CollisionWithParadise (28 page)

“Yes, but…” he trailed and set her down reluctantly. He gazed at her with something close to incredulity. She supposed that she had presented him, yet again, with a unique occurrence, someone who’d survived inhaling the swamp without succumbing to its madness. And she wasn’t sure how she’d managed to accomplish it. “Are you sure?” he posed.

“I’m sure. Let’s keep going.” She peered up at the darkening canopy overhead with concern. They’d lost precious time with Heller’s encounter and Azaes’s slowed pace because of her. “It’s getting late. How much farther do you think it is?”

“Another kilometre or two, I think,” he said, following her glance up. He obviously shared her concern about making it before dark. “How’s your leg?”

“I’ll be fine,” she lied, forcing weight on her leg to prove it. She turned her face away from him to grimace and struck up a brisk pace through the low scrub. But her leg was no better. In fact, it felt worse, having grown tender and swollen while in disuse.

They hadn’t gone more than half a kilometre when she felt her breaths labour with the agonizing pain that accompanied the effort to climb over a large root or tangle of lianas. The pain flamed up her leg, taking the strength out of it, and she stumbled over a root with an involuntary cry. Azaes was there in a shot, pulling her to her feet and bracing her. He’d obviously been watching her closely. She twisted out of his grasp once she’d regained enough strength in her leg to stand.

“You said earlier that you were fine,” he growled in a savage voice. “But you are not!” He looked furious with her.

“I
am
fine,” she shot back in an equally brusque voice and picked up her pace, limping heavily and grimacing involuntarily.

He muttered, “You are a very stubborn species.”

He’d only figured that out now? she thought, annoyed at him. Why was he always angry or irritated with her? Then again, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she and her colleagues had royally screwed up his life. She’d forced him to breach two of his most sacred pledges and her crew was in the process of messing up his entire civilization.

“And so impatient,” Azaes continued muttering peevishly behind her. “You are so rash and impetuous, like little children. You don’t think before you act.” He was one to talk, she thought frowning hard. He had an infinite life-time to acquire patience. “You humans could use a little more patience,” he continued his run-on complaint, as though the sound of his voice eased his mind. “Lack of it has been your undoing many times.”

She had to admit that was true. But the Eosians were the opposite, meditating over things for so long until it was too late to act and it no longer mattered. There was a time to study and there was a time to do, like
now
. That was why he needed her. The Eosians had for so long practiced self-restraint in everything, it was as though they’d lost the ability to intuitively act, to trust in spontaneity. Maybe that was the only viable fate of a species that lived forever.

Chapter Twenty-One

With perhaps a half hour of light remaining, Genevieve spotted the purple glow of the Great Crystal. Azaes stopped and turned to her for consultation. They crept forward until they could see well into the clearing. None of the four remaining crew lingered outside. Several dead
shwarmas
lay scattered about the compound, their huge carcasses looking ferocious even in death. Genevieve felt Azaes’s unease. Was one of them Shiva? Or had she changed shape and escaped?

“We need to enter the
Chimera
,” she urged. “The shot that killed your scree came from it. My bet is that Bragg’s in there, along with the remaining crewers and maybe your betrothed. We need to immobilize Bragg and his crew.”

Azaes nodded, looking a little lost and vulnerable, for once. It softened his stern features considerably. Genevieve swallowed convulsively to contain a rush of compassion. He was obviously out of his element.

Genevieve noticed his look of discomfort as he watched her pull out the concussion pistol into a combat hold and slowly move forward into the clearing. She’d lost her laser rifle during the assault in the swamp. She would have preferred it now, but it lay irreparably buried in the swamp under Heller’s dead body.

She was certain they were being surveyed from the
Chimera
cameras. Bragg could have shot them by now, she thought, heart pounding. She might have guessed right
—
now seeing her and Azaes up close, Bragg might have decided that Azaes, particularly, would be potentially useful to load the crystal and to man the
Atlantis II
. Especially if Bragg found out that Shiva was a love interest.

They found the entrance and Genevieve turned to Azaes. “Try not to show any emotion, especially toward your betrothed,” she whispered solemnly. “Bragg isn’t above using Shiva to get you to do things, if you get my meaning.”

He looked at her in sheer panic and she felt sorry for him. This was way beyond his experience and it was obvious he had no idea how to deal with it.

She punched in the code beside the entrance. The portal slid dutifully open, dropping a ramp for them. They entered and were not far into the ship when Azaes halted with a gasp.

“Shiva!” he exclaimed.

Blast! He’d given himself away. Genevieve took quick stock
—
Azaes’s betrothed stood naked with a stiff face in front of Bragg, dressed only in tattered shorts with his arm half-strangling her around the neck and a gun pointed at her head. Unfortunately, she looked like she’d been manhandled. Genevieve noticed that Shiva’s face and body were bruised in a few places and her large breasts were smeared with blood. One nipple looked black and crusted. Genevieve took note of Sanchez and Porter, tending the vid camera and the other the weapons console, both resting hands in mock restfulness on the weapons slung to their hips. They looked equally disheveled and dressed in tattered cut offs.

“Well,” Bragg said in a lazy voice, letting a faint smile curl his lips, “if it isn’t flygirl and her pet baldie, the savage from the purple lagoon. Only you can’t tell them apart because she’s purpled herself up and gone savage too. Jeeesus, Dubois! What’d you do to yourself?”

“I could ask the same of you, Bragg,” Genevieve responded casually, without a smile. She held her pistol in a relaxed pose, pointed at the floor unthreateningly. “There’s dead meat everywhere and this doesn’t look like a diplomatic meeting to me.”

He snarled, “It’s too late for diplomacy, Dubois. By the way, I thought you were dead.”

“Yeah, thanks for looking for me,” she said.

He barked out a sharp laugh and his thick lips spread into a sinister smile as he appraised her naked body with approval. “What happened to you? You look like you’ve gone native, turned into one of these purple savages.”

Sanchez brayed out a throaty laugh. Porter snorted. “Fucking savages,” he muttered. “We’ll show them who’s superior. Fucker,” he spit out at Azaes, no doubt referring to Azaes unfortunate speeches to Earth.

Genevieve realized for the first time in a long while that she was naked, and that she’d been more comfortable nude with an alien than she was now with her own kind. She felt the warmth of shame creep up into her face at the thought of the reprehensible behaviour of her fellow humans. She felt so ashamed in front of Azaes and Shiva. Her colleagues might have been dressed, but clothes couldn’t hide their shameful barbarism. “I asked you what you’re doing,” she repeated more forcefully to Bragg.

“What do you think I’m doing? I’m fulfilling my duties!”

“By hurting the natives?”

“I’m in charge here, Dubois. I’m your commanding officer,” he said savagely. “You don’t question my command. We’re in combat mode here. I’ve already lost two of my crew. I sent them to find food and water yesterday and they haven’t returned. And
this
one
,” he tightened his grip on Shiva, who squeaked with the effort to breathe, “is a bloody chameleon and highly dangerous. She eluded our shots by changing into all kinds of things, then inflicted a nasty injury on Sanchez.” Genevieve noticed Sanchez’s mangled arm and wondered what form Shiva had taken to achieve such a wound. Perhaps a
shwarma
. “But I finally caught her,” Bragg said. He cackled and Genevieve realized he’d gone quite mad. “But the bitch won’t tell us how to get the crystal off its mount without breaking it.” He tightened his hold on her, drawing out a strangled sound of pain from her. “We tried everything we knew to convince her to cooperate. Right, Sanchez?” He cackled again. This time Sanchez joined him with a guttural laugh that sent a chill up Genevieve’s spine. Genevieve thought she might have heard Shiva whimper, but she wasn’t sure. What horror had that monster inflicted on the poor Eosian? She recalled his quirky erotic fantasy and glanced at Shiva’s breasts again. Bragg went on, “Maybe we can convince your friend with the purple dick to help us, eh, or we may have to play some more with his girlfriend.”

Azaes tensed to spring forward and immediately Sanchez and Porter raised their guns. Genevieve watched him fume, but he saw the wisdom in halting and she noted that his shoulders dropped in acquiescence.

“What is it you’re after, Bragg?” Genevieve persisted.

“The damn crystal, of course.”

“That’s all?”

“All? It’s everything, you idiot!”

“And if you could get the crystal, then what?”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Well, it’d be nice to have their ship too. But we can’t get it to work.”

“I can get you both if you let these two go,” she said, watching Azaes squirm with unease. He was looking very worried now. He had a right to be. She was about to give it all away, betray him, his people and his planet to this scumbag. But she saw no other way. She’d quickly realized during their journey here that for all their ancient wisdom, Azaes and his people were extremely naïve and, in the long run, incapable of defending themselves. Sly battle strategy had been bred out of them, and what wasn’t bred out was quashed through environmental means. They were a passive people, awaiting slaughter from a ruthless amoral pugilistic race of aliens
—
her race. Bragg and his cronies had to be taken out and she was the one to do it. She wondered briefly why the Epoptes had let Zac and its murderous crew in. Didn’t they know? What kind of protective gods were they?

Bragg smeared on an oil-slick smile. “Go on,” he said to her.

“I know what you need to release the crystal.”

“No!” Azaes exclaimed, lunging toward her.

Sanchez and Porter sprang forward and grabbed Azaes. “Hold on, fucker,” Porter hissed.

Genevieve let her eyes stray for a moment on Azaes. “I trusted you,” he murmured, eyes glowing with hurt. “I thought better of you, human.” She saw his chest heave with shallow breaths of escalating anger. “You’re just like them, woman. You’re a weak-minded vermin,” he bit out.

Genevieve turned back to Bragg, knowing what Azaes thought of her. “I know where it is. I also know how to get the
Atlantis II
off the ground.”

“What?” several voices exclaimed, including Azaes’s own shriek.

Porter, obviously needing to defend his own abilities, objected. “Fuck it, Bragg! She’s lying!”

Genevieve kept her eyes on Bragg. “The crystal technology is exactly configured to complement the organic technology. It’s the same as Zac’s and the
Chimera
’s technology. It’s a hybrid. But you were trying to run one without the other, weren’t you?” she turned to Porter, who’s face had gone red. “You need to configure the crystals first to integrate with the living material. That ship’s alive
—
you just need to speak its language. I happen to know it. Do any of you?” she challenged the
Chimera
crew, crossing her arms.

Bragg looked pensive. He wasn’t discounting her as easily
—
he didn’t have a wounded ego boosting him to make foolish conclusions. She’d caught him with logic. Perhaps he wasn’t as mad as he looked.

“Fuck, she’s talking crap,” Porter insisted in a blustery voice. “You going to believe her? Look at the bitch, man. She’s turned into a fucking naked savage. Fuck her!”

“Yeah, Porter!” Sanchez chortled. “We should!”

“Porter doesn’t believe you, Dubois,” Bragg said coolly. “He’d as soon fuck you as believe you. In fact, so would we all!” The three of them guffawed into raucous laughter, eyes roaming her body like lecherous hands.

“There’s a part missing,” she added in an even voice, ignoring their laughter and glancing briefly at Azaes. His eyes widened and his face went pale. Bragg too had immediately ceased his laughter to listen intently. “It’s a crystal sphere and rod arrangement,” she continued, avoiding Azaes’s gaze and looking directly into Bragg’s eyes. “And I know where it is,” she pushed the last words out. “I saw it.” Through her peripheral vision she saw Azaes’s whole body cave in with defeat and turned to him with a face of anguish. “I’m sorry.” She knew that wasn’t enough. She’d betrayed him totally.

Bragg took one look at Azaes, murmuring something in Eosian, and he knew she’d just spoken the truth. “Where are they?”

She gave him a tight smile and said nothing.