Torrent (27 page)

“What’s that?” I asked. “More than the sword.” It was as if a bank of lights had been turned on.

“Let’s find out.” Temi urged us forward.

Despite my resolution to wait for her, I found myself jogging at the end. If there were more people in alcoves, I felt obligated to try and help them before the monster found them and attacked. Or before our pointy-eared friends did something to them. Who knew if their plans were any friendlier than those of the creature?

I rounded the bend ahead of the others, entering a chamber of alcoves like the first one, except that a couple of impressive stalactites dangled from the ceiling with water dripping from their tips. The rivulets ran down the slope, filling a pool in front of a striated wall. A round oval on the ceiling was acting like a light fixture, shedding powerful illumination that pushed the shadows from every corner of space. It also brightened the four alcoves, these with the stone columns still framing their entrances. I picked out another Roman, this one from an earlier era, a Mongol warrior, a Celt in chain mail, and a Spartan hoplite in crimson chiton and cloak with a spear, shield, and short sword. We hadn’t seen anyone from a period later than 1500 CE or so. No suitable warriors to select from in recent centuries? Or was someone a fan of the earlier time periods?

At the moment, the men appeared like statues, though their feet dangled a foot above the stone floor, their bodies suspended in midair. Their eyes were closed, as if they slept. Eleriss had gone to the end and waved his hand, causing an oval that I could only guess was a control panel to protrude an inch. It was made from the same limestone as the cavern wall and blended seamlessly. If there’d been a similar panel in the other chamber, I hadn’t noticed it.

Jakatra waved at the first two men, made a disgusted sound, and spoke a few words in his own tongue.

Trying not to draw their attention, I sidled closer. I paused to consider the last man more thoroughly, not only because he had a handsome face—I could imagine some sculptor trying to get him to stand still in pre-photography days to capture his prominent cheekbones and strong jaw—but because he might be some ancestor of mine. Well, probably not—my grandparents claimed they could trace our family’s heritage all the way back to the scholars and philosophers of Athens, people who probably would have sniffed in disdain at Sparta’s militaristic isolationism. Still, we had the country in common.
If
he’s real, I reminded myself. Then I shook my head because I had no idea what “real” would mean. These couldn’t possibly be actual human beings who’d been snatched from different periods of history. They had to be a part of someone’s modern science experiment. Fakes.

Yeah? Then why had that
fake
Roman spoken
real
Latin?

“Stand back,” Eleriss said.

He was talking to me. He stood before his control panel, a hand raised. Jakatra had returned to the tunnel mouth—it seemed to be the only entrance leading into this chamber, though Simon was poking around in a giant alcove on the wall opposite of the smaller ones. Temi was waiting near the tunnel as well, the old spear still in her grip. Simon leaned closer to examine something on a stone wall. Maybe he’d found the laboratory. I ought to go check, but I wanted to see these men returned to life, if that was what Eleriss intended. I took my step back and waited.

He lifted both hands to the panel and tapped against it, as if he were typing on a keyboard—except that I couldn’t see any keys. I might have moved in for a better look, but something was happening inside the chambers. Light seeped out of the sides, and thanks to Simon’s mention of cryonics, I thought of a heat lamp thawing slabs of frozen meat. It wasn’t as if there were ice crystals glittering on the men’s eyelashes, but the image persisted.

The lights winked out in the first two alcoves first. The men dropped like rocks and pitched forward face-first.

Though I’d already stepped back, I jumped back farther. They didn’t move.

Jakatra said something that I interpreted as, “I told you so,” and Eleriss’s, “Kss tess” might have been an, “I know.”

“Those two… didn’t make it?” I asked.

“It has been centuries since these units were serviced,” Eleriss said. “Mechanical failure is unfortunate but expected after such inattention.”

“Centuries?” I mouthed and met Temi’s eyes. She shrugged back at me. I would have shared incredulous looks with Simon, too, but he’d figured out how to turn on a light—or perhaps it had simply come on automatically at his presence—and didn’t seem to be paying attention to what was going on out here.

“Are you saying that these are human beings that were taken from their people for—” my mind cringed away from the word experimentation, “—some reason and frozen here until they were needed again?”

“Frozen?” Eleriss asked.

“Yeah, like cryonics.”

Eleriss said a few words to Jakatra and received a one-word response.

“Oh, no, that would require extensive repair to tissues,” Eleriss said. “This process is different.”

“Care to explain it?”

“Your language lacks the words.”

“Words can be combined and altered to have new meanings. You could try to explain it.”

“Your people also lack the… foundation to understand,” Eleriss said.

My fingers were clenched into fists. I forced them to unwind. What was I going to do? Punch him for calling humans stupid? I didn’t necessarily disagree; I just found his answers more frustrating than silence.

“Is it possible,” Temi asked, “that the others died that way as well? That they were already dead when the creature came, and that they didn’t… suffer?”

I grimaced, understanding the question. Though the Roman had clearly not been dead beforehand, it’d be easier to stomach the grisly treatment of the others if we could believe they’d died long ago.

“No,” Eleriss said, apparently not one to lie, even if it would make a woman feel better. “Those chambers were all functioning adequately. In reflection, we should have woken those people first, but they were…” He glanced at Jakatra, as if wondering if he’d said too much.

Jakatra was listening, but he didn’t glower or shake his head this time. That made me uneasy. Why did I have the feeling he thought we’d already learned too much, and it didn’t matter what else was said, because he wasn’t planning on letting us out of this place? I eyed the alcoves, wondering if they could be reused. The centurion’s warning ran through my mind again.

“They were the worst criminals,” Eleriss continued. “It is unlikely we could have worked with any of them.”

“The
worst
?” I asked. “Are you saying these were all criminals?”

“Yes.”

“What were their crimes?”

“Sabotage. Torture. Murder.”

“Then why were they preserved?” I was no longer certain I wanted to feel a sense of kinship with the Spartan. “Why weren’t they hung or quartered or whatever they did back then?”

“It is not our people’s way to kill if there is a viable alternative.” Eleriss glanced at Jakatra, or maybe he was looking at the tunnel.

“Your people.” I had about a thousand questions, including one asking who the heck his people
were
, but I was still trying to wrap my mind around these hibernating men. “Why would your people have chosen their punishment when they’re human beings? They
are
human beings, aren’t they?”

“They are, but their crimes were against my people.”

“Centuries ago?” I massaged the back of my neck. Was he saying that his people had been here, on Earth, hundreds of years ago? I glanced at the Spartan. Make that thousands of years ago.

“Yes.”

Jakatra said something and pointed at the Celt and the Spartan.

“Yes,” Eleriss said, “I will try.”

“Are these the least worst of the criminals?” I asked. It was stupid—the Spartan should be no different to me than any of the others—but I wanted him not to be a murderer.

Eleriss hesitated. “No. We went to those men first, but their units had also failed.” He turned his back to me, as if to say he was done answering questions, and typed on the invisible keyboard again.

I was watching the Spartan, so I almost failed to notice the walls light up in the Celt’s alcove. They highlighted a ruddy face beneath a thick red beard and a squashed nose that had been broken a time or two. He had a barrel chest beneath his chain mail and a golden torc gleamed about his neck. His stout legs were clad in plaid trousers and, and he gripped an iron long sword before him. I happened to be looking at his face when his eyes popped open. They were a vivid green that would have been captivating, but there was a wildness about them that repelled me.

His feet hit the ground and the clear barrier that contained the alcoves faded away. He burst from the chamber with a roar. Even if I’d studied his language, I doubt I would have understood him. He brandished his sword, spun around the room, his eyes searching but not seemingly seeing or focusing until he spotted me. Then he charged.

I backpedaled and tripped over the uneven ground. He raised his sword, his eyes full of deadly intent.

I rolled away as it descended and scrabbled for my bullwhip. I had a vague notion of snapping it around his hilt and yanking the weapon free, but that might be a hopeless fantasy—I’d settle for not being hewn in half.

Metal squealed against metal. By the time I scrambled to my feet—it couldn’t have taken more than a second—Jakatra was battling the man. The Celt’s roars continued, cries full of rage and fear. I sensed that he hadn’t seen me for a human being and that he wasn’t seeing Jakatra properly either. I had absolutely no idea what to do with that information.

With that wicked glowing blade, Jakatra lopped the long sword off above the cross-guard. The metal blade banged as it struck the stone floor, but the Celt didn’t stop his attack. He tore out a belt knife and lunged at Jakatra.

I looked at Eleriss, hoping he had some backup plan, a tranquilizer or something. His shoulders were slumped in sadness—or defeat.

Though I’d seen Jakatra’s agility against the creature, the Celt was pushing him back with his unrelenting fury and rage. That dagger came close to drawing blood. Jakatra’s face remained calm, and even though his back approached a wall, I thought he could handle himself. Indeed, he nodded as if he’d been contemplating some great decision. I didn’t guess what it might be until he parried a dagger attack and then, his body and arms moving impossibly fast, drove the curving edge of his sword into the Celt’s chest.

CHAPTER 26

I
startled myself with a screech of “What?”—I didn’t usually screech, but watching a man killed in front of you tends to erode your veneer of civilization. I whirled toward Eleriss. “You stood there and told me you were so superior and evolved that you don’t kill people. What do you call this?”

“Superior?” Eleriss asked. “No, I do not believe this.”

“What about him?” I jabbed a finger toward Jakatra; he’d pulled his sword free and was cleaning off the blood as calmly as one could imagine.

Eleriss didn’t answer the question. Instead he pointed at the fallen man. “He suffered the madness. He would have kept trying to kill us all if we hadn’t stopped him. He wouldn’t have understood any of it. What he saw… only he knew, but it was more merciful to end his life than prolong it.” Eleriss met my eyes, his clear blue-green ones solemn. “Jakatra saved your life.”

Yes, and he was the last person I wanted to be beholden to. I thought about sharing the plan I’d had to tear the long sword free with my whip, but I was deluding myself if I thought I could have survived that much power and rage on my own. “Yeah, thanks,” I mumbled in Jakatra’s direction.

A hand came to rest on my shoulder. “Are you all right?” Simon whispered.

“Dandy,” I said, though at the moment, I was wishing I was back at my parents’ house, doing something vapid like playing a computer game or watching kitten videos on the Internet.

Jakatra and Eleriss had a quick conversation, each pointing several times at the Spartan. I hoped the gist was that they couldn’t kill this one.

“Is this the last chance?” Simon asked.

“Yes,” Eleriss said, “he is the last one.”

“To do what?” Temi asked from the wall near the tunnel. It was the first thing she’d said since the Celt leaped out of his cubby. I wonder if she’d been as shocked by his death as I had.

“Yeah,” I said, “what is it you hope to do down here anyway?” And why was that monster so hell-bent on stopping you? I glanced at the tunnel again, wondering if it was even now licking its wounds somewhere and preparing for another attack.

Eleriss had turned his back and was typing again, but he responded. “Find someone who is capable of wielding the sword to protect your people from what is coming.”

“What is coming?” I mouthed.

“Jakatra and I are trying to nullify this
jibtab
, but we expect… many more. Your people will have to deal with them.”

“Why?” I croaked, then cleared my throat, trying to kick out the frog dangling from my tonsils.

“This is not our home,” Eleriss said. “Though I am intrigued by this world, Jakatra is a reluctant traveling companion, and he will not stay indefinitely.”

“No,” I said, “I mean why are all these monsters,
jibtabs
, whatevers going to be showing up?”

“That is… as your people say, a long story.” Eleriss raised a hand. “Stand back.”

I was still “back” from before, but given the way the last man had torn out of the alcove, I supposed a few more steps wouldn’t hurt. I tried not to look at the dead Celt as the lights came on, shining on the Spartan. Jakatra waited a few paces from me, his sword out. Temi took a few steps away from the wall, her spear at the ready. I couldn’t bring myself to remove my bullwhip from my belt or draw an arrow. I couldn’t understand all of what Eleriss had said, or more precisely what he had yet to say, but if this man was some kind of last chance for us—for humanity?—I didn’t want to greet him with weapons.

In the alcove, the Spartan’s eyes opened first, just as the Celt’s had. They were a deep brown that matched his olive skin and the wavy brown hair that fell past his shoulders. There was confusion in those eyes, but they didn’t seem to hold the madness that had afflicted the other man. I crossed my fingers, hoping I was right and not letting my emotions color my rationale.