Ki Book One (16 page)

“
Jackson, I’m not going anywhere with
you.”

He snapped his head down to look at
her
. “What are you
talking about? Look, I’m sorry—”

“
Sorry? I pulled you out of those rocks,”
she choked through her words, “and saved your life. Then you turn
around and accuse me of trying to kill you. You think sorry is good
enough? You think I’m happy I had to run that scanner
dry?”

“
Look... let’s just try to find a way to
get up there.”

“
No. You can find a way. Take the gun and
scanner, but leave me here. You can go and run your experiments on
them. You can find out their secrets. You can use them to make your
army stronger. You can do whatever you want to. But I’m not going
anywhere with you.”

What little trust they’d had was now clearly
broken.

“
Ki, I’m not going to leave you here.
You’ll die—”

“
What the hell do you care?” She slammed
her hands into the rocks behind her. It was the first time he’d
heard her swear.

“
I’m not going to let you die,” he repeated
firmly.

“
Unless you kill me yourself, right? Put
yourself in my shoes, Jackson – if the thought of pretending you’re
a Tarkan doesn’t turn your stomach, that is. Do I have any reason
to trust you anymore? Despite all the things you’ve seen, you
continue to find any excuse to attack me. If sophisticated soldiers
right out of a myth can’t convince you that something out of the
ordinary is happening here, nothing will. Your mind will continue
to clutch onto old fears and hatred.”

“
Ki, I’m not going to leave you here to
die,” he repeated yet again, voice grating even harder. Out of all
his swirling indecision, at least he was sure of that. No matter
what else happened, he wasn’t going to abandon her down
here.

“
Why? So you can take me back to your Royal
Academy like a trophy? Experiment on me then throw me in jail when
you’re done? I would rather die. Plus, you’ll never get away from
them. The Zeneethians will never stop tracking me down.”

“
You’re not a trophy. Look, if we want to
get out of here, we need to work together.”

“
Take the gun and go,” she turned from him
resolutely.

“
Ki,
Ki
,” he
tried to get her attention, but she just ignored him.

Drawing in a frustrated, hard-edged sigh, he
swore bitterly.

He was so conflicted, so damn pulled
between the extremes of loyalty to his people and Ki.

“
Fine, put yourself in my shoes then. I’m
working in a field one day only to see a Tarkan fall out of the
sky. I’ve lost more people than I can count to your kind. I’ve seen
what your weapons can do. I know how desperate you are to get your
hands on Ashka—”

“
I thought you were a scientist,” she
interrupted.

“
What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked up, features drawn and
dark
. “You keep looking
for rare, outlandish explanations to apparently obvious phenomenon.
That’s the mark of the religious and dogmatic, not the scientific.
You’ve seen a race with technology you know is centuries beyond
anything the Tarkans possess. If we did possess it, you know
there’s no chance we wouldn’t have used it against you – you
already admitted that. So if I’m really a spy and this whole thing
has been an elaborate trap, where the hell does all their
technology fit in? Do you think the Tarkans have kept their
levitating crystals, particle weapons, and advanced scanners in
reserve until now, just so they could use them to ensnare some
random ex-soldier? How much sense does that really
make?”

His cheeks reddened despite the
cold
. “That’s not
what—”

“
You believe? Then what do you believe?
Have you actually bothered to think any of this through? Or do you
keep on getting distracted by the fact I’m a Tarkan. Do you keep
listening to that little voice in your head that tells you trusting
me would be treason?”

“
It’s not like that.”

“
Then what’s it like?” she spat, passion
twisting her tone and making her hands shake. “I’ve watched you,
Jackson, and whether you believe me or not, I can read emotions.
Every time you start to warm to me, you withdraw, you become dark.
It’s like there’s two of you. The Jackson who acts around his own
kind and the Jackson who acts around Tarkans. What’s it like having
two distinct moral codes in your head? Manhandling an Ashkan woman
is unthinkable, but a Tarkan woman is a different
story.”

Her words began to bite deep.
Straightening, his lips stiffened
. “It’s not like that. My life has taught me to be
suspicious of your kind. Time and time again I have had to protect
my family from Tarkans. I am now in a position of responsibility,
the stakes are higher for me. I can’t make a mistake on trusting
you. I need strong evidence—”

“
Which you have. Legendary beings from the
sky with flying ships and ray guns. But it’s still not enough for
you. Admit it, Jackson, this is not about being sure whether you
can trust me. It’s about not wanting to trust me in the first
place. Race has become more important to you than
science.”

“
You’re wrong. I’m no bigot, life has just
taught me—”

“
To hate.”

He locked his teeth hard. His face was hot,
arms tense, breath tight. She was wrong. She was dead wrong about
him.

“
Don’t tell me, you think you’re a moral
man, right? You look at yourself and think you’re a proper
gentleman? You tied me to a chair, Jackson, how does that mesh with
your beliefs?”

“
Shut up,” he spat.

“
Angry? Pick up the gun—”

“
I’m not going to shoot
you
.”

“
And I’m never going to leave this cavern
with you. I will never trust you again.” She snapped her head to
the side, tipping her chin up at that familiar haughty
angle.

More than anything that made him give a
sharp, frustrated laugh. “You think I’m a bigot? Fine, I’ll admit
the wars have twisted me. Try fighting to protect someone,
priestess, and you’ll see it changes you. The world blurs, and you
have to struggle to make it clear again. So maybe my views about
the Tarkans have become black and white, and maybe that’s a defense
mechanism. I’m not proud of what I had to do, but I did it, and
because I did, I saved people. And right now, whether you want to
believe it or not, I’m still trying to save them. I can’t get this
wrong. If I do, people could die. Of course I have to be
suspicious... but maybe I need to....”

Her eyes flicked up, hesitant and slow.

“
Maybe I need to...” he couldn’t push the
words out, but he had to say something. If he didn’t manage to
convince her to get up and give him another chance, he was going to
have to... what? Tie her up? Drag her behind him through the
tunnels with her trying to shoot herself at every chance she got.
This situation was already hard, if she fought him it would become
impossible. “Try harder to trust you. I am sorry.”

Still wary, she did not leap up and hug him.
She just sat there.

“
But maybe you need to try harder too. At
least I know I have something to fight for,” he looked down
pointedly at the gun, “I’ve got people to protect. So there’s no
way I’m going to shoot myself just to get out of here. I might keep
on looking for excuses not to trust you, but you keep on looking
for reasons to give up.”

“
I can’t walk because my feet are swollen
and cracked. I haven’t eaten in days, I’ve barely drunk, and what
little energy I had, I used on those devices. The Zeneethians are
after me, and there’s no way I can fight them. I have nothing
left.”

“
You got away from them. I dealt with those
soldiers last night. They aren’t impossible to defeat. I’ll admit,
your chances are slim, but if you give up just because you think
there’s no way to fight, you’ll be proving yourself
right.”

She didn’t respond.

“
I don’t know how long it’s going to take
me to trust you. I can’t promise anything. I think I believe you,
but I’m not going to put anyone at risk over this. My duty is to my
people first. All I can promise is that I’ll try to figure out
what’s going on. But there’s no point if you give up.”

She wouldn’t look at him.

Locking the gun strap over his shoulder,
he shifted it around until it was safely behind him. Then he got to
his knees. He was still a meter or so away from her, and he doubted
it was a good idea to get any closer. “Ki. I’m sorry. Please, can
we put this behind us and try to find a way to get up into that
shaft?”

“
Do you believe I used the scanner to save
your life?” she whispered.

Taken aback, he shook his head. After all,
it was a preposterous idea. How could a mechanical device like that
be used to heal a man after he’d been crushed by a cave in? There
would have been significant blood loss – he’d seen it. How would
the device have rectified that? How could a field reach inside him
and fix his injuries? It just didn’t make any sense.

She appeared to watch him carefully. She
would be waiting for his reaction.

“
Do you believe me?” she challenged
again.

He brought a hand up and pressed it into his
shoulder. It was tender as hell. He looked down at her hands as she
held them loose in her lap; they were definitely scratched up and
tattered.

He wanted more evidence, but he wasn’t going
to get it.

He nodded his head. “I guess I have
to.”

Her lips scrunched up
. “You guess you should?”

“
Okay, I do. I can’t come up with a better
explanation right now, and I really doubt you knocked me over the
head, scratched up your hands, and found a way to shut down the
scanner.” As he said it, he couldn’t help but laugh as he realized
how stupid it all sounded. Had he honestly thought she could do
that? Apparently. When that suspicion had taken him, anything had
seemed possible. Now reason was returning and he felt a hot twist
of guilt return with it.

Standing, he shrugged his shoulders
awkwardly, gasping half way through as his shoulder locked up in
pain.

“
I told you, the scanner cut out before it
fixed your soft-tissue injuries. Your shoulder, right leg, and side
will be sore for days.”

Poking his side, he suddenly realized she
was right. He almost doubled over in pain.

“
Or you could jab your finger into your
side and bruise yourself further,” she shook her head, exasperation
obvious.

Before he could point out he was just
checking, he stopped himself. Her mood seemed to be improving. Her
gaze had stopped darting down to the gun, which was a very good
thing.

“
Right... should we go?” he
tried.

She didn’t move.

“
I said I’m sorry. I let my suspicions get
the better of me. But I’m not going to leave you here. And neither
should you give up on yourself. We’ve escaped from the Zeneethians
before, we can do it again. They might be centuries ahead of us
technologically, but that doesn’t make them any smarter. Give us a
chance.” He held his hand out to her.

She still didn’t move.

“
Ki, please—”

“
I can’t move,” she snapped. Stiffening,
blinking hard, she pulled up her robe, revealing her
legs.

They were swollen and bright red.

He’d seen infections before, he knew what to
look for. Dropping down, not caring that she flinched, he pushed
the back of his hand up against her calf.

It was burning hot.

“
Damn... why didn’t the scanner heal that
up? If it brought me back from death—”

“
I stepped out of the field. If I’d have
let it heal me, it would have sapped it dry quicker.”

In other words, she’d ignored her own
injuries allowing only his to heal.

If guilt had stabbed at him before, it
plunged deep into his heart now.

He’d been on the battlefield too many
times before to ignore what was happening to her legs. Infection
would be rising through them, and if it wasn’t stopped soon, it
would kill her.

Now he wasn’t arguing with her or looking
for a reason to clap her in irons, he could see how labored her
breathing was, how dilated her pupils were, how slow and sluggish
her moves had become.

He swore bitterly, searching desperately for
something to do. He needed water to cool down her legs and drugs to
fight the infection that was likely slowly poisoning her. She
needed help and she probably had less than an hour or two to get
it.

He’d lectured her on not giving up on
herself, but he’d failed to see what was happening right in front
of him.

“
Damn it,” he spat bitterly, shifting back
as he stared up at the ceiling again. Bringing the gun around, he
held it up, trying to force the light as high as he could to see
further into the hole above.

“
There’s some kind of sight on it,” she
croaked.

“
What do you mean?”

“
I don’t know. I’ve just seen the scouts
use it before. Some device that pops up and helps them
aim.”

“
You mean a scope? Where is it?” he was
about to hand her the gun, but hesitated.