as we jogged to the end of the bridge and joined the robot. Tapping its status panel, I saw its remaining charge was fifty percent. Neither the Tech-slaves nor our armor were intended for lengthy underground travels. We would need to leave the robot behind once we achieved our quest if we were unable to access energy sources. Our battery packs would charge up to twenty zatiks at most, but if we desired to use the robot, we needed to share the charging packs.
The deeper we trekked under the mountains, the greater the imperative we stick to the maps of my memory. Carefully had I noted the water tunnels in the book I left with Naraxthel, as well as particular caves and underground passageways where were found rich veins of woaiquovelt, as told to me by the hunters who had survived such quests. My companions had the book, but the quest wouldn’t officially begin until we entered the havabuthe, the great cavern from which the underground network stretched into never-before-seen wonders and countless dangers.
Had we enough provisions?
Could humans survive the exertion required?
Should we survive the quest, would the Sister-Queens accept Ikthe’s bounty? With the Queen’s erratic and illegal activities, some might not blame us for quitting the quest and returning to Ikshe to demand justice. But our honor as ikthekal would forever be called into question should we abandon it, and so we would press forward in spite of our worries.
VELMA’s route through the passageways avoided cave-ins, and she informed us we would join the others in a zatik’s time.
“Two and a half more hours,” CeCe said under her breath as she crawled ahead of me through a small tunnel. “How are you going to squeeze into this one?” she asked.
“With caution,” I answered, hearing the scrape of rock at my back. I’d unattached my rucksack and pushed it along ahead of me.
The tunnel emptied out three veltiks above a cave floor, but CeCe maneuvered herself in position with ease and jumped the distance, landing after a graceful leap. Rumbling in admiration, I watched her brush off her armor for a jotik before exiting the tunnel myself.
While I worried for the humans, I found I was less worried about my CeCe. A twist in my heart caused a grimace. Just as I had intended when I granted her the shel armor, I’d granted her a measure of safety—for my own selfish ends.
“Why did you stay to help me?” I asked of her when we climbed up the talus of the opposite wall to our next tunnel. “You could have been thrown from the land bridge as well.”
“Not because I owe you,” she said, surprising me. “While on some level I’m indebted to you for saving my life, we’ve spent enough time together that I consider you a friend. I would hope we keep helping each other as something tells me this trek through a cave system is only going to get harder.”
“I was only just considering the dangers ahead,” I said.
“I wondered,” she said. “You got quiet, and I swear I could feel some kind of negative energy from you.”
I grunted. “Negative indeed. The quest for the Holy Waters of Shegoshel and woaiquovelt is undertaken but rarely.” We topped our climb and entered a large pass well-lit by several previously placed bead lights. “With only a fraction of the hunters returning, the stores of Holy Waters and our precious metal increase in value by great degrees.”
“What are the Holy Waters of Shegoshel?” she asked.
“Look to the small gray pouch at your waist,” I said. “Within, you will find a bottle of the Waters as well as a medicine cake and a smaller packet of medicinal herbs. Hunters never approach Ikthe without these items.”
She found the pouch and fingered it without opening it and looked at me, listening.
“The Holy Waters of Shegoshel are the only antidote to the venom of the agothe-fax sting,” I said. “If I fall to its spike, administer two drops onto my tongue, and I will live. We have also learned that its healing qualities expand to include the humans when they have succumbed to the cyanobacteria found in Ikthe’s atmosphere.”
“Everywhere on the planet?” she asked.
“Ik, though I’ve wondered if the shel would prevent you from contracting the illness,” I said. “I presume VELMA has been monitoring your health and would have encouraged more haste if you showed signs of respiratory distress.”
“You said the others have the antidote, right?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then it should be fine,” she said. “Since we’ll catch up to them soon.”
“Ik. Three of your colleagues almost fell to the illness,” I said. “It was well that your technology was able to diagnose and treat it. My people suffer from a disease that escalates every revolution.”
“What is it?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“The infant burial disease,” I said.
“The same one that took your heart mate. I heard the Queen and the maikshe talking about it, once,” she murmured. “It strikes unexpectedly and at random.”
“Yes. I’ve tasked one of the humans to help me discover its source, as I’ve run out of avenues to try. Amity studies many forms of life,” I said. “Perhaps her expertise and alien background will lend a new perspective.”
“I hope she can,” CeCe said. “Even though I felt burning hot hatred for the Queen, I could still feel compassion for the dams losing their precious babies.”
“You said you felt hatred. Do you still hate the Queen?” I asked, my curiosity besting my better judgment.
CeCe was silent for long rotiks.
“I don’t know how to answer that right now,” she said. “If I remove emotion from the equation and simply think of her in terms of her actions, I can definitively say that she should pay for her crimes. Possibly by execution. But I don’t know if I still hate her. Maybe.”
“A well-considered answer,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Would you fault me if I did?” she asked.
“Not one jovelt,” I said.
“Do you hate her? She imprisoned you, after all.”
“There is not much need for high emotion in an iktheka’s heart,” I said. “We kill of necessity. We mate of necessity. Our lives are ordered based on our most proficient skills. As ikthekal, we rely on our training and our armor to aid us in our tasks. It is seldom we would battle an enemy—a race or person who inspired hatred. Such impassioned combat could result in mistakes. It is efficient to kill without emotion.”
“So, you don’t hate her?” CeCe asked, perplexed.
“I hate her with the pure embers of molten woaiquovelt,” I said, galvanizing my thoughts. “She caused you unspeakable torment and would have let you perish alone and unnamed without a care. My hatred knows no bounds, and I will execute her without compunction at my nearest opportunity.”
When she didn’t respond, I thought perhaps I offended her strength and ability. “Unless, of course, you would claim that right. It is yours.” Her eyes had grown round at my vehement speech. “What?” I asked.
“That’s the most emotion you’ve displayed since we met,” she said with a wry smile. “You are—different—when you’re impassioned.”
Heat flooded my face at her words; I had no response.
After a half-zatik of gradual descent, we stopped to drink.
I had missed seeing the expressions that danced across her face when we spoke. Now that her helmet was off, I scrambled to think of conversation. Too long had I gathered dust beneath the fortress, poring over old books. I had not the exciting tales to match those of my brethren, nor much experience engaging in small talk with the stronger sex. I closed my canister, and she replaced her helmet, my opportunity lost. Only another zatik and a half and we would be surrounded by our company and pledged to the quest in earnest. Chances for quiet conversation would be buried in the dangers of the trail.
“Could we run again?” she asked.
Smiling inside my helmet, I decided this was a good time to train her in the use and benefits of her armor.
“Of course,” I said, and we broke into a jog. “Your armor is possessed of many enhancements,” I said. “Has VELMA instructed you about them?”
“She suggested you would be a better source,” CeCe said, and I felt blood heat my face.
“I have been a neglectful teacher,” I said. She scoffed.
“We’ve been a bit distracted; don’t you think?” she said. “Earthquakes, giant spiders, PTSD episodes. I could go on.”
“A fair observation,” I said. “Thank you for your kindness.”
She shrugged and looked at me, and I wished to see her dark eyes and rich skin.
“The sight-capture can shift from normal vision to many others,” I said. “Temperature-sensitive imaging, a vapors scan, underwater and light-absent. You will have seen the icon that indicates eye-blink control, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, and I recognized the tone she used when she was most studious. An engaged student.
“During combat, the suit may employ a lightning shield as a defense or as an offensive maneuver,” I said, recalling the time that Raxkarax lay under a pack of attacking devil dogs. “It is limited to but three uses before the shel and armor must be rejuvenated.”
“Okay.”
“Should we need to submerge in one of the underground pools, we may descend or ascend at will, using the armor ballast,” I said.
“And the shel would like that, right?” she asked. “Does it matter if it’s salt or fresh water?”
“Both provide equal, if slightly different, benefit to the shel,” I answered, pleased with her thoughtful question.
“What is the red light in the upper right-hand corner” she asked.
“It is the sight-capture comm,” I said. “In times past, the ikthekal used it to send sight-captures to the population of Ikshe, that they might watch our hunts.”
“But now?” she asked.
“My four brothers and I were presumed dead,” I said, my voice growing quiet. “Up until the BoKama brought me as captured prey to the Queen.”
“And that was a ploy, right?” she asked. “So you could find me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Thank you,” she replied. “But how did you know I was on Ikshe, and not somewhere else on this planet?”
By now, the path had grown treacherous with rockfall and uneven terrain. We’d slowed to a fast hike, and I watched with pleasure as she navigated obstacles with athleticism and finesse. But her question gave me pause, and I thought about how to answer. Did I share the dream? Or the odd sensation of the tether, or the simple yet unexplainable knowing that lived in my heart?
“I had a dream of an empty escape pod,” I said. “It sat alone in a dry desert of cracked soil, and then I recognized it was Lake Wazakashe empty of its water.”
“That sounds like a miracle,” she said, having taken a seat on a stalagmite resembling a chair.
“It came to me long before we thought there might be others,” I said, clearing my throat. “I had intended to ignore it as the foolishness of an aimless dream. I did ignore it,” I said. Removing my helmet, I looked down at her. “I did not believe it to be a message intended for me until it was almost too late. If I had come to you earlier …”
She ripped off her helmet and stood facing me. She was forced to look up, but she grasped my arm with both hands.
“No,” she said, her voice firm and her black eyes intense. “Don’t cheapen my rescue by saying you should have done it better or differently. You came at the right time. The only time.”
“My people believe in the Goddesses of Shegoshel,” I said, my voice thickening with emotion. “I ceased harboring faith in them when I was but a child. Some would say They sent me the dream as a gift and a warning. And in my disbelief, I dishonored their gift. And you.”
CeCe stepped closer and reached a hand up to my cheek. “I saw you before I was captured,” she said.
I could not have been more surprised if she produced a loaf of sister-bread from her ear.
“How?” I said, resisting the pull I felt to caress her cheek in reflection of what she did to me.
“Before I ran and hid in the garden, I spied on the market in front of the fortress,” she said. “I saw the monitors with video of the Queen. I didn’t know what she was saying, but she held up these stone circles, and said words. The camera would switch to different hunters, but one of them was you.”
“That was the day my name was drawn,” I murmured. “The same day the Queen exiled the five of us here.”
Nostrils flaring, I scented when her skin flushed, and it piqued my interest. Was it possible this legendary woman felt as affected by me as I was by her? I stepped closer.
“I couldn’t explain it, but I felt drawn to you,” she said. Then she pulled her hand away and stepped back. “I wanted to meet you. It sounds silly and strange now,” she said, peeking up at me. “But maybe … maybe we were supposed to meet somehow.”
Heart thudding in my chest, I yearned to press her to myself, encase her in my arms, and never let her go. But we were not true heart mates. She may feel gratitude for me. And perhaps a satiation of curiosity, having met me. Even friendship. But I couldn’t believe she would desire me. I must not encourage these feelings that could be as ephemeral as an awaafa’s wing scales. “Or perhaps it was mere happenstance,” I offered and turned away, but it wasn’t fast enough to miss the hurt that flashed in her eyes. “Whatever phenomenon provided the intuition that drove me to your side on Ikshe, I am grateful,” I said, looking back at her. “Your life is too precious to have been wasted by the Ikma Scabmal Kama.”
As much as I longed to pull CeCe to me, I clasped my hands behind my back. “And as you said before, we have a friendship that may give us dividends as we help one another.” The light in the chamber provided by bead lights was sufficient to catch the moment CeCe’s eyes darkened and mouth thinned. She cleared her throat.
“Yeah, it’s great,” she said, though her tone lacked enthusiasm or spirit. She replaced her helmet, and after a jotik, I did mine as well. “Let’s get going, then, hey?” she said.
I recognized the false cheer but would not address it as I had done days ago. My words were perhaps not what she had hoped to hear from me, but I knew I was right.
When the days wore into weeks and months, when she was forced to replace her armor the first time after going without and relived the pain of the shel joining her skin, I couldn’t bear to see the accusation in her eyes. It was better to remain friendly companions. Of this, I was convinced.