The Royal Pursuit (15 page)

“
This thing revealed the
future to them,” Kent whispered. “I translated some of their words.
Do you see what those controls say?”

She leaned closer to the computer
monitor and studied the controls on the large TV-like object. Her
eyes grew wide. “They say to pick a future date. Over there is a
pad for someone to put their hand on.” She pointed to the outline
of a hand on a dark pad.

“
Yes. The handprint
probably told a specific person their future,” he said.

“
And look over here. It
says ‘What Could Have Been.’ So they could probably answer the
age-old question of what things could have been if they had chosen
a different route in life. Can you imagine what a gem this was? You
wouldn’t end up making the wrong choices. I wonder if they saw
their own destruction.”

“
I hadn’t thought of that.”
He paused as he considered the possibility. “What would you do if
you foresaw the United States sinking into the ocean?”

“
Move to another
country.”

He turned back to the monitor. “I
wonder if that’s what they did. Have you noticed there are no human
remains anywhere in this place?”

“
No, but now that you
mention it, it is odd.”

“
It’s as if the city has
been put on hold until its inhabitants can return.”

She shivered at the thought. She
didn’t know why it gave her a spooky feeling, but it
did.

“
Anyway, I wanted to tell
you before I told anyone else. This is your project, so you have
priority,” he said with a wink.

She put her hand on his arm. “Thank
you, Kent. You have been great through all of this.”

He kissed her. “I’m proud of you. I’m
just glad I can help you.”

She kissed him back, grateful to have
him there. Not many men would be willing to support their wives in
such a long endeavor. He was one in a million.

Chapter
Thirteen

Lake Solitaire

Planet: Lone

By the time Hathor and Ann arrived at
the lake, it was close to evening. Hathor could see how tired Ann
was, so he offered, “Why don’t you sit down while I cook the gold
fish so we can eat it?”

She smiled. “Thanks. You’re a
wonderful husband.”

He beamed at her. She had a way of
making him feel as if he was the most important person in her
world. He certainly felt that way about her. He had thought that
after marrying her, his desire for her would calm down, but it only
grew as the years passed. Even with her messy hair and the dirt
covering her, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever
seen.

Pushing aside his thoughts, he turned
to the lake. He was acutely aware the man they called Pallid was
somewhere in the forest tracking them down, and the area
surrounding the lake didn’t have a single tree on it, making them
easy targets for their enemies.

Once again, he was thankful for his
upbringing. His training had prepared him for moments such as this.
He set down the tree branches he had collected and stepped into the
warm water until it was up to his knees.

The fish weren’t very big. The largest
one he saw was seven inches long. He wondered how many they should
eat. It probably didn’t matter since Gaius hadn’t mentioned that
detail.

He spotted a gold fish swimming among
a school of pink fish. He reached in to grab it, but it slipped out
of his hands. He found another gold fish and quickly grabbed it.
Though slippery, he was able to catch it.

“
How many do you want to
eat?” he called out as he threw the fish to the ground.

Ann stopped washing her face and
turned her attention to him. When he pointed to the fish flipping
around on the grass, she said, “Two.”

He nodded and continued to hunt for
the fish. As soon as he managed to gather five more fish, he worked
on setting up a campfire.

“
It’s a good thing you know
how to do this,” Ann said as she walked over to him. “You would
have been a great Boy Scout.” She sat next to him and watched as he
rubbed two sticks together over the tree branches he had broken up
and placed in a pile.

“
Boy Scout?” he
asked.

“
It’s a group on Earth. The
boys learn how to go camping and survive in the
wilderness.”

“
My education did involve
this. The queen can find herself in many predicaments.”

“
Did your education ever
involve having fun?”

He glanced at her. “If you mean was
there time to play, the answer is no. I didn’t get to play out in
the yard like our kids do.”

“
Are they going to have
time to play when you’re teaching them?”

He paused. “I just figured I would
give them the same training I received, but now that I think about
it, the reason my training was so intense was because I was the
only child. Since we have more than one, I suppose the pressure
won’t be so great for them. I will probably focus my efforts more
on Amanda since she’ll be the next queen, though.”

“
How did Gaius know we
would pick Amanda for a name?”

“
It’s one of those weird
Augur things. They seem to know everything. To be honest, I don’t
like it.” He looked at her. “Some things are private, and I prefer
to keep it out of that mirror of theirs that tells the future. I
know I should be grateful they can see the future, but I also
wonder what else they know about us.”

“
I agree. It’s like someone
read my diary.”

“
You keep a
diary?”

She grinned. “Not anymore. I did while
I was growing up.”

He focused on the small fire he
started and blew on it so it gained more strength. “There we go!
Now we eat and turn into merpeople. I’m sure this will be an
interesting experience.”

He put one of the fish on a long stick
and held the fish over the fire. “If I had a knife, I could gut
them, but I left Raz in a hurry. I was overcome with desire to see
you.” He winked at her.

She chuckled. “You sure
were.”

He relaxed. He didn’t realize how
tense he had been, worrying about Pallid. Putting his arm around
her shoulders, he drew her closer to him and kissed her cheek.
Sighing in contentment, he enjoyed the comfortable silence between
them as he cooked their fish.

***

Athen followed the man in white. Dour
and Optima walked behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and
noticed Optima’s discomfort.

“
We need to take a break,”
he said.

The man in front of him ignored
him.

Irritated, Athen sped up until he was
in front of the man, who jerked to a stop.

“
You are a nuisance. Do you
know that?” the man growled, his eyebrows furrowed in
anger.

“
We need a break,” he said.
“If you want to keep walking without us, fine. We don’t need you to
get to the lake.”

“
I could kill
you.”

Athen decided to call his bluff. “You
won’t.”

The man blinked, obviously not
expecting his response. “And what makes you so certain?”

“
You chose me so I could
help you get to the queen in case you can’t find her yourself. I am
too useful to you.”

The man tightened his grip on his
cane. “I would love to kill you.”

“
The feeling is
mutual.”

The man gritted his teeth.

Athen crossed his arms, staring back.
He wasn’t going to back down from this monster.

“
Five minutes. Not a minute
more,” the man barked.

Optima and Dour quickly ran behind a
few trees so they could relieve their bladders.

“
Why don’t you just run
off?” the man asked. “It does you no good to be here.”

“
Someone needs to protect
the Nicals.”

The man shook his head in
irritation.

Athen remained by the man’s side. He
knew his presence annoyed the man, and he was going to do whatever
he could to annoy him. After the lies the man told the Nicals, he
deserved it. The Nicals were defenseless. Athen couldn’t believe
anyone would take advantage of such a weak group of
people.

A scream interrupted his
thoughts.

Optima!
Athen raced in the direction of her screams,
ignoring the man’s protests. He stopped when he saw a seven-foot
snake sliding up to her. The snake’s tail began winding around her
legs. He found a large stick with a sharp point, grabbed it, and
ran up to the snake, which hissed at him.

Optima screamed again as the tail
continued to wind up her legs, quickly working its way up to her
waist. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t manage to get away
from it.

Athen threw the stick, aiming for its
throat. He yelled in frustration when he missed his
mark.

“
Here. Take this gun! I
don’t know how to use it,” Dour exclaimed, running to
him.

Athen gratefully took the gun and shot
the snake between the eyes.

The snake let out one more hiss before
it fell to the ground, its tail finally releasing her.

Her hair turned white with relief as
she ran over to him and Dour. “Thank you!” she cried, hugging
them.

The snake wiggled in pain, so Athen
shot it again, this time killing it. “There’s no reason to have it
suffer.”

“
You have done so much for
us. Thank you,” Dour said.

He smiled at them. “I should give this
back to you before the old grouch thinks I took over.”

They laughed at his joke.

He liked the way Optima looked at him.
She made him feel brave and strong. He blinked, pushing aside his
feelings for her. He turned around and noticed the man silently
staring at them. He frowned. As he walked over to the man, he
snapped, “Apparently, you felt no need to help her.”

The man stared coldly at him. “She let
the queen escape. It would serve her right to die.”

Athen grabbed his shirt collar. “Who
are you, and what do you want with these people?”

The man shoved him away. “I’m the one
who’s in charge here. Not you. And if you continue on in your
insolence, I will make both of them suffer.” He motioned to his
cane.

“
If you lay one hand on
them, I will kill you.”

“
Threats scare me as much
as they scare you.” He sighed, as if bored. “Come along,” he told
Dour and Optima. “We don’t have much daylight left.”

Athen contemplated taking the gun back
from Dour and killing the man, but he knew the Nicals would not
understand, and he didn’t want Optima to think less of him. He
liked the fact that she saw him as her hero. He would not get the
joy of being the one she loved. Sando had that honor. So he would
settle for the role of her hero.

***

Atlantis

Planet: Earth

Stacey followed Captain Reed into the
arc. Kent, Stephen, and Mark were close behind. She wished she
didn’t have to wear her scuba gear every time she investigated
Atlantis, but she reminded herself it was better to be
uncomfortable learning about the lost city instead of finding out
she was wrong about its location.

She had to swim fast to keep up with
Captain Reed. He eagerly swam to the top of the arc. She and Kent
thought Reed’s reaction to finding the future machine was odd. They
had expected him to be excited like they were. However, he’d only
nodded and ordered them to put on their scuba gear so they could
check it out. Intuition told her he’d been expecting it. Again, she
wondered what his ties were to the person who paid for their
research.

She forced aside her troubled thoughts
and swam into a large room at the top of the arc. She gasped in
shock. The probe they’d sent out to take pictures and videos of the
place did little justice in capturing its elaborate beauty. The
ceiling was made of a clear material. The walls and most of the
floor appeared to be ivory. The floor did not reach the walls. It
ended at six feet from each wall. Below the floor was a set of
steel rods, which crisscrossed so the floor could receive full
support. She peered over the edge of the floor and was surprised to
see the rest of the arc, from top to bottom. She saw the lobby, but
it was a long way down. She swam back toward the group. If they
weren’t in the water, she would die if she fell.

“
How tall is this
building?” she asked Stephen, who was taking the room’s
measurements.

“
It’s twenty stories high,”
he replied.

She shivered, despite her hot outfit.
“I’m glad all I have to do is swim to the bottom.”

“
This is exquisite work,”
Captain Reed commented as he ran his hands over the controls in
front of the big screen at the center of the room.

Her attention turned to the object of
his delight. She noticed that the only piece of furniture in the
room was the chair in front of the large screen. The screen in
front of her was made of an unknown clear material, but it was
framed in gold.