Encrypted (37 page)

CHAPTER 18

The sphere proved amazing. With the
journal’s help, she deciphered the runes on the outside, which were
a proclamation of ownership and instructions for firing it up. Once
she did that, a hole smaller than a grain of sand projected a
display above the sphere. It appeared solid but she could wave her
fingers through it as with an illusion. Plenty of practitioners who
studied optics could make them, but she could not fathom how it was
done with technology. She did not care either. It was the images
and runes within the three-dimensional display that enraptured her.
She found herself reading someone’s diary, and she could look up
symbols and terms she did not understand, as if a dictionary and
encyclopedia underlaid the journal. This was the type of artifact
every philologist dreamed of finding, something that held the keys
to unlocking an entire language. She marveled that the other team
had left it. Maybe they had not been up here, or maybe they had not
realized what they passed up.

“
How do you turn the water
on?”

Rias’s voice startled Tikaya so much she
dropped the sphere. It slipped from her fingers and clunked on the
high table where she sat. She caught it before it rolled off the
edge, though she almost dropped it again when she spotted Rias.

He stood by the tub, his weapons, boots, and
shirt already on the floor next to his rucksack, and a towel and
bar of soap on the ledge. She stared at his muscled chest. If he
had been on the gaunt side when she first met him, that was not the
case now. Hard to imagine someone filling out on that abysmal
military food, but perhaps it suited him. Scar tissue scored his
torso and arms: several old gashes and two dense knots where he
must have been shot. Some of those wounds had been life-threatening
and represented a lot of pain. As with Krychek, he never spoke of
it, never complained.

“
Should I be feeling
self-conscious under this scrutiny?” Rias asked. “Or are you only
looking this way while thinking about translating
runes?”

Heat flushed her face. She decided his first
question was safest to answer. “Push on that symbol and slide it
up, then rotate it for hot or cold.”

“
Hot? Excellent.” He
turned on the water and hopped up to sit on the edge facing her.
“You’re engrossed there. You must have found something
good.”

She brightened, taking this for an
invitation to share her findings. “Yes! It’s a journal someone
kept. You must be wondering about this place, these people. It’s
all explained in here, though if I wasn’t sitting here I’d think it
the stuff of a storyteller’s imagination. These people—they called
themselves the Orenki—they came from another planet. A group was
persecuted for their scientific research methods and driven out of
their homeland. They came here and experimented—this is chilling by
the way—experimented on primitive humans because we were
biologically similar to their people. They wanted to come up with
devastating weapons so they could return to their home world, use
them on their own kind, and take over.”

Rias opened his mouth to speak, but she
barely noticed. She still had to tell him the best part.

“
You’re going to love
these instructional, uhm, illusions—sorry, no better word for it in
my language or yours. The first one I found shows how to repair and
maintain this pumping facility. It looks like there are thousands
of sets of instructions on all sorts of mechanical things, though I
haven’t quite figured out how to search through them. They’re
organized by codes. But I
will
figure it out. It’s just a matter
of...”

Rias turned off the water, and Tikaya
realized she had been talking for a long time. And that she had cut
him off. She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, did you want to speak?”

Rias chuckled. “From another planet, you
say?”

Tikaya, deciding she should let him talk for
a while, offered an encouraging, “Mmhmm.”

“
I’m too ignorant of
astronomy to even ask how that’d be possible, but given what I’ve
seen here, I can’t claim to be utterly surprised. I’m hoping they
weren’t ultimately successful, because I’d not be comfortable
knowing beings capable of making such weapons were still out
there.”

Yes, that was an
unsettling idea, but Tikaya was more concerned about human beings
learning how to use those weapons. She could
not
allow the Turgonian emperor to
have this technology. Or a disaffected marine colonel. Or
anyone.

“
Rias?”

“
Yes?”

Tikaya wanted to tell him, ask him for his
help going forward. But when she gazed at him, at the scar on his
eyebrow and the war wounds on his torso, she stopped herself. He
might share her passion for academics, but she could not forget he
was a soldier. He had been loyal to a totalitarian government his
entire life, and his one disloyal act had cost him more suffering
than anyone should have to endure. Would he truly choose such a
road again? “You should bathe before the water gets cold.”

He watched her with sad eyes, and she
wondered how much of her thoughts he read.

“
After all,” she said,
“you’ve seen me naked. It’s only fair I get to see just how much of
a Turgonian legend you are.”

That drew a
self-deprecating chuckle, but not the repartee she expected. He
slid his trousers off and climbed into the tub. Despite her words,
she dropped her gaze to the sphere to give him privacy. She glanced
up a few times, but Rias seemed lost in thought. He was considering
Sicarius’s offer, she knew it. Probably trying to figure out if he
could work her into his life once he had everything back together.
She supposed, in some less than ideal scenario, she could see
living in Turgonia with him, but slaving for the emperor, creating
ciphers her own people would never crack if there was another war?
That was
not
going to happen. And even the rest made her grimace. He would
be off at sea most of the year, and she would be alone amongst
strangers, thousands of miles from her friends and
family.

“
That bad of a show, huh?”
Rias leaned against the tub wall, arms folded on the ledge, chin
resting on them.

She tried to disguise her blank stare but
doubted she succeeded.

“
The show—me,” he
clarified. “Nude. Never mind. I can see you’re busy with the
sphere. I understand the appeal of a puzzle, though I fear your
enthusiasm means I’ll be ogling only myself tonight.” His smile was
wistful but accepting.

“
Oh.” She shoved the
sphere into a pocket and ran a hand through her hair, which still
hung loose. “That wasn’t the puzzle I was pondering.”

Rias cocked an eyebrow. “No?”

Better to bring it up for discussion than
guessing at—and maybe misinterpreting—his thoughts. For all she
knew, he was musing over ways to remove a wart from his toe. “I
heard Sicarius talking to you.”

“
Ah.” He nodded with
understanding, but did not say anything. No words to assure her she
had nothing to worry about.

“
I couldn’t fault you for
being tempted, but...” She searched his face, but his eyes were
cast down, thoughts apparently turned inward. “Rias, I love you,
you know that already. But I’m not going to do anything to hurt my
people, and I’m definitely not going to work for your
emperor.”

“
I thought not,” he
murmured.

“
And...” She drew a deep
breath, “I’m not going to let Bocrest, that assassin, or anyone
else walk out of here with weapons that could destroy millions. I
don’t know how I’m going to stop them yet, but you’ll have to kill
me to keep me from trying.” She lifted her chin. There, she had
said it. Maybe it would have been smarter to lead him to believe
otherwise, but she did not want to lie to him, even a lie of
omission. Maybe that made her naive, but, so be it.

“
Good.”

“
Good?” She rapped a
knuckle on the table. “Would it be possible to get more than
one-line responses? Do I need to posit my statements as math
problems?”

Rias chuckled. “Oh, you’re hard on me,
Tikaya.” He dunked his head under the water, ruffled his hair dry,
hopped out of the tub, and grabbed the towel. “I was proud of
myself for baring my feelings to you last night. I’d been pacing
through the hills rehearsing that while the camp was conspiring to
leave me.”

Even frustrated with him, she had a hard
time ignoring the ‘show.’ He wrapped the towel around his waist and
padded over, rivulets of water snaking down the gullies between his
muscles. He sat on the edge of her table, and she reminded herself
to look at his face.

“
I’m not used to confiding
in people,” he said. “Being a captain or an admiral, it’s a
solitary vocation. You’re expected to be infallible, even
omnipotent. Sharing your thoughts, showing any kind of fear or
hesitancy, might crumble that facade, and that’s something men need
to believe in when chaos is erupting around them and odds seem
impossible.”

“
I’m not in your chain of
command, Rias.”

That drew a smile. “I know. And I’m thankful
for that. I’m glad you’re here to remind me... Yes, of course, the
weapons need to be destroyed. That’s too much power for one man to
wield, too much temptation. The easier we make it to kill, the less
time there is to master the art of knowing when not to.”

Tikaya nodded—it was everything she had
hoped he would feel—but his earlier thoughtfulness made her suspect
more remained unsaid. “But?”

“
But...” Rias combed his
fingers through his hair, spraying flecks of water. “You’re right:
I
am
tempted by
the emperor’s offer. I can’t help but wonder if I could have it
both ways. Help them with their mission, get my life back, and
figure out how to make the weapons disappear later on.” He picked
at the hem of his towel. “They’re selfish thoughts, not honorable
ones, but dear ancestors, Tikaya, I’ve missed this.” He waved to
encompass the tunnels and the marines camped outside the pumping
house. “Command, purpose, a challenge. When I’m not Admiral
Starcrest, naval strategist, I’m not sure who I am or what else
could be out there for me.” He turned his eyes toward her, the
question in the air.

Me
. That was her first thought, but she kept it to herself. She
was not fool enough to believe that she could dump herself in his
lap as the answer—a man like him needed more stimulation than a
relationship offered—but her second thought offered a neater
solution. She hoped. “Do you know what the prime groupings in this
language mean?”

His brow furrowed. “No.... Did you figure it
out?”

“
I haven’t an idea.” She
tapped a fingernail on the sphere. “I’ve learned that what we’ve
seen is one of four languages these people used, and this one is
all skewed toward mathematics and science. I may be able to
translate it eventually, but the numbers are beyond me. Figuring it
all out, finding useful applications for our own world, it’d be the
work of a lifetime. For someone interested enough to stick with me
for that long.”

“
Ah?” A hint of
speculation entered his eyes. “But you made it clear I wouldn’t
have a place on your islands.”

“
There are other countries
in the world. Maybe we could find one where you’re not wanted dead
on sight.”

“
That might be a
challenge. Doubly so, since I’m a penniless vagabond with nothing
to offer you except myself.”

“
I’m rather fond of
yourself.” Tikaya scooted to the edge of the table to sit closer to
him. “And...” She laid a hand on his bare arm. “Did you not say you
appreciate a challenge?”

His gaze dropped to her hand, then returned
to her face, and he smiled, the quirky half-smile that made her
insides tangle. “This is true.”

She leaned into him, breathing in the scent
of lye soap. His bare thigh touched hers, warm even through her
clothing. Too much clothing. She really ought to...

Rias slid his fingers through her hair, and
she forgot her thought as goosebumps rose across her flesh. He
removed her spectacles, and set them aside.

“
So, have you decided?” He
bent and kissed her neck, warm breath tickling her skin. “Is this
thing the bed?”

“
Uhm.” Tikaya laid her
hand on one of his broad shoulders, then slid it down his arm,
tracing the dips and rises of the muscles. “What?”

He drew back, eyes narrowed in mock
accusation. “You’re not thinking about runes, are you?”

“
Furthest thing from my
mind.”

“
Really?”

“
Well, it’s definitely a
distant second place to something more prominent.”

“
Oh, good.” He tilted his
head. “I
am
the
something, right?”

She grinned. “Let me answer your first
question. I think our current seat is the human equivalent of a
coffee table. I believe that sphere over there is the bed. You get
in and warm air floats you up and supports you. You can just lay
there or there’s an option for, ah, undulation.”

“
Sounds
fascinating.”

He slid off the table, faced her, and
slipped his arms around her waist. She leaned into him, lips
parting, and invited in his warmth. She tangled her fingers in his
damp hair, pulling him closer even as his arms tightened around
her. Where he had been hesitant before, asking permission, he was
sure now, and she felt his need. And her own. It had been a long
time for both of them, and she could never remember wanting someone
so much. Not just for now, but forever.