looks. “This place is very special to you, isn’t it? That’s why you haven’t told anyone, not even Ray, about it.”
“I don’t want to give it up to the para-archaeologists,” he admitted.
“It’s a place of retreat for you.”
He thought about that. “In a way, yes.”
“I think that’s what it was for the aliens, too.”
Something in her tone made him look at her. “Is that guesswork or your intuition?”
“Intuition.”
“I thought that only worked with people.”
She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Sometimes it also works in spaces in which people have invested a lot of emotion.”
“If there’s any emotion left in this place, it’s old. Maybe a few thousand years old.”
“I know.”
“And it would be alien emotion.”
She shrugged. “I realize that. All I can tell you is that this little gazebo feels like a place meant for quiet contemplation and reflection. Maybe someone built it so that he or she could come here to meditate on nature.”
“A bioengineered nature?”
“But it’s real. And don’t forget, all the evidence indicates the aliens couldn’t enjoy the nature on the surface. This was all they would have had.”
He lounged back on his elbows, intrigued by her quiet certainty. “You think that the aliens who built all those sterile tunnels actually felt the need to commune with nature once in a while?”
She smiled. “It makes them seem more human, doesn’t it?”
Chapter 26
NIGHT FELL AS HARD AND FAST AS THE RAIN HAD EARLIER. Sierra immediately discovered why Fontana had included a simple amber-crank lantern among the sled’s emergency supplies. Unlike the opaque quartz that lined the tunnels, the crystal gazebo did not give off any illumination. Other things did, however.
The rain forest was drenched in night, but here and there a few small animals and certain plants glowed, glittered, or gleamed psi green.
Sierra sat on her bedroll and watched, fascinated, as a small, iridescent lizard slithered past the ruin. Its eerily shining body vanished into the undergrowth. Elvis watched, too, but not in wonderment. His attention was that of a hunter considering its prey. His second set of eyes popped open.
“Oh, jeez,” Sierra said. “I think I’m about to witness the dark side of dust-bunny life.”
“They are predators,” Fontana pointed out.
He was sitting with his back propped against a pillar, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other drawn up. In the pale light of the lantern, his strong face was etched in savage shadows.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But I prefer that Elvis got his protein the same way I do, from a supermarket.” She picked up an energy bar and waved it invitingly at Elvis. “Hey, King, how about another one of these tasty treats instead?”
Elvis considered the bar and politely declined. He chortled cheerfully and then hopped off the edge of the gazebo and disappeared into the undergrowth.
Sierra shuddered. “I can only hope he doesn’t feel the need to drag back a trophy to show me what a great hunter he is.”
“Has he ever done that before?” Fontana asked.
“No.”
“Then he probably won’t do it tonight.”
“I’ll cling to that logic.”
She looked at Fontana. He seemed a little remote and distant, as though his thoughts were a million miles away. Which was probably the case, she concluded. Some very nasty people had tried to kill them earlier. That kind of thing gave a person a lot to contemplate.
“Any idea how the Riders got their hands on that ultraviolet generator?” she asked after a moment.
“No, but I can tell you this much, it didn’t come from the Guild labs.”
“And here I was getting ready to write an exposé on the secret weapons research being conducted by the Guild,” she said.
“Not us. Not this time.”
“Do you think maybe some hunters with some highly unusual talents have joined the Riders?” she ventured.
“That would be the simplest explanation, but I’m inclined to doubt it.”
She shivered. “What if someone really has discovered an alien lab filled with infernal devices?”
“I’m not sure if an entire lab has been uncovered, but it sure looks like someone found a couple of very interesting alien gadgets. Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”
“A few months ago there were reports in the press about some kind of parapsych medical instrument that was discovered in the rain forest. It’s being used on an experimental basis to treat hunters who have been severely psi-burned.”
“They’re getting good results, too,” Fontana said. “Takes someone with a special talent for rezzing the device, but it works.”
“A door has been opened down here in the jungle, hasn’t it?” she said quietly. “If one alien machine has been found, it’s only reasonable to assume that more may have been discovered or will be.”
“Yes.”
“But what about the disappearances of the homeless men? And the juice dealing in the Quarter? My intuition tells me that they’re all connected, but I can’t see how.”
“I agree, there’s some kind of link.” He was silent for a moment. “One thing interesting came out of Jake’s file.”
“You mean aside from the fact that the last six months of his service records were missing?”
“Aside from that. Jake can work, or, rather, could work, ghost river energy. The rivers are a major problem down here. Hunters who can handle them are valuable.”
“Any chance you’ll find out what Jake was doing during the last six months of his professional career?” she asked.
“Ray is piecing it together. He’ll identify and talk to people who worked with Jake. Eventually we’ll get the answers.”
“Unless all of the men who worked with him during those last six months are on the list of those who disappeared,” she said.
“Even if that were the case, there are still all of the members of the exploration teams that Jake accompanied. Trust me, if someone was going around kidnapping a lot of pricey scientists and para-archaeologists, it would have been noticed.”
“True.”
“Ray came up with something else that may or may not be important. A hunter named Cal Wilson was killed in a jungle accident about six months back. Turns out he was one of the men assigned to the UEX venture.”
“You have to admit that UEX keeps coming up in this thing.”
“Yes,” he said. “It does.”
Silence fell again. Sierra listened to the sounds of the night-darkened jungle. She was tired, but she knew she was too highly rezzed to sleep.
After a while, Fontana spoke out of the shadows. “Tonight when I carried you upstairs to bed, you said something.”
“Did I?” She smiled a little. “I have to admit that things became a bit of a blur after you poured the brandy down my throat.”
“You said that I was like everyone else in your family.”
She winced. “I didn’t mean to insult you. Being an aggressive, goal-oriented, talented overachiever isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” she asked, baffled now.
He looked at her very steadily. “I’m not like everyone else in your family, and we both know it.”
“You’re going to try to argue that you aren’t an aggressive, goal-oriented, talented overachiever? That’s a difficult position to defend, given the facts, isn’t it?”
“You know what I mean. We both know I’m not the kind of man your family expects you to marry.”
“Ah, so we’re back to that, are we?”
“I overheard that conversation with your mother, remember? She was horrified because you’d married a Guild man.”
“You overheard one side of that conversation. If you’d heard both sides, you would know that Mom was horrified because I’d gotten myself into a Marriage of Convenience. People in my family don’t do MCs.”
“Everyone in your family goes straight into a full-blown Covenant Marriage, is that it?”
“When they find the right person, yes.”
“That’s a little risky, isn’t it?”
“Mistakes are uncommon,” she said quietly.
“Neat trick.” He looked coldly amused. “How are they avoided?”
“Mostly, people in my family rely on professional matchmakers. It’s an old tradition that dates back to our ancestors on Earth.”
He frowned. “Your family has always used matchmakers?”
“For generations. But our matchmakers are a little different.”
“How?”
“They’re all psychic.” She smiled. “You could say they have a special talent for the work.”
“How in hell did you all find psychic matchmakers?”
She looked at him. “It’s a family secret. If I tell you, you have to promise to keep it.”
His mouth quirked a little at the corner. “One thing I’m good at, sweetheart, is keeping secrets.”
“Yes, I know. Okay, here goes. Ever heard of an old Earth group called the Arcane Society?”
“It’s an old-world legend. I came across it when I did some research on my own talents. It was supposed to have been a secret organization of people who had paranormal talents.”
“The Arcane Society really did exist on Earth.”
He watched her closely. “And?”
“And a lot of my ancestors were members. They came through the Curtain along with all the other colonists two hundred years ago. They brought their matchmakers with them. We’ve continued a lot of the old traditions.”
“You’ve continued the traditions? Are you telling me the Arcane Society still exists and that it is operating here on Harmony?”
“Yes. For a lot of reasons, we keep a very low profile.”
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