The Seek (28 page)

‘What’s that?’ Kyn folded her arms. He knew damn well that she didn’t like to be taken out of her comfort zone
.

‘It’s a blindfold,’ he said, like he was saying ‘it’s an ice-cream’. ‘Now turn around, Grumpy, and put it on.’

Kyn hesitated, then turned, thinking about the blackness and swallowing hard. This was Symon; she was safe. He positioned the thing carefully over her eyes and then leaned in close to tie the knot. ‘No peeking,’ he said, and his breath caught her earlobe, sending little jolts of electricity to her nipples
.

Get a grip, Kyntura. This is Symon.

She figured it must be pre-signup nerves
.

She allowed herself to be guided from behind down the corridor they were standing, and then more and more. She tried to keep track of where they were going but all the while Symon spoke to her, distracting her with jokes and stories, so she was entirely disoriented. Up and down stairs, through hatches, into warm spaces and cool
.

Finally, they stopped and he positioned himself behind her again. ‘Are you ready?’ His voice was deep and growly behind her and she had that sense again
—
that he had gone and turned into a man when she wasn’t looking
.

‘Ready,’ she said, feeling her tummy contract. She really didn’t like surprises
.

He gently lifted the blindfold, and when it was gone Kyn saw what he had done. They were somewhere on the ship, she could see that, but she had no idea where. A massive perspete viewing window dominated her vision, and laid out before it was some kind of deep space picnic. A largish square of what looked like grass took pride of place
.

He saw her staring at it. ‘Tabi helped.’ He shrugged. ‘Trainee explorers get access to the specimens. It’s real; feel it.’

She knelt down and touched the grass, and he was right. It was cool and slightly damp. He shrugged again. ‘I wanted it to have that after-rain smell,’ he said
.

On the grass a picnic rug was laid
—
red checks and all. And a meal
—
the usual, processed fare with some crackers, and…Kyn’s breath caught. ‘Dom Perignon?’

‘Hey,’ he said, smiling broadly at her. ‘You only turn eighteen once.’

‘But where..?’

He put a finger to his lips. ‘I have my sources.’

He motioned for her to sit, and she did. Then he reached into a small basket in the very centre and pulled out a brightly wrapped box. ‘For you, Kyntura,’ he said, and the way he was looking at her and the sound of his voice told her he wasn’t thinking of her as his best friend, not even maybe his friend. Something else entirely
.

She opened the gift speechlessly. ‘It’s an orange,’ he said, as she stared at the thing inside. ‘Tabi’s worked out how to grow them, from some DNA she found.’

Kyn held it up
—
it was bright orange perfection, its dimpled skin a promise of summer sweetness
.

‘Symon,’ she said slowly, turning the thing around in the dim light. ‘You are so sweet.’

‘No, I’m not, Chickita,’ he said, leaning forward and capturing her mouth in his. He drew back a little. ‘I’m not sweet at all. In fact, lately, every time I look at you, I feel far, far from sweet.’ His mouth pressed hard against hers, and his lips were warm and firm and hard and soft. His tongue pushed inside her mouth, lighting a fire in Kyn’s belly and making her moan a little, low in her throat
.

‘Me too,’ she said, wondering vaguely why it didn’t even occur to her to play it cool
.

She tried hard to remind herself that she was going tomorrow, that she should not be doing this, that she should be doing anything but this. But he was kissing her and winding his hands in her hair and she couldn’t think
.

She could only act
.

Symon pushed her down onto the rug and feathered kisses over her face, her neck and her ears. He whispered to her of the desire he had for her, how it had been growing, how he had wanted tonight to be so special, but it had been so hard to keep himself from kissing her that he’d had to stay away
.

Neither of them were in any mood to take it slow. Symon was fumbling with her top as she tore at his. In seconds, he was naked beside her and she marvelled at the beauty of him. She had seen him naked when they’d been kids, but not for a long time, she realised. Her eyes slid to his sex and widened. Not for a long, long time
.

He dispensed with her top in seconds and his head lowered to her breasts. ‘Oh, Kyntura,’ he breathed. ‘You are so perfect.’

And she felt it
.

Except for the fact that she knew she should be telling him tomorrow she would leave, and never come back. She would be an Avenger. But she couldn’t
—
it would blow the lid off everything
.

And Pietr
.

Pietr would never forgive her
.

She knew it was bad, knew it was so, so wrong but she just wanted to have this, take it, just this one little thing
.

When he took her, it was like a piece of her that had been missing for seven years found its way home. Like she remembered who she was. This girl. This girl, capable of love and warmth, and having something beautiful. She opened herself to him willingly and wholly. She held the side of his face as he pushed into her, trying to imprint the outline of him on her brain
.

Her Symon
.

Her man
.

Her first love
.

***

As Kyntura gathered herself to step back out and round up those who were left for the journey home, she paused in the hatch, watching the familiar-but-strange light of this place, and thinking about all they had lost here. It had been horrible, but she knew something now and for sure: this was not their home; it belonged to the others. In some way she couldn’t understand; it belonged to them, whether they lived there full-time or not.

As she paused, watching and listening, she felt it, a shift in the air, and her cells took over. She spun quickly, grabbing the hand before it could connect with the delicate skin of the back of her neck. She twisted the arm attached to it brutally and threw the creature down the exit ahead of her She watched its orange body hit the ground hard, before six sabres circled it. Tabi barely looked up from her vigil over Asha.

Symon’s eyes groped for hers. ‘Kyntura. You okay?’

She nodded, pointing to the creature she had dispatched far more easily than the others they had met. ‘Yeah, but it’s not.’

She had felt it as she’d grabbed the hand and flung the thing away, but she saw the truth of it now. It was injured, looked to have been injured for some time. Kyn assumed it had sustained the slashes on its torso during the fight for the pod, and been hiding out somewhere as she had done the check of the ship.

It lay very still within the circle of sabres, its orange skin dull and wet looking, its chest rising and falling slowly. Kyn exited the pod carefully and moved over, kneeling to examine it. This one bore the scars of solar whips as the other one had, its body decorated with shiny ridges as well as the evidence of its latest fight on the pod.

Mirren raised an eyebrow at Kyn. ‘Should I finish it?’

Something about the creature, so broken, its body so ravaged with past torture, grabbed hold of Kyn’s heart and squeezed it. She opened her mouth to speak.

‘No,’ Symon said, stepping away and dropping his sabre. ‘It’s almost done. Leave it.’

The others waited for Kyn. She nodded. ‘Leave it. We’re going.’

As she turned to gather the group for the return trip, Tabi’s sobs broke through into her consciousness again. And the creature lying dying among them seemed to register the sound as well. It turned its head, slowly, tentatively in the direction of Tabi and Asha. The little group watched as the creature took in Tabi’s grief. Then it opened its mouth and began to echo her pain in a long, low howl.

Tabi leapt to her feet, her sabre aloft. ‘Make it stop,’ she spat. ‘One of you, make the damn thing stop.’ She raised her sabre over the creature, her face streaked with tears, red and defiant. ‘Or I will.’

But no-one moved.

Tabi was almost vibrating with fury and Kyn knew she needed to take action. ‘Get on, everyone,’ she said. ‘Symon, you and Tabi get Asha’s…get Asha on board. I’ll deal with this one.’

Tabi and Symon moved back to Asha’s body and the others climbed into the pod. Kyn inched closer to the dying creature, her brain telling her the coup de grace was the only thing she could do for it right now, and wondering why she cared.

As she bent closer, her sabre bared, she felt a jolt.

I can help
.

Kyn shuddered. Holy fuck. The thing had just spoken to her, to her brain.

She turned, checking whether the others had noticed. Tabi and Symon were moving into the pod with Asha, and the others were gone.

She looked at the thing’s dull eyes and listened to its laboured breathing. ‘What do you mean?’

It raised one long arm and gestured to the pod.
The one you think is gone. Take me to him
.

***

‘No.’ Tabysha’s voice shook. ‘I don’t want that thing anywhere near him. I don’t care what shit it’s planting in our heads about regeneration. They killed him. Killed so many of us.’

Kyntura, Tabi and Symon were gathered in the tiny med bay of the pod. Asha’s body was laid out on one slab; the dying creature on the other.

‘As we did to them,’ Symon said, shrugging, his voice on max growl.

His sister stared him down. ‘You really think I should let that thing touch him? You loved him too.’

‘Well,’ Symon said, shrugging again. ‘It sure as hell can’t hurt him.’

This time they all heard it, like an agonised sigh.
I don’t have long
.

Tabi edged closer to the Haitite, its dull orange skin now bleeding to a washed out yellow. ‘Why?’ Her voice was whisper. ‘Why do you want to do this?’

The thing closed its eyes briefly.
It is what we do
.

Tabi waited.

And there is no-one else here who needs my death-force
.

Tabi looked hard at the thing, and then back at Asha’s lifeless body. Then she nodded, the tiniest of nods.

Symon signalled to Kyntura, and between them they lifted the creature up, and placed it on top of Asha’s inert body, so their faces were very close.

‘How long?’ Kyntura’s voice sounded strange to her ears. What the hell was she doing? What the hell was happening to her?

I am going very soon
.

And they felt it. It was almost as though a vacuum portal had opened in the little room. A sucking drag made their limbs heavy and it became hard to breathe as the thing before them, the thing lying on their friend, seemed to shrink and quiver. Its breaths slowed until each seemed bound to be the last.

Then it opened its mouth and breathed its last breath into Asha’s partly opened mouth, and was still.

Symon, Tabi and Kyn waited. Seconds stretched, elastic and cruel.

Then Tabi snapped. ‘Take it off him,’ she said, her voice catching.

Kyn and Symon quickly pulled the thing off Asha’s body and placed it back on the next slab.

Asha’s beautiful brown face was peaceful in death. He looked like he might open his eyes, smile and tell a joke. Except that the ugly gash in his neck, and the blood on his face and lips, told another tale.

A new peace seemed to have settled over Tabi. ‘You two need to go,’ she said. ‘Get us out of here. Take us home.’ Her lips curled as she said the last word, but there was no joy in her face. ‘Wherever the fuck that is.’ She placed a proprietal hand on Asha’s chest. ‘I’m going to clean him up.’

Symon nodded, and walked over to his sister. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead. ‘Come up when you’re ready,’ he said.

She nodded, and Symon moved back to Kyn, and placed a hand under her elbow.

Feeling like she was watching her body from somewhere else, Kyn moved towards the hatch with Symon. As her finger touched the pad, Tabi swore from behind them.

Symon and Kyn turned as one. Tabi was frowning at her lover’s body.

Kyn held her breath. She didn’t believe in fairy-tales.

‘His heart,’ Tabi said, a smile spreading across her face. ‘It’s beating.’

***

When they exited the pod, it was like the moment they had first arrived on Earth Five. Was that really only a couple of days ago? The Governor and other officials were waiting for them, and there, standing at the end of the line, almost inconspicuous, were three old women. Older, certainly than the last time Kyn had seen them, but unmistakeable with their air of kindness and authority.

‘Who are they?’ Mirren’s whisper cut through the docking bay.

Old people were rare on New Earth.

‘Survivors,’ Kyn hissed. ‘Stay here.’

She strode forward to the women, pausing to accept the Governor’s sympathies along the way, and asking her to see to the wellbeing of her charges, the few who had survived.

As she stood in front of them, the brown one, so much older now, took her elbow. ‘Come, Kyntura,’ she said. ‘You have much to tell us.’

***

Two hours later

Kyn passed Tabi as she entered the med bay. Her friend’s face was alight. ‘He’s out,’ she said. ‘But all his vitals are good. Strong.’ She shook her head. ‘Incredible.’

‘Yes,’ Kyn agreed, squeezing her arm. ‘Where are you off to?’

Tabi grimaced. ‘They’re making me get a check-up. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

Symon was keeping watch by Asha’s bed. He didn’t even look up as she came in. ‘So. What did the Council say?’

Kyn stared at him across Asha’s bed. ‘What did you just say?’

He sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. ‘I know, Kyntura. Bloody hell, surely you know by now that I know?’

‘But…?’ Kyn’s brain struggled to keep up. ‘How?’

Symon smoothed Asha’s sheets down and squeezed his hand. He was heavily sedated. He moved over to stand beside Kyn’s chair. ‘Come on, Chickita,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to show you.’