Artemis Awakening (40 page)

“I believe that room was the office of one of the engineers,” the Old One said. “All original construction.”

He let them escort him from the room. Cordie looked nervous. “The shouting from the dorm has muted. I swear shadows are racing about—one on four legs. I’ve been listening. What do you want me to do while you lock up the Old One?”

“Go reassure yourself that Zenobia and the rest have gotten away,” Griffin said. “I know I’d be worried. Then go down by the men’s dorm area. Stay out of sight. See if Adara needs help.”

“Done.” Cordie grabbed a lantern and was gone.

“Zenobia,” the Old One said thoughtfully. “I knew she was trouble, but she has a strong latent telepathy I didn’t want to do without. I’m sure that and closely related clairvoyance are going to be very important for connecting with the seegnur’s devices.”

“Tell us later,” Griffin suggested. “Pipe down.”

The Old One did, but Griffin could feel him watching, assessing. His flesh crept. Why did he have the feeling that the Old One still had a trick or two up those well-tailored sleeves? Maybe they should have knocked him out, but the Old One’s later cooperation might depend on how valued he felt.

And if I ever want to contact my ship, I fear I will need that cooperation. I doubt he’s shared more than a tenth of what he knows.

They were passing a junction of tunnels within the seegnur-constructed parts of the complex when the Old One broke his silence.

“Over there is the tunnel that leads to the Sanctum.”

Griffin looked, but saw nothing resembling an entrance. That didn’t surprise him. What did was when the Old One, who to that point had been walking between Griffin and Terrell with relative quiescence, suddenly twisted. Each man had maintained a firm hold on one of the Old One’s upper arms—quite an easy thing since they were both markedly taller—but had not otherwise restrained him. Now Griffin doubted that anything short of shackles and leg irons would have held their prisoner.

The Old One proved terribly strong and as graceful as a snake. He broke both their holds with ease. Light-footed, he ran a few paces, then leapt up into the air. With fists doubled over, he slammed into a portion of the wall paneling over his head. Paneling fell away, revealing a lever of modern construction.

“Take my work, will you?” the Old One said, hauling down on the U-shaped piece of metal. “I don’t think so—not you nor anyone else. I prepared against something like this from the start. You should have worked with me. Now, you’re going to be lucky to get out of here with your lives.”

With a loud clatter, something broke loose behind the wall. This was followed by the roar of falling water, a roar that only slightly muffled a series of successive crashes. The thunder of falling water grew. Moments later, a panel burst inward under the pressure, funneling water out as though through a hose.

Suddenly Griffin and Terrell were struggling for their footing. The Old One gripped the edges of the wall and hauled himself toward the ceiling. There he tore away a square panel and pulled himself into the dark space above. He didn’t look back.

Interlude: Tripartite

Neural network, seeded spores activated by annihilating desire, interlacing mosaic, pieces yet unplaced.

I greet you.

And you?

A bundle of emotions, contradictions …

How can I introduce myself when each day makes me stranger to myself?

Try.

Adara the Huntress. I greet you.

And you?

Killer of many. Murderer of none. Neckbreaker. Blood drinker. I have fingers and a thumb. Laughter for two—or three.

I greet you.

Greetings done …

What’s to come?

22

After the Flood

Nearly as soon as Adara identified the sound, she was up to her knees in water. Sand Shadow screamed in protest. Pumas were strong swimmers, but this was different. Adara shared the puma’s awareness that they were boxed in with water rising around them.

As the puma’s panic battered her mind, Adara fought to think clearly. Swiftly, she sketched an image of the tunnel, a reminder that there was at least one way out. She felt Sand Shadow calm, but she still heard screaming. This sound—more distant and diffuse—came from the men trapped behind the gate.

Would the wood and stone walls hold against the pressure? Probably not, but certainly they would hold long enough for the men trapped between them to drown. For a moment, Adara considered leaving them. Many of them had participated in the Old One’s cruelties—had been jailers and rapists. Some, but not all. She forged against the current, moving in the direction of the screams. As she did so, Adara first kicked off her soft shoes, then stripped off her trousers and shirt. She let her staff go, but kept the belt from which hung her knife and several other useful items.

Sand Shadow protested going back in as foolhardy, but only until Adara sent her an image of Bruin’s lessons—how killing in a good cause was not wrong, but torment and torture always was. Flashed into the image was the day they had tracked a wounded deer through a driving thunderstorm to grant the creature mercy.

Get out,
Adara sent.
Assure me the tunnel is still open or if we need to find another exit.

As she forged forth, the level of the water varied, sometimes only knee deep, others almost to her chest. It tasted brackish, so she deduced that someone—the Old One?—had discovered a way to flood the place in case of emergency. That he cared little who drowned was shown when she came to the area outside the men’s dormitory. Here the water was quite deep, possibly deliberately fixed to assure that any traitors would drown if they tried to take refuge in “their” quarters.

The darkness did not trouble Adara, but it was adding to the men’s panic.

She called out. “I’m going to raise the gate. The tunnel to the mainland remains open. You can get to land that way.”

She dove beneath the water, finding the bolts by touch and shooting them back. She moved swiftly out of the way as the men closest to the gate surged forward. She heard Boots’s voice, strong and commanding.

“Remember the night drills, men. Follow my voice.”

Adara was about to offer herself as a guide when memory struck her. Julyan. Not only bound and gagged, but stuffed into a closet. No matter what he had done, she could not leave him to die that way. Letting the current help her along, she swam toward the women’s facility. Either Boots would get his men out or not. If she didn’t help Julyan, no one would.

To Adara’s horror, the water was even deeper near the women’s facility. Had the Old One wanted to assure that his experiments would be destroyed? She hoped that Zenobia and Narda had gotten everyone out.

When Adara reached the closet, she felt little hope that she would find other than a drowned man, but the door—although of modern manufacture—had kept out some of the water. Julyan had forced himself around in the confined space. Although Adara knew he could not see her, she felt his dark eyes glowering at her.

Drawing her knife, she cut first the gag, then the bonds at his ankles, then those that held his wrists.

“Swim,” she said, pulling him upright, “if you can.”

“Stiff,” Julyan gasped. “I can’t.”

Adara grabbed him by his long hair and tugged. “Roll on your back and float. I’ll pull.”

Julyan complied. Towing him, Adara struggled through the increasingly deep water, glad that—unlike the mountain pools in which she had learned to swim—these waters were summer warm. Occasionally, she thought she heard others moving, but the corridors leading to the tunnel were all too quiet. Either her aid had come too late for Boots and his men or they had known a closer way out.

Eventually, Adara felt Julyan shifting, first moving his arms and legs, then rolling over onto his stomach. She barely had time to realize that she was in danger when he hit her solidly along the back of the neck.

Bright blackness flashed behind her eyes. She drifted into darkness as the current dragged her beneath the strongly flowing water.

*   *   *

“We’ve got to get to the tunnel,” Griffin said. He held his candle above the water, although he knew his chances of keeping it lit were minimal. “We don’t dare follow the Old One.”

“No,” Terrell agreed. “That fox will have traps set against any who would follow him.”

The sound of a woman screaming came to them. Griffin began to turn back, “Adara…”

“If she’s screaming like that,” Terrell said tightly, “then we’ll be too late. We’ve got to get ourselves out.”

Griffin knew the other man was right. Maybe because they were cradled in near darkness, he almost felt as he did when they spoke in dreams. He knew Terrell was in agony about abandoning the huntress, but knew, too, that there was no reason for three of them to drown.

“I know this section well,” Griffin said. “I memorized the way, in case I had to make my escape in the dark.”

“Lead,” Terrell said, placing his hand on Griffin’s shoulder. “And quickly. Water’s going to reach the ceilings before long.”

Griffin knew Terrell was right. Only the fact that the shuttle repair facility was huge had kept it from filling like a bottle under a tap. Then, too, it was likely that—building under water as they were—the seegnur had included drainage channels, but even those would not be enough to compensate for this vast influx.

He concentrated on guiding them in the right direction. He couldn’t count paces as he’d intended, but after his candle went out, he marked his way by feeling for cross passages. Progress was too slow. Their heads were pressing against the ceiling now. With every other breath, they swallowed water.

Griffin had kicked his shoes away long before, now he wished he’d gotten rid of his clothes as well, for their sodden weight was drawing him down. A surge brought his head against the ceiling, smashing his skull a blow that had him seeing stars where there were none.

I’ve lost count. We’re lost. Does Terrell know? How much longer …

His thoughts were stirring into a confused muddle when he heard a young voice say, “Hold out your hand. I’ll guide you from here.”

Numbly, Griffin did so, certain he was hallucinating but grateful nonetheless for the touch of the slim, somehow oddly shaped hand that grasped his own.

“Roll so you face the air,” the voice—girl? boy?—said. “I’ll get you out. You’ve done well. It’s not too far.”

“Adara,” Griffin managed as he obeyed. “Is she…?”

“My brother will find her if she’s to be found,” the young voice said. “Sand Shadow told us she needed help.”

Griffin accepted this. He had many questions but, for once, even his inner voice was still. He concentrated on his role in this human chain, one hand gripping Terrell’s, the other that of his unseen rescuer.

Eventually, they came to the tunnel. The water here was only chest high and the force of the current less.

“No inlets here,” said the young voice. “The water will get more shallow as we get closer to shore. Are you up to walking or should I tow you?”

“I’ll try to walk,” Griffin said, “but can I hold your hand? I can’t see which way to go.”

“Hold tight,” the voice said confidently. “I can see a bit.”

Terrell had also struggled to his feet. He coughed, then spoke. “Who are you?”

“I’m called Littler Swimmer. You know my mother. Winnie.”

“Oh…”

Griffin remembered how Winnie had told them that her family had been adapted as dive pros. This then was one of the children bred upon Winnie by rape and violence, apparently with gifts stronger than those of her—he thought that Littler Swimmer was a girl—mother. His rescuer, when he had thought to come to the rescue. Slogging through the darkness, Griffin felt curiously humble.

And hoped that Adara had been as lucky.

*   *   *

Adara awoke to warm sunlight. Her chest ached and she knew that she had swallowed a lot of water. Sand Shadow lay against her, the rough sound of her tongue on her fur as she put her coat in order stopping when the puma realized Adara had awakened.

The puma gave the whistle-like warble mothers used to talk to their kittens. Then, embarrassed by this sentimentality, she gave her demiurge a very clear image of Adara being dragged from the mouth of the tunnel, nearly naked and limply unconscious. Nor did she spare Adara the vision of herself vomiting up water, while Lynn alternately pumped on her chest and rolled her head to the side so Adara wouldn’t choke on the spew.

“Wait…” Adara croaked through a raw throat. “Lynn?”

“Lynn,” the woman’s voice said. “Ring convinced us to come here, said the rescue would only work if we came. We came.”

“And everyone?” Adara was thinking especially of Griffin and Terrell, but there had been so many others. Little babies. Women with eyes dulled by captivity and torment.

“Almost all safe,” Lynn said. “Hal has already begun guiding some back to our fortress. Ring told us who had to stay, including Little Swimmer and Littler Swimmer. Without their help, you and the others would be nothing but corpses.”

“And the others? Julyan. Guards?”

“No Julyan. A few of the guards came this way—mostly those who had begun to revolt against the Old One’s program. The others apparently went to an exit that led up onto one of the Haunted Islands. We don’t know if they made it. The Swimmers have gone in to find out what they can.”

More by force of will than any physical strength, Adara shoved herself upright. She ached in ways she hadn’t known were possible. No one had told her that nearly drowning was so painful. She coughed and turned her head so she wouldn’t spray Lynn with the sputum that emerged from her tormented lungs. Gratefully, she accepted a cup of warm, fresh water, so unlike the salty slime coming up her throat.

“Now,” Lynn said forcefully, “lean back against this tree and practice breathing. I know you have a lot of questions, but I don’t think we have the answers yet.”

Adara nodded. Carefully, she raised her hand to the back of her neck. There was a sore spot and the puffy softness of a bruise.

“You hit something hard,” Lynn said, the words almost a question.