Ki Book One (15 page)

Her eyes were rimmed with red. Right now
they seemed to shine though. “You’re alive,” she
croaked.

“
You sound surprised,” he managed through a
heavy breath. He tried to get up.

Again she wouldn’t let him.

He could feel one of her hands on his
shoulder while the other was on his neck. Her fingers were pressing
tenderly into the muscle.

“
You died,” her head darted back out of
view.

He laughed. She had to be joking. He felt a
little light-headed and was having trouble moving, but other than
that he felt great. The longer he was awake for, the more control
he was getting back over his body. He’d be up on his feet in a
minute or so.

He most certainly had not died.

“
What happened? I remember the scanner...”
he trailed off as he tried to put together the real sequence of
events from his currently fragmented memories.

“
You accidentally activated some kind of
sound on the scanner. It caused a cave in.” She swallowed, the move
loud and heavy. “You were caught in it. I was thrown clear, so was
the scanner. I had to use it to induce some kind of healing field.
It brought you back.”

She had to be joking.

He pushed himself up now, throwing off her
hand.

As soon as her fingers fell from his neck,
that feeling of light warmth cut out.

Immediately he felt how cold the cavern was;
the chill washed back over him with no warning. Shuddering he
brought his arms up and closed them around his chest.

“
You shouldn’t make any sudden movements;
the effect of the field will take some time to wane. It usually
took a couple of hours with me,” she let her hands drop into her
lap.

“
What, what do you mean? What
field?”

“
Those scanners are capable of producing
more than just noise and advanced sensor readings. They produce
some kind of healing field,” she brought up her hand and considered
it, brushing at her fingers and palm. “I once fell down the stairs
in my compound and broke my wrist. Within an hour the pain was
gone. So was the break.”

He stared at her in
disbelief
. “Come on, Ki,
you can’t expect me to believe that.”

She grabbed at something by her side. At
first he thought it was a rock.

As she brought it into the light, he
recognized it instantly. It was the scanner, except it seemed
completely dead.

“
What did you do to it?” he snapped,
grabbing it from her.

She did not resist, and neither did she
react in any way. Her expression was still, her gaze deadened. She
looked as though she’d just been through some taxing emotional
turmoil.

He couldn’t believe her story though.

Yet as he stared at the scanner, virtually
pawing at it in his desperate attempts to turn it on, he soon
realized it wasn’t going to work.

A cold sweat trickled down his brow. The
scanner was their only hope of getting out of here. Without it they
would be walking blind. If they came up against a section of rock
wall, they’d have no idea whether they could shoot through or
not.

What had she done to it?

Trying to control his anger, he curled his
free hand into a fist and knocked it hard against his leg. As soon
as he did, a shooting pain erupted from his shoulder and travelled
down into his back. Gasping, he grabbed at it.

“
You should be careful with your arm. It
isn’t properly healed. The scanner cut out before it could heal
your soft tissue injuries, I think.” She didn’t look at him as she
spoke. She stared down at her interlocked fingers, her voice slow,
her words slurred.

“
Do you really expect me to think I died?”
he stood up, snatching at the scanner protectively.

She tipped her head up sluggishly. Though
her gaze was still deadened, there was a slight flicker of anger.
“What, you think I knocked you out and broke the scanner so we’d be
stuck down here? Is that easier to believe?”

She’d just voiced a suspicion that had been
growing within him. It made that cold sweat pick up quicker across
his brow and collect between his shoulder blades.

His memory was still fragmented. He couldn’t
really recall what had happened. He vaguely remembered the scanner
suddenly producing a high-pitched shrill, but that was all.

Suspicion bloomed within him like blood from
a bullet wound.

Her cheeks slackened further as she looked
up at him, that numb expression shifting. Chest and arms visibly
stiffening, she swallowed. “Jackson, what are you—”

“
What did you do to the scanner?” he
repeated his question. The light edge was gone from his voice, if
it had ever been there. It was replaced with deep doubt and
distrust.

She shifted back, her arms and legs
pressing hard against the boulder she was seated near. In the
reflected glow from the gun barrel that sat between them, he
watched the shadows under her eyes and neck darken as she dipped
her head down, drawing her arms and shoulders in
protectively.

“
Ki, what did you do?”

“
There was a cave in,” she pointed a
shivering hand at the rocks around her. They were covered in rubble
and dust. “You got struck by it. I pulled you out and then I used
the scanner on you. I’d seen the Zeneethian doctors and scientists
use them as healing devices before. I just mimicked what I’d seen
them do.” Her voice and body shook as she spoke, her trembling form
casting a flickering shadow onto the wall behind her.

“
Then I guess if your story is right, there
should be blood on those rocks,” he said darkly. Walking over to
them, he expected to see nothing but dust.

He was wrong.

He could see blood splattered all over the
rocks. A lot of blood. Not enough to believe someone had been
killed, but enough to indicate someone had been seriously
injured.

He could see it, even though his body
obstructed the light. Leaning down, he trailed two fingers through
it. It was full of dust, but still slightly wet.

Taking several steps back, he shook his head
sharply. Suspicion still burnt hot in his heart, but at the edges,
reason began to break its way in.

Turning sharply, he stalked up to her.

“
If you’re story’s true, shouldn’t your
hands be covered in scratches from lifting all those stones?” he
leaned down and yanked up one of her hands.

She did not resist. Her arm was limp, her
head turned down to the ground. She didn’t even look at him.

He turned the palm around.

It was cut, the flesh torn and ripped, each
wound covered in dried up blood and caked with dirt. Her
fingernails were nothing but tatters, broken and fissured, caked
with rock dust.

Those tiny tattoos were red and raised, her
fingertips swollen and inflamed.

He let her hand drop.

It slammed hard against the rock behind her;
she did nothing to stop it. Either she was too weak to try or she
didn’t want to.

He shuddered back.

Guilt began to all but smash through his
suspicion and frustration.

What had he done?

No, he couldn’t give in so easily. This
could still be an act. She could have knocked him out, the blood
could still be his. And as for her hands, she could have made them
look like that herself.

His teeth ground together, so much tension
translating through his jaw that he almost popped his neck
muscles.

He didn’t know what to believe.

She did not move while he stood there,
indecision bursting through him. She stared at the floor, her head
on the side.

Had he done it again? Had he turned on her?
Or did she deserve it?

He had every reason to be suspicious of
her, because he had every reason to be suspicious of the Tarkans.
He’d once seen an enemy patrol fill a kindergarten with explosives.
He’d witnessed their soldiers gun-down the sick and elderly
indiscriminately. Then they’d sniped his fiancée after the cease
fire.

They were a duplicitous, untrustworthy, and
violent people. Every experience he had ever had served to confirm
that fact.

Was it enough to condemn Ki though?

She still didn’t move, and neither did
he.

The only sound that disturbed their silence
was the slight trickle of rock dust from the ceiling above.

“
I...” he began. He stopped, because he had
no idea what to say. He just didn’t have enough information to come
to a conclusion. Ki could very well be a spy, or she could be the
innocent she had claimed from the beginning.

“
Pick up the gun,” she finally spoke. She
still didn’t turn to him.

“
What?” surprise paled his skin.

“
Pick up the gun and shoot me. You
obviously don’t believe me. You think I knocked you out and broke
the scanner. Why? Because I’m Tarkan, because I’m a spy, because I
want you to die down here. Well that doesn’t make any sense, but
that doesn’t matter, does it? You still don’t trust me, because
deep down you don’t want to. You’d rather I be some nefarious spy.
Well fine, then do what a good soldier should do. Pick up the gun
and shoot me. You’ve made it clear that no matter what happens, you
won’t trust me. So go ahead.”

“
I’m not going to—”

“
Yes you are,” her eyes flashed and finally
she turned to him. “Maybe not now, but eventually you will. No
matter how much I do to prove otherwise, that seed of suspicion is
always going to be there. You’re always going to fear I’m evil and
out to get you just because I’m Tarkan. Maybe you’ll overcome your
paranoia for now, but it will resurface. You aren’t going to
change, Jackson. At the next excuse, you’re going to do the same
thing. It doesn’t matter that you’ve met the Zeneethians, that
you’ve seen their technology, that you’ve fought their advanced
soldiers. You won’t change. So kill me now. You’ll find a way to
rationalize it and feel good about it later. I’m sure your
government will give you a medal too.”

He no longer
simply felt cold; he felt frigid, frozen to the
spot, every trace of warmth gone from his face, hands, and
arms.

“
Pick up the gun,” she said, breath puffing
loud through each word, making them sound like the percussive beat
of a drum.

“
No.”

“
Then I’ll do it.” She lunged forward and
grabbed it up.

He tried to get the
re first, but she was closer. Collapsing
to his knees, he thrust forward, groping at it before she could get
off a clear shot.

She did not aim the barrel at him. She
twisted it up towards her head.

He got a hold of the butt, ripping it
backwards.

It was too late. She squeezed a shot
off.

It slammed from the gun, but did not collect
her face; it shot up and ate into the ceiling with a boom.

Collapsing over her, he yanked the gun
fully out of her grip just as the rocks began falling from the
ceiling.

They slammed into his back, but none of
them were big enough to shatter his spine. Fine stones no bigger
than coins, and tumbling rubble, cascaded down from above, but that
was it.

Still crouched over her, cradling her head
in his arms, he waited until it was clear it was over.

With the last breath of powdered rock
brushing against his face, he turned up to stare above him.

It took some time for the turgid,
dust-filled air to settle enough to see clearly. When it did, his
chest bucked forward with a gasp.

He could see bent and misshapen metal tracks
hanging from the hole in the ceiling.

Though the metal was warped and burnt from
the blast, he could tell what they were.

Still clutching tight onto the gun with one
hand, he tucked it under his arm and stood back.

As a child he’d heard that they’d tried to
mine the Paladin Ranges. They were a rich source of various
important minerals, after all. They’d had to suspend their
operations though; the peaks above were too geologically active.
With all the caverns dotted through the mountains, cave-ins were a
frequent occurrence. It had simply become too dangerous for the
mining to continue.

“
I don’t believe it,” he mumbled, not
caring that dust collected against his lips as he kept his head
directed up towards the hole.

“
Just shoot me,” Ki snapped up to her
knees, lunging for the gun.

He darted back out of her reach. “I’m not
going to shoot you, Ki. Not when we’ve just found a way
out.”

“
What are you talking about?” tears
collected around her red-rimmed eyes.

He pointed up, careful to keep one hand
locked over the gun as he did.

She didn’t move her head. She simply stared
at the gun.

“
Look, I’m sorry,” he tried.

“
You aren’t. You promised this would never
happen again. And it has. You don’t trust me, and you are always
going to look for the next excuse to condemn me. So just get it
over with. I’d rather be dead than go back to the
Zeneethians.”

“
I’m not going to kill you,” he snapped
loud, voice wavering but insistent. “We need to concentrate on a
way to get out of here. And I think we’ve just got one. If we can
get up to that shaft above, we might be able to follow it. They
once tried to mine these mountains. Though I’ve never been in any
of the shafts myself, I’ve heard stories there are miners’
stations, and if we’re lucky they haven’t been picked clean. We
might be able to get some gear.”