Eye of the Abyss

by Michael Formichelli

  “Whoa! You’re that guy from the park. What are you doing here?” She heard Sanul ask while she walked down the short, narrow hallway. In the living room Biren stood behind her sofa with Sanul lying propped up on one elbow beside it. The tin box was out from under the bookshelf and he had two half-chewed leaves hanging out of his mouth.

  “I called him. Biren, you remember Sanul from the park?” she said.

  He nodded, moving over. His thick arms wrapped around her and pressed her body to his chest. She resisted at first, but gave in after only a few seconds. His hug was tight, warm, and smelled of earth and leather. It reminded her of their time on Minlea, but that was a dangerous place for her mind to go, so she made herself release him and stand back.

  “Thank you, for coming.” Her olfactory sensors warned her of a spike in the pheromone concentration in the air, and she felt a familiar tingle in her gut that signaled their introduction into her system. She felt the numbness of her despair fading and warmth begin to stir within her.

  “By the goddesses, Cygni. You look like hell.” Biren looked away from her a moment after speaking, then muttered, “Sorry.”

  “You’re right, I’m sure I do. I feel like it, too.”

  “What happened?” he asked, looking at the wall and then Sanul.

  “Shkur attacked him. I need a hand getting him into bed,” she said. When he cocked an eyebrow she added, “I’m letting him stay here until he recovers.”

  Biren moved over and knelt down so that the long fringe of his leather jacket brushed the fibers of her carpet.

  “Be gentle,” Sanul said when he lifted him up as though he were a child.

  He flinched and whimpered a bit, but otherwise the process went smooth and easy. Biren had him in her bed in under a minute, and Cygni found herself marveling at how strong his genetically modified muscles were. By the time he was settled the phytrophor was taking hold again, and Sanul’s eyes closed.

  “That was quick.” Biren turned to her. “Can I get anything for you?”

  “No, I’m okay for now, I guess—but, ah—” She couldn’t bring herself to ask him to stay, though that was what she wanted, and not just because she was allowing his pheromones to take hold in her body. She wasn’t sure if her hesitation was because she didn’t want to impose on him any more than she had, or if it was the wariness she felt every time she thought of him since Minlea. She felt heavy, exhausted, and cheap because of what happened with Shkur. Perhaps it was foolish of her not to ask him to leave right now, especially with his pheromones in her system and their history together, but she realized she did want more from him than his ability to lift an injured Volgoth tonight.

  “Let’s go sit on the couch,” he said as though reading her mind.

  They left Sanul to sleep and drool on her sheets and sat down on her sofa. She leaned back into the cushions, letting them cradle her frame, and watched the residential towers beyond her window glitter in the golden sunset.

  “I’m sorry about this.”

  “About what? Calling me? Don’t be. Look, I’m really worried about you. You’re a tough woman. I’ve never seen anything get to you this bad before. Is this about that recording you sent me? About what went on in the tower?”

  “It’s not just about that,” she said.

  “What happened after that CSA agent took you in?”

  “Everything happened.” Her eyelids descended and she saw the rings of blue sparks in Sinuthros’ black eyes. She watched Pawqlan convulse, his foaming saliva mixing with the VoQuana’s blood as it poured out of his beak onto the floor of the greenhouse atop AgroWorld’s Tower. She felt Giselle’s hand on her back, shoving her into the limo where her true nightmare waited tethered on a leash held by Baroness Cronus. The memories played behind her eyes for as long as she could take before she opened them and found herself staring out at the towers again.

  Biren put an arm around her. The fringe of his jacket tickled her neck. This was the Biren she remembered from Minlea IV, the caring, gentle man he pretended to be before he used her and left. Was he pretending to care now? Maybe, but she didn’t want to believe that. Minlea was years ago, and he seemed different, though she really shouldn’t be thinking of him in that way. They had an agreement to share information related to their investigations, but the way his face had tensed at the sight of her, and the gentleness he showed Sanul, seemed to be an artifact of his true nature. The more she thought about it the more that felt right, so she leaned into his chest and pulled his heavy arm around her like a shawl.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  “Okay. I’m here.”

  “Yes, you are.” She took a deep breath. “This is what happened after I got picked up…”

  Chapter Five

  Phykor, Mitsugawa-Colonial System 1288

  41:2:43 (J2400:3173)

  Warmth was the first thing Ichiro felt that he understood. For a moment he thought he saw a creature with a bulbous body and twelve, long tentacles—and then he was lying on his back against something cool, hard, and damp. A cold, wet nose pressed against his neck and his eyes opened to see a pair of big, glowing green irises looking down at him. The sight of them made him smile.

  “Setha.” Vapor rose from his mouth when he spoke.

  Tengu let out a quiet bark and licked his face.

  Ichiro closed his eyes and opened them again. The cerberai stared back at him with green irises, panting.

  “Setha?” He looked around, and his gaze fell on stone walls with dripping, fang-like stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Beside him was a large pool with something spherical, pulsing with emerald light deep within its heart. He blinked.

  Setha wasn’t here.

  He took in a deep breath and patted Tengu on the side of his shaggy head. He startled in place as it dawned on him that the cerberai’s eyes had changed to resemble those of his beloved. Tengu licked his face again and moved off him, sitting down with a wagging tail.

  They were in a large cave, the majority of which seemed to be taken up by the pool. There was a short passageway to his right with hovering glow-orbs that spilled light on white walls and a ramp beneath them. Laying two-meters from him was a female figure in red and gray armor with her arm outstretched towards her mannequin-like helmet—Commander Armstrong. She stirred as he stared at her.

  “Where are we?” he whispered.

  Tengu whimpered and put his head down.

  Ichiro tried to remember what happened before he awoke in this cave. He was standing in the parade ground of Fuyūyōsai. There was a flash of green light, and pain, and then he was here—wherever here was. He was breathing, and there seemed to be nominal gravity, so he had to be in a Solan-friendly environment. There were no caves above water on Taiumikai, so he couldn’t be on his home world. If that was true, and it had to be, then where in the stars was he? How had he gotten here with Tengu and Commander Armstrong? Where were the others?

  Armstrong groaned. Her mismatched brown and blue eyes fluttered open. She seemed to take in her surroundings for a moment, and then scrambled up into a crouch with a jolting suddenness that reminded him of a startled cat. Her head tilted through three different angles as she observed the cave-like chamber for a second time.

  “What the hell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where—” she began and let the question die on her lips. She cocked her head to the side.

  “What?” He asked at length.

  “Nothing, I just noticed—” She stopped, looked at Tengu, and raised an eyebrow. “That’s interestin’.”

  The cerberai perked his ears up and whimpered again. His long tail raised off the ground and started to wag as he sniffed at the air. A moment later Ichiro both felt and heard someone approaching down the ramp in the corridor.

  He was on his feet in an instant, his metallic hand on the hilt of Hoshinagi. He pressed his body up against the wall by the doorway and waited, feeling with the alien senses Setha gave him. A glance showed that Ten
gu was sitting up now, staring at the passageway and still wagging his tail. Armstrong moved quickly to the other side of the entrance, and drew her sidearm. It was curious that Tengu wasn’t taking a more defensive position. The presence approaching didn’t feel like Setha, so that couldn’t have been the reason Tengu was so relaxed.

  He didn’t have time to wonder who it was. A blond-haired woman, taller than he was by a head, walked into the room and froze with her blue eyes locked on Tengu.

  “What the hell?” she said in a strong, androgynous voice.

  Ichiro drew Hoshinagi and aimed it at her throat—or tried to. At the sound of the first hiss of its polymer blade on the scabbard the woman became a blur, whirling away from the arc Hoshinagi cut through the air, and stepping towards him. He felt her touch his elbow and his reflexes kicked in. He jammed the side of his foot against hers and grasped her wrist, trying to twist it and throw her to no avail. Her muscles bulged as she attempted to twist the joint of his mechanical arm as his strained against her unmoving wrist. They stayed like that for several moments, staring fire into each other’s eyes.

  “You’re quite strong,” he whispered. There was something familiar about the woman, he realized, but he couldn’t chance diverting his attention to search his memory without letting his guard down.

  Her eyes flickered between his. “So are you. Even with a bionic arm I should be able to throw you.”

  “Who are you? Where am I?” he asked.

  Behind her Armstrong pointed her sidearm at the woman’s head. Tengu rose up on all fours and padded over with barely a sound. His thick jaws opened and he placed them around her calf, biting down with care such that his teeth made the barest of indentations in the red and green jumpsuit she wore.

  “You’ve got backup,” she said.

  He felt someone else approaching, a sensation that virtually matched her own.

  “So do you,” he said.

  Tengu growled.

  “Yes, she does,” a voice said from the passage entrance. It sounded like hers, only a touch deeper.

  “Sibling?” Ichiro asked, seeing the blond man in his peripheral vision. Armstrong leveled her pistol at his head.

  “Twin,” the man said. Ichiro didn’t have to look to know he was pointing a gun at him. “Let her go.”

  He released his hold on the woman’s wrist. He half expected her to try something when he did, but she let him go and looked down at Tengu. The cerberai released her with the same speed with which he captured her calf. Once free, she took a step to the side and gasped, seeing Armstrong for the first time. Her sibling turned his head, looking at the barrel pointing at him from over his shoulder.

  “Touché,” he said and lowered his gun.

  Ichiro lowered Hoshinagi, but did not sheath it. No longer in a standoff, he was able to take in the twins with a more careful eye. Both had blond hair and were of a height with each other. They looked to be in their early twenties, like himself, and had the lean-muscled, broad-shouldered physiques of athletes. Their blue eyes and upturned, narrow noses were identical. Their facial features seemed to match so closely that he got the impression he was staring at male and female versions of the same person. They wore identical clothing in the same colored pattern of red and dark-green stripes interlaced over their bodies. He couldn’t understand why they were familiar until it dawned on him that red and green were the colors of the EpiGenome barony.

  “Are you two Baron LeRoux’s children?” he asked, memory dawning on him like a sunrise. “Enéas and Europa, right?”

  The twins shifted their weight in-sync with each other.

  “It’s him,” Enéas said.

  “Are you—yes, I see it now.” A half-smile appeared on Europa’s face and was mimicked by her brother.

  Enéas put the gun into a holster beneath his right shoulder. “You’re Ichiro, aren’t you?”

  He blinked, not used to his first name being used by strangers. “Yes. Baron Mitsugawa Ichiro.”

  The twins blanched together.

  “Oh, sorry—”

  “—we didn’t realize who it was down here,” Europa finished.

  “Goddess, how long has it been?” Enéas asked.

  Ichiro looked over their long features. A sudden heat came to his cheeks as he remembered the first time he met them.

  “It has been four years or so.” He gave Armstrong a nod and she holstered her weapon. “You came with your parents to Fuyūyōsai to do something. I don’t remember what.”

  Armstrong looked them both over with narrowed eyes.

  “A demonstration of the Gemini System,” Europa said.

  “It failed.” Enéas sighed. “Not the system, mind you, but the demonstration. We were supposed to impress your father.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Ichiro said, hoping they didn’t remember what he did with them that week. It was the same week he met Setha, though she hadn’t been with them that particular night. No wonder Tengu hadn’t reacted aggressively to her approach; he remembered them.

  “We don’t blame you for not remembering that,” Enéas said.

  “Considering what I bet you do remember.” Europa’s grin made his cheeks burn. It seemed they did recall that night.

  “Well, that sounds interestin’,” Armstrong said.

  Damn, he thought. It was probably best he change the subject before the conversation progressed further down this path. “Where are we?”

  The twins exchanged a look.

  “Where are we?” Europa repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “Where are we in the Spur?” he asked, realizing that it was probably an odd question considering people didn’t usually just appear places without any idea of how they got there.

  “Phykor.” Enéas’ grin faded into a concerned frown.

  “The Savorchan Temple,” Europa added, sharing the expression with her brother.

  Phykor was one of Shiragawa’s research colonies. It was also where Setha was born, and about 470 light-years away from Taiumikai. How in the seven hells did I get here?

  “Thank you,” he said, sounding distant even to his own ears. He blinked and sheathed Hoshinagi with a practiced motion.

  “Are you all right?” Enéas asked. “Did you receive a knock on the head?”

  “We detected an energy spike down here,” Europa said after a pause. “Are you testing a new transportation technology or something?”

  “No,” he muttered and put his back to the wall. He felt dizzy all of a sudden, and vaguely nauseated. How could he be on Phykor without any recollection of how he got here. “What day is it?”

  “40th day of the second month of the Confederate Standard Year 42,” Enéas answered.

  He pulled up the chronometer in his UI and verified the date. It was the same day as the last time he stood on his home world. How was that possible? According to his chronometer, it had been mere hours since the Praetor left. One didn’t travel over 470 light-years in hours, not unless someone used the Cephalon Spheres, as Setha did to get them out of the Elmorus system.

  “Have you seen Setha?” he asked.

  Tengu whimpered.

  “The girl who came to Taiumikai after you did. Tengu is hers. She’s about this high, long, flowing black hair and glowing green eyes. I think you’d remember her if you saw her. She also has these tattoos, um—” he cut himself off when he saw them shaking their heads.

  “We remember her,” Enéas said.

  “You have her eyes now,” Europa stated.

  “What?” He frowned.

  “Did she come here with you?” Enéas asked.

  “We haven’t seen her,” Europa said.

  “Oh.” He frowned.

  “Did you come here to help?” Enéas asked.

  “We only arrived here a little while ago ourselves,” Europa said. “Trade between the temple and the Colony of Phykor has been difficult as of late.”

  “Difficult?” he asked.

  The twins ga
ve him a discerning look. He felt their confusion and suspicion as a prickly feeling on his skin.

  “You don’t know?”

  He stared at her.

  Enéas’ eyes narrowed. “Does the Prior know you’re here?”

  “Il est pas un espion, il est certainement lui,” Europa said in response to a comment Enéas must have sent through their implants. Ichiro’s implant translated her words into Solan from her Old Earth French: He’s not a spy, it’s definitely him.

  “Il ne regarde que comme lui,” Enéas said. It only looks like him.

  “Now you’re being an idiot. We should take him upstairs to see the situation for himself and meet our host,” she said, switching back to Solan.

  “I guess.”

  “Come on, Baron. I’ll show you what’s going on.” Europa took off with long strides into the passageway. After a moment, her brother followed.

  “Those two are pretty odd, huh?” Armstrong said.

  “From what I remember, they always have been.” He moved to follow them, but paused, finding himself bothered by Europa’s earlier comment. His eyes fell on the shimmering surface of the water of the pool and he walked over. Tengu moved to stand beside him as he looked down at the water’s surface.

  The breath caught in his throat.

  “Ah, yeah. That’s what I was starin’ at earlier,” Armstrong muttered.

  He opened his mouth but he was too shocked to respond. His eyes were glowing pale-green, like Setha’s did.

  Armstrong put her hand on his shoulder. The contact sent a jolt through him.

  “You okay?”

  “Ah, yes.” He blinked. The glowing eyes in his reflection were still there. “I think so.”

  She gave him a discerning look. “I know it’s disorientin’, but what are our options right now?”

  He nodded, relieved she was ignoring the strangeness of his eyes. “LeRoux and my father got along years ago, and it seems he must have invited them to this colony to aid in the research.”