Encrypted (45 page)

But he had already made his choice: “Just
wanted to be sure your offer is still good.”

She wished she could hug him, but all she
dared was a slight nod. “Beach house,” she whispered. “As long as
you want it.”

A slight smile stretched Agarik’s lips.
“Surfer with the talented tongue?”

“
I’ll do my
best.”

A rifle boomed in a nearby tunnel.

“
It’s time, Admiral.”
Sicarius pinned Tikaya with his gaze as he strode to the base of
the butte beneath the door. “Bring the ordering for the
numbers.”

Tikaya wanted to bring a dagger to stick in
his gut, but she kept the thought to herself and the sneer from her
face as she walked over. Best not to give him any warning that she
would make trouble.

Rias joined her, deliberately turning his
back on Ottotark and Bones. “What’s your plan, Sicarius? There are
only a few of us and a lot of weaponry up there. Getting it out
will be a challenge.”

“
We don’t need that many
rockets to satisfy the emperor’s needs,” Sicarius said. “If your
smoke reveals a safe path, I’ll climb up with one other person.
We’ll press in the correct code and lower several of the weapons to
the floor. Once the captain has cleaned up the raiders, he’ll be
here, and we’ll have plenty of men to transport the weapons
out.”

“
Over the chasm?” Rias
asked.

“
There are other ways
out.”

He sounded certain. An image came to mind:
Sicarius gathering information by torturing captured
raiders—Parkonis. She winced.

“
Who’s going up with you?”
she asked. If Sicarius climbed to the top with Ottotark or Bones,
that would leave her, Rias, and Agarik with only one hostile man to
deal with.

“
Starcrest,” Sicarius
said.

Tikaya fought back a
curse. She was beginning to wonder if the assassin had telepathy
training, Turgonian or not. Or maybe he just wanted Rias up there
because he was expendable at that point. Her hackles rose. “I’m not
certain we have the puzzle right. You’re
not
making Rias push the numbers for
you. Have you seen what happens if someone gets it wrong? Instant
incineration.”

Sicarius lifted his stuffed quiver of
arrows, and she blushed. Wrong conclusion. Of course, he intended
to test it from below or he would not have bothered gathering the
arrows.

Rias touched his index finger to his lips.
To silence her? Or warn her not to irritate the assassin? She
scowled at him. Somebody had to do something, and he was just going
along with these brutes. He gazed back at her, steady and
imperturbable.

Above their heads, the door panel pulsed
three times.

“
What does that mean?”
Bones asked.

“
The numbers are about to
change.” Tikaya had no idea if that was true, but it sounded
plausible, and if the marines feared they would need another
translation, they might keep her alive a little longer.

“
Give me the solution,”
Sicarius said.

Tikaya showed him the order of the numbers.
He stared at it a moment, nodded, and nocked an arrow. Rias handed
him the goggles. She expected Sicarius to regard them with
suspicion, but he looked them over, then tried them. He lifted the
bow and shot, untroubled by the bulky eyewear. The first arrow
passed through one of the invisible beams and sizzled to ashes
before it reached the target.

“
Shit,” Ottotark
announced.

Unflappable, Sicarius took a step to the
side and loosed a second arrow. This one found the target, bumping
one of the symbols a slot to the left. The arrow did no damage to
the durable alien technology. It bounced away, where another beam
incinerated it.

“
No need to worry about
trash collection here,” Bones muttered.

While Sicarius continued moving the numbers
around, she gauged the distance to the corridor they had exited,
the corridor that eventually led to that panel Rias wanted to
visit. She would not consider running with Sicarius on the ground,
but if he was busy climbing, the odds improved. Ottotark and Bones
were no doubt proficient with their firearms, but she judged them
far more fallible than the assassin. If she just had a
distraction....

A final arrow clattered off the panel after
shifting the last number into place. A chime sounded and the door
slid open. It was hard to feel triumphant given the
circumstances.

Sicarius removed the goggles and returned
them to Rias with a single nod.

“
Light a smoke bomb,”
Sicarius said, apparently unwilling to trust the ones Rias had
given him until he had seen them used.

Rias held out the goggles, glancing around
as if looking for a place to put them, then shrugged and strapped
them around his head. He pushed the lenses above his eyes so they
were not in the way as he lit one of the globes. He laid it on the
floor at the base of the butte. Soon, plumes of grayish blue smoke
wafted into the air. They diffused quickly, spreading over a
greater area than the haze from a pistol firing. As Tikaya had seen
before, an asymmetrical pattern of white beams grew visible in the
smoke.

“
Those kill you if they
touch you?” Ottotark asked.

“
Yes,” Tikaya
said.

“
Glad I’m not trying to
climb past them.”

Sicarius gave him a cool stare, then laid
down the bow and jogged to the bottom. Tikaya eyed the weapon. It
would not take many steps to reach it.

“
Come, Admiral,” Sicarius
said.

Rias strode to Tikaya first. He gripped her
hands. “Whatever happens, you’ve been the light that’s driven away
the darkness in my life.” He did nothing so obvious as putting
special emphasis on the word light, but she understood anyway: he
wanted her to try for the panel.

She squeezed his hands. “I love you too. Be
careful.”

Ottotark groaned. “Can we shoot them
now?”

“
Wait until we have the
weapons out. If the symbols change, we’ll need her again.” Sicarius
handed his two globes to Bones. “Light one of these if the smoke
dies out before we reach the top.”

Rias widened his eyes slightly before
releasing Tikaya’s hands and heading for the base of the butte.
Tikaya tried to guess at the meaning in that look; had he done
something with the other smoke bombs? The current haze tickled her
nose and teared her eyes a bit, but had no significant side
effects.

Overhead, the door slid shut. It had only
stayed open a couple minutes before locking again. She wondered
what happened if someone was on the inside when it closed.

Sicarius was already ten feet up the wall.
Though natural, with protrusions and crevasses, it did not look
like an easy ascent, even without the beams. They touched it in
myriad places, and no easy routes awaited the climbers.

After considering the rock face, Rias
removed his rucksack. Tikaya tensed. No, no, if he did not take the
cube with him, how would they get it up there? He met her eyes and
shook his head faintly. She grimaced. He must not think there was
enough space between beams to climb with the rucksack on his back.
After watching Sicarius, she reluctantly agreed. As soon as the
assassin reached the level of the beams, he had to start
sidestepping, twisting and contorting his body. For every two feet
he ascended, he ended up dropping a foot somewhere else.

Rias started up, and worry gnawed at her
before he even reached the beams. He was taller and broader—and
older—than the agile assassin. Dodging those beams would prove a
difficult feat. Not impossible, she hoped.

Tikaya eased toward the bow. Agarik remained
near her, and he shuffled forward too. They froze when Ottotark
eyed them.

“
Agarik,” he said. “Go
hold the lantern for Bones in case he needs to light another smoke
thing.”

Ottotark slapped his pistol across his palm
as he strode over to stand by Tikaya. Agarik glanced at her. She
nodded infinitesimally. Better to comply now and wait until
Agarik’s side-switching might accomplish something.

Light pulsed at the door. The symbols
changed.

“
Is that what I think it
is?” Rias asked, cheek pressed to the rock, a laser less than an
inch from his eyebrow.

“
Yes.” Tikaya slipped the
sphere out of her pocket.

Ottotark grabbed her arm, pistol digging
into her ribcage. “What’s that?”

“
Not a weapon,” she said,
then raised her voice for Rias. “Give me a minute, and I’ll
translate the new numbers. I know some of them.”

“
How often does it
change?” Bones asked.

Once a day, she guessed. “At random,” she
said.

Ottotark stepped back, startled when the
display flared to life. She manipulated it to find the number
symbols.

“
You want me to read them
to you?” Tikaya called. “Or try to solve the problem and shoot the
numbers into place from here?” She had to try, though she doubted
Sicarius would be foolish enough to let her have a bow much less
authorize her shooting it in his direction. He would probably laugh
and say nice try.

“
Give Starcrest the
numbers,” Sicarius said with no sense of humor or annoyance. “He’ll
figure it out and he’ll push them.”

Rias grunted. Pebbles clattered down the
cliff face. One bounced into a beam’s path and was vaporized. The
dwindling smoke made the sweat beading his forehead visible. Be
careful, Tikaya urged.

The pistol bumped her ribs.

“
Get to work,” Ottotark
snapped.

“
I’ve got the numbers,”
she said a moment later and read them aloud to the men.

She hoped Rias would wait until he reached
the top, or some place safe, to mull over the solution. He was
about halfway up now. In a couple feet, Sicarius would reach the
ledge.

“
I could use more smoke,”
Rias said.

Bones and Agarik lit one of the globes.
Tikaya checked on Rias, hoping he would wait until the smoke
thickened before trying to climb farther. She caught him pulling
his shirt over his nose and tugging the goggles over his eyes.

As soon as smoke curled from the globe,
Bones and Agarik dropped it and stumbled back. They threw their
arms over their faces, gagging.

Tikaya sucked in a deep breath and held it.
Even then, she still caught the first whiff as the smoke
disseminated. More pungent than rotten eggs, it invaded her
nostrils and teared her eyes. Ottotark leaned forward, grabbing his
nose.

This was her chance.

She drew back her arm and slammed the sphere
into his temple. It was not big, but it was blunt and solid. He
reeled sideways and stumbled to the ground.

“
My eyes,” Bones shouted,
then retched.

Agarik clutched at his belly and
vomited.

No time to check on Rias or Sicarius. Tikaya
lunged for the bow and quiver, grabbed them, and wheeled. Agarik
had dropped the lantern. She snatched it as well. By then, her
lungs burned, demanding air, but she sprinted for the tunnel.

Tears blurred her vision, and she tripped
over a rock. She sprawled, almost losing the bow, and her breath
whooshed out. Before she could catch herself, she sucked in a
mouthful of air. Distance stole some of the potency from the smoke,
but it still made her gag. She staggered to her feet, forced her
legs into motion, and clambered over the rubble pile and into the
tunnel before retching.

As soon as she could, she raced toward the
intersection. The air was clearer here, and she sucked it in. She
rounded the corner, hoping to run straight to the panel without
encountering a maze of tunnels to guess at. A T-section came first.
She lifted the lantern and peered both ways. There. A faint crimson
glow in the distance.

Tikaya sprinted to the panel, a column of
symbols and five vertical lines that glowed solid blue.

Shouts echoed from the cavern. She shuttered
the lantern and set it down, plunging the tunnel in darkness. The
men would not be distracted for long, and the light would make her
an easy target. She could only hope Sicarius would not take his
irritation out on Rias, who she had left in a vulnerable position.
Second doubts assailed her. She should have stayed and used the bow
on the men, shot the cursed assassin, not run away. But, no, the
lights were what Rias wanted, and her eyes had been too
tear-wracked to aim at anything anyway.

She examined the symbols. Not all were
familiar, and there were more than she expected, but she understood
the gist. Lighting, power levels, and water controls. Right spot,
but what to touch?

In the still tunnel, she felt her rapid
heartbeat reverberating through her body. She started to reach for
the sphere, but feared she had no time for research. Rias had
guessed. She would have to as well.

Boots pounded into the tunnels. The marines
would know right where she had gone.

Tikaya slid a finger across one of the
horizontal stripes labeled with illumination. Nothing. There was no
switch or knob. She slid her finger the other way. Nothing. She
waved her hand before it as she had seen Rias do once to close a
door.

The stripe pulsed once, and something
thunked inside the wall. Had that done it? The lighting did not
come on, and she waved her hand before the other stripes. More
thunks, and a faint hum from behind the wall.

The footsteps hammered closer. She grabbed
the bow, nocked an arrow, and flattened herself against the wall.
The corridor offered no cover, but she could not run until she knew
if her hand-waving had accomplished the goal. Besides, darkness
stretched behind her, and she did not know if more tunnels lay that
way or only a dead end.