Abiogenesis (10 page)

If it had disturbed anyone, it was Reuel. She had the distinct feeling that he not only regretted yielding to whatever demon had prompted him to do it because he thought it had angered and distressed her, but also that it irked him that he’d ‘shared’ her sexually. He’d developed the habit since of staring darkly at any of the men who looked at her as if he needed only a nudge of provocation to tear their heads off.

There was a hesitancy about his attitude as he stood in the doorway of the cabin studying her, that it sent a wave of uneasiness through her. When she turned to look at him, she saw he was holding a pair of manacles. "You are a prisoner of the Cyborg Liberation. I cannot allow you to roam freely when we leave the ship."

Dalia stared at him in disbelief. "You’re not serious!"

"I am."

"Exactly what is it that you suspect that I will do?"

"Leave--at the very first opportunity."

Dalia didn’t deny it. Truthfully, she was a little surprised he hadn’t accused her of having thoughts about sabotage. As far as escaping went, she hadn’t considered it, mostly because she hadn’t expected him to bring her to the rebel stronghold. She knew there was a better than even chance that she would have thought of it at some point, however. She knew she wouldn’t be accepted by the other rogues--rebels--certainly not at first, anyway. From what she could tell, Reuel was their leader, and she knew he would protect the child she carried, whatever he thought of her. Unless he chained her to his wrist, though, she was bound to have some unpleasant, potentially dangerous, confrontations and it was possible she’d find this no healthier an atmosphere for her continued existence than being in the bosom of the company.

Even though she hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about what she would do beyond escaping the company’s assassins, she certainly hadn’t had any desire or intention of joining those she’d spent the past several years tracking.

She had to suppose Reuel was well aware that she hadn’t resigned herself to accept what he thought she couldn’t change.

Glaring at him, she held out her wrists for the restraints. Without a word, he secured the manacles to her wrists, then led her down the companionway to the cockpit. The four who’d traveled with them were already strapped in for landing. Guiding her to the first seat they came to, he strapped her in before moving to the console to land the craft.

As resentful as she was about being relegated to the status of secured prisoner once more, she quickly discovered strapping her into her seat wasn’t just an extension of her loss of privilege. The moment the craft dropped through the planet’s atmosphere, it was bounced around like a leaf caught in a vortex. She clamped her teeth together to keep from biting her tongue, closing her eyes as the craft shimmied so hard it rattled even her eyes in her head, making her see double. For perhaps ten minutes, the shaking grew progressively worse until she’d begun to wonder if the craft would still be sound enough to land. Finally, the shaking and bouncing began to taper off.

When she opened her eyes again, she could see that they’d dropped low enough the green below them was beginning to take the shape of individual trees. The green gave way to devastation--brown and blackened trees, scorched earth and flowing, red streams, and, in the center of it, she saw the smoking top of a volcano that looked to be about as tall as a hundred story building. They passed over a smaller one before landmass gave way to sea. In the distance, another landmass emerged from the mist and the sea, looking, at first, like nothing more than a dark cloud hovering on the horizon.

As they neared it, she could see that it wasn’t a single landmass, but islands, pushed up from the sea by volcanic activity so long ago that a young forest covered the crown of several of them. Bald red cliffs rose from the sea perhaps a hundred feet almost vertically on the largest of the islands, the one she saw that they were headed for.

The craft dropped lower as they neared, coming in uncomfortably close to the tops of the trees. The altitude prevented her from seeing the stockade until they were upon it. The moment they cleared the outer wall, the craft dropped to the ground and settled with a bone-jarring, teeth-rattling finality that made Dalia wonder for several seconds if they’d crashed, a confusion compounded by the fact that they’d scarcely come to a complete halt when the men threw off their restraints, jumped to their feet, and stampeded toward the gangplank as if the ship would explode any moment.

She relaxed fractionally when Reuel, looking completely unruffled and unhurried, sauntered back to where she was seated and unfastened her. Helping her to her feet, he herded her before him.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but what she saw wasn’t it. Surrounding the camp was a stockade that appeared to have been made out of trees that had been stripped of their limbs, leaves, and bark, and then driven into the ground. The compound itself was dotted with stumps, some level with the dirt, others protruding from it anywhere from two to five feet. A small waterfall had been encompassed by the stockade at one end. A pool formed at its base, then meandered across the compound, forming a shallow brook. Scattered about the compound in no sort of order that she could discern were crude shelters, also constructed of raw timber and roofed, from what she could see, with the limbs that had been shaved from the trees.

She’d seen primitive villages over the years, but this stunned her. Reuel gave her a nudge, breaking through her shocked dismay, and she made her way down the gangplank. The ground, she quickly discovered, was littered with rocks and debris like a minefield. She watched her feet as Reuel grasped her arm and led her through the crude village. She tried to avoid as much as she could, but walking was painful. After a moment, Reuel scooped her into his arms and carried her, and she was able to look around once more.

Most of the structures they passed were only partially constructed--she assumed they were, at any rate. They were little more than posts with a thatch of limbs supported between them. She saw maybe a dozen inhabitants moving about, but only a few of them appeared to be engaged in any task.

Reuel took her to the largest, complete structure near where they’d landed and set her on her feet once more when they were inside. It was as crude inside as out, and contained very little. The room he led her to had no window, and certainly no artificial light, but it wasn’t really necessary. There was enough light pouring through the roof and walls to fully illuminate the small space, which contained nothing more than a narrow cot, a crude table and chair that looked as if they’d been made of unrefined wood, a large container she saw held water and a smaller, empty one, that she simply stared at for several moments as the revolting realization slowly filtered into her mind that it was meant for use when it was necessary to eliminate her body waste.

She realized Reuel had released her arm at the doorway and turned to look at him.

"What now?"

"We wait."

With that, he stepped out, closed the door, and bolted it with a heavy chain.

She stared at the chain, then peered at Reuel’s retreating form through the gaps between the wood as he left the hut and finally disappeared completely from view. Still feeling strangely blank, she moved to the cot, tested it to make sure it wouldn’t collapse when she put her weight on it, and finally sat. "Wait for what?" she muttered.

She frowned thoughtfully, studying the room around her. She wasn’t accustomed to luxury by any means, but she was used to far more civilized surroundings. Was this ... crude, purely utilitarian, and not very functional at that, village the result of life on the move? Because the rebels were mostly male and didn’t care a great deal about comfort? Or was there another explanation for this ... atrocity that didn’t immediately present itself?

The entire place looked as if it had been thrown together hastily. In fact, now that she thought about it, everything looked so raw she knew it couldn’t possibly even have been here more than a few weeks at the outside. Despite the half finished structures they’d passed, it also didn’t look like a place that had been planned for permanence. For, surely, if it had been, they would have taken the time to build more sturdy shelters?

She shook her head. The whole situation was just so completely bizarre she couldn’t get her mind around it. Finally, she got off the cot and went to peer through the cracks in the wall. She’d checked the entire circumference of the outer wall of the structure before she realized that she couldn’t see anything at all from her jail cell. She could hear activity, but it was hard to tell what they were doing. Hours passed. Occasionally, she would hear someone pass close by and she would jump up and move to the wall to watch them until they disappeared from view, but otherwise, she had nothing to occupy her but the puzzle she was trying to piece together.

Toward evening, when the sun had sunk low enough that the light had begun to dim in the room, Reuel returned with food. To her surprise, instead of leaving once he’d handed it to her, he moved around the room outside her cell restlessly while she ate. Deciding he must be waiting to take the tray with him, she moved to the door and shoved it under once she’d finished. Instead of taking it and leaving, however, he set it aside, opened the door again, and tossed a pair of boots to her.

"Put these on."

Surprised, she stared at him a couple of minutes and finally pulled the boots on. They fit as if they’d been made for her, and she assumed they must have been. They’d been fashioned out of something that looked like skin, animal skin she assumed from the thickness. It made her feel a little queasy to think she’d thrust her feet into something that had once been living, but it seemed par for the situation. They didn’t appear to have any facilities for making things out of synthetic materials, or making synthetic material for that matter.

Catching her arm, he led her from the structure in the direction of the waterfall. She saw he was carrying a small bundle under his arm, but she didn’t question it until they reached the pool. Settling the bundle on a stump jutting from the ground, he opened it and handed her something that looked like a rock.

"Soap--washcloth," he said succinctly. "Bathe."

She stared at him and then looked around. "In that?" she asked in dismay, pointing toward the pool. "But--it’ll contaminate the water!"

For the first time since he’d come to the cabin on the ship earlier, a smile tugged at his lips. "We get our drinking water from a well."

Dalia didn’t feel an answering amusement. She looked at the pool of water again. "Aren’t there--living things in it?"

"They won’t bother you."

It wasn’t the answer she’d wanted. A simple ‘no’ would have made her feel worlds better.

This, she supposed, explained Reuel’s penchant for antiquated things--like water in the particle bath. "What if the water covers my head?" she said uneasily.

"Hold your breath."

"I’m so glad you find this amusing!" she said tartly.

He chuckled. "The pool is only a few feet deep. You won’t be submerged unless you fall down. If you fall, get up."

Smart ass, Dalia thought irritably as she sat down and tugged the boots off. When she stood once more, she looked down at the tunic she was wearing--another of those Reuel had supplied for her to wear. With her wrists manacled, she couldn’t take it off. Since he hadn’t offered to unlock the manacles, she assumed she was expected to bathe in it. Mentally shrugging, she turned to study the water again. The bank sloped down to the water’s surface, but not steeply. She thought she could manage to walk down it without slipping.

Reuel caught hold of the tunic as she took a step toward it. "You need to take this off."

She turned and gave him a look. "My wrists are manacled together. Just how do you propose I do that?"

He frowned and patted the pockets of his trousers. His lips twisted wryly and she knew he hadn’t brought the key.

It seemed unlikely that he’d ‘forgotten’. Cyborgs didn’t have ‘memory lapses’. They might fail to observe. They might be deactivated, making it impossible to record. They might even suffer outside interference of their recording abilities, but they didn’t ‘forget’.

On the other hand, he’d brought the bundle when he’d brought her meal. Bringing her down to bathe certainly wasn’t an impulse.

Whatever it was he’d been doing since they’d arrived had undoubtedly so completely absorbed his attention that he’d overlooked that one important detail.

She was still wondering what could possibly have required so much of his active mental resources when he grasped the shoulders of the tunic and separated the seams. The tunic fell to her feet. She stared down at it with a combination of surprise and dawning outrage. "Your disregard for husbanding your resources borders on criminal!" she snapped angrily.

"It’s my tunic," he pointed out. "And I’m already a criminal. What will they do? Jail me first for ten years, then execute me?"

"But I was wearing it!"

"I broke the seams. It’s repairable."

That seemed inarguable, but she was still irritated. Without another word, she turned and made her way to the pool. She hesitated at the edge and finally stepped in. To her surprise, the water was warm, almost hot in fact. After a fractional hesitation, she placed her other foot into the water and moved away from the edge until the water was lapping her knees.

Despite his reassurances, she didn’t want to test whether or not it got any deeper. Bending at the waist, she wet the cloth. Something drew her attention as she did so, and as she straightened once more, she glanced around at Reuel.

He was standing where she’d left him, staring at her, or rather her ass, as if every brain function had shut down. Apparently her stillness filtered through, for after several moments, he blinked. When he did, she turned around once more, frowning thoughtfully as she lathered the cloth in her hand.

After a moment, a faint smile curled her lips as the realization settled in upon her that, regardless of what he thought of her or felt toward her, he still desired her.