Timtur, p.11
Timtur, page 11
Saying nothing, Lily stood still until he dropped her arm and shoved her aside as he went to the lobby. Hilkirr gave her a push in the back, and Lily followed after glaring at him, at which he only grinned, displaying the tips of his fangs.
“Ah, there you are.” Akkarmogg had been leaning on the guard console, checking his handheld, but now he straightened and shut the device off. “The system will continue automatic reboot for the next five hours. Some things may go on and off as the AI tests subroutines, there may be a bit of inconvenience, for which I do apologize. I want to take the woman to the medlab before I go. This facility was designed before the humans were a consideration so I want to see what I do have in there to work with and what I need to bring with me when I return.”
Vattan hesitated.
“She’ll come to no harm,” the scientist said, raising his bushy red eyebrows and allowing a sharp note of impatience to creep into his voice. “I need you and your men to search the rest of the facility and make a list for me of what else you’ll need to make the place more comfortable as your home. I’ll add those items to my requisition.” Not waiting for the alpha-born to agree or disagree, the Khagrish grabbed Lily by the good wrist and led her toward the third corridor, which no one had explored as yet.
She could see why the Badari had avoided this area, since it probably stirred up bad memories for them. In Akkarmogg’s grip, Lily passed several labs, the doors gaping open to reveal shrouded machines and cells obviously meant to hold Badari, heavy restraints set into the walls. At the end was the medlab.
It was cooler in here than anywhere else in the building, and Lily took a deep breath.
“You like it in here, don’t you?” Grinning, the scientist escorted her across the medlab to a series of open cells against the far wall. He paused beside a stone-topped experiment table, drew a knife from one of his many pockets and slashed the rope on her wrists. “Really no more need for this.”
Lily bit her lip against the pain of returning circulation, surprised Akkarmogg had decided to free her without Vattan’s knowledge.
Taking her off guard, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her into the nearest cell, slapping his hand on the controls as she fell to her knees, crying out as her injured arm was jostled by her instinctive action to keep from falling full length on the hard floor.
As the energy barrier buzzed and crackled, penning her in, she rose to her feet and whirled to gape at Akkarmogg. “What the seven hells—”
“You have water and rations in there, more than enough for two days if you’re careful. I have better uses for you, Lily Garrison, then simply to serve as the breeder for that arrogant lab animal. I should think you’d thank me for keeping him away from you for two days. He can’t unlock this cell.”
Paralyzing shock at his inexplicable decision made it hard for her to find the words to question his action. She gave voice to her immediate fear of being left to perish in the cell. “What if you don’t make it back?”
“Not going to happen.” He shook his head. “Now let me go break the bad news to your would-be mate and be on my way.”
Panicked, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her and having a hard time breathing, Lily examined every inch of the cell and found no way out. There was indeed a sturdy container under the bed which, when she opened it, was full of rations, a deck of cards, and bottles of nutrient fluid. The cell had a toilet and sink in one corner and the water was working when she tried the taps. She heard the echo of Vattan’s howl all the way from the lobby. No, he wasn’t happy at Akkarmogg’s deceit. She shivered and had to admit the scientist was right, she preferred to be in here and untouchable for the next two days at least.
As she popped open a bottle of nutrients, she heard Vattan yelling her name and the sound of pounding feet. The lab door crashed open and he raced to the line of cells.
Before he could say a word, she forestalled him with her own complaint. Satisfying to take the initiative, even over something like this. “The bastard locked me in, and I have terrible claustrophobia. I’ll go crazy if I have to stay here.” Advancing to the edge of the force barrier, she eyed him. “Did you know he was going to do this? Am I his prisoner now?”
Deterred by her unusual assertiveness, Vattan swallowed whatever he’d planned to say. He prowled along his side of the cell entrance. “You’re not his prisoner. I made it clear you’re to be my mate. He said he isolated you in the cell while he checked out the medical equipment and supplies and then, when he went to let you out, the subsystem was locked. Part of the AI booting up.”
“Well, he certainly didn’t explain himself that way to me,” she said, curious why Akkarmogg was lying to Vattan but figuring she should keep her own counsel about what the scientist had told her. Interesting the Khagrishi trusted her with his motive, if she could believe anything he said. I have to be all about saving myself in this situation now. “Lucky there were supplies in here. He’s going to let me out when he gets back though, right?”
“If the door doesn’t open before then.” Vattan hesitated.
“You can’t get in, and I can’t get out,” she said, unable to keep a bit of happiness from coloring her tone. “So leave me the seven hells alone.”
“You need to be more pleasant to your mate.” He rocked on the balls of his feet and fisted his hands but they both knew the threat was idle since he couldn’t reach her.
“Not today I don’t.” She laughed and gestured at the force barrier. “Go away and give me my privacy. And don’t send your goons to leer at me either.”
“Maybe two days in solitary confinement will make you see the world differently,” he said, face reddening. “Maybe that’s just what you need.” Vattan stomped off and left the medlab.
Lily waited to make sure he wasn’t returning. I bet he wishes he could have slammed the portal behind him. She smothered her grin and finished her makeshift meal of ration bars and the flat tasting nutrient drink. As she munched and sipped, she paced the tiny cell, becoming familiar with her new environment. She worked hard to control her anxiety, making herself take deep, regular breaths and pushing away ‘what if’ thoughts about the building burning down with her trapped inside. Now wasn’t the time for a full blown anxiety attack. Lily avoided looking at the one thing that terrified her most—the vent high on the wall over the bed.
This facility had been built to contain the hulking, wide-shouldered seven-foot-tall Badari males, not a petite human like her. Finishing the meal, she washed her hands and face then pivoted to glare at the damn vent. Climbing onto the bed, she could only reach the bottom of the metal grate, close enough to trace the working mechanism of the fastenings with the tips of her fingers. Climbing down, she contemplated what to do next and nearly stumbled over the rations container. It was at least two feet high and made from a sturdy spacefaring type material. Dragging it onto the bed, she positioned the box below the vent and climbed on, precariously balancing on the unsteady platform she’d made.
Triumphant now because she could reach all the fastenings, she took a deep breath and worked the grate loose. Jumping, she caught the edge of the ventilation shaft and pulled herself up into the narrow space. Good thing I’ve been so active since we got to the sanctuary valley. I sure never had muscle tone like this at the colony. Her broken arm protested the effort with a blinding flash of pain, but she made it into the space. Swallowing hard, she peered down the length of the shaft, which stretched away into the total darkness. Spots danced in front of her eyes, and she took more deep breaths, clutching the sides of the open vent.
This was how Jill had escaped the first lab then rescued Gabe, his team and Lily. Her sister had crawled for hours through the ventilation ducts, barely large enough for a human, totally impassable for a Badari. When she rescued Lily and the others, the group had had to crawl through the same vents.
I did it once. I can do it again. I have to.
Nauseous and sweating, Lily climbed into the shaft and started to crawl.
She had to tell herself over and over the shaft wasn’t shrinking around her. Belatedly, she realized she should have brought food and liquids because, once she found the best way to the outside, she’d have to retrace her path to the cell to grab supplies, and what if Vattan’s men discovered her missing? Of course, they couldn’t get into the ventilation system to chase her down, short of destroying the building, but she wouldn’t be able to escape either. And when Akkarmogg reappeared with his guards and techs, she would be caught.
Okay, enough with defeatist thinking. Move!
But, in the end, Lily had to accept the sad fact there was no escape. She worked her way through the shafts in all three wings and up to the roof and the story was the same in each tunnel: at the end was a high speed fan filling the entire opening, metallic blades whirling with enough force to slice and dice anyone or anything foolish enough to venture close. The vent on the roof was the exhaust fan for the entire building and there she had to avoid the tremendous pull of the stale air rushing out.
The shaft leading to the lobby narrowed and split until it was totally unpassable, even for her.
Disappointed, she retreated and sat at a bend in the shaft, pondering what to do next. How ironic she’d mastered her claustrophobia enough to go exploring and there was still no escape to be had.
She assessed the idea of hurling nutrient bottles into the fan blades at one of the ends, to stop them and force a shutdown, but the mechanism was protected by screening material on either side and there were no visible fastenings she could see. Even if the place hadn’t been built to hold humans, the Khagrish had successfully created a trap.
As Lily crawled to her cell, seeing nothing else to do at the moment, she considered the value of being able to move around undetected in the lab. She stopped for a few minutes to listen to Vattan and his cronies playing cards in the guards’ breakroom, the alpha-born boasting of how the Khagrish would create a whole new, large pack for him to lead, once the experiment was concluded and his superiority—and the superiority of his three enforcers—was proven.
Shuddering at the mere idea, Lily cautiously went on her way, trying to be as quiet as a Terran mouse from the old fairy tales.
Struck by inspiration, she investigated the lab’s armory, which she realized with perfect hindsight she ought to have done immediately. But I’m not a soldier. All she’d wanted was escape, but now she’d been forced into thinking more strategically. She couldn’t decide if she felt better when she discovered the entire room was empty. Apparently, the Khagrish had no problem leaving behind supplies but not weapons.
Back in her cell, she replaced the vent, closing the fasteners enough to keep the grate in place and give the appearance of being untouched. Her camouflage efforts taken care of, she took a sink bath, since she was sure the Badari weren’t going to be paying her any unexpected visits. There was a stack of clean prison jumpsuits in the cell, so she changed into one, much as she hated to let the Khagrish fabric touch her skin. Rolling up the sleeves and the legs, she finally sank onto the bed and went to sleep to the sound of the force barrier buzzing. She had to cover her head with the pillow to block the sound and the bright light, which Akkarmogg hadn’t bothered to put on any kind of timer to take night into account.
Timtur knew the mission to take MARL and Jill out of the valley was going to be a tense affair, drawing upon nearly all the available Badari forces. Aydarr refused to take chances with his mate, so the valley was left thinly protected by a few Badari soldiers and members of the human cadre of ex-military volunteers. Aydarr took both flyers full of his experienced soldiers, Timtur being assigned to accompany the Alpha and his mate. Once the key personnel debarked in a clearing well removed from the valley, the squads deployed smoothly, weapons hot. He was impatient to find out what MARL might be able to learn that would lead him to Lily’s location.
Oblivious to all of this action, MARL floated in the center of the selected meadow, his colors turquoise and pale peach, with a few red sparks. Jill stood beside him, her own pulse rifle at the ready. “Let’s make this fast,” she said to her AI.
Aydarr stopped to kiss her cheek. “I second the idea. We’re much too exposed here.”
Timtur did a fast scan of the perimeter, although he wasn’t there as part of the official bodyguards this trip. He was present because any new information might enable him to rescue the woman he loved from Vattan and the Khagrish. Impatience rasped against his nerves like sandpaper and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting at MARL to work faster. How long did it take to sift through the Khagrish data streams anyway?
Aydarr gave him a glance. “Take a deep breath, my friend. As soon as MARL has anything to tell us, you’ll hear it at the same time I do.”
Embarrassed the Alpha could sense his own inner turmoil, Timtur merely nodded and gave himself a stern lecture. Action plans can’t be developed soon enough though. How much time did Lily have, wherever she’d been flown as a helpless prisoner, before either Vattan or the Khagrish subjected her to assault or torture? “I have to find her,” he said in a low voice.
Aydarr opened his mouth to respond but the alien AI forestalled him. MARL wasn’t a believer in pack etiquette, not even when it came to interrupting the Alpha.
“I’m accessing the electronic coms now,” MARL said. “Jill’s safety is my top priority as well and I’m maintaining full surveillance. I’m monitoring all Khagrish air traffic on the planet. As yet there is no movement in our direction.”
“Good. I hope it stays quiet where we’re concerned.” Aydarr moved aside a few feet, checking in with his unit commanders on the telepathic link.
Timtur hefted his weapon, alternating between watching the skies and staring at MARL. Not much was known about his capabilities, not even by Jill, who’d discovered him guarding the ten-thousand-year old corpse of his last owner and accepted the transfer of MARL’s loyalty to her. So far as Timtur understood it, MARL could run a variety of scans from inside the valley, but conducted much broader operations outside, in the clear. When the pack launched a successful operation against a Khagrish lab, a high priority effort was made to give MARL physical access to the installation’s AI so he could download the entire stored programming and data files. His storage areas must be virtually limitless.
Timtur hoped the rapidly swirling purple cloud on MARL’s upper quadrant was a good sign, but who knew?
On several occasions MARL had manifested a small unit for a Badari soldier to take into a complex and manually hack into the computers there. The Khagrish didn’t network their many locations, beyond a kind of primitive email. Each lab had its own idiosyncratic AI and computer set up, often running lines of code so archaic Jill said it could be from the original scientists of 800 years ago. The Khagrish weren’t computer or AI geniuses, fortunately.
Today MARL was hacking the email traffic, employing super user ID’s Jill had given herself during the initial break-in to the system, as well as looking for any new installations or other hints of odd Khagrish activity. The trouble was, the cursed scientists were always up to something.
“I want a complete index of all their fucking labs,” Aydarr said, echoing Timtur’s train of thought, although the healer wasn’t aware he’d been broadcasting on the telepathic link. “Who’s there, what they do, are there any human prisoners or, goddess forbid, more Badari. This one off emergency search stuff is crazy making.”
“I gather valuable data each time.” MARL’s reply was mild as he spun slowly. “And my mental equilibrium is quite unimpaired, I assure you.”
Aydarr was on edge, short tempered. “Well mine gets out of whack, having to deploy nearly all my forces, risk both our flyers, risk Jill—”
A bright flash of red color zinged around MARL’s center. “There is no risk to Jill at this time.”
His overconfidence worries me, Aydarr said to Timtur on the private telepathic channel.
Maybe if you were ten thousand years old, you’d be more serene, Timtur joked.
One day he’s too likely to be wrong. Overconfidence gets people killed. The Alpha sounded grumpy.
I appreciate your doing this for Lily. He tried to imagine life without Lily and failed. The future stretched bleakly ahead of him without her cheerful presence in his life, always ready to talk with him on any topic, understanding him better than he understood himself at times. If she’d ever forgive him for not protecting her properly, for withholding himself from what they both had plainly desired. His qualms seemed so unimportant now, with Lily’s life at stake.
My mate’s sister, as well as your potential mate. Safety of the valley at stake – I fail to see any other option but to deploy MARL and risk exposing Jill. Switching to vocal communication, Aydarr said, “Are we done here yet?”
“I’ve completed what can be accomplished under these conditions, yes. Now I’m indexing data and collating, data mining for appropriate references.” MARL drifted toward the flyers. “We can return to the valley.”
In response to Aydarr’s terse mental orders, Badari came pouring from the surrounding forest, moving with purpose toward their assigned transport. Timtur hurried up the ramp of the smaller craft right behind Aydarr, Jill and MARL.
The entire flight home to the valley, MARL was humming to himself and displaying a rainbow of coloration, with occasional eye popping transitions to pure silver iridescence. “I can report as soon as we’ve landed,” he said, as Gabe began the final approach to the landing field. “I have three possibilities although no guarantees. I have a set of secondary possibilities if the first three fail to be useful. And, of course, we can do another trip outside the valley to gather data.”
He loves his data to excess. We’ll make another trip, risking Jill again so soon, over my dead body. Sister or no sister. Aydarr was still grumpy. These first three suggestions from him better be prime suspects.
