Divided: Brides of the Kindred 10 (20 page)

They walked along the long, straight road
in silence, their feet crunching on the hard surface. Or at least Becca could
feel
her feet crunching—she couldn’t hear a thing except her own breathing and,
faintly, the breathing of Far and Truth which came over her suit’s receiver
mic. The quiet was eerie, making Becca feel like she had cotton balls stuffed
in her ears. Also, her legs felt heavy—no, not just her legs—her entire body
felt like it was being weighed down with invisible weights.

Must be the gravity—maybe Orthanx is
slightly bigger than Earth. At least I’m not
too
cold,
she thought. As promised, the thin silver
suit seemed to be keeping her from freezing. Becca was a
little
chilly
but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. The temperature she could feel reminded
her of a winter day in Tampa which was to say, somewhere in the low to mid 60s.
Not exactly comfortable, but not horrible either.

Overhead, the sky was perfectly black and
filled with jewel like stars but the planet itself had absolutely no life on it
as far as she could see. No grass or trees of any kind, which she supposed was
to be expected, but there was something else missing which surprised her as
well.

“Why is there no ice?” she asked, looking
at Truth. “If it’s really as cold as the instruments said the whole planet
should be covered in it—shouldn’t it?”

The dark twin shook his head. “The water
would have boiled away as soon as Void lost its atmosphere. There is literally
none left to freeze and make ice.”

“This is a dead world,” Far murmured from
her other side. “Life as we know it isn’t possible without some form of liquid.
Wherever they are, the Orthanxians must have a remarkably long lasting energy
source. Do you agree, Brother?

Becca was afraid that Truth would say
something snarky back, but he only gave a noncommittal grunt and shrugged. Well
good—he must be taking her mother’s words to heart. For a moment she tried to
imagine introducing him to her mom—whose first question would be if he was
Catholic, no doubt. Her second question would probably have to do with why Far
was there as well because try as she might, Becca couldn’t imagine showing up
at her parents’ house with just one of them.

Might as well sew a scarlet A to my chest
as bring them both home for supper,
she
thought ruefully. But then, her parents wouldn’t be happy with
anyone
she
brought home—they had been bitterly disappointed by her decision not to become
a nun. Becca was pretty sure that her mom was still hoping she might take her
vows. Which
wasn’t
going to happen but her mom had a hard time letting
go of things.

Just like you,
whispered the little voice in her head.
Otherwise
you would have given up on Far and Truth long ago and gone back to Earth where
you really belong. Instead you’re eighty million light years from home on a
dead planet with no atmosphere and two angry Kindred warriors who hate each
other’s guts. Now if you were smart—

Her thoughts were interrupted as the road
they were on passed between the first of the tall, thin hills. They were
steeply vertical and strangely angular—like giant triangular monoliths rising
toward the silent, starry sky. In fact, they reminded Becca of…

“Buildings,” she breathed. “Look—a few
even still have windows. These are the Orthanx version of skyscrapers!”

Far frowned and looked upwards. “You’re
right. They’re crumbled and decayed but still standing even after so many
millennia—amazing.”

“But what about those?” Becca pointed to
the massive mounds of rubble dotted here and there throughout the ancient,
deserted city. “They look like they exploded. Did someone drop a bomb on them,
do you think?”

“Most likely it was meteorites,” Truth
said. “With no atmosphere to protect it, Void is vulnerable to extraterrestrial
projectiles.”

“Meteorites, really?” Becca looked in awe.
“They did this much damage?”

“This isn’t much, actually. I would guess
that the ones that hit these buildings were relatively small,” the dark twin
replied. “You only have to look at the surface of your own moon with its many
craters to realize how much damage such projectiles can do when there is no
atmosphere to burn them up or break them apart before impact.”

Becca had never visited the surface of the
moon. But she’d seen it often enough through the viewing windows on the Mother
Ship to know what he was talking about.

“I don’t see any skeletons,” she murmured as
they continued through the deserted city. “Do you think they all escaped?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Far answered. “Look—I
think that’s the entrance to the underground area.” He pointed to a vast,
shadowy staircase on one side of the long, straight road. The stairs led
straight down underground.

“This is it, all right.” Truth was
consulting a small handheld device. “The coordinates we want are almost
directly underneath us.”

Becca’s stomach dropped when she looked at
the seemingly endless stairs going down into impenetrable shadow.
They look
haunted,
she couldn’t help thinking.
Like the cellar steps in a horror
movie. The kind the stupid girl always winds up going down because she hears
what she thinks is her boyfriend calling. But it’s actually some evil demon or
monster waiting to tear her apart.

Becca hated that kind of movie—she always
wanted to yell at the idiotic character that she was going to get herself
killed. Which was pretty much what her own internal voice was saying now.
Don’t
be a damn fool! Get away from those haunted-ass stairs and get the hell out of
here right now!
it demanded.

But as much as she wanted to, Becca
couldn’t obey. They had promised to get a cure for the possessed warriors
aboard the Mother Ship and they had to go down those creepy stairs to get it.

“I guess we’re just supposed to go down,
huh?” she said in a small voice.

“I suppose so.” Far must have seen the
fear on her face because he took her hand consolingly. “Don’t worry,
mi’now,
I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Truth cleared his throat. “I am also
here.”

Becca gave him a look. “I thought you were
angry with me. That you didn’t care anymore.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Truth growled. “I
will still protect you with my life. As
any
honorable male charged with
the safety of a female would,” he went on, a bit too quickly, Becca thought.

“All right.” She nodded and extended her
gloved hand to him. “Then take my other hand.”

Truth scowled. “I fail to see how that
will help protect you.”

“It won’t. But it
will
make me feel
better.” Becca waved her silver gloved hand invitingly. “Look, we won’t even be
touching skin-to-skin. Please, Truth? I…” She bit her lip as she glanced at the
yawning mouth of the vast staircase again. “I really need to be between the two
of you right now. I need to feel protected.”

Truth looked at her skeptically and Becca
could almost feel him wondering if she was serious or if she was just trying to
get him to break down his self-imposed walls.

To be honest, holding hands with both
brothers at once seemed like a good first step to bringing them closer but
Becca wasn’t pretending just to get Truth and Far together. For the first time,
she truly felt the desire to be between them, to feel herself encircled by
their large, male bodies. To be protected by her men.

Void, or Orthanx or whatever you wanted to
call it was a dark, dead, scary place eighty million light years from home.
Becca didn’t care if it sounded girly or weak—if she was going to go down those
scary-ass steps, she wanted all the protection and reassurance she could get.

“Very well,” Truth said at last. “But this
is for your comfort only, Rebecca.” Grudgingly, he took her hand.

“Thank you, Truth.” Becca flashed him a
grateful smile. “I feel better already.”

“Yes, very well,” the dark twin grumbled.
“Then let us descend.” He nodded at the dark opening, which looked like the
entrance to a subway tunnel, and, as if by unspoken mutual consent, the three
of them moved toward it.

Chapter
Twenty-one

The scary steps seemed endless. After the
first few they lost the pale light from the stars overhead and Truth activated
the glow pack on the front of his suit. It was set at chest level and it
illuminated the steps in front of them going down and down forever into
darkness.

It’s going to be no fun coming back up
these,
Becca thought as they
descended.
I bet we’ll burn a thousand calories apiece—did the Orthanxians
used to climb up and down them every day? They must have been in amazing shape.
They must—

Her thoughts were interrupted when they finally
reached the bottom step.

“Whew.” Becca let out a sigh of relief.
“Thought those were never going to end. How far down are we, do you think?”

“Far enough,” Truth said grimly. “Come—the
coordinates are this way.”

He led the way across another flat, paved
surface into a vast tunnel with a curving ceiling high overhead. It reminded
Becca more and more of a subway system. But where were the trains? Or for that
matter, the tracks?

Maybe they used some other mode of
transportation,
she told herself uneasily.
They
were an alien culture after all—they probably had all kinds of weird ways of
getting around.
But though she tried to push the feeling away, she couldn’t
shake the foreboding hovering around her like a dark cloud. Something in the
vast subway tunnel just didn’t feel
right
.

At least there aren’t any weird echoes to
freak us out,
she thought.
No air to
carry sound waves means no spooky noises.
But actually, the lack of sound
was the spookiest thing of all. Becca felt like she was exploring a tomb—the final
resting place of some ancient creature that had died years ago and rotted away
leaving nothing but its unquiet spirit behind.

Stop it,
she scolded herself, squeezing her men’s
hands tighter for reassurance.
Stop freaking yourself out! You’re being silly.
So just
stop
it.

“I see a wall up ahead.” Truth’s voice
crackled in her ear, a welcome change from her paranoid thoughts and morbid
fantasies.

“And there’s a door—or what looks like
one,” Far added. “Vashtar must be through there.”

Becca looked and saw what he was talking
about. Far in the distance but getting closer was a vast, dull, copper-colored
wall, the apparent end of the huge tunnel. Placed in its center was what looked
like a pair of elevator doors—if they had elevators that big. These looked
large enough to admit an elephant. Had the Orthanxians been huge—much bigger
than Vashtar had led them to believe? Or was this doorway simply meant for a
lot of people at the same time?

Her eyes dropped from the door itself to
something on the floor before it. A huge pile of what looked like dry sticks
was scattered around, piled two and three feet deep in places. Most of them
were long and thin but some of them seemed rounded in a way that was strangely
familiar.

“What are those?” she asked, frowning. “Why
were they stockpiling sticks? For firewood or something?”

“I don’t think they’re sticks,” Far said
in a low voice.

“What? Then what are they?” Becca frowned
as they came to the beginning of the stick pile. It was so vast they were going
to have to wade through it to get to the door. Had the Orthanxians been trying
to erect some kind of barricade? To keep someone out of their inner chambers?

“They’re bones,” Truth said flatly.
Reaching down, he picked up one long, blackened stick and held it up to the glow
coming from his suit.

“Oh my God!” Becca felt suddenly sick.
“That’s…is that a femur? And the rounded ones—they’re skulls, aren’t they?”

Truth squeezed lightly and the bone
crumbled in his gloved hand. He dropped it and wiped his palm on the side of
his suit.

“Nothing but dust now,” he said harshly.
“Come, Rebecca—the dead can’t hurt you.”

“No they can’t but that doesn’t mean I
want to wade through a freaking
pile
of them.” Becca felt her stomach
roll over and wondered what would happen if she puked in her suit. “Mother of
God, were they stuck out here? Left to die? They must have been clawing at the
doors, climbing on top of each other when the disaster struck.”

“It looks that way from the way the bones
are piled on top of each other,” Far said quietly. “Here—I’ll clear a path for
you,
mi’now.”

“No,
I
will,” Truth said. “There
might be danger ahead—Far, you stay behind me and see to Rebecca.”

Without waiting to see if they would obey,
he surged forward, pushing a path through the knee and sometimes waist-high
piles of bones, clearing the way for them.

“Come,
mi’now.”
Before she could
protest, Far picked Becca up, cradling her in his arms like a baby.

“You don’t have to do that,” she
protested. “You don’t have to carry me—I can walk.”

“I don’t want you to. The fewer feet
stepping on the dead, the less they’ll be disturbed.”

Becca frowned. “You don’t really believe
that—it’s not like you’re superstitious.”

“Maybe not. Maybe I just wanted an excuse
to hold you.” He smiled at her and despite the grim situation, Becca couldn’t
help smiling back.

“You really are too much, you know that?”

“Too much and yet not enough.” Far’s eyes
strayed to his brother’s broad back as Truth pushed his way through the piles
of bones.

Becca felt a sudden stab of sorrow at the longing
in his deep, quiet voice. She
had
to find a way to bring them together.
But how?

I don’t know, but somehow I’ll do it,
she vowed to herself.
Even if the three
of us don’t end up together, the two of them
should
. Whatever it takes,
I’m going to get Far and Truth together like they ought to be.

As she finished making her vow, they
finally reached the vast, copper-colored, elevator-looking doors. Truth
examined them for a moment, a frown on his dark face.

“They’re sealed shut,” he announced. “How
are we supposed to get in?”

“Maybe by using those?” Becca nodded to a
small, flat panel to one side of the far door, exactly where an elevators call
button would be located.

But instead of buttons marked up or down,
there were three indentations in a row.

“Look—handprints,” Far said. “Three of
them.”

“I see them.” Truth pushed the crumbling
bones aside and cleared a path to the panel. The handprints were alien to
Becca’s eyes—the palms too narrow and the fingers too long and thin. Truth
tried them all in turn but nothing happened.

“Maybe they have to be pushed in some kind
of order? A secret code?” Far suggested. “May I?”

“If you wish.” Truth stepped aside and Far
put Becca down to try several different combinations with the three prints.
Nothing happened.

“Well, this is ridiculous,” Truth growled.
“If Vashtar was so interested in helping us he could have given us the
combination to get in.”

Becca had a sudden realization.

“He did!” She pressed forward, ignoring
the crumbling bones at her feet. “Look—he told us that his society was like
Twin Kindred society. Three handprints for three people. It takes all three of
us to open the door.”

“Of course,” Far exclaimed. “But whose
hand goes where?” He tried pressing his right hand to the middle print while
Truth pressed the left print and Becca pressed the right.

Nothing happened.

Becca coughed. “Um, I think
I’m
supposed to be in the middle, guys. Can we try it like that?”

They did and the vast, dull metal doors at
last slid open soundlessly. Behind them were another set of doors. The minute
the three of them were inside, the first set closed behind them.

“Ummm…” Becca swallowed, feeling suddenly
claustrophobic. The space was long but also very narrow—barely big enough to
admit the three of them standing side by side.

Before she could get too nervous, however,
a pencil thin beam of green light appeared from the shadowy ceiling and scanned
them from head to foot.

“Get back!” Truth was already drawing his
blaster but the light winked off almost immediately. A high, flutelike voice
said something in an alien tongue. Because she’d had the Kindred translation
bacteria, Becca understood it.

“Three to enter the inner sanctum. No
contamination detected. Allow to pass.”

The door in front of them slid open and
they found themselves in yet another vast, shadowy room.

But this room was filled with tanks.

“What
are
these?” Becca walked
forward slowly. The room looked like a warehouse. Rows upon rows of huge
rectangular tanks about three feet deep and seven feet long extended what
seemed like miles into the distance. In fact, Becca couldn’t even see the walls
of the room and the ceiling was lost in shadows. It was a truly huge space.

She
could
hear though—the sound of
her boots scuffing along the ground made her realize that the protective bubble
covering her head had disappeared.

“Hey!” She put a hand to her face and
touched her cheek. “My bubble’s gone.”

“That’s because there is breathable air
here,” Truth said. “The suit automatically retracts the atmosphere bubble when it
senses conditions are right—to conserve resources.”

“Of course.” Becca shivered. “It’s pretty
cold, though. My nose is tingling and my cheeks are numb.”

Far nodded. “Yes, but it’s not life
threatening—just uncomfortable—or the suit wouldn’t have retracted the bubble.”

“I guess.” Becca put her hands to her
freezing cheeks, wishing she had some hot coffee or tea to sip. Anything to
warm up. But since the nearest Starbucks was eighty million light years away,
it didn’t look like she was going to be getting a grande caramel macchiato
anytime soon.
Better suck it up girl,
she told herself. Aloud, she said,
“Well, I guess we should see what’s in the tanks.”

“Can’t you guess?” Truth walked forward,
reaching the nearest tank, which was dark. In fact, most of them were dark.
Looking across the rows, Becca could see a few that seemed to be lit from
within by a weak, flickering light but only about one in a hundred seemed
functional.

“Are they some kind of storage
containers?” she asked, joining Truth at the side of the nearest tank. It
seemed to be filled with cloudy liquid-or maybe it was gel. Whatever it was,
Becca wasn’t about to put her hand in and find out.

Truth laughed harshly. “You could say
that. You still can’t guess what they’re for? Come on—let’s go look at a lit
one and you’ll figure it out.”

They went down a long row of dark tanks,
all filled with the cloudy gel, until they finally came to one that had a soft
glow coming from within.

“Oh,” Becca murmured. “It’s pink—the gel
stuff, whatever it is, I mean.”

“Don’t worry about the gel—look at what’s
inside it,” Truth instructed.

Becca had a bad feeling in the pit of her
stomach but she did as he said. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned over the edge of
the tank to look into the cloudy reddish-pink gel inside.

At first all she saw were shadows, then
the shadows started to coalesce into a form. It floated up, closer to the
surface and Becca’s eyes finally made sense of what she was seeing.

“Mother of God!” She stumbled backwards.
“There’s someone
in
there!”

And indeed there was—a long, thin alien
shape was floating silently in the reddish-pink gel. It appeared to be
completely naked with orange tinged skin and a third eye in the middle of its
forehead, just like the one Vashtar had had.

“Storage tanks for living organisms,” Far
said quietly. “Maybe this is how they survived when the planet went rogue.”

“Indeed we did.”

The new voice caught them by surprise and
all three whipped around to see Vashtar standing in front of them. Or rather—a
ghost that looked like Vashtar because the little man was positively
see-through.

“I see you’ve found your way here. Very
good.” He nodded and smiled, clearly delighted. “I knew you would have the
necessary ingenuity to find us.”

“Yes, we’re here,” Truth growled. “And
we’d like to get the solution to our problem so we can get the Seven Hells out
of here and go home.”

Vashtar’s face fell. “Do you not wish to
hear—briefly—of how we all survived?”

“This room seems to tell the story well
enough,” Far said. “Did you suspect that your planet would go rogue and prepare
this place ahead of time?”

The little man nodded his bald head and
his third eye blinked.

“Indeed, we did. Our secondary sun was
becoming more and more erratic and we feared the worst. Accordingly, our
scientists developed the tanks—a place of safety where our citizens might
escape doom and destruction.” He sighed. “Most of them, anyway. Regrettably
there were not enough tanks for all—I trust you saw the bones?”