Gemar [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 9]

by Michelle Levigne

  There. Bain saw a dark shadow against two different shades of reddish-gray granite composite faces. According to the general map of the area, a canyon was back there somewhere. He didn't really expect the conspirators to hide the ship in a known canyon, but one of the newly minted Scout maxims was to be thorough and examine every possibility, no matter how slight.

  Half an hour later, he and Rhiann flew out of the narrow canyon mouth and continued down the eastern wall of their square of assigned territory. The canyon showed all signs of having been flooded only a few days ago. The rocky walls still glistened with moisture four meters up, and looked as if they had been scoured by the flow of water and sediment. Bain wondered what a ship would look like that had been caught in that harsh flood. It had probably been more grit than water.

  A short time after noon, Arin flew down to meet them with insulated bags full of their lunch and fresh canteens, compliments of Branda. His equipment hadn't found any new canyons or hidden holes underground big enough to hide even a shuttle, let alone an entire ship the size of the Nova Corona. There was still more than half their goal territory to cover, so Bain wasn't discouraged by that report.

  Three hours later, Bain felt that prickling sensation of warning go up his neck. He stood a few steps away from Rhiann, on a lump of stone like a wart among the golden-green scrub brush carpeting the canyon floor. Bain fought the temptation to turn and look in every direction. The worst thing he could do was act like he thought he was being watched. He would alarm Rhiann and let the watchers know he sensed their presence.

  Slowly, he stepped down off the stone and walked over to where Rhiann knelt on one knee, studying gashes in the convex wall of the canyon.

  “Petroglyphs,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder to smile up at him. “There are times I'm tempted to become an archaeologist."

  “Are you sure? About the petroglyphs, I mean,” Bain hurried to add.

  Rhiann sighed and pointed at the gashes. She wore that exasperated expression that meant he had said or done something stupid. Combined with the sense of being watched, Bain didn't feel particularly amused right now. He swallowed a sigh and dropped to his knees next to her.

  The sun was suddenly out of his eyes, letting him see more of the shadowed gashes. Bain's mouth dropped open and the prickle of warning faded as his eyes turned the cuts in the rock into figures. Just like the casting he had seen in the museum, but with different animals, Human figures metamorphosed into birds, then into canine creatures, then back into Humans, all drawn in a circle.

  “That's amazing,” he murmured, and reached out a gloved hand to touch a figure that had wings, the head of a Human, clawed feet and the hooked beak of a predator.

  “Nobody knows about this,” Rhiann said, her voice thick with smugness.

  “Why do you think that?"

  “If the authorities knew this existed, we wouldn't have been allowed into the canyon. It'd be guarded and roped off, public access denied and only scholars allowed in. I've seen it on a dozen different worlds."

  “You really like this sort of thing, don't you?"

  “What, signs of old civilizations?” She shrugged. “I like exploring and being where other people haven't been before. Archaeology lets me travel the old paths that people have forgotten about."

  “Kind of like bringing Leapers back to the Commonwealth?"

  “A little.” She reached out and gently brushed her gloved hand across the full-bird figures. “We should get going, shouldn't we?"

  “If we want to finish our territory before Arin comes back for us.” Bain stood and held out a hand to help her.

  “Did you see that?” Rhiann clutched his hand instead of letting go of it when she had regained her feet.

  “What?” he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper.

  “Something moved, back by the cycle.” She gestured with a jerk of her chin.

  “Uh huh. Thought so.” Bain nodded and managed a grim smile.

  “You knew?"

  “I sensed something ... This way, okay?” He hooked his arm through hers and led her deeper into the canyon. The walls narrowed, reaching for each other like the neck of a vase.

  “Should we leave the cycle alone?"

  “They can't do anything to it without the right codes, and damaging it would set off alarms."

  “But what if we get into trouble and we can't get back to it?"

  That thought nearly stopped Bain. His first reaction on seeing the flicker of shadows near the mouth of the canyon was to follow. Following immediately on that was the certainty that if someone played games with him and Rhiann, they were trying to lead them away from something. Wherever the shadowy figures wanted him to go, Bain was determined to go the other way. Now, though, he suspected he had outsmarted himself.

  “We can't turn around right now,” he whispered. “They'll get suspicious."

  “Right.” She nodded and let him lead her around the corner.

  A wall of bushes met them, blocking their path when they stepped around the bend in the bottleneck passage. Bain stopped short. He couldn't see through anything. Looking up, he could tell the walls moved out again, forming another wide canyon, but what lay beyond the bushes was basically invisible.

  “Bain, somebody put those bushes there,” Rhiann whispered. She tugged on his arm and pointed.

  Something went very still and watchful, deep in his chest. Bain lowered his gaze and saw the dried, cruelly chopped roots of the bushes just lying on the rocky rubble of the ground.

  “Somebody doesn't want anyone to go any further in."

  “Duh,” Rhiann whispered harshly. Excitement made her eyes sparkle. “Well, what do we do now?"

  Bain swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and forced himself to think. He knew what he wanted to do—slide through that little gap to the right of the bushes and see what lay on the other side. He wasn't in his Scout uniform right now, but he still felt like he wore it and he knew what was the proper procedure in this situation.

  Rolling back his sleeve, he fumbled with the tiny controls of the wristband communicator the Rangers had issued to his Scouts. Except for running through the orientation drill for using it, Bain hadn't touched it, except to take off at night and put on in the morning. Somehow, though, his fingers knew exactly what to do. He didn't open a two-way communications band, but settled for sending a message. A conversation would take too long. He wanted to get in, look around, and get back out again before the people on the other side discovered they had visitors.

  He left a hurried message to be passed on to Captain Gilmore, saying he and Rhiann had found signs someone was trying to hide what was in the canyon, and they were going in to investigate. Bain considered saying they would be very careful, but he thought that sounded rather cocky.

  “Ready?” Rhiann whispered when Bain finished and tugged his sleeve down into place again.

  He nodded and stepped over to the gap. Bain was relieved that Rhiann didn't insist on going through first.

  The rough stone scraped his back through his jacket. The pressure didn't even make his back twinge or ache, meaning he was well on his way to being fully healed. Bain put up with the minor itching, rather than leaning into the bushes. He didn't need to knock one over and find out they were all precariously balanced. A sudden toppling of the protective barrier, like a row of dominoes, would alert the people on the other side as effectively as a trumpet blast.

  For nearly eight meters, Bain and Rhiann scraped themselves around the curved rock, taking mincing, sideways steps and trying not to make any noise. It was strangely exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. His pulse sped up and his breathing grew shallow and fast just as he saw daylight at the other end.

  They stepped out into shadow and onto a ledge of rock. Bain got down on his hands and knees and looked around the side of the barrier of bushes. In his mind's eye, he removed the bushes and realized that the first canyon had actually been the bed of a wide river. This sudden drop-off into the next
canyon had been a waterfall at one time. He started to explain his theory to Rhiann in a whisper. She nodded, eyes sparkling, and gestured for him to be quiet.

  “Look,” she whispered, and pointed.

  Down, into the heart of the canyon, into a depth of green bushes and scorched grasses and splintered trees and a long, draped conglomeration of ropes and dying branches.

  Bain stared and blinked and rubbed his eyes twice. The black arrow shape among the attempted camouflage didn't change.

  “That's it, isn't it?” Rhiann clutched at his arm, as if she was afraid she would fall over the ledge.

  “What is so hard to understand?” a man suddenly bellowed from the canyon floor. The words echoed against the flat, rocky sides, bouncing back and forth as they climbed to the sky. “We need him dried out, his system clean, every bit of drug residue out of his tissues."

  A dark shape stalked out from under the ledge, nearly one hundred meters below where they knelt. When it stepped into the sunlight, it resolved into a man dressed in heavy-duty outdoor clothes, muddy browns and greens made to blend in with the surroundings. He was tall, bald, a skeleton wrapped in flesh. His voice boomed, as if he spoke through a loudspeaker system instead of with his own voice.

  “If we take him off the drugs,” a woman said from somewhere out of sight, “he'll become lucid again. What if he fights us? He nearly got away the last time."

  “We don't need him in good shape,” the man said, laughing. The sound sent shivers up Bain's back. It was a nasty sound, as if the man enjoyed others’ pain. He turned around, showing a lean, angry face despite the laughter. “If he tries to get away, shoot him. All we need is enough of his body for the authorities to identify him when they find his body in the river. If he's banged up or burned, or missing an arm or a leg, it won't matter."

  “I still say it's a stupid move,” another man said. His was a rich tenor voice. “We need our tame Spacer."

  Bain stiffened. Tame Spacer? That had to be Marlin Feris. He wanted to contact the Rangers immediately, but he didn't dare make a sound. The echoes of the conversation below still reverberated through the canyon. He had to strain to hear what the people below were saying.

  “What good has that done us? We've wasted years trying to control him. He can't go through Knaught Points anymore,” the bald man snapped. He dug his fists into his hips and glared at the two unseen speakers under the ledge. “We have to drug him to control him and the drugs took away his ability to navigate. How do we carry on our business without our tame Spacer, hmm?"

  “Get a tame Leaper,” the woman said with a nasty chuckle. “There's a whole ship of them right here on Gemar."

  Bain glanced at Rhiann. She held very still, gripping the edge of the ledge in one hand. Her fingers turned white with the pressure.

  “Oh, wonderful idea,” the bald man said, spreading his arms. “Why didn't I think of that before? Then we'll have the Rangers, the Fleet, the Commonwealth Council, plus every assassin working for the individual planets of the Conclave on our trail. Leapers are more precious than air. Hurt one and we lose them all."

  Rhiann nodded and flashed a tight smile at Bain. She didn't fool him. Her color was still a little too pale.

  “I didn't say kidnap one,” the woman retorted. “Trick them into helping us, like you tricked Feris."

  “Leapers aren't half as gullible and vain and outright stupid as Feris,” the other man said.

  “Kulper.” A young woman dressed in camouflage clothing appeared from the shadows around the Nova Corona. “I picked up a transmission close by. Someone sent out a message packet."

  Bain gulped and clasped his hand around his wrist communicator. It never occurred to him to try to shield the signal.

  He jerked his head toward the gap between the bushes and rock. Rhiann nodded. They moved back on their hands and knees, staying down, moving slowly, until they got to the cover of the bushes again. Then they stood and threaded their way back between the rock face and the dead bushes.

  “Rhiann,” Bain whispered when they had put a meter of screening bushes between them and the canyon. “Wait a minute."

  She nodded and paused, leaning back against the rock. They were both panting from the effort of avoiding noise, and, Bain admitted, from fear. He took off his collar link and handed it to her.

  “Why?” she breathed, even as she slid it around her neck.

  “They'll find my wrist link—they have to find it. My collar link looks like your jewelry, though.” He caught at her wrist and the simple bands of twisted copper and dull green stone decorating it. She wore matching earrings. Bain hoped that if they were caught, the enemy would mistake his collar link for part of her jewelry.

  “Good idea.” She tried to smile, but her lips trembled too much.

  They moved onward, scratching their backs and arms against the rough stone. Bain felt sweat dripping down his face and back, puddling under his arms, even trickling down his pants into his boots. He imagined he left a wet trail for anyone to read on the rock.

  Daylight finally appeared through the tangle of branches. Bain stopped short when the bushes rustled. Though soft, the sound was almost deafening to his fear-heightened senses. Three more sideways steps and he put one foot out into the sunlight. Time had flown by while he and Rhiann were on the other side of the barrier, and the sun slanted sharp into his eyes. Bain raised a hand to shield his eyes as he stepped out from behind the bushes.

  A massive, work-hardened hand grabbed him by the wrist. Bain dropped to his knees on reflex, using the weight of his body to yank him free. A foot came up and connected with his chin. Rhiann screamed as he flew backwards and slammed hard against the rock wall. His head snapped back. Bain heard a hollow thud that echoed down into his stomach. Blackness swallowed him whole.

  * * * *

  Bain woke when Rhiann wiped his face with a wet rag that smelled musty, of damp rock and closed-in spaces. For a moment, he thought he was back on Bareen, where he had been kidnapped to force Lin to evacuate children from a Mashrami-plagued world. Any minute now, he would see Gorgi. Gorgi Cole was his friend. The two of them would escape down the flooded tunnels and everything would be fine.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw Rhiann's shadowed face leaning over him. Everything flooded back to his consciousness, including the pain of his bruised and bleeding head.

  “Bad?” he whispered, and winced when even that much effort made his head thud and echo, stirring up nausea all the way down to his toes.

  “You won't lose your good looks,” Rhiann whispered back. She tried to smile. “Hold still."

  Bain considered some flip remark about being surprised she thought he was good-looking. Even forming the words in his mind hurt, so he kept still. Rhiann wrung out the cloth and wiped his cut and bruised chin again. The coolness felt good.

  “This might hurt, now that you're awake,” she said, and slid one hand behind his neck.

  Bain guessed what she was about to do, and tried not to stiffen as she lifted his head enough to slide out the damp cloth pressed under his head. He felt the stickiness of blood tugging at his hair, gluing the cloth to his head. Rhiann deftly slid another pad of damp cloth into place and lowered his head again.

  “You've only been out about twenty minutes,” she whispered as she wiped at his face again. “They took the wrist link right away. They think you're a Ranger."

  “Oh, great,” he groaned.

  “I told them you were a Scout. Hush,” she said, when he opened his mouth to ask why. “I told them Scouts were a new force for the Commonwealth, and you were my guard while I was exploring, looking for the ship that hit the administration building."

  “Rhi—"

  “They didn't believe me until I told them I was a Leaper, daughter of dead Captain Lorian, and sister to the new captain of the Estal'es'cai.” She bared her teeth in a fierce, humorless grin. “That scared them something awful."

  “At least they won't hurt you,” Bain managed to say without making h
is head feel like it would split open.

  “That's what I thought. Only their leader, the bald man, he didn't look as worried as the others. Either he thinks he can still talk me into partnership with them, or he doesn't know what we overheard ... or he thinks he can hurt us and shut me up without getting into trouble."

  “Out here, they can sure make it look like an accident.” Bain swallowed hard, fighting a hard lump filling his throat. “I'm sorry, Rhiann. I should have known better."

  “Mother always said, ‘should have been’ is part of a universe that never existed, so we should just leave it alone.” She patted his hand. “I should have done a lot of things differently, too."

  A low moan slithered through the air. Bain tried to roll over, which only made his head pound at triple the speed and agony.

  “What's—that?"

  “A man in the next cave or cell or whatever.” Rhiann stood, taking a small handlight with her, and stepped back to show Bain their prison.

  It reminded him of an access tunnel, like those found under the Commonwealth Upper University, but rougher. Rubble at the back of the narrow cave marked a place where the wall had either collapsed or been knocked through. Rhiann stepped up to it and the light revealed an opening into the next cave.

  “He's just skin and bones. He twitches and just lies there on his blanket.” She shuddered and hurried back to Bain's side.

  “Marlin Feris?"

  “Probably. I've seen a few people drugged out of their minds and suffering for their next dose. That's what he looks like."

  “Bain?"

  Ganfer's voice coming through the collar link around Rhiann's neck startled Bain into sitting up. He clamped both hands around his mouth to muffle the groan that tore through his body. He curled into a ball and made a hushing sign to Rhiann.