Neverwylde (The Rim of the World Book 3) (11 page)

            Kyber tried to hide his disappointment by turning his anger into himself. Kelen was dying because she and Fullgrath had come looking for him. They had risked their lives to save his, and now she was the one suffering.

            Because of him.

            Because she loved him.

            The agony in his soul was like nothing he had ever felt before. It was as if claws were slicing through it, leaving it shredded and incapable of ever feeling anything again.

           
My Kelen. My Confirmed. My One.

           
Pressing his forehead to hers, he prayed to his four gods, and to her one.

Chapter 16

Mold

            The sound of several people rushing into the apartment roused Kyber from his prayers. Slowly, he raised his head to see Jules, Cooter, and Gaveer standing near the doorway. Fullgrath hovered behind them. They had noticed him in the bed pit with Kelen.

            “How’s she doing?” Jules walked over to the lip of the depression and crouched down. He reached over and touched her shoulder with his fingertips. “She looks worse than when we left.”

            “I haven’t been able to pinpoint a chemical code yet for this venom,” the doctor admitted with obvious frustration. “It doesn’t make any sense. My readouts say it’s not all organic.”

            “Not organic? What are you saying? That those clickers are machinery?” Cooter countered.

            “They’re not machinery, but they’re not all organic, either. Hell if I can figure it out. I’m stumped. I just hope Dox and the others manage to bring back enough equipment to help me break this thing wide open before…” Clearing his throat, Sandow tried to bring everyone’s attention back to the reason why they were there. “Tell us what you discovered.”

            Jules pulled the tablet from under his arm and aimed it at the far wall. Someone lowered the lights to enable them to see the picture being projected.         

            “Okay. This isn’t the usual 3D we’re used to working with, so bear with me.”

            Kyber recognized the large, lighted stone map from the machinery room.

            “All right. As I mentioned before, we’re familiar with three of the locations on this chart. This orange light is the machinery room. This white one is the temple, and this green one is the garden.” The individual lights blinked as he pointed them out. “We discussed which of these other light locations to investigate first, and we chose this one for two reasons. It’s closest to where we are now, and it’s also green.”

            A light above and to the left of the light pinpointing the machinery room blinked.

            “What did you find?” Kyber asked, intrigued.

            “Another garden,” Cooter answered. “And, hold onto your butts, the vegetation there is different.”

            “Different how?” Sandow asked.

            “We brought some back with us.” Jules waved an arm at Gaveer. The Seneecian removed his food pouch and opened the top.

            Sandow threw up a hand. “Wait! Wait! Please tell me you didn’t handle any of the vegetation with your bare hands.”

            “No,” Gaveer assured him. Walking over to the doctor, he bent over and emptied the contents on the floor: a white cylinder-shaped object, a flat green something, and a purplish blob that quivered and rolled slightly.

            Sandow poked the white object with the tip of his knife. “What kind of vegetation?”

            “This kind.”

            The panel of lights was replaced with a vista of green vines and low-lying bushes. It was immediately clear this was another garden, and that the greenery was vastly different from the forest-like appearance of the one connected to the temple.

            “You’re sure it’s a garden?” Sandow questioned.

            “Yeah. It definitely has the earmarks of another one of those well-maintained, cultivated beds gone amok like the one up top has. The place is filled with fresh produce, as well as rotting. The place reeks,” Jules replied.

“Not very large, is it?” Fullgrath noted.

Gaveer chimed in. “It appears to be as large as the other garden. The reason we can see the surrounding walls is because of the low-lying growth.”

            “Any signs of wildlife?” Tojun queried.

            Cooter shook his head. “We heard stuff we couldn’t make out, but we didn’t hang around to investigate it.”

            “We took these samples and hurried back,” Jules added.

            “Wise move,” Fullgrath muttered under his breath. “Is any of that stuff edible, Doc?”

            Sandow held the scanner over the white object, checking his readouts. The man made a sound, as if he had encountered an oddity, and ran a second scan.

            “I know that sound,” Jules spoke out. “What is it?”

            Laying the tablet in his lap, the doctor looked up at them. “It appears you’ve found the source of our oatmeal. It comes from this thing.”

            “That is good to know,” Gaveer replied. “What of the other two items?”

            Sandow shook his head. “So far, they appear to be edible. Whether they can be eaten raw in their current state, or have to be cooked first, is unknown. We won’t know until we try. So are we going to go on the assumption that a green light on that rock panel indicates a garden?”

            “We want to investigate the third location before we make that conclusion final,” Gaveer told him.

            “But as it stands now, I’m willing to bet that might be the case,” Jules concluded.

            Fullgrath walked over to peer down at Kyber and the woman in his embrace. “It’s good to see you finally up and about. How are you doing?”

            “I am doing better,” Kyber acknowledged. “I am sore and weak, but I can handle it.” His arms tightened around Kelen. “However, I cannot handle this.”

            Jules dug his fingers through his hair and irritably stomped a foot. Fullgrath held out a hand to the young man.

            “Hey, now. We all feel the same way.”

            “Which ‘feel’ are you talking about?” the ex-navigator snapped. “The one of helplessness because there’s nothing we can do to help her? Or the one tearing at our hearts at the thought of losing her?”

            Cooter turned to the doctor. “Let me throw this at you. We know there were people who lived here. Maybe they weren’t like us, but they were sentient. Hell, they built a monument of a city underground, with all this technology and stuff. Surely they had some sort of hospital or medical facility. I mean, they couldn’t have lived without someone getting hurt or ill. Not when there are those mean nasties lying in wait out there.”

            “He’s got a point,” Fullgrath conceded. “Maybe one of those lights is to a clinic or something. Maybe a lab.”

            “If that is so, which one is it?” Gaveer challenged. “Do you plan to check every light in the hope of finding such a location? Would you know when you found it?”

            “You’re right,” Sandow noted. “Even if we found a medical clinic, would we even recognize it as one? Look at what it took for us to discover these apartments! We know practically nothing about this planet. Say we find a hospital. How would we know what’s medicinal and what isn’t?” He held out his hands, palms up. “Not knowing anything about these people means their medicine is a crap shoot at best.”

            “Well, we can’t just sit here and watch Kelen die! We have to
do
something!” Jules blurted. He shook his head, sadness painting his face a stark white.

            “I agree,” Sandow replied softly. “I
am
doing something. I’m trying to find an anti-venom.”

            “What about a strong antibiotic? Would that work?” Fullgrath mentioned. “Maybe what’s killing Kelen isn’t something those clickers injected into her. Maybe it’s because those little fuckers are carrying all sorts of harmful bacteria and shit.”

            The physician shrugged. “I have no idea what will or won’t work. Maybe. Maybe not. This venom could be bacteria-based. I just don’t know.”

            “Then you don’t know if an anti-venom will work either, do you?” the weapons master confronted him.

            “No, I don’t.”

            Jules dropped to the floor with a grunt, then he gave a weak laugh. “Too bad none of that rotting food can’t be changed into an antibiotic.”

            “What do you mean?” Kyber asked.

            “Bread mold.” Jules gave a weak wave of a hand. “On Earth, we discovered penicillin, which is an antibiotic, from bread mold.”

            Everyone looked in surprise when Sandow got to his feet.

            “You know, Jules. Maybe you’ve got something there. Maybe there
is
bread mold for us to use.”

            Cooter hefted his rifle to his other arm. “What are you suggesting, Doc?”

            The physician turned to Fullgrath. “Go collect me samples from as many of the food tanks as you can. Be careful not to touch it, and try not to inhale it if possible.”

            “I will aide him,” Gaveer offered.

            Sandow quickly stopped him. “No. We’ve seen what kind of effect it has on your kind.”

            Kyber saw them glance his way but didn’t comment.

            The doctor continued. “Hurry up. Go!”

            Jules, Fullgrath, and Cooter rushed from the apartment. Tojun walked over to crouch by the lip of the bed.

            “What are you thinking?” Kyber asked the doctor.

            “I’m not sure. Not yet, anyway. We’ll have to wait.”

            “We do not have that much time,” Kyber reminded him, and glanced down at the unconscious form cradled in his lap.

            Sandow didn’t reply, but he didn’t have to. They all knew what Kyber meant.

Chapter 17

Manta

            Night had fallen several hours before Dox, Mellori, and Kleesod reached the
Manta.
Even then, they almost didn’t recognize it looming in the near-darkness. Sand had already climbed halfway up the sides of the crashed space ship. Coupled with the ship’s reflective outer hull, it blended in almost seamlessly into the terrain. If it hadn’t been for Dox’s homing device, they could have completely missed it.

            While Dox slowly circled the ship, looking for a way inside, Mellori and Kleesod stood guard and waited. The stars overhead were piercingly bright, affording them enough light to see by, and thus negating the need for their tube lights.

            “This is your ship,” the Seneecian commented.

            “Yeah. I take it yours is still up there somewhere?” Mellori pointed above them. They stood close to each other and spoke in hushed whispers. They had no knowledge of how sensitive the underground snakes were when it came to detecting potential prey on the planet’s surface, and took as much caution as they could when walking across the sand. Which was why it had taken them nearly twice as long to reach the ship as they had anticipated.

            Kleesod looked overhead and nodded. “Our ship is not built for surface landings. Each of us have a life pod we use in case of evacuation.”

            “What about surface exploration?”

            “We have research pods. Each can hold up to three people.”

Kleesod frowned, prompting Mellori to ask, “What are you thinking?”

“To reach my escape pod, I had to pass the bay where the research pods are located. I noticed at the time that the bay doors were open, but I was in too much of a hurry to reach my life pod to see why.”

“Are you thinking someone may have taken one of those research pods?”

“It is possible, but I cannot confirm it.”

“What about the D’har? Maybe he took one. How did you and the D’har and Verin meet up after you landed?”

“They found me.”

“So you have no idea how they got to the surface.”

“Verin told me the D’har found him in his life pod. The D’har never told us if he came by life pod, and we could not question him.”

Dox came around the mound that was the
Manta
. Pausing, he motioned with a nod of his head. “This way.”

They followed him to the other side of the ship where the sand had built up considerably. Mellori spotted a set of footprints leading up the slope.

“Hatch is up there,” Dox informed them. “Inside is clear.”

“You’ve already gone inside?” Mellori questioned. He was answered with a quick grin.

“A little way. Not far. Come.”

The two men struggled up the sand dune to where Dox had left the hatch open. Once they’d slipped inside, Kleesod closed the portal. Mellori turned on his tube light, holding his hand over the end and gradually opening his fingers to give their eyes time to adjust.

They were immediately struck by a foul stench. Mellori coughed.

“Try to breathe through your mouth. We left our dead crew members inside when we abandoned ship.”

“This looks like a landing bay,” the Seneecian remarked.

“It is.” Mellori shone the light over at the small ship still strapped in the hold. Seeing the vehicle lying on its side, Kleesod nodded.

“Will it have emergency supplies on board?”

“We already stripped it. In fact, we loaded a hover transport with food and water and all sorts of supplies before we left here.”

Kleesod turned to him. “I do not remember seeing a hover transport with you.”

“That’s because it got stolen right after we arrived at the temple.”

“Who stole it?”

Mellori shrugged. “We don’t know. Initially, when we encountered Kyber and the others, we thought they had taken it, but they hadn’t.”

Dox popped out of the corridor. “This way. Come.”

They slowly made their way through the twisted wreckage that was once a powerful, star-worthy cruiser. Several times, Mellori and Kleesod had to remove debris in order to continue through the ship. Every so often, Mellori would point out a department or section of the ship as they passed an intersecting corridor. The odor of decay strengthened and waned as they traversed through the corridors.