Lost and Sound Read online

  I had not thought…I mean, I imagined that you would know everything that happens on your surface.

  Do you know about each body hair and skin cell? I can know that something is on my surface and still not know where unless the creature I am looking through can see them. You were up in the mountains; did you see other creatures?

  No. I had no thought…I just learned that you were real and I could not imagine how it would work.

  If you find yourself at Citadel Balen or Morganti, ask the Avatars for details on what we can and cannot see. You are still learning and that is good, but knowing and understanding are two very different things. I hope that one day you will understand. Good day, Yllin. May your future be bright.

  Yllin staggered backward and rubbed her head. The six eyes of the Avatar were swirling with colours that had not been readily visible when she initially met him.

  Nearing caught her and helped her into the shuttle. “What is it?”

  “Didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what? You head-butted your beast and then you staggered back.”

  He settled her in her seat and buckled her in before sealing the ship. He lifted off and she was still shaking off the effects of that weighty mind against hers.

  “What happened, Yllin?”

  She smiled weakly. “I just met Vicorran. I have been riding him all day.”

  Nearing stared at her. “You are joking.”

  “I am not joking. The jehrkreez are the dominant life form on the surface and that is where he took his Avatar.”

  “Why did he speak to you?”

  “He knew I was uncertain about my skills and my future. He also wanted to explain why he could not find Arka. The species that he inhabits has no memory. They constantly move forward but do not plan; they live in the moment, so the one that Arka was riding could not remember where he had left her.”

  “Oh, damn. That must have been frustrating.”

  “It might have been, but Vicorran let them call for help.”

  They cleared the atmosphere and Yllin unbuckled. “I call the shower.”

  Nearing narrowed his eyes. “That isn’t fair.”

  “You have to fly and I called it. I might respect Vicorran, but his beast was a bit smelly.”

  She sprinted to the back and stepped in the shower, blasting her uniform before removing it and taking another solar hit. Fresh and clean, she suited up again, pulling the boots on and flicking her hair over her shoulders.

  She grabbed a ration pack and a cup of tea for herself before returning to the cockpit.

  “I have my snacks, and we are hours away from the jump. Go eat.”

  He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek and headed to the back.

  Yllin sat still for a moment with her cheek humming warmly where he had kissed it. She shook her head and turned her attention to the monitors. His people probably kissed like they shook hands. Anytime, anywhere.

  She checked the trajectory and sat back to eat her meal. He returned in ten minutes and sat in his chair as they returned to Webar.

  “You can put your com unit on again.” He was working on his meal, and he gave her an amused look over the edge of his fork.

  “Oh, good. I suppose I need to file a report or something.”

  “We both do.”

  She nodded and took her meal tray and her empty cup to the galley for recycling.

  With a happy smile, she went to her duffel and withdrew her wrist com. It snapped into place, and she flexed her hand, enjoying the feel of it against her wrist. It reminded her of armour.

  She activated it, checked in with Ohkhan dispatch to update her location, and then, she began to prepare a mission report for Vicorran.

  It took her longer than she thought to put in all the details, but when she sent it through the secure relay link, she felt relieved. Her daily reports from Webar were very short and not interesting at all.

  She rejoined Nearing and he was filing his own report.

  Yllin settled in and waited to return to her base camp.

  After he settled the shuttle on the surface, she paused in the open hatch and looked around. “There is something wrong.”

  She looked around and didn’t see anyone at the base.

  “Wouldn’t they all be in the tunnels?”

  “There should be someone cataloguing in that warehouse over there.”

  “No one is lost.”

  She shook her head, and on impulse, she sent out a seeking blast across the barren landscape.

  “Damn it. There is someone else here. Can you call for assistance?”

  “First, explain what we are dealing with.”

  “There is a ship twice the size of the shuttle, loaded with personnel and hidden under the sand.” She turned and read the underground city. “That is strange. There are a half dozen people underground but there are eight on the excavation team.”

  “Only six underground? Are they all together?”

  She nodded. “It looks like they have been locked in the library.”

  He scowled. “What do you think is going on?”

  “One way to find out.”

  She put her bag on the ground, put on her gun, lifted her shock sticks and slid them into a harness across her chest, settling them along her ribs.

  Nearing came up behind her, and he was wearing the same style of gear with a longer blade across his back. He cocked his head. “Shall we?”

  Yllin led the way into the underground city, and she kept her senses open and wary of any incursions into what she already considered her territory.

  “They are alive but they aren’t moving.”

  It wasn’t the best situation, but she led him down into the tunnels and kept her senses working to alert her to any danger. The archway that led into the library was wide open, but that is when she saw the map of wires along the floor, all leading to the large box in the centre of the room. That box hadn’t been there when she left.

  The crew was lined up against the walls wearing cuffs. Dr. Kliask saw her and he waved his bound hands. “Don’t come in! It is rigged to explode.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Where are Domi and Yavo?”

  Hlisa had tears in her eyes. “They did this. They are having an auction for the finds from the city. The ship landed last night and they gassed us and we woke up here.”

  Yllin looked to Nearing and he shrugged. “It is your call.”

  “Will you all be comfortable here if I try and keep the artifacts from leaving?”

  Dr. Kliask said, “Comfortable, no. But do it. We will be fine as long as we don’t try to leave. Don’t forget to come back for us.”

  She smiled tightly. “Help has already been called. Even if something happens to us, someone will come and get you out.”

  It pained her to leave them, but the options were slim if they were to keep the find out of the hands of private collectors.

  Nearing nodded, and she pressed a finger to her lips, beckoning him down the hall and into another corridor.

  “The ship is resting on the tunnels. We can use the blaster to cut a hole in the hull or several. I don’t know of many ships that can take off without pressurizing.”

  Nearing grinned. “I like the way you think. It is exceptionally devious.”

  “Only if it works. Right now it is just imagination.”

  “How well do you know these tunnels?”

  “I have deactivated many of the traps that were planted. I didn’t tell the crew, of course. I didn’t want them wandering off into the dozens—if not hundreds—of possible areas without me. They are tricky and curious and must be protected.”

  He chuckled. “You seem attached to them.”

  “I think I am attached to caring for someone who looks at me with respect. In my home, I was loved, coddled and tolerated. I was part of the family but treated like a pet. Here, I can be more.”

  She checked her location and smiled. “We
are under the nose of the ship. It runs from that brick to the third door down the corridor. What do we have that can make the hole?”

  “Hand me your blaster.”

  To her amazement, he took the gun, did some work on the settings with a kit from his belt and handed it back. “It is now a cutter.”

  She aimed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The beam shot out and sliced through the stone. She carved a small circle just above them and moved back as it dropped with a few disks of metal.

  “One down, four to go.”

  Nearing gave her a thoughtful look in the dim light of the illuminated stone. “Can you sense the objects?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they all together?”

  She caught on to his line of thinking. “Let me just see if they line up with any of the accessible areas.”

  “I will wait.”

  She snorted and sent out the blast. “Got it. We can get to it, but it is under guard.”

  “Lead the way and I will help. We can cut around them as fast as we can and bring the artifacts back to where they belong.”

  Yllin straightened her shoulders and headed into the dimness that marked the Webar caves.

  Chapter Eight

  The Webar had been a population of UV-sensitive beings. Their softly lit tunnels had once held a thriving metropolis under the killing sun.

  They had dwindled down to a tiny population and eventually left to find another world.

  Now, two aliens were stalking through the leftovers of a dead society with the purpose of saving what they could. It made Yllin feel exceptionally odd.

  Carving a hole in the cargo hold wouldn’t keep the ship from lifting off, but the hole in the forward engine bay would.

  “If we cut along the walls, we should be able to get them all in one drop. We will start here. I will go left, you go right and we will meet up again on the other side. The drop will happen the moment that gravity takes over. We want to be well back from that.”

  He nodded, and they passed under the payload. She aimed at the ceiling and started to cut. She moved quickly and Nearing matched her step for step.

  They backed up and cut along the hallway lines, the intermediate layer of sand and silt sifted through the new holes.

  The chunks of stone dropped, and a moment later, there was a whine, a crash and a mighty groan as the components and four guards fell. Yllin grabbed her shock sticks and jabbed two of the men while Nearing zapped the others.

  He took another item off his belt and threw it upward. A web of energy locked into the hole they had made.

  “That will just keep us from being followed right away. They will have to work their way through the city.”

  She grinned. “If you can haul any of this to the alcove outside the library, I can get some of the traps reset.”

  “So, I get to do the heavy lifting?”

  She went up on her toes and kissed him quickly. “I think you are up for it.”

  Before he could grab her, she sprinted down the hall, around corners and kept in mind that two of the men were familiar with the first few blocks of the city.

  It took her two hours to get everything settled to her satisfaction, and when she returned to the library, the prisoners were free of their cuffs, and it was only the webbing of wire that kept them in place.

  That was what the alcove was for.

  Nearing was waiting for her with half the artifacts and all four of the guards still out and trussed with strips of their own uniforms.

  “What are you going to do?”

  She smiled and stepped behind the artifacts and into the alcove. “I am going to be very careful and use those dance classes my mother insisted on. How did they remove the cuffs?”

  “The guards had keys and I slid them along the floor.”

  “That is most sensible. I set nine traps in the first few blocks.

  She felt for the switch, and when the door swung outward, she sighed with relief when none of the wires were attached. Yllin took a deep breath, focused on the seven years of dance classes, went up on her toes and stepped into the room rigged with the wires.

  She stepped daintily from one small diamond of cross wires to the next until she was standing in front of the box. Yllin could feel her friends holding their breath as she looked at the machine.

  “It’s not a bomb. It’s a shock grid.” She turned it off and steeled herself, bumping into the wire. “It’s off.”

  The crew left the room by the alcove door. Nearing winked, picked up the bound men and placed them in the library, in the circuit of wires. “Specialist Yllin, can you return and reset the unit?”

  She chuckled. “Well, Specialist Nearing, yes I can.”

  She tiptoed back into the centre of the room, turned the unit on and carefully tiptoed out again.

  When the alcove door was closed again, she and the whole group let out a sigh of relief.

  Yllin nodded. “Right, grab some artifacts and follow me. I know a place we can hole up that isn’t on any of the maps yet.”

  They took the carefully tagged artifacts, and Yllin led the way deep into the underground city.

  A weird chirping got her attention, and she looked down at her com unit. The origin code was not one she was familiar with, but she knew whom it was from. She waved everyone to silence and answered.

  The howl of rage was unmistakable. “What did you do to my ship, bitch?”

  “I am sorry. I believe you have the wrong calling code. You may want to try again.” She disconnected the link, and she waited while the crew giggled.

  The com chirped again and she answered. “Yes?”

  “We are tracking this signal. We will get our goods back.”

  She grinned. “Come and get them.”

  She disconnected and locked the com.

  “Now, Dr. Kliask, this is the reason I have been so eager to return here. It was a surprise.”

  Yllin knelt and ran her hands up the wall, seeking and finally finding the switch. A wall and the floor slid back, and Dr. Kliask was trembling with eagerness as he followed the hidden stairway into the city under the city.

  Nearing brought up the rear, and from the bottom of the steps, she closed the hatchway.

  Dr. Kliask and his team were staggering forward and grinning like fools as the merchant sector of the city was exposed to living gazes for the first time in a thousand years.

  “How did you know this was here?”

  She laughed and led them through to the next surprise. “Since day nine of my installment here. My radius began expanding, and since there was something to see, I went down.”

  “What is this level?” Nearing was as amazed as the others.

  Dr. Kliask answered. “This is the commerce area. That means that the area above was strictly for the use of visitors.”

  She grinned. If he got more enthusiastic, he would explode. His eyes were all batting randomly, and the rest of the crew was busy saying that they wished they could take notes.

  She kept them moving. “I promise I will bring you down here again, but we need to get to safety and that isn’t quite here. Not yet.”

  One of the assistants asked, “Are there more levels?”

  “More than I can count. From here, I can sense two more than I could from the surface.”

  The gathering got more excited. “Enough! I will get you safe and in a defensible position, and then, we will be able to chat about the city as long as you like.”

  Nearing was snickering in the blue light that cast his features into a hellish glow.

  She glared at him. “Shut up, demon.”

  He dissolved into hoots, so she led her charges to the next set of hidden stairs. The citizen quarters were neat and well arranged, but this is where signs of habitation truly began. Vehicles and children’s toys were in the street and Kliask wanted to root around, but she dragged them deeper yet.

  “But, Yllin, if they f
ollow us, they will find all of these treasures.”

  She snorted. “You haven’t seen the treasures yet. There are huge universities below, research centres, power plants and water plants. A level for hydroponic farming. This was a completely self-sufficient community.”

  “I can spend years here. Years!”

  “You can, as long as I can get you to the spot I have chosen.”

  Nearing finally took charge by bodily hauling the good doctor after Yllin. The crew followed.

  Down the stairs, she entered the tower she had seen, and they clambered inside, up the steps and into a wide room filled with weapons.

  Nearing blinked. “You found the armoury?”

  She chuckled. “Yes. From what I can guess, they are short-range stunners. Everyone take at least one. It is unlikely that they will follow us down here, but if they do, I want to be ready.”

  They sat around and waited. Nearing checked his com and nodded. “Backup is entering the atmosphere.”

  Yllin sighed with relief. Now, she just had to wait.

  They huddled in the dim light and shared the ration bars that Nearing had stowed on his very-useful belt. The water was shared as well, and they waited.

  When Nearing got a “Where the hell are you?” note, they got up and started the trek back to the surface with the artifacts in tow.

  The traps made short work of those who had tried the front door. Sector Guard base Udell had sent in the troops, and no one was left standing. All of the would-be collectors were on their knees, and the men who had manned the ship were also under arrest. Arrangements for looting charges were planned, and the guilty were being delivered to the nearest facility for processing.

  Dr. Kliask had his permits for exploration from both the Imperium and the Alliance ready to display upon request. No one knew who owned Webar, so he was taking no chances with his find.

  Yllin turned her com back on and checked in with Dispatcher Nearing. She skimmed over the finer parts of the day and promised to forward a complete report.

  She collected her duffel from the shuttle and trudged back to her quarters. It was the end of a very long day.