12. Chapter Twelve #2
Once in the guard tower, it didn’t take the men long to gag me.
Apparently “April Is in My Mistress’s Face” is not as popular off-world as it was on Haven 3.
8 To make matters even more complicated, the guards retracted the staircase back into the building once we were inside.
So, just to sum up the precarious position I now found myself in:
I was handcuffed and gagged.
I was trapped in a room with two hostile men with weapons.
The tower was inaccessible without its exterior staircase, and that had been retracted into the building.
I had to pee, and I very much doubted the guards were going to let me do so in a manner which would not be an affront to my dignity.
In short, things were not looking too promising.
The guards had already alerted the rest of the factory’s security team and now stood across the room from me, speaking to each other in hushed tones—presumably so I couldn’t overhear them.
It was wise of them to do so, of course, but very inconvenient to me, as I had no idea what was happening.
Had Tobago and the rest of the Achaeans been captured?
Had they managed to achieve their mission?
Or had they abandoned it altogether because I’d bungled things so badly?
In two out of those three scenarios, it seemed very unlikely anyone was going to be coming to my rescue. I didn’t particularly like those odds.
Clearing my throat loudly, which was one of the only intelligible sounds I could make while gagged, I raised my eyebrows meaningfully at the two guards, trying to convey, Hey, I have something important to say!
After a moment of grumbling between them, one reluctantly came forward to pull down my gag. “No singing,” he warned me.
Well. Everyone’s a critic. I forced a smile. “Gentlemen, I really think there’s been some kind of mistake. I’m simply a traveling musician. If you let me go, I promise to leave and never come back—you have my word as a troubaritz.”9
The guard gave me a derisive once-over. “So you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the fourteen pallets of giggle gas that happened to go missing while you were out here distracting us?”
Oh! So the Achaeans had been successful in their quest. And from the sound of it, they’d managed to make a clean break of it, too. That was good . . . for them. Not so much for me, since I’d been left behind and taken captive.
“What an odd coincidence,” I replied, but as even to my own ears, it was not entirely convincing, I was not surprised when my gag was slotted back into place.
Well, if they were going to keep me here, I certainly wasn’t going to make it a pleasant experience for them.
I decided to hum “Fine Knacks for Ladies” as loudly as I could in the hopes they might let me go to keep from hearing anymore.
10 Granted, there was also a higher probability they might just shoot me or throw me over the edge of the balcony, but I figured it was better than just sitting there like a lump on a log.
The two men continued grumbling at each other, then taking turns pacing, until one abruptly turned to me. “Quiet. Quiet!”
At first, I thought my singing had done the trick, but as I fell into obedient silence,11 I heard it, too—the methodical thunk, thunk, thunk on the concrete outside.
Though we were at odds with each other, for the briefest of moments, the three of us in the room were united by the same question—what in the bloody hell was that?
The first guard used the giant overhead screens to scroll through various images captured by the security cameras. On the fourth image, he stopped, his jaw falling open in shock at the sight of a half-naked man scaling the slanted concrete wall of the tower.
Ursa.
I couldn’t quite curb the relieved smile that spread across my face. Looking up at the guards, though, I grimaced in sympathy. “Ooh, you’re in very big trouble now, I’m afraid.”
1. At least, I think that was the gesture he made. Either that, or he was spontaneously shimmying his shoulders at me.
2. This sort of thing would have never happened to Marie Curie!
3. Rude.
4. To be clear, the crew never called themselves this. However, this was obviously a missed opportunity, considering the name of their vessel, and so I am taking some artistic license here.
5. Derived from the Greek word for song.
6. A reference to the great twelfth-century troubadour, Bernart de Ventadorn (though I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that).
7. I had not taken Croydon’s advice to bring along a candy stick to suck on. I felt it better to have full use of both my hands, and having food in my mouth would only be a hindrance when I began my first musical number.
8. Come to think of it, there seem to be a large number of people on Haven 3 who are unfamiliar with it, too.
9. Female troubadour. I doubted these men would be familiar with the twelfth-century term, but on the off chance they were, I thought this might lend me some credibility.
10. Though I do love madrigal choral music, this one is a bit obnoxious, even for my taste.
11. It really is so hard to disregard an authority figure when one has been an exemplary citizen all of one’s life.