Rebel's Consort - Phoenix Book 1 (11 page)
Radar: Piper status?
Hmm, how to handle that? He glanced over the kids heads to Aaron.
Stable
Radar: Supplies?
More AG
Message silence. He hated that. His answer had disclosed how ‘not stable’ Analena was and her level of risk since he needed more blood.
Radar: Confirm—pickup from Shepherd?
Trace released his breath and at Wolf’s nod, responded.
Wolf Pickup —time?
Radar: 6:30—u not mobile?
Each team member had his or her own codes for time. It kept the process personal and difficult to infiltrate unless you actually knew each other. Radar’s worked in relatively short intervals, 6:30 indicating thirty minutes. Trace mentally calculated how long the pint of AG they’d just hooked up would last. Analena had replaced the majority of blood she’d lost, the transfusions now targeted on reducing her anemic condition. He figured there was safe margin for the time it would take for Aaron to get out and back.
No—I stay with Piper
Radar: then you are off grid
Yes
Interesting that it wasn’t a question. But more surprising was the apparent relief that permeated the air from the children, even Hena and Aaron, with his response. Surely, they didn’t think he’d leave her, much less like this?
Radar: will notify you with new intel on extraction issue
Confirm—need all intel related to the event
He wanted every single bit of information that had led to Piper’s attack and near capture.
Radar: copy
Trace signed off in time to see Aaron head out the rear tunnel. He turned around to the growing number of children and sized up boredom, curiosity, and uncertainty all in one sweeping gaze. How did Analena keep a handle on all these kids?
Guess there was no time like the present to start cataloging their individual needs. This was what he’d come here for. He glanced back at Analena. Well, one of the things he’d come for.
“Okay, who wants to be the first one to try out new stuff? After Gar, of course.”
***
Trace lifted his head from the table and listened.
Silence. With at least six kids under the age of eight, silence wasn’t a good sign. Given no little five-year-old was crawling around his feet, he looked around for the most likely one to be in trouble.
True to form, Bits was teetering on the edge of a rock several feet down a tunnel, reaching for something just beyond his field of vision. He held back a shout, afraid he’d startle her into falling. His hands caught her waist as her foot slipped and her body dropped. With a squeal, she smiled at him, unconcerned. Her hands played in a large bowl of fluid.
He frowned at the glowing liquid and pulled Bits to his shoulder, away from the thick fluid. Shimmering bits of gold glitter were suspended like fine dust specks throughout the substance.
“I want to hear the music.” Bits wiggled and lurched back toward the bowl.
“I don’t think so, kid. You almost landed on your head. I know Analena wouldn’t want that.”
“She lets me listen to the music.”
Somehow, he was confident the pursed lips and forced frown on her face weren’t telling the whole story. “Alone? Analena said it was okay to come in here
alone
and climb up here by yourself?”
The kid had the good sense to drop the act and dip her head. “I wanted to listen to the music.”
Reassuring to see she had a little shame under her belt.
“Are you going to tell on me?”
Trace stifled a laugh at her ploy. Analena had better wake up soon because he was too easy a mark for the kids. “You and I will make a deal.”
Already nodding, she awaited his stipulations.
“If you want to get up here, you come and find me, Hena, or Analena or Aaron. No one else, got it?”
A sweet smile joined more vigorous nods.
“If you can’t find us, you do
not
climb up here on your own.”
She pursued her lips again, but nodded. “You won’t tell.”
He hitched her to his side and got a better grip as he moved in front of the big bowl. “You keep to the bargain, and this’ll be between us.”
One kiss to his cheek, and her tiny fingers were wiggling back to the bowl. He lowered her until her fingertips touched the fluid. The glitter shimmered around her fingers like minnows, the glow increasing as she submerged her hand. A delicate ripple washed along the surface.
He heard nothing.
Bits, on the other hand, started to hum and mouth a series of la, la, las in obvious compliment to whatever she was experiencing. He held her and scrutinized the fluid. In response to Bits’s enthusiasm, the fluid moved and flowed within the natural curve of the crystalline border.
Composed of pale rose-colored quartz, the bowl showed a distinct separation from the rock formation of the tunnels and caverns. Assessing the wall behind the bowl, he squinted to focus more clearly on the tendrils and vines for the food source that trailed from the fissures in the tunnel’s ceiling. Several veered off and bent toward the far edge of the bowl. Green and brown shoots dangled beneath the surface of the gelatinous liquid, while the remainder of the vines progressed along the tunnel to the main cavern to proliferate the wall of fruit and vegetation.
This produced the toxin-free food source?
Skepticism gave way to curiosity. He gripped Bits tighter and lowered his free hand above the fluid’s surface. Warmth, but no sensation. He dipped in a finger.
You wear the woman’s blood.
The voice, or more like a compilation of voices, rang loud and harsh in Trace’s mind. Rage and condemnation rolled into a brutal assault on the nerves behind his eyeballs. He winced with pain under the onslaught and yanked his hand back.
Woman? Analena?
Quickly, he placed Bits on the floor. “Time to go find Hena for a little while.”
Trace turned back, stared, and then risked dipping his hand into the fluid again.
“She was injured. I’ve been working to help her.”
Injured.
A pause.
The organisms will heal her
.
It, they, knew of the nanites?
“There was a lot of damage. Some critical.”
She lives. You nurture her, protect her
?
Hmm, interesting concepts. “Yes. Do you speak to her, like you speak with the little girl?”
The young
?
No. Our communication with the woman is unique. She is unique. Our first contact.
“The first human that you’ve had contact with?”
No. The first of your race we’ve chosen to connect with in the many millennia we’ve existed.
Trace blew out a slow breath. He’d never believed the human race was the only sentient life-form in the world, but he’d never considered that another species might live side-by-side without choosing to contact them.
On a hunch, he tried to deliver his next question in his mind.
Why not…before
?
Why Analena
?
The woman is unique.
Yeah, got that.
Her organisms are primitive, a base level. We utilized them to connect with her, to establish communication.
The food source, do you eradicate the toxins
?
Another long pause.
The woman needs the sustenance to survive, to nurture the young.
Nurture again. Evidently a concept that spanned races, even if the concept of names didn’t seem to be something this Entity felt the need to embrace.
And the water
?
The woman needs us, we provide.
Trace considered what the nanites had contributed to the connection between this Entity and Analena, healing and a baseline for communication. Communication that obviously expanded to the children. Because he was certain if Analena felt the Entity was safe enough for Bits, then the other children partook of interaction as well.
The base organism is healing Analena. But her children are still injured. The organism rejects interaction with their
The woman is unique.
A frustrated snort was all Trace allowed himself. He couldn’t debate Analena’s status as one in a million, if only from his perspective, but that acknowledgment didn’t unravel the riddles of how to develop an eye for Gar, to fix Bits’s spine, or to help Hena’s leg. To interact with this fluid was incredible, yet he wanted more. He wanted answers and fixes. This…Entity could have the key.
The fluid surged further up his arm.
The genetic makeup of the woman is a random factor. The other young do not have her predisposition.
So there is nothing that can be done
?
We can intercede with the base organism. Control its compliance in the interaction.
Trace held his breath.
How
?
You will take us with you.
Chapter 10
Trace charged at the first scream. With a quick leap to the tabletop, he pinned Analena down with his body to keep the stitches in place as she thrashed.
“Angel.” He straddled her, his knees by her hips, his boots hooked over her shins, and his right arm pinning her left shoulder as his hand cupped her face to get her to look at him. “You’re safe. You’re going to make a bloody mess of yourself again if you don’t stop.”
Eyes wide, pupils dilated in panic, and perspiration dotting her upper lip, she tried to move her head.
“It’s all right.” Bits’s voice broke through the haze as she patted Analena’s good shoulder.
She blinked and tried to swivel her head in Bits’s direction.
Seeing some sanity return to her expression, Trace released his hold on her cheek and sat up, still kneeling over her. She glanced at Bits’s hand and back up to him with more calm than he would have expected. Hands raised, he eased back. “Your stitches and your arm can’t take much movement.”
At her small nod of acknowledgement, he rolled to the floor.
Every child had come running at the scream, as with each of the successive episodes throughout the past grueling days. At least this time, Analena remained awake instead of lapsing back into unconsciousness.
Pushing through them, he grabbed for his scanner and ran a quick check over her leg and abdominal wounds. By the time he got to her shoulder and arm, the kids had reassured themselves she wasn’t in mortal danger and settled back to their previous activities.
Aaron picked up Bits and held her so she could give Analena a kiss. Then, with a quick nod to Trace, he headed over to join the others.
Analena swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and glanced back at him. “How long have—”
He lifted the tarp and checked the restraints around her shoulder and wrist. “Four days.”
“Four?”
Her mouth hung open as if she wanted to say something, but she nodded at the tarp instead. “I’d like to see it.”
“If you promise to stay still.” He moved the fabric from the frame. She winced, inadvertently pulling at the restraints. Pressing down on her shoulder, he leaned in close. “I was serious about being still. It’s healing itself, as long as you don’t move.”
The fire in her eyes signaled resistance, and he leaned closer and pressed a finger to her lips.
“They worry about you, so please don’t tug out of the restraints. If not because I ask as your doctor, then because they need to see your shining example. You scared them shitless.”
Her gaze swept over the group across the cave and back to him. A passing sign of puzzlement gave way to awareness, capitulation, and regret.
“I’d take off the restraints, but you need to rest. The natural inclination is to move and roll, so I’d like for you to remain another twelve hours this way.” He disassembled the frame, packed the items away on another table, and then leaned his elbows beside her head.
“Hena is going to bring you something to eat.”
At the shake of her head, he cupped her cheek in his palm. “I’m not talking to hear myself speak. You need food. These kids want to help you. I told them these were things they could do.”
Leaning into his hand, she pursed her lips there and closed her eyes. “Fine.”
“Good.” He bent forward and kissed her forehead. Her inhale of surprise registered, but he turned away. Hena had arrived with water and a bowl of a mealy composition that would no doubt rile Analena further. It was hard to make the seaweed, kelp, and vitamin mix taste anything other than how it looked and smelled, foul.
He opted for an exit while he could.
***
Trace’s hand hovered over the fluid. Awe and a touch of reticence fed his hesitation. His test confirmed the Entity could provide a link for compatibility between Gar and the nanites. However, the specifics were still too vague for his peace of mind.
The mere touch of the cool substance initiated a flow of gold sparkle over his hand and up his wrist.
The woman’s organisms have adapted to the young’s tissue
, they said
.
No doubt registered in the Entity’s statement. He wished he could develop that kind of certainty.
Yes, Gar’s
The woman has reached physical and sexual maturity. She is viable for mating and reproduction of your species.
Shit. Trace forced the air from his lungs. Talk about all-knowing.
And Hena
?
The female young has not reached the necessary stage of development. Her counterpart will wait.
What the—
Does Analena have a counterpart
?
The fluid pulsed up his arm in a thin stream, curling around his forearm, over his elbow and beneath his t-shirt. With a silent curse, he felt it cover the brand on his bicep.
You are a compatible match.
