“We’ll eat,” he said, straightening, “and move on.”
Pivoting at the hip, he glanced in Shane’s direction. The man ambled off with his strange and newly acquired gait, a result, no doubt, of his injuries. Very likely going to relieve himself. Had he been one of the others, Burke would have warned him to keep a sharp eye. As it was, he didn’t bother.
Hallie crouched over her open sack on the ground. It appeared she had already been engaged in removing foodstuffs when interrupted by the creature calling out her name. Burke watched her carefully while she distributed the rations. As he had suspected, she allocated the smallest portion for herself. Stepping up beside her, he opened her hand and switched his for hers.
“Burke, no.” Color flared in her pale cheeks.
“Don’t argue. Here, I’ll take a bit back, if it makes you feel better. But you’re eating that.” He nodded at her open palm. “You need your strength as much as anyone else.”
“And what happens when we have nothing left to eat? We brought enough for you and me, not five of us. Do you want to be the one deciding which of the plant matter growing here is edible and which is not?”
“Not particularly,” he responded, brushing aside the argument he could have made, that one of the group did not deserve her generosity, leaving more for all. “I have a feeling you would know better, at any rate. Still, I don’t intend to be wandering this planet until we run out of food.”
Chewing on the morsel he possessed, he let his gaze travel in the direction Shane had taken. For a man who moved so slowly, he had disappeared from sight with inordinate speed. That he had moved at all after the way he appeared yesterday was a testament to Hallie’s quick action and later healing skills.
It was no slight to Alia, Lese’s mother, but he had to admit he had truly met no other woman like Hallie before in his life. She owned a warrior’s instincts and quick reflexes inside an infinitely appealing feminine form. Those attributes combined with her capacity for compassion and kindness and her deeply rooted strength of spirit made her formidable, indeed. And bewildering, he acknowledged with a frown. How she could deal with Shane fairly under the circumstances continued to elude him.
From the corner of his eye, he noted Calypso staring after the vanished Shane as well. Gathering herself in that practiced way of hers, she turned on her heel and came over to where he stood beside Hallie.
“No trust that Skelly,” she said. “You do right to spare him life,” she added, addressing Hallie, “but no trust him. He is—he is other, now.”
“What do you mean ‘other’?” Hallie questioned, clearly startled.
“Not sure. Something strange. Something not right.”
“You mean he’s out of his mind,” Burke said.
“No,” said Calypso. “In mind. Just not same.”
Burke’s lips quirked. Calypso’s island dialect could be both perplexing and direct. He nodded his agreement. Calypso reached out and touched his arm.
“He need life,” she said, “but you no trust him. Keep away from Hallie.”
That warning went without saying. He hadn’t trusted Shane from the day he met him. Once Hallie came along the reason for his mistrust had become quite plain. Burke patted the dancer’s fingers, tiny as a child’s. She dropped her hand to her side, returning to Emil without another word.
“Odd woman.”
“She sees a great deal more than her mode of speech is able to convey,” Hallie answered.
Burke understood that, yet it seemed Hallie wanted to say something else. He waited a moment, but she made no further comment.
“I told you before that I won’t let him hurt you again,” he reminded her.
“I know. It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t know.”
Frowning, Burke looked back in the direction Shane had gone. The man was overdue for a return.
During the course of the long night, Burke had solidified certain plans. He had held enough misgivings about leaving Hallie, even briefly, when the time came to scout ahead to ascertain the position of the port for offloading cargo and to determine whether or not his hasty plan for hijacking was plausible. Now that the bastard had proven himself mobile, there was no way he was leaving Shane with Hallie. Capable as Hallie had proven herself to be, the Shane factor was too volatile.
“Whether he likes it or not,” Burke stated, “when I go on ahead, he goes with me.”
“Huh,” she snorted, “you might have to find him first.”
* * *
I’m right here, Skelly laughed silently, listening to the conversation. The wind rushing through the leaves high overhead unnerved the part of him that remained as it had been. That which he had become was unaffected. He stood with his back against the huge bole of the tree, fingers fitted into the fissured, curling bark. On that portion of Lucas where he had lived his miserable existence, working the mines as a scout because he was so soft-footed he didn’t disturb the fragile and potentially explosive veins of minsate, there had been no trees. Yet he recognized these with something elemental. He supposed it was their recognition, and not him at all.
A large shadow undulated through the branches nearly out of sight and he greeted it like an old friend. I know you. I know all of you now.
Lowering his head, he stared back toward Conlan and Hallie. The man was kissing her. Although brief, there was nothing chaste about it. Skelly felt her vibrating response across the air between. He scowled, a deep furrow of his brow pinching the burned flesh on his forehead. His teeth bared in a parody of a smile that made the flesh beside his mouth bleed again.
You are a fool, Conlan. All of you are fools, if you think you can stop me doing anything I want.
II.
UNLIKELY BEDFELLOWS
They were gone, vanishing into the gloom. Hallie had watched them with a deep misgiving. On the chance there was any type of monitoring, she, Calypso and Emil set up temporary shelter in a spot far enough away they couldn’t actually see the facility, but they knew it was there. A low thrum of mechanization vibrated through the atmosphere almost beyond hearing, constant and unsettling.
The facility was operational. Power had been restored. This made Hallie feel no better about the fact Burke was headed there. That Skelly accompanied him only served to deepen her apprehension until she felt it crawling over her skin. She reminded herself Burke wouldn’t be taken unaware a second time and that he was certainly capable of handling himself. Such reminders didn’t help much.
Despite the danger to her, she would have worried less if Skelly had been left in her charge. It had become apparent during the course of the day that both men were waiting for an opportunity to do battle. Skelly was the more obvious, muttering offensive statements from the depths of his lunacy, yet he had made no physical move against either her or Burke. Possibly this was due to a recognition of his own weakened condition, or possibly he merely contented himself with biding his time. Burke, on the other hand, grew more tense, edgy, quite willing to break the other man’s neck and be done with it, although he made no advance to that commission. He didn’t bother to respond to Skelly’s taunts except to direct him to shut his mouth if Skelly had addressed something of particular ugliness to her.
Seated beneath the construction of bark and branches and forest debris, Hallie watched and listened, the lathesa resting across her outstretched legs. Emil and Calypso were silent, likely asleep. None of them had rested easy the night before, despite exhaustion.
Shifting her hips on the packed soil, Hallie lifted her gaze to the interwoven tree limbs far above. The green twilight shifted with movement. Perhaps attracted by the muted hum of the facility, winged, ethereal creatures such as she had seen on the vitrine panel that night—was it only two nights ago?—filled the air. It hardly seemed creditable, but it was true.
Burke how can you believe you love me so soon? He didn’t know her. Not really. A few weeks ago he’d given testimony against her much as
if she didn’t matter at all. She understood now why he’d done so, but the fact of his actions hadn’t been erased. Did guilt play a big part in his behavior toward her now?
Overhead, the larger creatures hunted the smaller ones, flashes of energy brilliant in the gloom as they struck their prey and plummeted to the ground with them. Hallie kept her eyes averted from the ingestion of the victims, grateful the process was taking place at a distance which made such details unclear. Fortunately, with prey so plentiful, the three of them might be safe from the danger of being attacked themselves.
Hallie reached for the pack lying at her side, flipping it open, visually estimating the amount of food remaining. Not enough. If they couldn’t make some sort of definitive move soon, it was not enough.
Hallie tucked the flap back down. An elongated, multi-legged thing made slow progress across the ground toward the sack. Picking up a broken bit of bark, she flicked the beast away and heard it squeak when it landed. Choosing not to return, it trundled off into the shadows.
They had to find a way off the planet soon, or admit failure and return to the facility. They couldn’t exist long outside the prison walls with any reasonable expectation of survival. She didn’t want to think about the latter. Once back inside they would never have the opportunity for escape again.
“How long do we give them?” Emil asked in a voice subdued and hoarse.
She and Burke had briefly discussed the contingency he might be hurt, captured or killed, and how long she should wait for his return before she brought the others in search of him. They had also discussed not risking a search at all, resorting straight away to the bitter option of returning to the prison.
Without him.
Even if she could get her mind around leaving Burke to an unknown fate, the thought of being without him for all the years in captivity threatened before her made that eventuality even more unbearable.
“Through the night,” she said. “We wait through the night.”
“And then?”
She swallowed, blinking back tears. “I don’t know.”
Emil did not respond, but a few moments later Hallie heard movement and then Calypso was at her side, lowering herself cross-legged and silent onto the ground beside her.
* * *
Burke scanned the facade of the facility. The walls extended beyond sight in both directions, the upper portion disappearing into the gloom. The breach lay somewhere off to the left, no doubt unrepaired. Vitrine panels of common areas at various levels glowed beyond the shielding screens with a faint luminosity. It was difficult to imagine the population of Zebulon. From the dimensions of what he could see alone, the facility had to possess as many inhabitants as a small city. Unlike Hallie’s naive belief, he did not expect they were all innocent, although he did suspect most had been incarcerated due to political motives. Shane’s reprehensible actions were proof he possessed a deviant, if not criminal, mind. What he had actually done to land himself on The Emerald Burke neither knew nor cared.
Frowning, Burke glanced in Shane’s direction. Hunkered over his heels, the man stared in disturbing fascination at one of the black-winged beasts rending a smaller one into shreds, the luminous expulsion of its body an incandescent puddle around the scene. It did occur to Burke that if the glowing secretion had any sort of half-life, they might be able to utilize it for lighting, but as he possessed nothing to contain the fluid he dismissed the idea, his gaze drifting back to Shane’s rapt countenance.
The redhead’s focus had shifted to him, the man’s gaze meeting his own in a long stare. Shane’s demeanor possessed no overt threat, no alteration of stance or expression, yet his animosity was palpable, his restraint from the impulses of whatever madness moved within him stretched thin. Deliberately, Burke held his gaze until the man turned away. It took a lot longer than Burke had hoped. Shane was going to be a problem.
Tightening his grip on his weapon, Burke stood up. Shane did the same, without a weapon, naturally. Burke had made certain the man didn’t pick up so much as a stick.
“Let’s go,” he instructed.
“Where?” Shane asked, but not as if he cared.
Burke jerked his chin. “That way.”
With a surly shrug, Shane headed in the direction indicated. Burke fell in behind, tersely reminding the man to slow his pace. Several times Shane had disappeared from sight, only to reappear in stealth somewhere where Burke hadn’t anticipated him. Since the last time, he’d been careful Shane maintained a distance between them that did not exceed the length of the spear in his hand. He was tempted to tie the shaft and its cutting point to the center of Shane’s back, as a deterrent, but it would have been a hindrance to his mobility and not worth the trouble. So far, they had proceeded unmolested due to the abundance of easy prey, but he didn’t expect their luck to hold for much longer. Even an accidental strike could be debilitating, and the creatures were swooping closer and closer to them in their frenzy to feed.
Recalling Shane’s fear inside the common room, he was confounded by the fact the man walked without flinching among the very beasts that had reduced him to near hysteria. The intricacies of the mind, even when broken, were astonishing. What Shane might have possessed of common sense and solid caution, though, were gone. When he finally made a decision to do something, Shane would give little regard to the preservation of his own life in his twisted fearlessness. This made him all the more dangerous.
Burked raised his head to study the building, dark as misted shadow. If there were any Eyes focused into the forest, he couldn’t see them. Monitoring this close to the facility seemed likely, but as yet no machine or cybernetic unit had appeared to halt their progress. It was possible, he supposed in dubious consideration, not all systems were functioning. Possible, but not probable. He could only assume he and Shane were indistinguishable in the flurry of activity taking place. Once they neared the open landing area for incoming transports that would change. Capture, perhaps even death, could be imminent and only evaded with extreme difficulty.
And yet at all costs, he had to do just that. Hallie was waiting for him. Her choices if he did not return were bleak. He had made a promise to her, a solemn vow he planned to honor. Even in circumstances that might move beyond his control, breaking that promise would never be an alternative.
In front of him, Shane spoke. “She liked it.”
Burke didn’t need to ask to whom he was referring. He didn’t even need to ask to what. The taunt was obvious.
“She brought it from home.”
Hmm. Maybe not so obvious. “What’s that, Shane?”
“I threw it down when it spoke to me and the damned thing shattered.”
Burke pictured the glittering shards strewn across the Hallie’s cell floor, now gracing the ends of the weapons Hallie had fashioned. “What do you mean, it spoke to you?”
“It had many voices and one called me by name. When I broke it, they were set free. I could hear them calling me, all of them, and so I shut myself down.”
Burke would have loved to know how Shane had procured the drug rendering the redhead unconscious and him nearly to the point of death, if they were even one and the same. He held his tongue. Let the man talk.
“They wouldn’t leave me, even so,” Shane continued. “They’re here, now. Can you hear them?”
Despite himself, Burke paused to listen. The air was filled with noises, grunts and whistles and the shrieking just within sound of the hunted brought down from the trees, and underneath it all the hum of the facility and the vast hiss of the leaves moving far overhead in a wind not felt below. Not a single voice, not a word but Shane’s and his own thoughts. “I don’t hear anything,” he said.
“You will.”
“Will I? What do these voices say, just so I’m forewarned?”
“They say—” Shane began, but stopped, erupting into dissonant laughter. “Nothing. They say nothing.”
Whatever Shane imagined he heard, it wasn’t nothing. Still, Burke d
idn’t expect to get anything further from the Lucasian, as he was enjoying his private joke a little too much.
“Then I don’t need to worry,” Burke remarked, putting an end to the conversation.
But not quite.
“You do need to worry. All of you need to worry,” Shane said. “What’s coming isn’t easy. It will hurt, I assure you.”
Burke’s fingers flexed on the shaft of his weapon. “You’re not in a position to be threatening anyone, Shane, least of all Hallie. I won’t let anything happen to her again.”
“Oh, it won’t be me who does this thing,” Shane commented almost gleefully. “It will be you, Conlan.”
Burke checked and then continued walking. “Me.”
“You.”
“How?”
Shane was silent.
“These voices in your head tell you this, do they?”
Still nothing.
“They are only in your head, Shane. You realize that, don’t you? I don’t hear a thing.”
“That’s because you’re not listening. You’ll recognize it when you hear them again.”
“When I hear them again? I haven’t heard them yet.”
Although Shane continued to bait him, he hoped by discussion Shane might reveal the thought processes of his canted mind. Burke needed to be prepared for whatever rough plan was writhing there.
Shane shook his head. Sweat and the constant application of his fingers were making the man’s short red hair stand out in dark spikes about his skull. The bruise by his eye stood out in livid discoloration against his pale skin, the rest of his face mottled with crusted burns. “You’d like to kill me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” Burke answered without hesitation.
Shane laughed. “At least we understand one another. Unfortunately, you can’t kill me, Conlan.”
“Can’t? Or won’t? Either way, I’d say you’re wrong.”
“Can’t, won’t, it doesn’t matter which word you use. If you kill me, Conlan, Hallie dies. It’s that simple.”
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