Wade woke me up. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but even his gentle shaking rattled my cracked ribs. I groaned. I sprawled on my side in the sand. My ribs ached with every breath.
“Can you crawl?” he asked. “I think I’ve found some kind of tunnel.”
“How about you check it out and come back and tell me?”
“I already did, at least part of the way. There’s a whole network of tunnels and caves.”
My stomach chose that moment to let me know I hadn’t fed it in much too long. Wade suppressed a snicker that would have earned him a black eye if I had been able to move.
“It isn’t far,” he said. "We might even find a few bugs or roots for you to eat."
“Far to what?” I sighed and wished I hadn’t when it hurt. I rolled onto my side and managed to make it to my knees. If I kept one arm clamped around my side, I could move. If I went slow and careful.
“Down this way.” Wade headed for the lowest part of the cave.
I followed him at a shuffle. When I had to bend my head to fit under the ceiling, I stopped. He was down on his belly, squirming under the knobby shelf of rock that rose to become the roof.
“It’s only bad the first ten yards or so,” he called over his shoulder.
I watched his feet disappear into the dark shadows around the edge of the cave. I leaned my head on the sloping ceiling and wished for a pain patch. None magically appeared. I got down to my knees, stifling a groan or three. I wasn’t sure I could make it on my belly. Wade was gone. I could barely see a patch of lighter darkness in under the rock shelf. I squirmed as close as I could before I had to lay down to fit through the opening.
I belly crawled in, hands in front of me feeling for any sudden turns or large rocks. It hurt, more than I want to remember. Somehow I kept going through a haze of pain. It felt like hours that I wormed my way into the rock. I heard myself whimpering but I couldn’t stop it.
“You can stand up now,” Wade said from somewhere above me.
“I don’t know if I can.” I stopped wriggling and just lay still waiting for the pain to subside.
He crouched beside me, resting one warm hand on my shoulder. “It’s tall enough to stand in the rest of the way. We have to keep going, Dace.”
“Or what? I doubt they’ll come check on us. I doubt they’ll come to ask us more questions. They’re too stupid to know what to ask.”
“We have to get the field generators down before dawn, remember? It’s late afternoon now. Besides, they will only give us those bricks to eat. If they give us anything. We get to the ships, we can find real food.”
That was mean, sneaky, dirty, underhanded, and worse, but it got me moving. He helped me as much as I’d let him. I had to stop, once I was upright. I had my right arm clamped over my ribs. Wade held my left arm, keeping me on my feet. I leaned on him, breathing in shallow gasps, until the pain died down enough I could move.
We shuffled off, Wade holding my arm.
“Shouldn’t it be completely dark?” I squinted through half-closed eyes.
“And the walls should be rough, but they’re smooth. It looks like it was done with some kind of heat tool. I’m not sure where the light is coming from. It’s all just sort of glowing.”
We came to a fork in the tunnel. I saw small patches high up on the wall that gave off a very dim blue light. The walls were rounded, giving the tunnel the shape of a squashed circle. Wade led me to the left. The lights grew closer and brighter. The air smelled less of damp rock and more of fried dust.
The tunnel curved. The floor was even and smooth. I walked faster. Now that I wasn’t trying to crawl or jar myself on uneven rocks, it didn’t hurt as much to move.
“Just up here,” Wade said. He let go of my arm to trot ahead.
I followed him around a corner and saw what he had been leading me to. I groaned. It was a circular hatch set in the wall of the tunnel. A complicated set of lights danced in a large lock right in the center of it. It looked like the hatch on the ship, the one I’d burned out, the one that hadn’t been locked.
“So, open it,” Wade said. “I’m betting the generators are in there.”
“It smells like something’s using a lot of power,” I said, shuffling up to the door. “Doesn’t mean they’re in there.” I stared at the blinking lights.
“Open it anyway, Dace.”
“And what if I can’t, Wade?”
“Then you can’t,” he said with a fatalistic shrug. “We keep looking for the generators and for another way out.”
I muttered nasty things under my breath as I carefully lowered myself to the floor. It hurt to lean over enough to get my lockpicks out of their hidden pocket. I opened the pouch and spread them on the floor of the tunnel. I fingered the melted, burnt end of my sonic probe. I was going to have to spend a lot of money to get a new one. If I could talk someone into telling me where I could find a supplier and if I could convince Jasyn to give me the money. I frowned at the assorted tools then at the blinking lights. The pattern was a lot different than the ship hatch.
“Want some help?” Wade asked.
“Just shut up and let me think.” I was too hungry and in too much pain to think about being nice.
He leaned against the wall next to the door and crossed his arms over his chest. And deliberately ignored me to the point that I couldn’t possibly not notice. I bit back the rude remark I wanted to make and concentrated on getting the door open.
Before I made any stupid mistakes, I checked to see if the door was unlocked. I pressed on the central panel. Nothing happened. I punched random keys on the lock. Nothing happened. I tried a series of colored lights, pushing the buttons as they blinked. The lights froze, burning steadily in a single pattern. I reached up and pushed a bright yellow one. The lights all blinked blue and the door slid open. I gathered up my lockpicks.
“How did you do that?” Wade asked as he helped me stand.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I said as we stepped through the door.
Lights flickered on, marching farther into the distance as we watched. The room was very long and narrow, curving into the distance. The center of the room held a series of couches, padded spaces shaped vaguely like a humanoid. A ventilation fan whirred overhead. The air smelled of ozone and dust. We walked down the side of the row of couches. The room held at least fifty. We didn't find anything else, no banks of switches or dials or controls or doors, nothing except the odd shaped benches.
“What do you think this is?” Wade asked, as puzzled as I was.
“Not a sleeping chamber. It doesn’t feel right for that.”
He crouched and peered under the nearest couch. “Solid base, no sign of any equipment or wires.”
“So where is the smell coming from?”
“What smell?” Wade sniffed.
“Burnt dust, possibly plastics. Something in here uses a lot of power.”
He leaned over the couch and prodded it. “Looks solid enough here. Nice and soft.” He sat on the couch and swung his legs up.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out what this room’s for.” He lay down on the couch.
Straps crawled out of the pad and wrapped themselves around his arms and legs before he could move away. He stared at them, startled. A hood of dark metal rose from the top of the couch. He struggled then, his legs flopped weakly as the hood settled over his head.
“Wade!” I tugged at the straps. They were firmly glued to his arms.
“Some kind of drug,” he said, slurring his words. He went limp.
The couch hummed, vibrating. I yanked at the straps. They didn’t budge. I put my head on his chest and tried to peer under the hood. All I saw was the bottom of his chin. His heart beat steadily under my ear. He was breathing regularly. I stood back, defeated. I was too tired and in too much pain to think my way out of this. I couldn’t just leave him. I wasn’t going to go far on my own.
I lowered myself to the floor, leaning against the wall. Wade remained motionless on the couch. Time passed, how much I don’t know.
I went through what was left in my pockets. I had my lockpicks and my id plates and a few useless bits of garbage. I put it all back and resigned myself to starving to death if I didn't die of pain first.
The wall behind me hummed. I scrambled up, holding my side and cursing. A narrow table slid out of the wall behind me. A slot in the wall opened and a metal arm pushed a cup of something thick, green, and hot onto the table. The slot closed. I sniffed the steam rising from the cup. It smelled clean, faintly plantlike.
I heard a series of clicks behind me. I turned. Wade lay on the couch, eyes still closed, his face so pale it looked white. The hood and the straps were gone. He blinked groggily and groaned.
“Well? What is it?”
He looked at me blearily. “Guh,” he managed to say.
I picked up the cup of green stuff. “This just came out of the wall.” The table slid back into place. “I don’t know what it is.”
He reached for it. I let him take it. He sipped then grimaced. “Tastes like leaves.”
“So, what is this place? Will it help us find the generators or get out of here?”
“How about you lie down and find out for yourself?” He took another sip from the cup. “Whatever this is, it helps.”
“Don’t mess with me, Wade,” I threatened.
“Everything went dark and fuzzy and then I woke up. I have no idea what this place is or what this drink is. Want some?” He held the cup out to me.
The room started spinning around me when I reached for the cup. I fell against the couch. I bumped my ribs and cringed at the pain. Wade caught me and sat me down next to him.
“You don’t look very good,” he said.
I had a sarcastic reply but was in too much pain to use it.
He shifted off the couch and bent over to put the cup on the floor. I toppled slowly sideways onto the couch. The straps snaked out, waving around as they looked for my arms. I squeaked with alarm and tried to sit back up. I twisted wrong and sent spikes of pain shooting through my middle. The straps found my arms and circled around wrists and elbows, pulling my arms firmly to my sides. The inside of my wrists stung briefly. Whirls of light began to spin in my head.
“I didn’t mean it, Dace.” Wade pulled at the straps. “You didn’t have to lie down there.”
“I didn't mean to.” The hood slid over my head and closed him out.
Darkness filled my head, a fuzzy dark that left me floating warmly in nothing. It was peaceful. The pain in my ribs faded. I tried moving. My body was no longer connected to my mind. I panicked. That did nothing. I was still in the fuzzy dark. I made myself calm down. I couldn’t take a deep breath because I had no sensation of breathing.
I noticed a faint buzzing somewhere above me. I gave the thought a direction, it made thinking about it easier. The buzzing grew louder. And somehow more orange. Or maybe green. It tasted like berries mixed with grass. I stopped, mentally pushing myself away from the buzzing. Taste? How could it taste?
The buzzing paused, giving off a sense of puzzlement that smelled faintly like mint.
“This is too weird,” I tried to say. It came out as a flavor of burnt toast and was a bright pink.
The buzzing grew louder and brighter orange. It gave off a smell that I couldn’t place, kind of flowery but with a strong astringent overtone that made me want to sneeze. I tasted a weird mix of oil and sand.
I tried to gag, but without being able to feel anything, I don’t know if I did or not. The fuzziness around me went spiky and turned yellowy green. The smell shifted to wet plascrete and something earthy.
The buzzing turned blue. The smells faded away. I tasted a single bite of some sharp spice.
I tried to push the buzzing away. It came out as an overwhelming floral and squashed insect smell with a taste like fruit swimming in gravy. The fuzziness smelled bright green.
And then came the avalanche of sensations. Tastes, smells, colors, pain, tingling, numbness, cold, hot, the feeling of moving very fast at the same time of not moving at all, and a million other things poured over me. I pushed it away, sorting it as fast as I could. I found once I catalogued a scent or color or other thing it faded away. It was like lying under a very fast moving stream and having to sort the water molecules as they brushed over skin.
It ended abruptly. I floated in exhaustion. The buzzing was gone. The fuzzy darkness was back, empty and quiet, devoid of sensation.
A single spot of red light blossomed. With it came a single scent, a pungent smell that reminded me of a well-groomed animal. When I thought that, the smell altered. I squeezed it with my mind. The smell morphed into something more pleasant, trees and wind. The light shifted through a spectrum of colors. And suddenly the whole space was full of the scent of fresh baked cookies, the spice ones that Jasyn made so well.
The light blinked off. A quick rush of tingling washed over me, and the smell and everything else was gone. I smelled instead dusty metal and sweat. The hood slid away from my face. I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The whirring of the ventilation sounded blurred. I yawned and my ears popped. Sounds returned to normal, including a faint snoring coming from the floor next to my couch.
I turned my head. It was almost as if I’d forgotten how to move and had to tell each muscle and nerve what to do. I had to remind my body how to function. My head rolled to the side. I saw a thin table with another steaming cup waiting. I swallowed, my mouth felt stuffed with sand. I wanted that thick green drink. I told my body to sit up and get it. One finger twitched.
I heaved a sigh of frustration and tried again. I got my left hand to shift far enough to fall off the edge of the couch. I realized it hadn’t hurt when I’d breathed in. I tried it again, breathing more deeply, gingerly waiting for the pain to come. It didn’t. I breathed deeper, faster. My ribs creaked but didn’t hurt.
How long had I been lying on the couch? A sudden burst of panic did what my brain hadn’t been able to. My body sat, heart pounding, fear burning up the back of my throat. How long? Long enough to heal my cracked and broken ribs? That would be at least a month. I was off the couch before I realized it.
My head started spinning. I grabbed the narrow table while the room tilted around me. I closed my eyes, which helped. I squeezed them open enough to see the cup and pick it up. I drank the hot liquid. It tasted different, as if I tasted green and saw a strong taste of herbs. It was thick, but easy to swallow. The warmth hit my belly and spread through me until my fingers and toes felt fuzzy with it.
My head stopped spinning. I put the empty cup back and turned around. I felt good, better than I had in a long time. The panic subsided, although I still felt a nagging worry that I’d been on that couch a very long time. Had I missed my own deadline? Had the others left without me?
Us, I corrected myself. Wade was curled up on the floor next to the couch, sleeping. His snoring competed with the sigh of ventilation ducts. He didn’t look starved, so maybe I hadn’t been on the couch very long. He didn’t look any different than before.
I could smell him. And myself, I realized. My nose seemed hypersensitive. I reeked of sweat. I wanted a bath. I nudged Wade with my foot. He mumbled something and rolled onto his back. I nudged him again. He opened one eye and glared.
He came all the way awake with a start. Both eyes flew open and he sat up, staring at me. “What happened? You’ve been lying there for hours.”
“I have no idea what happened. There was the fuzzy dark but then there was this buzzing and colors and smells.” I had no words adequate to describe what had happened. I let my voice trail off. “We have to get out of here, if it isn’t too late already.”
“How are your ribs?”
“Fine. Maybe this is some kind of healing chamber.”
“I don’t think so. Why didn’t it make me feel better? Why just you?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just go. Someone else can try to make sense of it later.”
“You’re right. Do you think the generators are down yet?”
I shrugged. “Let’s find them and see.”
We headed for the door. It slid back as we approached. I frowned at it. For just a moment I’d smelled a whiff of vanilla. We went through the door and into the tunnel.
“Which way?” I asked.
“We came that way,” Wade said, pointing down the tunnel. He didn’t look very certain.
It all looked the same to me. “Which way is out?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Wade said.
Lights flickered and brightened in the tunnel, but only to the left. I tasted blue and knew the way I wanted was that direction. My hand that I’d put on the tunnel wall tingled with a surge of energy that left the taste of onions in my mouth. I jerked my hand back.
“That way,” I said, rubbing my hand and nodding to the left.
Wade studied me with a very funny look on his face. “I think you’re right.” He half turned, walking down the tunnel, but facing me enough to keep watching me. I caught up to him, walking next to him. He kept staring at me.
“What? Is my face suddenly sprouting flowers or something?”
“How did you do that?”
The lights ahead flickered and steadied at a brighter glow while the ones behind us dimmed.
“I have no idea. Stop staring at me. You’re giving me the willies.”
“As if you aren’t doing the same.”
We walked down the now brightly lit tunnel. We rounded a bend and came to a room where seven tunnels met. The third one to the left of us lit up when we stepped into the room. Wade started towards it.
“Wait,” I said, reaching a hand out to him. I wanted to try something.
A fat blue spark leapt from my hand to his arm. He jerked back from me, staring at my hand and his arm. A faint scorch mark colored the sleeve of his shipsuit.
“What was that?”
“When I find out, I’ll tell you,” I said, staring at my hand. It looked normal. I reached for the wall next to me. No sparks happened when I touched it. I touched my hands together, still no sparks. I reached for Wade’s arm. He moved away.
“I don’t think it’s going to do that again.” I took a step towards him, hand out in front of me. No sparks. He backed away anyway. I dropped my hand.
He looked around and realized none of the tunnels were lit now. He swore and ran a hand through his hair. He looked more and more nervous. I could almost smell the sweat that beaded his head. He was starting to glow with a fuzzy green light. The tunnels tasted of meat pies and smelled like asparagus.
I snapped back to my normal self so hard it hurt. I staggered a step, trying to drag air into my lungs. My side ached fiercely. The lights dimmed and blinked off.
“What did you do now?” Wade’s voice demanded from the dark.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. It was as if I could taste a line of snaking fuzzy energy flowing past me. If I let it, it would enter me and I would become part of whatever it was that connected through the couches.
“I don’t know.” I stood still. I was at the edge of an idea, one that wouldn’t form no matter how hard I prodded it.
The faint blue glow was still there. As my eyes adjusted to the very dim light, I saw the darker figure that was Wade. He kept his distance from me, as if I’d suddenly shown signs of a virulent plague. All of the energy and well being flowed out of me, sucked away by the fuzzy stream of energy. I sagged, reaching for the wall for support.
My hand passed through the wriggling stream. The lights came back on, half strength. I thought about an exit. A tunnel lit up. I thought about the room with the couches. Another tunnel lit up and the first one dimmed. I thought about the field generators. All of the tunnels went dim. I thought about getting out instead. The tunnel in front of me glowed with light.
“That’s the way out,” I said.
“How do you know that, Dace? Are you some kind of android?”
“Fine. I’m an android. I work undercover for the Patrol. I’m also the Emperor’s mother. Happy?” I didn’t wait for his answer. I shuffled down the lit tunnel, my hand pressed to my side.
The tunnel wound away, curving so it was hard to see very far ahead. I kept going, though my side was on fire. Whatever temporary relief I’d been given, it was gone. The tunnel kept going. I kept walking. Wade followed behind me. The lights came on in front of me and died behind me. There weren’t any intersections. The air smelled of wet stone.
What energy I still had was rapidly dwindling. I clamped an arm against my side and kept moving. If I stopped, I wasn’t sure I could get started again. I was so lost in my own misery that I forgot about Wade. The tunnel curved to the right and bent upwards. I stumbled when it changed slope. Wade caught me before I hit the stone underfoot. He grabbed my shoulders. No blue sparks exploded between us.
He wouldn’t look at me as he cradled me against him. He waited until I’d got my balance back and then let go. But after that he walked next to me one hand ready to steady my faltering steps. We started up the slope.
It flattened out at the top. A steep stair, cut into the native rock by a cruder method than whatever carved the tunnels, climbed up at the end of the tunnel. The blue lights lined it for only a few feet past where we stood at the top of the ramp. The air was noticeably fresher.
“The way out.” I had to lean against the wall. I was breathing shallowly, trying not to jar my ribs.
Wade waited, watching me. His face was pinched and hard, he was trying to hide something. He finally let it go, breathing out a long sigh and relaxing. “So who are you really, Dace? What happened back there?”
“I'm exactly who I said I was. I can’t describe what happened on the couch.”
“Why didn’t I feel it? Smell it, or whatever.”
“Who knows?” I was too tired to try to make sense of it.
“Are you ready to go on?”
“We’d better,” I said, pushing myself away from the wall with the hand not holding my ribs together. Neither of us mentioned that we might be too late, we might emerge to find the ships gone and us alone with the golden men.
I stumbled to the stairs, groaning as I lifted my foot to the first one. They were hard to climb, the heights were uneven, the stone cut crudely. I stumbled more than once. I kept my free hand on the wall. The light grew dimmer the higher we climbed until we were feeling our way in the dark. The stairway curved around itself several times. We fumbled our way to the top. I stretched one foot out and almost tripped when the stair I expected wasn’t there.
“I think we’re at the top,” I said.
A light flared in front of us, shining a bright beam into my face. I put up my good hand to shield my eyes. It was the familiar yellow of a handlight.
“That you, Dace?” The beam dropped to the floor. I saw a group of three people in the reflected light.
“Who’s that?” Wade called from behind me.
“Darus,” he answered as he came closer. “I’ve got Fya and Aramis with me. We just found Commander Hovart and the others. They’re on their way to find out if the rest made it up the cliffs. What happened to turning the generators off?”
“We haven’t found them yet,” I answered.
“Then we better get moving,” Darus said. “Less than an hour until dawn.”
“Where do you suggest we look?” I was tired and in pain and I’d failed. No one was going to be leaving.
“Back here,” Fya said from the gloom behind Darus.
Darus turned and shone the light back the way he’d come. I saw a brief glimpse of more rough stone walls before the light found Fya. He stood in what looked like just another crack in the wall.
Aramis stuck his head out from behind Fya. “There’s some kind of door back here. It’s locked.”
“Then let Dace take care of it,” Wade said.
Three sets of eyes turned to me. I wondered how much of a secret my lockpicks were going to be when I finally did manage to get off the planet.
“Don’t ask,” I said as I shuffled past Darus. “Where’s the door?”
He moved aside. I entered the crack and found it to be a tunnel just wide enough to walk through. Aramis squeezed to one side so I could get past him. The very end of the passage bulged to accommodate the door. I slid past Aramis, wincing when he jogged my arm that held my ribs still. I got to the end and turned to face the door.
It was a lot simpler looking than the ones I’d picked, smashed, and opened already. I lowered myself to the sandy floor of the cave and pulled out my lockpicks. I could almost hear Aramis raise his eyebrows behind me.
“I need some light,” I said.
The handlight was passed forward. Aramis stood over me with it and pointed it at the lock on the door. A series of lights blinked around one big hole in the middle. The lights flashed in a circle, first red, then yellow, then green, blue, violet, and back to red. The pattern repeated. I watched it stupidly for a minute, trying to think. The warm fuzzy energy tried to worm its way into my head, but it was weak and faint up here. I pushed it away and suddenly knew how to unlock the door.
I pushed the lights in a quick sequence, opposite to the direction they were flashing, and then stuck my finger in the hole in the middle. The door slid open. I gathered the lockpicks I hadn’t needed and put them back in their pocket.
Aramis stepped over me into the space beyond. Lights flickered as they switched on, as if they hadn't been used in a long time. I looked in, not attempting to get to my feet yet. The room was filled with banks of mismatched equipment. Control panels blinked on and off, lights flashing yellow and white. They looked almost familiar, some of them. I screwed my eyes shut, it could have just been the fuzzy energy stream making it look familiar when it wasn’t really.
Someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up into Fya’s face. The swirls on his cheek were more pronounced in the dimness. He looked alien and strange, but mostly concerned.
“Are you well?” He offered me a hand.
His hand was cool and smooth around mine. He lifted me to my feet without apparent effort.
“Thanks. Just a cracked rib or two. And no food or sleep for several days.”
He grinned, and the strangeness was gone. He wasn’t human, I saw the tiny scales on his skin, but he wasn’t alien any more. The last breath of strangely colored scented energy floated away. I turned away from him and entered the cramped control area beyond the door.