Lords of the Sea (27 page)

He frowned down at the food she uncovered. “Regardless of what one might feel, displays such as the one you obviously witnessed are unacceptable.”

“Hers? Or yours?”

“Either,” he responded uncomfortably. “I beg pardon, Lady Cassia,” he added stiffly, “both for myself and Natara for making you uncomfortable.”

“Apology accepted,” Cassie said promptly, “but I somehow doubt she’ll appreciate you apologizing for her. She’s developed a dislike of us primitives.”

“And why is that?” he asked, further embarrassed by her reference, which made it obvious she
had
understood everything, and trying to recall what he had said.

To his surprise, she smiled. “She had her eye on Adan, and
he
has his eye on Linda,” she said with amusement.

“That is certainly deflating,” he responded, smiling faintly now himself. “I was convinced it was me she had her eye on.”

“Disappointed?”

He glanced up at her and grimaced. “Truthfully? No. She is very like …,” he paused abruptly, but continued smoothly after a moment, “someone I once knew—beautiful, deceptively sweet, but with the tongue of a viper and all of the fire and unpredictability of a rogue comet. A man would have no peace around such a one as she.”

Cassie studied him speculatively. “I thought men liked fire in a woman?”

He sent her a look. “In bed,” he said dryly. “Not at breakfast.”

Cassie burst out laughing.

He stared at her a long moment and finally grinned.

They finished their meal in companionable silence, and then Cassie rose, took the clean robe Natara had brought, and went into the bathroom to change.

Councilor det Ophelia, Cassie noticed when they arrived at his office, looked as if he’d aged years since she’d last spoken with him. His expression lightened when he greeted her, however. “Lady Cassia! I am pleased to see you again!”

As nervous as she was, Cassie smiled back at him, feeling some of her tension ease at the welcome in his voice. “Will you walk with me?”

Cassie’s chest tightened at the question. She sent Raen a quick glance, remembering with a stab of unhappiness when he’d asked her to walk with him and wishing sadly that life had a rewind button. Smiling with an effort, she nodded.

He moved around his desk and offered his arm. Surprise flickered through her, but she slipped her arm through his and allowed him to lead her from his offices. Raen trailed behind them, making her acutely conscious of his presence, but when she saw the 160

councilor was leading her into an area she’d never been before, her curiosity took precedence in her mind. After walking for perhaps twenty minutes, they stepped into a cubicle of a room that reminded her of an elevator. Expecting to feel herself rising, she wavered when the room moved horizontally instead. A hand settled on her waist, steadying her, and she glanced around to discover it was Raen. Flicking him a smile of appreciation, she looked away again.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

The councilor’s smile was grim. “I wanted to show you something.”

The room they were in paused after a few moments. Instead of the door opening, however, the room rose upward, again disorienting Cassie. This time when she felt Raen’s hand settle on her to steady her, she placed her hand over his, clasping his fingers.

She’d intended the gesture as a show of appreciation for his courtesy, but she found that it comforted her. With reluctance, she released his hand when the room stopped again.

She knew the moment the doors opened and the councilor led her out that they were in the heart of the Atlantis, the control center. It had the look and feel of the bridge of a ship, even though she’d never been on one, and certainly not on the bridge of a space craft.

There were technicians at every console, but she hadn’t a clue what their function was. The councilor led her into the center of the room. “Bring up the viewing screens,”

he said brusquely.

Almost instantly, light flooded the room from every direction. Cassie wavered, disoriented by the sudden movement all around her. She discovered as she did, though, that Raen had moved up behind her. His hand settled on her waist as her shoulders bumped against his chest. Fleetingly, his nearness reassured her, but as her mind assimilated the images surrounding her, the feeling was overwhelmed by the shock that went through her.

“We are using your satellites to feed the images,” the councilor told her.

Cassie didn’t even glance at him. She was struggling to force her mind to accept that the images she was seeing were real, not something the filming industry had artistically devised. Slowly, she scanned the images within her view and then turned until she’d seen the full panoramic. She was on the point of stepping away from the two men and moving closer when the councilor asked for a closer view of the scene.

Dizziness swept through her as the images blurred and then leapt out at her again.

She swallowed with an effort to gather some moisture into her mouth and throat.

“My god!” she finally managed, her voice sounding strange even to her own ears.

“These are new,” the councilor said, pointing.

There was a strange ringing in her ears, making it hard to hear him, but Cassie’s gaze followed his gesture automatically. “The UK,” she murmured, recognizing the flag.

She didn’t recognize half of the flags she saw. “Canada, Japan, France … I don’t know all of these flags, but each one represents a different country.”

She looked at the councilor finally and saw that he was watching her. “Let me see … Can they show us the mainland?”

Her hands tightened on Raen’s as the image blurred again. She hadn’t even realized she was holding his hands until she felt him give her a reassuring squeeze in 161

return. When the image cleared once more, she could see what looked like a view of the entire gulf from space. “Closer! I need to see!”

Images flashed, then darkened and flashed again. Each time the image flickered on the screens, the view was closer until, suddenly, she could see details she hadn’t been able to see before. Releasing Raen, she clutched at the councilor’s arm. “Oh god, oh god! You have to do something. They’re evacuating!” she gasped, her voice quavering with the hysteria trying to claw its way up her throat.

The councilor placed his hand over hers. “Tell me how to stop it, child, and I will. I give you my word.”

Cassie stared at him wordlessly, struggling to keep from bursting into tears. Her chin wobbled threateningly. Tears cloyed in her throat. She struggled for several moments, trying to form words. “I think it might be too late,” she said in a choked voice.

He patted her hand. “It is not too late to try.”

She nodded jerkily, trying to think as he led her back the way they’d come. She couldn’t seem to make her mind focus on anything but the images that seemed to have been burned into her brain. As they stepped into the cubicle that had brought them, however, she glanced at Raen. His expression was grim and not at all welcoming, but she threw herself against him anyway, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face against his chest. After a brief hesitation, his arms came around her and then tightened.

Some of the tension went out of her when she felt acceptance in his embrace, if not welcome. She was of no mind to analyze it. She needed warmth. She felt cold all the way to her bones with fear. Right up until she’d seen what was going on with her own eyes, she’d deluded herself with the belief that she’d blown everything out of proportion, that it
had
to be purely imagination that a war was building around them.

Even with all the talk, the things she
had
seen before, she hadn’t fully accepted.

She

still
couldn’t, but she was deep down scared.

She didn’t let go of Raen until he peeled her loose. Embarrassed when she discovered the mover had stopped and the councilor was studying her, though not unkindly, she muttered an apology to Raen without looking at him and followed the councilor. He grasped her cold hand and looped it around his arm as he had before.

“Perhaps you should rest for a bit?” he suggested.

Cassie looked up at him when he spoke, feeling the urge to rush back to Raen’s quarters and hide in his bed—or under it. She shook her head finally, mopping at the tears on her cheeks she hadn’t even noticed until that moment. “No. I’m alright,” she said shakily.

He looked at her doubtfully. “You do not look well at all,” he disputed.

She sniffed and straightened her spine. “I am.”

He settled her in a chair when they’d returned to his office and moved across the room. When he returned, he was holding a glass of the wine they drank. She stared at it.

“I don’t drink,” she said finally.

He gestured with it. “It will put some color back into your cheeks, at least.”

Nodding jerkily, she took the glass and sipped at it. She wasn’t of the opinion that alcohol ever solved a damned thing, but her mouth was as dry as the Sahara.

Clasping the glass between both hands, she watched him as he moved around his desk 162

and settled heavily in his chair. “Tell me everything,” she demanded the moment he settled. “Everything they’ve said to you, everything you’ve said to them.”

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The councilor frowned, glanced at Raen, who’d taken up his usual position near the door and then, apparently coming to a decision, carefully recited the communications verbatim.

“What about the Admiral?” she asked when he’d finished. “Has she been talking to them?”

The councilor studied her uncomfortably. “As far as I know, no—not beyond the initial contact between them. But we have no jurisdiction over the Andromedans, my dear.
We
are Atlanteans, colonists here.”

Cassie nodded, but the realization that the councilor had no control over what they said or did wasn’t comforting. “Do you at least know their intentions?”

He settled back in his chair, studying her. “They are not the problem,” he said finally.

“You’re certain of that?”

Irritation flickered across his features. “I asked you to help us with
your
people,”

he said pointedly.

Cassie felt her own anger rise. “But
my
people might not be the only problem,”

she retorted. “If you don’t know what their intentions are, and you don’t know whether or not the admiral has been talking to them, then you don’t know that she hasn’t been antagonizing them. What if
they
are a threat to both us and to you?”

“I have told you—it is not our way to make war—especially not with a people who can not defend themselves against us,” Raen spoke up.

Cassie turned to look at him. “Just because it isn’t
your
way it doesn’t necessarily follow that it isn’t
theirs
. How can you possibly know? You haven’t had any communications with them in hundreds of years! Anything and everything could’ve changed in that length of time,” she said, returning her attention to the councilor.

The councilor shrugged. “For our people, it has only been a few generations. It is unlikely there would be much change.”

The comment was another shock. She glanced quickly at Raen and then back at the councilor.

“Our life spans are … somewhat longer than the average human life span.”

Cassie tucked that information away for a better time to examine it. “Even so, our people have changed drastically from one generation to the next—there are all sorts of things that influence social changes—economics, certainly. Hungry people are angry people. Misery can do the same thing, or make them apathetic.”

He settled back in his seat, studying over what she’d said and finally exchanged a glance with Raen. She saw Raen nod fractionally when she followed the look between the men.

Beginning to feel somewhat calmer, she dredged up the conclusions she’d come to before when she’d been struggling to try to untangle the problem. “If the governments aren’t listening, you need to go to the people,” she said finally. “They’re not going to be 164

easy to convince—not after all this time and all the things they’ve been told, not when they’ve had time to get really scared with everything that’s going on.”

She studied the councilor for a moment. “They’ll be picturing you as monsters,”

she said bluntly. “They need to see that you aren’t. I know how y’all feel about asking for help, or taking it if it’s offered. You could say that—that you’re accustomed to taking care of your own problems, prefer to. You’re not asking for help. You just want to be left in peace to recover the Atlantis, repair your homes, and get on with your lives. I know it must gall you to consider telling them things you’d rather not share, but I can’t think of anything else that would help.”

“You are right,” the councilor agreed after a few moments. “We are accustomed to our privacy. We do not like discussing our problems publicly. In this case, however, I attempted it … as you suggested. I contacted the media. They refused to listen to me, called me a quack and a nut job,” he finished angrily.

Cassie stared at him in open mouthed dismay for a moment. Finally, she frowned thoughtfully. “How did you contact them?”

“Via the satellites.”

She mulled that over. “Then you’ll have to get their attention first. Would you be able to block all of the communications coming off the satellites—at one time, I mean?”

His brows rose. “If we did that, they would consider it an act of war. This is what we were accused of when we inadvertently crashed the net.”

“Oh! I’d forgotten about the net!” Cassie said more enthusiastically. “We don’t want to overlook that.”

The councilor studied her uneasily. “You do not believe this will … distress them?”

“Oh, it’ll distress them alright,” Cassie said emphatically. “But if they’ve decided you’re just some prankster, there’s no way you can convince them otherwise without doing something nobody else could do—certainly not a nut job trying to
pretend
he’s from outer space. If you can do it, though, it would have everybody’s attention when you came on to speak.
Can
y’all do that?”

The councilor nodded at Raen. “Summon Mercurios. He will know if it can be done.”

“It’s a shame you don’t have pictures of what happened here,” Cassie said thoughtfully when Raen had left.

She saw when she glanced up at the councilor that his expression was pained.

“Images?” he clarified after a moment. “Like the vids?”

Cassie nodded, uncomfortable with what she saw in his face.

“Quite possibly, we do. It is not something any of us would have wanted to see, but there are monitors that would have recorded ….”

“I could look at them,” she said after a moment. “I know none of you would want to, but it’s what we need to show people—
telling
them about the disaster just won’t be the same as seeing it. They have to feel it to understand—and they
will
understand once they’ve seen it. Once they realize that this is nothing more than a—recovery from a disaster, they won’t feel as if they’re being threatened.”

“I do not think you understand what it will do to Atlanteans to see those images.

It will be like reliving those moments, and we are still struggling to come to terms with 165

the cataclysm. To you it may be ancient history. To us, it was only a short time ago that we fled for our lives to the stasis units.”

Cassie swallowed against the knot of commiseration that tightened in her throat.

“Of course I can’t really grasp the full scope of your pain. Only the others who were there could really understand it. We’ve had our own share of disasters, though, and there are plenty of people out there who’ve lived through similar catastrophes, where they’ve lost their homes and families and friends, their jobs.
They
will understand when they see it and everyone who’s seen the aftermath will understand. You need that understanding.

“This is not something I’ve had any training or experience with. I just know this is the way the media does things and it works. We can put those images together with pictures of how it looks now and you can tell them what you just told me—about the fact that you’ve just wakened.

“You need to tell them at least something about the history of Atlantis—how long your people have been here—so they begin to think of you as neighbors. Y’all have been here almost as long as we have. That means you have as much right to be here as we do.

And if they accept that, they’ll also realize that you’ve lived peacefully among us for all those years and not think of you as monsters from space that just suddenly arrived on their doorstep to take everything—because that’s what it looks like to them right now.

“You don’t have to tell them all of your personal business. I understand that you wouldn’t want to, but enough to make them see you only sent for help and that’s what the Andromeda is doing here—that they haven’t come to conquer the world.”

Cassie stopped babbling when she saw that he was actually listening to her and thinking it over. She felt a little ill at the thought that it might not work, but surely, even as fantastic as it was probably going to sound, it wasn’t going to be harder to swallow than that huge ship looming over them and nobody seemed to be having trouble believing that.

It would’ve been better, she knew, if people who put the news together for a living had done it, but they didn’t have much choice if the media wouldn’t listen to the councilor.

She was a nervous wreck from the sense of urgency drumming inside of her by the time Mercurios arrived. Unfortunately, either he hadn’t learned English, or they simply didn’t want her included in the discussion. She thought the latter might be the case and that it had to do with security, but it was nerve wracking not to know what was going on, to have to wait to find out when she was afraid things had heated up until every moment counted.

Balked of actually understanding what was going on, she watched their faces, trying to interpret the expressions that flitted across them as they discussed the problem.

Finally, the man they’d called Mercurios bowed and left hurriedly.

Cassie looked at the councilor anxiously.

“He will see what he can come up with.”

She tried not to feel as if he was saying it was hopeless, but the sense of doom that settled in her belly was hard to ignore. “There’s not much time,” she said urgently.

“I saw the people evacuating the coast. If they were fleeing only because they were scared, that’s bad. If they were ordered to evacuate, that’s really, really bad. It means they’re getting ready to attack.”

“They have already fired upon us—several times,” Raen said grimly.

166

Cassie turned to look at him. “But that just pissed them off more and made them more determined!” she exclaimed. “They’ve probably just … been looking for weaknesses and if they haven’t found any, they’ll try throwing everything they have at you. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll start considering nuclear weapons.”

She turned to look at the councilor again. “We have to do something
before
they launch an all out attack. They won’t listen after that!”

“I understand that there is an urgency to do this,” the councilor said tiredly. “But we can only do what we can do. Mercurios believes that it can be done, but it is something they must figure out how to do—not something they know. The orbits of the satellites present a problem that must be solved.” He fell silent for a few moments, studying her. “You offered to view the images and help to put together the message we would send. Would you like to go with Sentinel ap Aquinox and do that? Or would you prefer to return to your quarters and rest? I can see this has distressed you a great deal.

No one will think badly of you if you do not feel up to the task.”

She

didn’t

especially

want
to view the images he’d spoken of, but she didn’t think she could rest. She thought she might just have a nervous break down if all she could do was wonder and worry about what was going on. The fear seized her, too, that they might be reluctant to show the worst, and she knew it had to be something shocking and horrifying if it was to have the desired effect. She nodded jerkily. “I can do it. I’m sure I can.”

She wasn’t at all sure she could, but she still had an advantage they didn’t have.

She could be more objective about it than they could, and she’d at least seen enough news reports to have a general working idea of how to go about it.

She

hoped.

No one was going to expect it to look professional or care how amateurish it looked, she told herself as she accompanied Raen. He glanced at her several times as they strode down the corridor, but whatever his thoughts, he kept them to himself.

As worried as she was, though, and as tense as she was at the task she’d agreed to, after he’d glanced at her a couple of times, the memory of her behavior in the mover surfaced in her mind and when it did, so did embarrassment. “I’m sorry about while ago,” she finally said uncomfortably.

He glanced at her questioningly.

She blushed faintly. “Grabbing you in the moving thingy,” she clarified. “I wasn’t thinking. I just needed … I just needed to,” she ended lamely.

He studied her for a long moment, but she didn’t meet his gaze. “I did not mind,”

he said finally.

The room he led her to, although a great deal smaller than the one she’d decided must be the bridge of the ship, was still large and very similar. There were only two consoles in it, but viewing screens on all four sides as there had been on the bridge—she assumed for the same reason.

Raen set a chair near the door where they’d entered, indicating that she was to sit in it. He moved away then to the man standing at one of the consoles and spoke him in their tongue. Cassie studied them as they stood together, her attention caught by the way the stranger’s gaze kept straying to her. It made her wonder, at first, if she was part of the discussion, but then Raen spoke sternly to him, and he didn’t look at her again.

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After a few minutes, Raen left the man and came to stand behind her. She glanced up at him questioningly, but although he returned her gaze, she couldn’t read his expression and he said nothing, looking away after only a moment.