Stars Across Time (28 page)

He wanted to deny her words, to point out that he had been doing his best to help then and that he wanted to help now, but two of the men who had dragged him down the steps had remained by them, their rifles at the ready as they watched the pen. Another two men worked in the boiler room, tossing logs into the giant furnace and grunting back and forth as they pointed at gauges. They wore overalls without shirts underneath, revealing skin coated with ash and soot, and they were focused on their work, but Theron couldn’t assume they wouldn’t run over to help in the event of a jailbreak. However, his eyes lingered on the furnace and boiler and the cords of wood stacked along one wall. He might not be an engineer, but he had been told the energy density in wood varied a lot from one piece to the next, so it wasn’t as safe as the harder-to-come-by but more efficient coal that fueled the army’s locomotives. If he could get out and tie up those men somewhere, he might blow up the ship—or at least render it inoperable until reinforcements could arrive—without explosives. A boiler rupture would work just as well as the DM-3 compound the army used.

“He wasn’t molesting her,” a soft voice spoke from behind him. “He was conspiring with her.”

Min-ji eased her way past the other girls and came forward to stand behind him, her long black hair hanging limply around her shoulders, and her dark eyes weary and defeated. Her expression brightened slightly when she looked up into his face.

“It
is
you. Mace. What happened with the raiders?” Min-ji glanced at the guards and kept her voice to a whisper. “Why are you in here? Do you know if Andie...” She blinked a few times, uncertainty flashing across her face.

Theron finally turned around, more because he wanted his back to the guards—they were watching him intently—than because he wanted to face the women. He was surprised Andie hadn’t told her friend his identity, but he
had
asked her to keep it a secret.

“I believe I’m in here for the same reason you are,” he said dryly, then dropped his voice to a murmur that wouldn’t carry. “As to the rest, Andie was picked up by a military ship and made it back to the fort. I met her there—I’m a soldier and always was—and we’ve been planning to get you out of here. Unfortunately, my superiors thought a stealth mission with two people would be safer than sending in large numbers of troops, and half of the mission is now locked up.” Safer, right. It was more that Morimoto and the others hadn’t wanted to risk anyone else finding out about the time machine. A valid concern, Theron supposed, since it was
here
on the ship now. If he could blow up the boiler, might the machine be destroyed, as well? That cargo hold had been near the bow of the ship, and this boiler room was toward the stern. He wasn’t sure. At the least, if the ship sank, the machine would go to the bottom of the sea with it.

“Half of the mission?” Min-ji whispered, not objecting to the idea that he was a soldier. Maybe she could see that it was obvious he wasn’t on the enemy’s side, if he had been stuck in here.

“Andie’s here too,” he whispered back, barely moving his lips. “I’m hoping she hasn’t been captured. I left her an explosive to use if she gets aboard.”

“Gets aboard or gets bored?” Min-ji asked, a ghost of a smile touching her lips.

“Given our mission parameters, I suppose both instances would be acceptable. In the meantime, we should do our best to get out of here.”

“I’m amenable to that.” She glanced at his cuffed hands. “Do you have a plan for how we’ll be achieving that?”

“I have the start of one.” Theron lowered his head, as if to study a spot on the floor, but all he wanted was to be closer to Min-ji’s ears. “There’s some fake skin on my left biceps, the inside. It’s holding in place three short, slender metal tubes that don’t look like much more than pins. They’re made from an incendiary material that will burn hot enough to melt iron or steel, anything less than an inch thick. They should work on the locking mechanism there and also on cuffs, but you’d have to be very careful not to burn through a man’s skin.” A man’s, he said, as if he wasn’t thinking of himself. He couldn’t peel off the fake skin or apply the fire sticks to his own bonds. He needed her to do it for him. “They’re self-igniting, like a match. Just scrape them on a rough surface, place them, and stand back. They start burning right away.”

“Interesting,” Min-ji said. “What are they made from?”

A clang came from one of the furnaces, a man opening the big door to toss in more logs. Flames danced inside the red-hot fire box, and Theron could feel the heat from across the room. Even when the furnace doors were closed, it was warm down here.

“I have no idea,” Theron said. “But I’ll match you up with Gideon when we get back, if you like. He knows what everything is made from. And he’ll tell you. Whether you ask or not.”

Min-ji’s brows rose, as if she could not imagine this being a bad thing.

“I don’t know how much time we have, so if you please...” Theron rotated toward the gate, placing his body so it would hide the fact that Min-ji was poking around at his arm.

Gideon had done a good job applying the skin-colored patch to his arm and making it blend in. A good thing, too, since the guards had certainly found all of his other weapons when they had been removing his clothing. But under his guidance, Min-ji found the spot. The fake skin peeled away like a sticky bandage, taking a few hairs with it. Theron kept his expression neutral throughout the procedure because the guards had their eyes on him. Personally, he thought the women were much more aesthetically pleasing, given the viewing options, but maybe these boys preferred looking at naked men.

Unfortunately, there was about twenty feet between the guards and the gate for the pen. Even if he managed to burn through the lock without them noticing—something that wasn’t all that likely since the fire sticks usually threw off a few sparks while they worked—that was a lot of ground to cover while racing at armed men. The lighting wasn’t that bright down here, aside from when the laborers opened the furnace door, but Theron wouldn’t count on two trained men missing at close range.

A hatch opened at the top of the stairs, and boots—or perhaps high heels—clanged on the metal steps. That Vivienne woman wasn’t coming for him, was she? Theron had thought he would have more time, that they all would.

“Time for the auction to begin,” a cheerful voice called down. It didn’t belong to Vivienne, after all. But it sounded familiar. Optimus?

“Melt my cuffs,” Theron whispered over his shoulder.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think the fire stick would work quickly enough, not if Optimus was coming for him. He hoped one of the women was taken first, so he had more time to figure out a way to escape. If he had his hands free the second time Optimus came down, and they had destroyed the lock on the gate, as well, he might be able to come out on top in a fight.

The bald man who came down the stairs was indeed Optimus, and two more armed guards trailed him. Min-ji touched Theron’s wrists, fiddling with the fire stick. He had a feeling he was about to get burned badly, but he would consider that an acceptable trade-off if he was freed, as well. Maybe if he could get Optimus talking, the fire stick would have enough time to work, and he could make his move. He would need the element of surprise, as well as a bit of luck, to deal with four armed guards, plus Optimus. The bald man didn’t carry a firearm openly, but he probably had a pistol or two holstered under his jacket. And Theron couldn’t forget about the laborers, either. They didn’t appear to be armed, but they had shovels they could bring into the fray. The odds were
not
in his favor. If Andie had been there, he could have counted on another fighter at his side, even if she would have been as naked as the rest of the captives, but Min-ji definitely had the mien of a scholar rather than a warrior.

“Colonel Theron,” Optimus said, his voice almost a purr. “I didn’t recognize you without your beard.”

“Did you recognize me
with
it?”

“Actually, no.” Optimus stood back, waving for one of the guards to open the gate. “I don’t spend a lot of time looking at the portraits of soldiers. I try to avoid soldiers altogether. They’re so irritatingly righteous.”

“You didn’t seem to mind Duckworth.” The faint whiff of something burning reached Theron’s nose at the same time as he felt heat between his wrists. He held very still, lest the tiny stick fall off and uselessly singe the deck.

“Oh, he was irritatingly righteous too. I’m not crying about the fact that he was caught. Vivienne might miss him in her bed, but I hear she has her eye on you now.” Optimus looked Theron up and down and sneered. “She clearly has substandard tastes.”

“Clearly,” Theron said. Whatever it took to extend the conversation.

But the guard already had the key out. He opened the gate.

“Who are you here for?” Theron asked. The guards pointed their rifles at his chest, but that didn’t mean they wanted him, just that he was standing closest to the gate.

“You, of course.”

“Of course.” Theron flexed his shoulders and shifted his weight, trying to dissipate some of the smoke from the burning stick without knocking it off.

Not lowering their rifles, the guards backed up so he could step out. Theron thought about standing there mulishly, but he didn’t want a fight until his hands were free. He tugged lightly at the cuffs, hoping they might be ready to fall away, but they did not give. Maybe the fire stick had already fallen off, before it could do its job. He dared not look back to check. He strode forward, walking as briskly as he could with the chain and ball dragging after him. He did not want anyone to look too closely at his cuffs, in case they were charred or had been burned part of the way through.

Optimus, the two guards, and one more of the guards at the base of the steps headed up with him.

“Are all of you going with whoever buys me?” Theron asked sarcastically.

“God, I hope not,” Optimus said.

In truth, Theron was happy to have the large escort, since it meant only one guard had stayed to watch the women. Maybe they could use their guile to get past him, or with their numbers, they could even overpower him if they managed to burn through the gate lock. They would also have to rise above their fear of the man with the gun. He didn’t know if that would be possible after what they had endured. They all might be gun-shy. But he gathered hope from the fact that Min-ji had been quick to help him and that she had shown signs of humor.

He was led through a corridor he had not seen before and into a wide, lushly carpeted hallway with framed pieces of art on the wall. The susurrus of dozens of conversations came through a pair of double doors propped open ahead. The guards prodded him into a banquet room full of tables, with servers in black suits walking about, carrying beverage trays. One of the servers saw him and rushed forward to pick up his iron ball, the tendons in his neck straining at the weight. Theron snorted. Apparently, thumping up to the stage with a ball-and-chain attached to one’s leg was not appropriate for high society, or whatever these people believed themselves to be.

The conversations grew hushed as he was marched across the front of the room. The men and women—predominantly men—at the tables regarded him, some of the men looking away from his nudity and others... not. A number of the women looked him up and down brazenly. At a table in the back, four women stood up and clapped. Great to be putting on a good show.

Theron walked up the steps and faced the tables. He put his back to a wall with a mural depicting mountains and lakes he was not familiar with. Vivienne strode up the steps on the far side of the stage. Theron flexed his shoulders, pulling at the cuffs. They had not come apart on the way up; he had probably lost the fire stick before he had walked out of the pen. This time, he tried harder than he had before—maybe his audience would enjoy the display of some flexing muscles—and the metal
did
give slightly. Ah, might he pull them off yet? But then what? There wasn’t much he could do while he was on stage here. In addition to the guards who had marched him up to this deck of the ship, several others were stationed around the big room, openly displaying their weapons. No less than ten people would shoot at him if he ran off the stage, and he would be lugging that forty-pound ball behind him.

“We have a special slave to start off the auction with,” Vivienne announced once the clapping had died down. “As you can see, ladies, he’s well-endowed, pleasant to look at, and he may even be fertile if that’s something of interest to you.”

Theron arched an eyebrow. Did the woman truly think someone would be able to force him into such a role? True, his body didn’t always cooperate with his wishes, but unless his new owner—he clenched his jaw at that thought—intended to keep him chained all the time, he
would
find a way to escape.

“
May
be fertile?” someone asked from the back table. “Can’t you verify that?”

“And can you also verify that’s Colonel Theron? However did you get him?”

“It’s him. He’s a recent acquisition. That’s why he hasn’t been tested. We have a lot of voluptuous young women to show you tonight, so there won’t be time for that now. You’ll have to bid according to how important that is to you.”

“He doesn’t have any children, does he? Colonel, have you ever
tried
to have children?”

Theron gazed back stolidly. Did they think a shackle around his ankle was going to make him a willing participant in this?

“Vivienne,” a man with a rich, accented voice said from a front table. “Did you forget your prod?”

He wore an impeccable gray suit with a black turtleneck underneath it, a thick gold watch visible beneath the sleeve. He slipped a hand into a jacket pocket, and Theron watched carefully, flexing his shoulders again in case he needed to move quickly. The item the man withdrew wasn’t a gun but some black device that brought dildos to mind.

“Are you offering yours?” Vivienne smiled.

“Only if you dispense with the preliminaries and start the bidding.” He tossed her the device, which she caught, her red fingernails glinting in the light.