* * * *
“That was well done,” Jadin said flatly when Raen strode into the observation room.
Raen glared at him. “Shut up, Jadin,” he snarled.
Jadin glanced at him in surprise but kept his peace as Raen moved to the viewing screen that showed Cassie’s room and stared at it in grim faced silence for several moments before he turned to leave again.
“Claudius is blond,” he said helpfully as Raen reached the door. “And he expressed an interest.”
Raen halted abruptly and swiveled around to glare at his friend. With an effort, Jadin kept his expression bland. “Or Dione if you think that Claudius is too young to appeal to her. He is not attached … as of yet.”
Raen’s eyes narrowed. “I will consider it,” he responded coldly, turning again and leaving.
Jadin allowed himself a grin when Raen had left. “Oh, I know you will,” he muttered to himself and chuckled.
* * * *
Cassie surprised herself by actually dozing off. She knew she hadn’t slept long, though, when the clatter of dishes woke her.
“I have brought food, lady,” Natara announced quietly when Cassie didn’t acknowledge her presence.
“Thanks! Just leave it. I’ll eat something later,” Cassie muttered, rolling onto her other side and dismissing the girl.
“You are not ill?” Natara asked tentatively.
“No,” Cassie retorted flatly. “I’m tired.”
81
And she felt like a bitch when Natara left. Of course, that was taking a lot upon herself. She hadn’t actually dragged the covers down to look at the girl. Just because she knew she’d snubbed Natara, it didn’t necessarily follow that Natara knew it, or even that it bothered the girl if she did.
She discovered she couldn’t go back to sleep after Natara had left, though.
Getting up, she looked the food over without a lot of interest and finally sat down and ate. She lived alone. She was used to eating alone. She didn’t especially like to, though. It had been kind of nice to have Natara to chat with when she ate since there was no TV or stereo or radio to keep her company.
Despite the exercise she’d had earlier, she hadn’t managed to work up much of an appetite—mostly because it was seafood again and she was already starting to hate seafood.
When she’d finished, she decided to test how much freedom she actually had and see if she could locate any of the others from the good ship
Clara Belle.
She wasn’t afraid of getting lost, despite the enormity of the place and the fact that everything looked the same. She had the sheet/curtain to identify her quarters, and she thought the others were probably being housed fairly close by anyway.
She discovered she was right. She’d only gone about a quarter of a mile down the corridor when she heard their voices. Linda looked up when she paused in the doorway and smiled, waving her in.
She felt a little outdone when she realized all of them were there—as if it had been a prearranged meeting—and she was excluded. Then again, she was an outsider even among them, the only one not a member of their little diving club.
“I was just wondering if we should send out a search party for you,” Linda said teasingly.
“I’m down the hall a ways. Is this an impromptu, or did I miss something?”
“We walked back together after the council meeting. I didn’t realize you weren’t with us until we were almost here.”
“Oh,” Cassie responded, relieved that she hadn’t been snubbed and embarrassed that she’d jumped to the conclusion that she had been.
She was really feeling persecuted!
“Raen offered to show me around. We went out. The Atlantis has surfaced.”
The announcement created a stir she hadn’t anticipated.
“You’re shitting me!” Jimmy exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “I wonder when they were planning on telling us?”
Cassie shrugged. “I don’t think they actually have any plans to tell us anything, but they obviously weren’t trying to keep it a secret either or I wouldn’t have been allowed out. I know the way if y’all want to go out for a look around.”
Everyone immediately got to their feet and surged toward the door. “It’s just right down this corridor,” she said, pointing out the direction, “but it’s a long walk. This place is huge.”
The men outstripped them fairly quickly. Cassie, Linda, and Shelly followed more slowly.
“So—what’s the big guy like?” Shelly asked conversationally.
Cassie sent her a questioning look.
Shelly and Linda exchanged a knowing look that irritated her.
82
“Raen,” Shelly clarified.
Cassie shrugged. “OK, I guess.”
“I guess that means you’re not going to share any of the juicy details,” Linda said with wry amusement.
“There aren’t any juicy details to share,” Cassie said tartly. “We just went for a walk.”
Shelly and Linda both looked surprised and then smug and then proceeded to rave about their guards—which they didn’t seem to realize
were
guards. She tried to appear enthusiastic, but she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, especially since she got the distinct impression that both women were more than a little fond of their ‘watchdogs’.
“I’m glad you two seem to be enjoying your stay, at least,” she said with an effort when they began to wind down.
“No, you’re not. You’re jealous,” Shelly retorted, only half teasing.
Cassie smiled with an effort. “Ok, so I
am
a little envious, but we’ll be leaving in a week or so. You really should be careful about becoming too attached.”
Shelly and Linda exchanged another look, this time a more uncomfortable one.
“But … they live here,” Linda pointed out. “It isn’t like it would be all that hard to see them again—I mean, assuming Adan
wanted
to see me again.”
Cassie tried not to look as unsettled as she felt. She didn’t really know Linda or Shelly, after all. She’d spent the day with them, and then been confined with them, briefly, after they’d been captured, but that wasn’t much of an acquaintance. It certainly wasn’t enough to understand what made them tick. “As pretty and sweet as you are, he’d be dumb not to want to,” she managed finally.
“But you don’t think he will?” Linda asked flatly.
Cassie glanced at her in distress. “I didn’t even meet him. How would I know?”
“You think you know something, though,” Shelly said, anger threading her voice now.
Cassie sighed. “I just get the impression that they really don’t like us—as a whole. You know?”
“Because you and Raen didn’t click? Or because of something he said? Or someone else?”
Cassie bit her lip. “Look! Maybe I’m wrong—It’s really easy
not
to think of them as being aliens, because they look so much like us …. But they are, which means
we’re
aliens to them … And I don’t think they’re having nearly as much trouble remembering we’re aliens and not the same as them,” she finished.
Shelly and Linda fell silent. Cassie felt guilty for spoiling their good mood, but she would’ve felt more guilty, she thought, if she’d just kept her mouth shut. She hated to think she might be contributing to them getting hurt just by saying nothing.
On the other hand, she didn’t know, positively, that they were being played.
Maybe it
was
her envy prompting her? Maybe the guys they’d been with actually liked them?
She was almost positive they’d been
ordered
to seduce them, but it didn’t necessarily follow that they were completely cold blooded about it.
In any event, she thought glumly, it was probably a waste of breath to warn them.
Forewarned wasn’t actually forearmed when it came to emotions, regardless of what she’d said to Raen. Even knowing what she thought she did didn’t change the way she 83
felt about him, and she was still distressed. Very likely, Shelly and Linda would be just as vulnerable to their emotions regardless of the warning.
Shelly and Linda had almost the same reaction when they emerged as she’d had, except they looked more stunned and frightened if possible. The men, she saw, if they’d been equally effected, had recovered enough to decide to do some exploring. Shelly and Linda seemed more inclined to retreat. She didn’t really like walking around with that huge thing hovering above their heads herself, but when David and Jimmy came rushing back to inform them they’d found the
Clara Belle
docked only a short distance away, they all decided to walk down and have a look at it. Carl, Mark, and Ben were all aboard when they arrived, looking disgusted.
“I can’t find anything wrong with it,” Carl announced as her party joined the party on the boat, “but it isn’t running.”
“Whatever that thing is emitting,” Mark muttered, pointing upward at the ship above them, “it’s really fucked up the electronics.”
Cassie settled on one of the benches, staring out at the clouds that still roiled in a circle around them. “They said we couldn’t get through anyway.”
Everyone else turned to study what they had been informed was the ‘force field’
surrounding them and cutting them off from the world.
“I see ships,” Jimmy announced after a few minutes. “At least four—I think.
Looks like aircraft carriers.”
Everyone got up and moved to positions that would give them a better view.
“Jets, too,” Shelly said in a small, frightened voice.
“My god!” David muttered. “We’re surrounded by the US Navy, Air Force, and probably the fucking Marines, Army, Coast Guard, National Guard, and Homeland Security. We’re never going to get out of here without getting shot!”
“Yeah,” Jimmy agreed. “They’d drop a torpedo right in the middle of the
Clara
Belle
even if we
could
get out.”
“Well, this is just lovely!” Linda ground out angrily. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“Wave white sheets?” Shelly suggested uneasily.
“This is going to get really ugly,” Carl muttered.
“
Going
?” Linda demanded. “It doesn’t already look ugly to you?”
Carl turned to glare at her. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
She glared back at him for several moments and finally looked away. “Nothing.
I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying it already looks really dangerous out there, and it isn’t likely to get less dangerous.”
“They’re going to think
we’re
aliens,” Jimmy muttered. “Especially if they get a look at them between now and then.”
“Maybe we could just sneak out when the aliens let us go?” Shelly suggested hopefully.
Carl gave her a look. “You don’t honestly think we could slip past that … armada out there? Because I can assure you that there’s way the hell more of them out there than we can see. There probably isn’t a square inch of water out there that doesn’t have
something
sitting on it!”
84
“We’d be worse off trying it,” Ben volunteered helpfully. “That would just
convince
them we were aliens. Or that we’d been brainwashed, or something, and were trying to spy for them.”
“God! I wish I’d stayed home instead of deciding to come down and go diving!”
Cassie muttered to no one in particular.
“Don’t we all,” Linda agreed. “Now we’re stuck right in the middle of this, and I’m scared shitless, I don’t mind telling you.”
Mark sat down beside Cassie, glanced at her a couple of times and finally settled an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry about getting you in to this,” he said after a moment.
She glanced at him in surprise. She didn’t try to pull away from him, though. It was actually kind of nice to have the illusion of protection. Instead, she settled more comfortably against him. “You didn’t get me into this,” she disputed. “I made the decision to come. Anyway, I don’t think any of us would’ve left the dock if we’d had any clue what would happen,” she added with wry amusement.
“I heard that!” David agreed.
None of them noticed Raen until he stopped on the dock beside the boat and even then Cassie wasn’t certain how long he’d been standing there, watching them, before she finally glanced away from the threat in the distance and saw him. He was looking directly at her when she finally noticed him, though. A frisson of discomfort went through her. She tensed, struggled against the guilty urge to draw away from Mark, and finally conquered it.
“It does not work, now,” he said finally, addressing Carl, who was still standing on the bridge of the boat. “The Andromeda Prime’s drive interferes with electrical impulses. But it will work once the Andromeda pulls away.”
“We’d already noticed,” Mark responded in an unfriendly drawl, drawing Raen’s gaze once more.
His expression was unreadable, but the long look that passed between the two men seemed fraught with challenge for all that. Finally, Raen transferred his attention to her and then looked away. “You are all invited as guests of the High Councilor this evening,” he said coolly. “We will be celebrating the rise of Atlantis.”
“Will this be formal? Or informal?” Mark asked snidely. “I only ask because I don’t have a tux with me.”
Cassie elbowed him in the ribs and sat up, putting a little distance between them.
“Don’t be an ass!” Linda muttered.
A muscle worked in Raen’s jaw. “Formal,” he said finally. “You will be expected to be robed—but you can certainly come as you please.” Bowing his head slightly, he turned and left.
“Invited to a party, my ass!” Mark muttered. “He came to make damned sure we didn’t go any where.”
“Being rude isn’t helping anything,” Cassie said pointedly.
Mark looked at her angrily. “Maybe not, but I don’t like that guy.”
“I think the feeling’s mutual,” Carl retorted as he dropped from the bridge onto the main deck. “God, I hope they’ve got something besides fish to eat!”