Arachne's Web

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  “You always say that, and it’s never true.” Tegan pressed a few buttons on the Spirit’s cockpit, trying to get the cabin to air out. She’d let Detrick come aboard last week, and the place still smelled of disinfectant.

  “Have you heard of Arachne?” Phedre asked.

  “Sure. The tabloids are full of it. Mysterious moon discovered by joyriders, cloaked by ancient alien technology.”

  “Exactly.” Tegan wasn’t looking at her screen, but she could hear the smug smile in Phedre’s voice. “Ancient alien technology. Sound like something you would want to know about?”

  “Yes. In the event ancient alien technology actually existed, I would absolutely want to know more about it.”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?” Phedre could try to make her sultry voice sound innocent, but she never quite succeeded. Years of duplicity had settled on her vocal chords, and Tegan suspected even the hungriest child would balk before accepting candy from Phedre. “I mean, I would have thought with you being so close to your fellow Transients and all, you would have at least heard—”

  “Spit it out, Phedre.”

  “Well, your dear friends who would never betray you are already there, studying whatever Demitrius left for us to find.”

  Tegan barked out a laugh. “You’ll never make me believe Lexi is on an archaeological expedition to a secret moon.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized what Phedre would say next.

  “And can you really imagine Roslyn and Jack wouldn’t be on such a mission?”

  She couldn’t, and she knew that if Roslyn and Jack were there, Cobalt was too. Which meant a third of the Transient population was researching their heritage while the rest of them were left in the dust.

  “They’ll tell us about it when they find something.” I hope. Cronos, I hope.

  “And who is this ‘us’ you’re referring to?” Phedre asked. “Gavin’s on the trip, and you know Roslyn tells Bliss and Will everything.”

  “And what Will knows, Lexi knows.” Tegan heard something snap, and it wasn’t until she felt the burst of pain and the blood dripping down her finger that she realized it was the stylus in her hand.

  She shouldn’t really be so angry. She was used to being on the outside. The rest of them had their interconnections and their little love triangles, and she was the one they forgot. They gave her cute nicknames like “Cuttlefish,” but they didn’t think of her if she wasn’t immediately in their presence.

  “So I guess the only ones who don’t know about the plan are you and Detrick,” Phedre said. “Gee, do you think they put you in the same category as Detrick?”

  Tegan nearly ended the conversation right there. She knew Phedre was trying to get to her. Of course the others didn’t think of her the same way they thought of Detrick. She was capable of basic social interaction. Besides, Phedre shouldn’t use Detrick that way. His autism wasn’t his fault, and to treat him like less of a person because of it was cruel.

  Underneath Phedre’s misdirects and manipulations, though, was a layer of truth. Her fellow Transients didn’t think of her or respect her. They knew she was as desperate as any of them to learn about their heritage, perhaps even more so, yet they didn’t think to tell her about the discovery. They didn’t want her help, but Phedre did. On some level, all Tegan wanted was to be wanted.

  “Okay,” Tegan said. “I’m listening.”

  Present Day

  Tegan didn’t know if she regretted listening to Phedre that day or going along with all her nefarious schemes since. Certainly, Tegan’s actions had driven a wedge between her and her fellow Transients. But wasn’t that wedge there all along? The fact that she wasn’t sure should have said everything, but it didn’t.

  She adjusted her vidscreen to show the Bellerophon Games. She couldn’t get to Gavin, so she figured she could check up on him that way. Though she’d expected to have to rewind to the last footage featuring him, he was right there in all his glory.

  As he moved through the trees, she admitted to herself that she liked him best in soldier mode. Based on the pre-contest interviews, he liked being a soldier about as much as he always did, but that had never stopped him from signing up for what he deemed necessary wars. And when he’s cleaned up, he looks damn good in uniform.

  He wasn’t cleaned up in the scene Tegan was watching, but he pulled off the scruffy, uneven beard and sweaty, war-torn greens better than that friend of his. Looking closer at the smear of red on the screen, Tegan decided just about anyone would be doing better than the friend, who had blood gushing from his side.

  Gavin rushed over to his friend’s side and rummaged around in his pack until he pulled out what looked like a lighter, a canteen, and a sewing kit, and Tegan smiled. If Gavin was performing emergency field surgery, he had to remember who he was, at least a little. Phedre was convinced she needed activated Transient blood for the ritual, and Gavin looked like a perfect candidate.

  Gavin had explained it to Tegan once. The Transients always began life looking, even on a molecular level, just like humans. In their late teens, around the time they got their memories back, they developed other markers of the alien species they belonged to.

  “Does that mean if we died before the markers showed up, we wouldn’t reincarnate?” Tegan had asked.

  Gavin hadn’t been sure, but he suspected they wouldn’t. Yet another reason not to die, as far as Tegan was concerned. But she was glad Gavin was getting his memories back. When she killed him again, he wouldn’t die permanently.

  Chapter 21

  Present Day

  “Roslyn, would you like to tell the group why you’ve joined us?” the therapist asked.

  I’m here because my psychologist is a traitor who doesn’t believe me about anything, Roslyn thought, but she didn’t say it. The nice, amber-skinned woman with her big, soulful brown eyes seemed sincere. She didn’t deserve Roslyn’s bitterness. “Not really,” she said.

  “Now, Roslyn, we’re all friends here.”

  The woman’s black hair gleamed like Bliss’s did. Bliss might have been a traitor who’d landed Roslyn in the hospital, but she was her friend. These other patients, sitting in a circle, wearing the requisite white uniforms of drawstring pants and shirts that tied in the front, were probably nice enough, but Roslyn didn’t want to be their friend.

  Roslyn sighed, knowing she had to say something. She summed up her basic experience with the university test, leaving out the craziness with the dreams and the past lives. She finished with “Honestly, I think they’re just calling me crazy because they don’t want to send a server to university.”

  The therapist gave Roslyn a level gaze then made a note in her chart. No doubt it said something like “Patient is intransigent. Will not admit to delusions in front of random people she doesn’t know.”

  Maybe that was the problem. She had trusted Dr. Tanner, and the woman had sent her off to a place full of strangers where everyone was on suicide watch. Each patient had a hover-droid following them everywhere they went, transmitting images to some voyeur. Roslyn couldn’t eat, sleep, or even shower without a gleaming silver bot with a red laser eye staring her down.

  She didn’t get to do any of those things very often, though. During her intake, the administrator had handed her a schedule indicating her days would be regimented until her therapists deemed her sane enough to go home. She had hoped she could spend more time sleeping, because that meant dreaming, which meant spending more time with Old Roslyn. And Jack.

  Roslyn had almost believed Dr. Tanner was right about her delusions until Jack had shown up in her bedroom. They must have a real connection, not one she had fabricated. She wondered if he would come back and find her gone, and what he would think if he knew where she was.

  On top of all that, she was worried about Snookems. She couldn’t quite believe it, but she missed that damn dog.

/>   Some of the patients nodded and smiled at her words, but they moved on to other topics. She suspected most psychiatric patients, her included, were primarily preoccupied with their own problems.

  Finally, after a long day of group therapy, art therapy, individual therapy, and a boatload of pills shoved down her throat, Roslyn retired to her single room. She wondered how she had swung that, considering most people had to share. The Bhanushalis must have been feeling generous toward their dog walker, or else Dr. Tanner had told everyone she was too dangerous for a roommate. Either way, she was grateful for the privacy. She stared at the blank white walls and willed herself to fall asleep.

  Twenty Years Ago

  “Rosie! She’s waking up! Rosie, say something!”

  “Wh-What happened?” The world—or rather, Jack’s face—spun into focus as Roslyn awoke inside a strange room. Wait, not a room. A tent. She was in a large beige tent with several metal poles holding it up along the edges.

  “It was very strange.”

  Roslyn turned her head to see the blond woman who had spoken. Dr. Hannah Carriger. Leader of the expedition.

  “One minute, you were looking at an artifact, and the next, you were on the ground, bleeding out of your nose.”

  “May I have a word with the patient alone?” someone with a deep voice asked. Gavin. No doubt he had already asserted himself as chief medical staff person in the short time he’d been there. At least, I hope he has. She didn’t want to explain to anyone else what had happened.

  “I’m staying,” Jack said as Dr. Carriger obligingly headed toward the tent flap.

  “You’re not.” Gavin pointed after the archaeologist. “Go find your brother and make sure he hasn’t gotten into any trouble.”

  Jack grumbled and left.

  Roslyn watched him go. “You realize he’s more likely to get Cobalt into trouble than out of it, right? Cobalt’s probably just gawking at the machinery.”

  “I know.” Gavin sat down on the edge of Roslyn’s cot. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”

  “I shouldn’t have made you come.” The words rushed out of Roslyn’s mouth. “I shouldn’t have said you should fight for me. That was stupid and thoughtless of me. You—”

  “You didn’t make me come. I chose to come. I knew Jack was here, and I knew what that meant,” Gavin said. “Besides, that’s not what I want to talk about.”

  “Oh.” Heat rose to Roslyn’s face.

  “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be here, investigating these artifacts. Demitrius taught you about our heritage, language, and technology, then he blocked your memories of the lessons using some highly advanced brain surgery techniques that, quite frankly, I don’t understand.”

  “Not surprising since you were never a brain surgeon.” Roslyn gave her words as understanding a tone as she could.

  “I’ve done enough research on brains to know that whatever he did was beyond human technology. I imagine Caramrilla was involved. Just looking at these artifacts, not even researching them, is making you remember some of what Demitrius taught you. It’s trying to break whatever block he put in, and I’m afraid of what the consequences will be.”

  “I’m not leaving! I want to know where we come from as much as the rest of you, and I’m not going to just take off and leave you here.” And leave Jack here.

  “No, I’m not saying you should.” Gavin ran his hands over his shaven head. “I would never ask that of you. I know this kind of archaeology dig is what you live for. I just don’t want this one to kill you.”

  Roslyn placed a hand on Gavin’s. “It won’t. I’ll be careful. I’ll just dig and clean, and I won’t look closely at any of the symbols.”

  Gavin turned his hand over and held hers. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “I have no idea, because I don’t want to die here any more than you want me to. Probably less. This is the first adventure I’ve gotten to go on in forever, and I don’t want to spoil it by dying.”

  “I know.” He gave her a small, sad smile. “I love you.”

  She gave him half a smile in return. “I know.” She cleared her throat. “Now, am I cleared to leave this tent in pursuit of safe adventure that will not cause my head to explode?”

  Gavin gestured toward the tent flap. “Go find him.”

  “I wasn’t… I mean, I don’t…”

  “Just go, Roslyn.”

  She tried to ignore the sting of tears as she ducked under the tent flap. She had made a mess of everything. Why couldn’t I love Gavin? That would have made everything easier.

  Emerging, she saw what must have been the center of the camp. It was a more bustling place than it had been when she had passed out, with at least a dozen people ducking in and out of tents or standing around the central fire, drinking something out of travel mugs.

  She didn’t have too much time to analyze the scene before Dr. Carriger pounced on her. “You look like you could use a drink.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think Dr. Ibori would approve of my consuming alcohol so soon after a head injury,” Roslyn said.

  Dr. Carriger linked her arm with Roslyn’s and led her toward the fire. “Well, fortunately for Dr. Ibori, alcohol is in short supply here. The good news is we have something that tastes just as bad without the lovely buzz.”

  Roslyn laughed. “Oh, well, then, order me up some of that.”

  Dr. Carriger stopped outside one of the tents. “Mess hall.” She ducked inside, and Roslyn followed.

  The mess hall was surprisingly small and empty, considering the bustle outside. “Where’s the food?” Roslyn asked.

  “The government’s trying out some new liquid rations on this expedition.” Dr. Carriger led her to what looked like a keg on a metal stand. She grabbed one of the travel mugs next to it and held it up to the tap, and a thick brown liquid glopped into the cup. When it was full to the brim, she handed it to Roslyn. “Three times a day, we get that, and it’s supposed to have all the nutrients we need to survive. Sure isn’t as satisfying as a warm bowl of oatmeal, though.”

  Roslyn made a disgusted face for Dr. Carriger’s benefit. She had been on any number of expeditions to various frontiers, and an all-liquid diet sounded preferable to some of the things she’d had to eat—or the times she hadn’t had anything to eat.

  She took a sip of the concoction and didn’t have to fake the wrinkled nose. The drink tasted like a bran muffin without the sugar mixed with pure rubbing alcohol and mashed into a soggy paste.

  “See? Told you,” Dr. Carriger said as she got a mug for herself. “So tell me about your team.”

  “Well, Gavin Ibori was a celebrated surgeon on Ariadne before he came here, and Cobalt’s been fixing machines since before he could walk. Jack lives up to his name—a real jack-of-all-trades, but you’ll see he’s absolutely brilliant at whatever he applies himself to.”

  “So you and Jack are—?”

  “Together? I suppose, yes.” Roslyn wondered at the reluctance in her voice. “But trust me, Dr. Carriger—”

  “Hannah, please. We’re all archaeologists here.”

  “Okay, Hannah.” Roslyn took a deep breath. “Trust me when I say that Jack’s and my relationship has no bearing on our work. When I say he’s brilliant, it’s not because I love him. It’s because I’ve never met anyone with a sharper mind. I am aware of his faults, namely that he doesn’t keep focused on any one thing for very long. I recommend keeping his days varied.”

  “And what about you? What’s your expertise?”

  “Largely Old Earth artifacts. Most recently, I ran an antiquities shop, where I acquired and appraised artifacts for select, wealthy clientele. It paid the bills, but it wasn’t my passion. When I heard rumors of a potential Old Earth fringe colony out here on Arachne, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see for myself.”

  “Yes, I saw your resume,” H
annah said. “I was a bit concerned that an antiquities dealer might not have much to add to a live dig, but then I saw your reaction to those artifacts. You’ve seen that language before.”

  Roslyn took a long swallow of her rubbing-alcohol-slash-bran mix. She should have known Hannah would have questions about her reaction to the stones. “I’ve seen writing similar to that on the artifacts. Many of the Western languages from Earth contained similar rounded pictographs. I was simply trying to see similarities in the scripts.”

  Hannah nodded, but the corners of her mouth had turned downward. Whether she was disappointed in Roslyn’s response or she suspected prevarication, Roslyn couldn’t tell. After another few sips of “breakfast,” Hannah perked back up. “Well, if you think it’s like something you’ve seen before, that’s closer than the rest of us have gotten. We’ll have to schedule you for some time with the artifacts. That is, if you think you can look at them without passing out.”

  Is it me, or was her tone a bit snide? Roslyn scanned Hannah’s face but couldn’t see anything but sincerity in the crystal-blue eyes. I must be getting paranoid in my old age.

  Roslyn excused herself and went to find Jack. She thought about bringing him a mug of glop, but if she knew him, he was already weaseling his way into the moon’s black market to get himself some real food. She circled around the outside of the tents, searching for the best place for a back-alley deal.

  She had the briefest warning of someone coming up behind her before hands covered her eyes and someone whispered, “Guess who?” in her ear.

  “We-ell,” she said, not giving her assailant the satisfaction of pretending to be scared. “I only know two people with hands that size and a voice like that, so I figure I’ve got a fifty-fifty shot of guessing correctly.”

  Jack spun her around to face him, and she floated toward him like they were in a ballroom instead of sneaking around behind tents in a ramshackle exploration site. “You wound me. Blue’s not creative enough to come up with a gag that clever.”