When the spasms finally passed, he filled his lungs more cautiously, tasting the air, testing it.
It tickled his lungs, and he had to struggle to tamp another fit of coughing.
It
was
the air, he decided. His memory wasn’t faulty. However long it had actually been, despite the fact that the last time he’d breathed air it had been tainted with the ash and smoke of his burning city, he remembered what it had been like before—clean and sweet.
He didn’t know what might have happened to the atmosphere, but something sure as hell had. Dismissing it when he’d mastered the urge to cough every time he breathed, he pushed himself high in the water and surveyed the surface. A small boat bobbed in the water a short distance away, and he swam toward it. Dipping beneath the surface when he reached it, he swam down a short space and then shot upward again with enough force to clear the water. Shifting forms as he lifted above the water, he landed with his feet braced slightly apart for balance on the rocking deck and looked around. The design of the boat didn’t impress him. It looked little different than the boats he’d seen humans build long ago. The only real difference he could see at a glance was that the materials used to make it were no longer natural, it was far less aesthetically pleasing, and looked less comfortable, as well.
25
Striding toward the ladder that led up to the command console, he examined everything carefully and was a little more impressed. They’d mastered long range communications utilizing airwaves, discovered more accurate navigational methods—electronic navigational means, at any rate.
When he’d finished examining the instruments and determined the propulsion method, he climbed down the ladder again and explored the remainder of the boat from bow to stern, searching for weapons and examining the personal items scattered about, and then climbed down the narrow ladder into the living area.
They didn’t live on the boat. That much was almost immediately evident. From the remains of the food they’d eaten and the little he discovered in the cabin, he was almost certain they’d only occupied the vessel a matter of hours.
Which meant the boat was capable of a good bit of speed. It also meant they hadn’t traveled far because he could see that, although the propulsion unit was capable of a good deal more speed than the forbearers of this type of vessel, it wasn’t
that
fast.
They’d established their colony as far from the native barbarians as they could get and still have fairly quick access to any raw materials they might need from the land.
From here, unless the continents had shifted drastically, they were hundreds of miles from land in any direction—a good deal more than from the known ‘civilized’ lands before the cataclysm.
He was certain the boat, regardless of its speed, didn’t have the capability for that range.
The humans had undoubtedly crossed the ocean at some point and settled far closer than they’d been before, on the lands surrounding Atlantis.
Even without the evidence he’d already uncovered to suggest a very great deal of time had passed since the disaster, the fact that the humans had spread from shore to shore—moved in to settle
their
area of the globe—indicated a huge population growth.
They’d advanced both socially and technologically. There was nothing here, however, to make him think they’d closed the technological gap enough to represent a real threat to his people.
The question was, how would they feel, now, about sharing their world with the colonists of Atlantis? Would they be more receptive to aliens living among them? Or more hostile?
He frowned thoughtfully as he considered it and finally decided it seemed highly unlikely that they could possibly be more hostile.
26
When Raen emerged from the cabin of the small boat, he climbed the ladder to the command console once more and surveyed his surroundings. The pulsing of the sonar was far less noticeable now, in the air, but he could feel the fine hairs on his body stirring in response to the electro-magnetic pulses from the mother ship.
It was far closer than he’d anticipated—cloaked.
That discovery surprised him even though he’d already determined that the humans lived close by now.
Maybe they were more of a threat than he’d surmised?
Why else would the rescue ship see the need to cloak?
The pulses he at least understood far better now that he’d reconnoitered the situation. The ship was firmly entrenched now, claimed over the intervening years by the sea. The rescue ship would not be able to raise the Atlantis until they’d freed it from its entrapment.
As he stood enjoying the feel of the air on his skin, allowing himself a few moments to relish the thought that Atlantis would be raised, that they would not have to abandon the home they’d spent generations building, movement beyond the cloaking clouds caught his eye. He peered at it for many moments, trying to discern exactly what it was he could see weaving in and out along the periphery of the dome the mother ship had erected. Finally, uneasy for some reason he couldn’t entirely fathom or dismiss, he dove from the boat, shifting into his water form so that he could move a little closer to see better.
He could not breach the dome, of course, but it was no more than twenty feet thick. He could get close enough to see whatever it was beyond the dome.
His discovery brought him no comfort.
Beyond the dome, without doubt completely unconvinced that the cloak was a natural phenomenon, the crafts of man circled like angry bees, searching for a point of attack.
He’d guessed wrong, he realized grimly. Mankind was just as hostile as ever and far better equipped now to pit themselves against the aliens among them.
* * * *
“Is it just me, or does it feel like the building’s moving?” Cassie asked, breaking the glum silence that had descended over the group when they’d finally tired of bickering among themselves.
Everyone had been slumped with a mixture of weariness and dejection. At her question, however, heads popped up and everyone focused on their own senses.
Shelley’s eyes rounded with fear. “Do you think, maybe, the quakes have shaken the place lose and it’s sliding into a crevice?”
Everyone stared at her with varying degrees of uneasiness and horror.
27
“You’ve been watching too many fucking movies!” Mark snapped angrily. “For godsake! None of us
saw
a crevice when we were exploring! Why the hell would you think we were sliding into one?”
Shelley glared at him. “He
is
an asshole. If I were you, Cassie, I wouldn’t date him any more.”
“Assuming we get out of here,” Jimmy put in glumly. “And I’m beginning to think that’s not very likely.”
Linda chewed her lip. “Don’t talk like that! I left my cats in my apartment. I didn’t even think to board them. My neighbors don’t even know I
have
cats—because it’s against the rules to have pets in the apartments.”
“They’re not going to keep us,” Cassie said with more confidence than she felt.
“We didn’t do anything. Obviously, these are intelligent, advanced people. They wouldn’t just keep us imprisoned for no reason.”
Jimmy studied her for several moments. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that nobody in the world knows about this place? And that there must be a reason nobody knows about it?”
“Shut up, Jimmy!” Carl snapped. “There’s no sense in scaring everybody when we don’t know anything.”
“Scaring you, you mean,” Mark said.
“And you’re not?” Carl retorted.
“What I’m not,” Mark snarled, “is going to take this shit lying down! I say we wait by the door and the next time one of those things pokes his head in, we jump him.
There’s five of us. I don’t care how strong they are, five of us should be able to overpower one of them.”
Linda gave him a drop dead look. “There are eight of us, or don’t we count?”
Mark gave her a condescending look. “I always suspected you were a feminist--or a lesbo. You think you girls can manage better than we can?”
Linda glared at him. “I like dick as much as the next woman, but I really prefer them to have balls attached,” she said nastily. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you, cave man, that main strength might not be the way to go?”
Carl lifted a hand to stop Mark when he surged forward. “Meaning?”
Linda jerked her head in Cassie’s direction. “The dark haired hunk seemed pretty interested in Cassie. Maybe she could distract him when he comes back? I got the impression he wasn’t just an ordinary grunt.”
Cassie felt her face heat when everyone turned to stare at her. “You want me to
… flirt with him?” she asked, appalled.
“You didn’t seem to mind before,” Mark said tightly. “What’s the matter? You feeling shy now?”
Cassie glared at him. “Stress really is the best way to bring out a person’s true colors, isn’t it?”
“Don’t pay him any attention,” Shelley said. “He had a good point, though. We can just wait around and hope they let us go, or we can try to make it happen. What do you say?”
Cassie blinked at her. “To what?”
“Coming on to the guy and distracting him so that the guys can jump him?”
28
Cassie felt a little nauseated actually. “That’s … that’s so underhanded,” she got out uncomfortably.
Linda looked offended. “So? It isn’t underhanded that they’re holding us against our will?”
“I’m sorry I offended you,” Cassie said tightly. “But consider it this way—if you’d trespassed, however inadvertently, on a secure installation and been detained, would you be considering attacking them? Or would you be trying to reason with them?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Carl snapped.
“It
is
the same thing!” Cassie retorted.
“We can’t reason with them,” Jimmy pointed out. “We can’t even
talk
to them!”
Cassie let out a huff of breath. “I know, but still …. I think we should at least wait until we have a better idea of their intentions. If they check us out, and I can’t believe they wouldn’t, they’ll see we were just exploring and had no idea we were trespassing. Anyway, I don’t think I could do it. In case it hasn’t occurred to anybody, I’m not very good at flirting with men. If I was, I wouldn’t have been cyber dating …
Besides, I wouldn’t even know how to go about distracting him.”
“Just smile at him,” Linda said helpfully. “And when you see you have his attention, strip. That gets them every time.”
Cassie stared at her in horrified fascination. “Just strip? You know this will work? He’d probably just laugh his ass off if I tried anything that blatant! Quite aside from the fact that there’s no such thing as ‘just stripping’ off a damned wetsuit! It’s worse than trying to get into or out of a damned girdle that’s three sizes too small!”
Linda shrugged. “It always works in the movies. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think!” Cassie said testily. “You do it if you’re so keen on the idea.”
Linda reddened. “I’m over thirty,” she pointed out wryly. “
No
body is interested in anyone over thirty. I might as well be a hundred—or invisible!”
“Shelley should try it, then. She’s the only one under thirty here,” Cassie said tartly.
“You’re over thirty?” Mark demanded. “You told me you were twenty seven!”
Linda sent her an ‘I told you so’ look. Cassie reddened. “And I suppose you didn’t hedge, even a little?”
“How far did you hedge?”
She glared at him. “None of your damned business! What difference does it make now, anyway? Besides, you said you weren’t interested in having children.”
“
Now
,” Mark said. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t ever be interested!”
“If that isn’t just like a damned man!” Linda snorted. “They act like women can wait for fucking ever to produce! And then, when it’s just about too late, they suddenly develop the burning need to procreate!”
“I
knew
you were a feminist!” Mark growled.
“Oh yeah?” Linda snapped, surging to her feet. “Just because I like my men with balls and you don’t have any?”
Mark stared at her for several moments, violence in every line of his body, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. Finally, he forced himself to relax and turned, stalking across the room as if he needed to put some distance between himself and 29
her. “What you need,” he ground out when he’d planted his shoulders against the wall and folded his arms over his chest, “is to get laid, bitch.”
Linda narrowed her eyes at him. Finally, she relaxed, as well, however. Settling again, she glared at him for several moments and then her lips twitched. “Actually, I do, but contrary to popular male myth, a man can not actually screw a woman’s brains out.
Even a very satisfactory lay will not lower my IQ or change the fact that you’re a prick.”
Silence reigned for about ten minutes. “Maybe we could practice?” Linda suggested finally.
Cassie turned to study her uneasily. “Practice what?”
Linda shrugged. “See which one of us would be best at playing
femme fatal
? It’s not like we have anything better to do.”
Cassie felt her jaw go slack with disbelief. “Practice?” she asked in a strangled voice.
Linda sighed. “It’s damned hot and uncomfortable in this wetsuit anyway. I’m all in favor of ditching the thing.”
“Yes, but I’m not wearing anything under mine!” Shelley said plaintively.
Linda slid a glance toward the men, noticed they were all alert now, like pointers.
“Ok, Shelley wins, hands down,” she muttered, amusement lacing her voice.
Cassie studied her a moment and began to laugh.
David, Mark, and Carl reddened faintly and pretended interest in the mosaics on the floor.
Vaguely piqued that Mark had shown as much interest as the others, Cassie finally dismissed it. She’d thought before all of this started that she and Mark had a lot going for them as a couple. Except for his penchant for diving, they’d seemed to have a good bit in common and although there’d been no huge physical attraction, she hadn’t really expected it. She’d coached herself, in point of fact, to accept that she wasn’t going to find the ‘ultimate’, the perfect man for her. She was going to have to settle for Mr. OK
if she wanted that particular slice of American pie—home and family.
Men weren’t the only ones who ignored the limitations of procreation. She’d been so busy with life in general, always thinking there’d be time, later, to take that step, that she’d hit thirty before she realized it was right around the corner, just waiting to trip her up and ruin her ‘future’ plans. It was her own fault and no one else’s. She should’ve taken the leap right out of high school or college like the women who actually listened to the call of nature to build their nests and fill it with babies.
She hadn’t felt up to the challenge of balancing a career and family, though, and worse, she was a dreamer. She wanted love and happily ever after. She wanted to find her other half, to fall deeply, madly in love. She didn’t want to find a decent, respectable, dependable man with her head and try to make it work, to
learn
to love him for his good qualities. She knew she could. Plenty of men and women did just that, settled for what they could get instead of what they wanted, and managed to be perfectly happy and content. She had a capacity for love and learning to love was probably better, and safer, in the end, but she’d wanted fireworks. She didn’t care if everyone said that usually burned out. Obviously, it didn’t always, and even if it did she still wanted
that
. Besides, she was of the opinion that love could start with fireworks and mellow to the more enduring sort of love. If you could start with nothing and make something, she certainly 30
didn’t see any damned reason why you couldn’t start with something powerful and make something enduring out of it.
Sort of like the jolt that had gone through her when the merman had kissed her.
Mindless panic or not, that one kiss, as brief as it had been, had been more electrifying than sticking her finger in a light socket.
If she could just find a man that had that effect on her, one she actually had a chance with ….
Nature was so damned perverse! Or maybe it was just her? Or maybe it had just been the fear? Why was it that, out of all the men she’d dated, not
one
had had that kind of effect on her?
Damn
it!