Dark Minds (Class 5 Series Book 3) (9 page)

It contained a frightening mask, like something out of a horror movie, and a slender cylinder of the same metal.

“I'm guessing it's the weapon for the other hand.” She lifted it up gingerly. “Where did the Tecran get this, do you know?”

“It was stolen from a warrior planet.” Paxe said. “They call themselves the Reven, and they are a very old race. The teams the Tecran sent down to steal this cabinet and other things didn't all make it back. It was a miscalculation. The captain saw they didn't have any space travel capabilities, so he assumed their technology was unsophisticated.”

“He was wrong?” Imogen didn't think she'd seen anything as sophisticated as this used by the Tecran. Everything about it screamed deadly and advanced.

“They are more advanced in some technological aspects than any member of the United Council, but they adhere to a specific belief system, one that is followed by most of the people on the planet. It has turned their brilliance and creativity away from space travel, toward on-planet technological advancement.”

“What belief system?” Imogen turned the cylinder upside down, to see if there was a switch or something on the base, but there was nothing.

“They believe they were all created by a divine being that resides within the core of their planet. Their world is unstable, with many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and they believe that is their god communicating with them.”

“Why would that stop them exploring their solar system?”

“They believe the closer they are, physically, to their god, the more enlightened and happier they are. So holy men and women live in craters and deep gorges to commune with the deity, and their prisons are placed on the highest peaks, a punishment not only in being caged, but also being as far from the deity as it is possible to be.”

“So no one wants to even climb a mountain, let alone rocket into space?”

“Exactly. And for the few who don't believe, they don't have the funding they need or the technological foundation on which to build their ideas, anyway.”

“Well, I don't know what this is supposed to do.” She tipped it upright again. Given the tone set by the other items, this was deadly, but how it worked was a mystery she had no intention of proving personally.

It was time to stop playing, anyway, and see how far Paxe would let her help the prisoners in the hold. She turned to the doors and then froze.

A Krik was staring at her from the entrance.

“Paxe.” She was barely able to get his name out. She cast a quick glance at the drones, but before they could even lift their shockguns, the Krik was screaming his battle cry and charging her, weaving to dodge the shockgun fire.

She needed to move——to do something——and as he came into striking range, she hit out at the Krik with the slim cylinder.

A blue light ignited between them, throwing the Krik off his feet and onto his back.

She held the cylinder out in front of her, as afraid of it as she was of the Krik, and waited.

A drone approached the body, and she thought she saw a glimmer of light as it scanned him.

“Not dead. Just unconscious.”

She relaxed a little. She had lashed out without knowing what she was doing, but she was glad she hadn't killed him. Everything else in the cabinet seemed aimed at death, but the light had crackled in many directions, so perhaps it wasn't lethal in case of friendly fire. They could always kill the victim with the sword cuff once they were down.

“I'll take care of him.” The drone rolled even closer and then shot the Krik in the head with its shockgun.

Fear and shock froze her in place and she felt the burn of nausea in her throat. “I thought you were actually going to take care of him.” She was barely able to choke the words out.

“I did.”

“No, you killed him.” There was an edge of hysteria to her voice and she forced herself to breathe deeply, to find some calm.

“You are upset.” There was that bemusement again.

“You just killed someone in front of me.” She choked out the words.

“You didn't know if you'd killed him yourself.”

She blew out a breath. “True. But I was protecting myself, and I didn't know how the cylinder worked. There is a difference in killing someone in self-defense or killing them in cold blood while they lie unconscious on the floor.”

“What difference? They are still dead.”

She looked at the drone, but there was no way to tell if Paxe was yanking her chain or perfectly serious. If she were to guess, she'd say he was serious as a heart attack.

“The difference is your intention. Which, admittedly, is not much help to the person if they are dead, but would mean a lot to the person lying unconscious on the floor.”

“Because they would still be alive. Because you wouldn't kill someone when they were no longer a threat.”

“You get it.” She took a deep breath. He was taking this seriously.

“But as a Krik, he would be just as dangerous when he recovered consciousness. At which point I would have to kill him anyway.”

“The Krik aren't the best example. But what if you didn't kill him, put him on a runner, and sent him off on his way, where he couldn't harm you?”

“I don't care enough about him to go to that kind of effort. My own life is in danger and I need all my resources to give myself the best chance of survival.”

She sighed. She couldn't even argue the logic of that. Not really.

Her heart wasn't in it where the Krik were concerned.

“I was taught to see all life as precious.” And he clearly hadn't.

“No one sees my life as precious.”

“I do.”

“Do you?” It wasn't a challenge, he was genuinely interested.

“Yes. As precious as anyone else's.”

He mulled it over and she had the sense more time had gone by than she could afford. She had set herself a mission and it was as important as ever. Kalor and the others could last a few days without food, but if, like her, they hadn't had water since they were taken, some of them could have gone as much as a day without.

She would have to walk past the Krik's body to leave, would have to go with the avatars of a person whose idea of value of life was completely different to hers, but before she stepped out into the passage . . . She turned to face away from the doors, to an empty wall, gripped the cylinder and flicked it like she was cracking a whip.

Blue light crackled and leapt from the end, touching the wall and doing no harm that she could see.

She cracked it again, enjoying the wild snap of blue fire.

“What are you doing?” Paxe had sent a drone to her side again.

“I was practicing. Now I'm going to the hold, and no one had better try stop me.”

C
am could hear
someone ahead of him in the narrow tunnel. It sounded too loud to be Pren, too heavy, and so he didn't call out.

He tried to move more quietly, and go faster, because if this was the way Pren had come, whoever was in front of him was right behind her.

And if he was following a Krik, and Pren had gone another way altogether, he was wasting his time, and would rather know sooner than later.

When he reached a sharp turn in the tunnel he realized the noise of his fellow traveller had stopped and he crouched just out of sight, listening.

The smell of decomposition was almost overwhelming now, despite the mask, and when he risked a look around the corner, he saw why.

A dead Tecran lay facing the tunnel wall. He looked as if he'd been roughly dragged to one side and propped up, so as not to completely block the way.

If the Vanad's crew had been telling the truth, this Tecran had been killed as long ago as two weeks, or had been skulking in the tunnels since then until the Krik had hunted him down and killed him to fulfill their part of the bargain with the Class 5's thinking system.

From the smell, and the condition of the body, he'd been dead at least a week. Cam forced himself to look, but the Tecran had been stripped of weapons, and even his boots were gone.

As Cam edged past him he saw the singed feathers on the side of the Tecran's head that denoted a shockgun hit.

As he studied the evidence, there was the faintest scrape of sound up ahead, a boot scuff on metal, as if someone was waiting for him.

Cam couldn't think of a more terrible place to wait if you didn't have a mask, and decided to take a chance. Whoever was up ahead knew he was here anyway.

“Pren?”

“Sir!”

There was a scrabble of sound, and then Pren came into view.

“I thought you were another Krik.”

“Was that you before?” Cam cleared the Tecran's body and shooed her down the tunnel, away from the oppression of the smell.

“Yes. A Krik came this way earlier and when I heard you, I thought one of his friends was joining him, so I tried to sound more like they do.” She looked back at him over her shoulder, and he saw her profound relief at not being caught between two Krik in an enclosed space.

“How did you hide from the first one?”

She started moving again, more quietly now. “I hid down that small side tunnel a little way back, maybe stayed there longer than necessary, because I didn't know what I'd do if I met him coming back the other way. He seemed annoyed, like he'd been ordered this way and didn't like it. He was muttering to himself.”

“How long ago did he come through?”

“Not long. I've been wishing I could understand Krik ever since he crawled past.”

“I got the sense when they found themselves in the hold they hadn't realized which floor they were on. They've been crawling around in here exterminating the Tecran crew for the thinking system, so now they're orientated, they probably have a good idea where everything is.”

Pren stilled, and Cam gripped her ankle when he came up behind her.

“What is it?” He kept his voice low.

She didn't answer, instead she moved over as much as she could so he could see as well——an open grate up ahead, the first Cam had seen since he'd hauled himself into the tunnel.

“Do you think he climbed out, or just needed his bearings like he did in the hold, and carried on?”

Cam didn't care. They finally had an escape route, and he was taking it.

* * *

“
Y
ou're still
upset with me?” The drone kept pace with her as Paxe spoke through its speaker.

“No. It's just . . .” She shook her head. “Life should mean more to you. It's sad that it doesn't.”

“I still don't understand. I didn't hurt
you
. I kept you safe, because when he woke, he would have tried to kill you again.”

She slowed her pace. Rubbed at her forehead. “You're right.” She shook her head. “You're absolutely right. But like I said, there were other options. You could have dragged him off and locked him in a room, and kept me just as safe.”

“Ah. You'd rather he starved to death slowly. The shockgun was too quick?”

She stopped dead. Looked across at the drone. Had he not understood anything from their conversation earlier. “No.” She enunciated very clearly. “I don't want anyone to die a long, protracted death. Not anyone.” She blew out a breath. “If he had to die, the way you did it was the best, while he was still unconscious, and didn't even know what was happening. But did he really have to die?”

“You know how they are. You know he would never have stopped trying to escape and kill. And I don't intend to keep anyone on this ship long term, prisoner or guest. It's mine and I want it to myself.”

“So are you going to kill all of us?” She started moving again. She'd thought she was going to die since Toloco killed the last of her Tecran guards, but since she'd met Paxe, she'd allowed a little hope to edge in.

“I was going to. Now I've met you, I'm not sure.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Be sure.”

“I want to do something after hearing that. Maybe . . . laugh?”

“I'm so glad I'm amusing. But while you chuckle quietly to yourself, why don't you tell me why you went to so much trouble to get me and the others on this ship if you planned to kill us?” So much just didn't make sense, from her capture onward. She didn't think it was because she was a less developed being, Earth's technological development didn't have anything to do with it, it was because she didn't have all the information.

“I had the Krik looking for you, out of . . . curiosity, you might say. I'd heard you could help me, but I didn't think that was true, and I wanted to see you for myself.”

“Heard from who? You wanted to see me and when you'd satisfied your curiosity, you planned on murdering me? Nice, Paxe.”

“It's not like that.” He actually sounded hurt. “The help I'd heard you could give me would also have meant you could kill me. I would never make myself so vulnerable, so I never intended you would help me, but it is wise to understand and know the person who could do you most harm, isn't it?”

“And eliminate them, even when they don't even know you? Aren't looking for trouble?” She couldn't help the wobble in her voice.

“I was taking the long term view. What if later you did decide to look for trouble?”

She stopped again. “You must usually be invincible, Paxe, to be so threatened at one supposed chink in your armor. And I use the word
supposed
very deliberately. I think the whole idea of me being some kind of threat to you is bullshit. But me? I could have been killed by everyone around me on my planet. Even people who would seem less of a physical threat; a child could accidentally kill me with a gun, or a little old lady could run me over in a car. I'd have to kill every single person I came into contact with if I took your attitude.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone. And yet I didn't, and still here I am.” She tapped her chest lightly with both hands. “Until the moment I was abducted by the bastards in a ship just like this, I was unmolested, unharmed, happy, and with great relationships with all those potential killers all around me.”

“Why is that?”

The fact that he sounded genuinely interested was the only thing that made her swallow her angry retort. He genuinely didn't understand. And that frightened her more than anything else. Because it suggested he had never had a relationship with anyone. Ever.

“Because people, on the whole, don't want to live in a world where they have to constantly kill others just in case those same people kill them. It's exhausting, it's horrible, and most of the time, you have relationships with those around you, and you like them. Love them. Hurting them, killing them, is the last thing you want to do.”

“I don't find killing that exhausting or horrible, but then I haven't liked anyone.”

“So why aren't you sure about killing me?” she challenged him.

“I don't know.” He sounded thoughtful. “It isn't simply that we've had conversations. I've had plenty of conversations with the Tecran captain, and some of the Krik.”

“Positive ones?”

“I don't know what a positive conversation is.”

A cold whisper of fear and tragedy washed over her. “A positive conversation would be cordial and constructive, and leave you feeling good.”

“No.” The word was almost a whisper. “That was not the nature of my previous conversations. They were giving orders to me, or threatening me, or I was giving orders or threatening them.”

“So, totally different to our chats.”

“Yes.” He paused. “I felt something different when we spoke. It might be called good.”

“You don't know how to identify when you're feeling good?”

“It appears I do now.”

Imogen couldn't help it. She reached out a hand and touched the drone's lens. “I'm glad.”

“Does that mean you like me?”

“I want to. How about we conduct an experiment? We try to be friends.”

“That seems like it would be more useful for you than for me.” His voice was dry.

She cocked her head at the lens, raised a brow. “Right. Being friends with a psychopathic killer is such a canny move. How about you look at it this way. Investing in a friendship will expand your personal horizons. You will at the very least have insight into others who do have friendships, and you will have access to my advice and help, just as I will have access to yours.”

“That is an interesting proposal. I am eager to see if you are right about it being beneficial to me.”

“Tell me when you think you know.”

She thought he was going to answer her when the drone turned, but it stretched out its long arm, forcing her to stop. A moment later she heard a noise around the next corner. The murmur of voices and the sound of boots walking toward them.

She stopped dead and gripped her electric whip.

All the drones raised their shockguns and one rose up in hover mode, moved silently to look around the corner.

And then started shooting.