Muses of Terra (Codex Antonius Book 2) (20 page)

“Agreed,” Ocella said. “Besides, we need to gather intelligence if we—I mean,
when
we get off this vessel.”

Kaeso’s mouth twitched at her optimism, but he nodded. “So which way?”

Ocella slammed her hand against the locked hatch.

“Fifty-seven,” Varo murmured behind her.

“I think we can stop counting,” Ocella snapped. Varo closed his mouth with an audible click.

She leaned both palms on the closed door and took deep, calming breaths. It had started out as a game after the first few hatches—how many could they try before one actually opens. They shrugged off each one as they progressed through the twenties. By the thirties, she was biting her lip. By the forties, she grew angrier with each locked door. Now she simply wanted to walk back to their cell. At least there she could sleep away the time rather than grow increasingly frustrated with each passing moment.

Kaeso put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I think we should go the other way.”

“Why not?” she said. She turned away from the door—and Kaeso—and strode down the corridor back the way they came.
 

For the fifty-seventh time she wondered what sort of ‘experiences’ the Muse strain was seeking with this hallway and its locked doors. Did it want memories of anger and frustration to know their mental breaking point? If so, it was doing an admirable job. Ocella was ready to snap Varo’s neck if he counted one more locked hatch.

It had taken them almost an hour to try fifty-seven hatches, but it only took Ocella twenty minutes to pass the previous fifty-six. It was twenty minutes of silent walking, for Kaeso and Varo were in the same frustrated mood, though they hid it better.
 

When she finally counted down to zero, she stopped. The opening to their cell should have been right in front of her. Instead, there was an empty bulkhead wall. She glanced up and down the corridor, but did not see the cell opening.

“Did I miscount?” she asked Kaeso and Varo, who stopped behind her.

“I counted fifty-seven,” Kaeso said. Varo nodded slowly in agreement.

Ocella gave a long shaky sigh.
Control, Ancile, control….

“This cannot be happening,” Varo growled in a low voice. “This cannot be
happening
.”

“Calm yourself,” Kaeso said in an even tone. Ocella wanted to snap at him for being so calm in such an insane situation, but her Ancile training kept her tongue in check.

“Calm?” Varo said, his eyes wide. “We’re standing in an infinite corridor, no doors open for us, and the one place in the entire
caccing
ship that seemed to stay the same is now gone.” He strode up to Kaeso and screamed in his face. “Why should I be calm?”

Ocella grabbed Varo from behind and slammed him against the bulkhead wall where the opening to their cell should have been. In a cool, even voice, she said, “Because
they
don’t want us to be calm. It’s not much, but at least we can bore the bastards.”

He stared at her in surprise. The swiftness of her attack seemed to have broken his panic. He blinked several times and breathed deeply. When his body finally relaxed, he nodded. “Sorry, Centuriae.”

Ocella let him go, and Varo grinned sheepishly. “‘Bore the bastards’? Some retaliation.”

She shrugged and returned his grin. “It’s something.” And then she silently thanked the gods Varo had panicked before she did.

Kaeso examined the wall where their cell should have been. He ran his hands across the smooth, dark-gray metal. From Ocella’s vantage, it looked as seamless as the walls up and down the corridor.

“It’s warm,” Kaeso said. “
Vacuna’s
walls are always cold. Along with every bulkhead wall on every starship I’ve ever traveled on.”

Ocella touched the wall. It was not blazing hot, but it seemed the same as her body temperature. She turned to the opposite wall and felt the metal. It too was warm.

“The floors are warm, too,” Varo said. He had stooped to one knee and had both palms on the burnished metal floor. “Just like the walls.”

“So?” Ocella asked.

Kaeso stared at the wall a few moments, then said, “Just thought it was interesting.” He motioned to the right of their former-cell. “I suppose we go right?”

He proceeded down the corridor without waiting for her to follow. Kaeso could be remarkably closed at times. It was one reason why they broke up the first time twenty years ago, before he married her sister, Petra. He was much better over the last six years, but he’d still occasionally shut down on her.

Like now.
 

She strode after him and stopped with him before another hatch. He tried the lock pad, had no success, and then proceeded to the next hatch.

“You have an idea,” she asked. “What is it?”

“The seed of an idea. The vaguest hint of an idea.” He glanced at her. “And I don’t want to give it away too soon since our friends may be listening.”

“Can’t you at least—”

A hatch opened far up the corridor. Ocella froze. She barely saw anything in the corridor’s dim lights, but she caught shadows far ahead and reflections off either smooth armor or glistening skin. They chirped softly, and skittering sounds drifted toward them. Another hatch opened and closed, and the sounds stopped.

Ocella, Kaeso, and Varo stood motionless. Her heart felt as if it was leaping into her throat.
 

“I passed through a room before getting captured,” she said. “It held hundreds of frozen aliens.”

“Right,” Varo whispered. “The alien zoo.”

“I must’ve missed that one,” Kaeso said dryly. “I guess the vessel unfroze some of them.”
 

Ocella wiped her sweaty hands on her jumpsuit. “I say we go down there. They at least know how to open the doors.”

“And if they’re hostile?” Varo asked.

“I don’t think they mean to attack us,” Ocella said. “If they did, they would have done it. They might be trapped just like us. Maybe we can communicate with them and work together.”

“Or they could be infected,” Kaeso said. “Or—”

“The point is, we don’t know,” Ocella said, glaring at Kaeso. “Seems to me we have no choice, anyway.”

Kaeso glanced at the wall where the opening to their cell should have been, and nodded. “So much for the boredom tactic.”

Ocella looked at Varo. “Are you with us?”

He nodded, though he didn’t seem pleased.
 

Ocella squinted in the dim light at the location where she saw the shadows and then proceeded down the corridor with Kaeso and Varo on either side. They didn’t bother with the hatches they passed. She focused her sight on where the shadows had been, lest she lose track of where she saw them. If that happened, they’d have no idea which hatches the creatures used.

A vile smell grew stronger with each step, like ammonia combined with swamp decay. When they were within twenty paces of the location, Varo coughed, then pulled his jumpsuit neck over his nose and mouth. Ocella and Kaeso did the same.

When they arrived, she said, “This about where you saw them, too?”
 

Kaeso and Varo nodded, their eyes watering from the stench the creatures left behind.

Ocella studied the hatch, then glanced at the two men. They both watched her. Even Kaeso looked desperately hopeful.

She turned back to the hatch and tapped the lock pad.

The hatch slid open.
 

Ocella had a brief moment of triumph before the stench assaulted her with a force that drove her to her knees. She coughed and gagged, and she was vaguely aware of Kaeso and Varo doing the same.

“Close it!” Kaeso gasped.

Ocella, on all fours, lifted her head and focused her blurry vision on the lock pad. She raised her hand to hit the pad, but paused.
 

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of octopod-like creatures squirmed in the strange fluid-filled ovals she’d seen before. Some crawled out of the ovals, the viscous fluid still clinging to their bodies. Other octopods assisted the emerging ones, chirping softly while cleaning each newcomer with their tentacles. None seemed aware of her, or if they were, they didn’t care.

Ocella slammed her hand on the lock pad, and the hatch clanged shut.

The stench still filled the corridor, but it was not as overwhelming as it had been moments earlier. She staggered further down the corridor with Kaeso and Varo. When they reached a point where they could breath without gagging, they stopped and sat against the bulkhead walls.

“Their births…,” Varo said between coughs, “…stink.”

Despite the continuing stench and the mucus flowing from her nose, Ocella started laughing. It was a frustrated laugh, a panicky laugh, one she knew contained no mirth at all. But she couldn’t stop herself.

“Really?” she gasped between laughs.

Varo and Kaeso stared at her, and then they both began laughing as well.

Perhaps madness
is
contagious,
she thought.
 

22

It took three more days for the alien vessel to arrive at Illium Primus, the lone Terran-class world in the Illium system. During that time, Cordus checked and double-checked each phase of his plan, from the way line maneuvers to the eventual boarding. He discussed it with Aquilina, the Romans, and Dariya—sometimes with all of them together and sometimes with each one separately. He even discussed it with Marcus Antonius, though the Muse apparition seemed more interested in talking him out of it than offering suggestions.

Given the risks, Cordus was surprised nobody else tried talking him out of it.

Dariya had run
Vacuna’s
engines to the breaking point trying to keep up with the alien vessel. Though they could not match its speed, they stayed close enough so that it only outpaced them at 0.25 T-gravity acceleration. Just as long as they could keep the vessel in their sensor range…

Cordus sat in the pilot’s couch on the command deck of
Vacuna
, Aquilina in the command couch. The vessel would arrive at the Illium Primus way line to Libertus within five minutes. The Illium system defense forces had wisely stayed away from the vessel and had kept ship traffic away as well. Fortunately, the vessel had ignored them and the Illium way station.

Why should it go out of its way to kick an anthill?

Cordus tapped his collar com. “Five minutes until delta sleep,” his voice echoed through the ship. “Get to your couches if you haven’t already.”

His delta display showed all but one crewman in their couches. Likely Ulpius, since the unoccupied couch was in the medical hatch next to Blaesus, who they had strapped in a few minutes ago.
 

“Ulpius, get to your—”

“Strapping in now, Centuriae,” he growled through the com.

Cordus didn’t ask what he’d been doing, but he did glance at Aquilina, who shrugged with a raised eyebrow. “Romans, eh, Centuriae?”

Cordus chose to ignore Aquilina and turned back to his tabulari to watch the alien vessel speed toward the way line above Illium Primus.
 

At its current speed, it would reach the way line in ten seconds. He had synched
Vacuna’s
delta countdown with the precise moment the vessel stopped before the way line. In that moment,
Vacuna
would use its quantum way line drive to jump inside the vessel’s shield. If it pleased the gods,
Vacuna
and the vessel would arrive at Libertus at the same time, but with
Vacuna
inside
the vessel’s shield. The timing would have to be perfect.

Cordus found himself wishing Nestor was behind him performing his pre-way line sacrifice of falcon livers. He blinked several times to keep his eyes free of tears.

A tone indicated twenty seconds to delta sleep and the quantum way line jump. He tapped his collar com and announced to the crew, “Engaging delta sleep.”
 

He ran a finger along the slider that controlled delta sleep and then verified on this console that each couch held a sleeping occupant. Aquilina next to him settled back into her couch with closed eyes and slightly parted lips. He watched her a moment, then turned his attention to the delta countdown. When it reached three seconds, he engaged his own sleep…

 
…and then woke to see stars in the command deck window.
 

He frowned and then checked the ship’s position. He stared in disbelief at the charts—they were in the Libertus system…but near the outer gas giants. The quantum way line engines had not dropped them within the vessel’s shield, but billions of miles from Libertus Primus.

He tapped his collar com. “Dariya, what happened?”

“Checking now,” she said over the com.

“We lost our window,” Aquilina said grimly. “The vessel is surely through the way line by now.”

“
Cac!
” Cordus swore. He tapped his com again. “Dariya, those engines!”

In an exasperated tone, she said, “The more you annoy me, the less time I have to figure out what happened.”

Cordus ground his teeth, knowing she was right, but feeling powerless to do anything.
A good leader lets his people do their jobs,
Kaeso’s voice echoed in his mind.
 

But how did
you
stay calm in these situations, old man?

Trying the doors had become an automatic action to Ocella, like breathing or blinking. She had lost count over how many doors they had tried since finding the aliens. She wasn’t even sure how long they’d walked, but her rumbling stomach and dry mouth insisted it had been hours since her last meal and drink.

She glanced at Kaeso, wondering how he could continue on without complaint. Whenever he tried a door that didn’t worked, he went on to the next, whereas Ocella wanted to scream and slam her fists against it. He had always been the cool one, while she had often let her passions get the better of her. She supposed it might be the reason why they had stayed together for six years—they brought opposite, yet necessary, ingredients to their relationship. They had often talked about marriage, but neither one seemed to have the courage to suggest a date. It was always “one of these days” or “when things settle down.” But deep down, she knew “one of these days” would never arrive as long as they continued with the life they chose. And she knew Kaeso knew it as well.