Chapter 19
Not once since her sixteenth birthday—the age when she was old enough to be registered as a non-gratas class worker—had Alex thought that she would ever lack something to do long enough to be bored.
Certainly not after she was enlisted to Darvel.
At her odd posts over the years, it wasn’t unheard of for meals to be eaten in bites in between projects or carried on the go to be consumed while going from one place to another.
There never seemed to be enough time for anything, and she hated how she barely had enough downtime to catch a few scant hours of sleep before she had to be on the go again.
But this new lack of activity was another kind of hell that she had never considered.
“So bored,” she groaned, sinking to the ground beside the vent.
Therxian glanced up at her from the device he was tinkering with, his gavo lifting curiously. “Did you not just recently kill something?” he observed.
Alex grimaced. “Yeah, but the thrill of the hunt was too brief.”
The male hummed in what she chose to believe was sympathy as he turned the metal sphere around in his hand and brought it up to rest it against the base of his throat. Alex straightened a bit as she watched the sphere glow as Therxian hummed a pitch that shifted in and out of her hearing range.
“What are you doing, anyway?”
His eyes shifted to her, and he fell silent. “Programming it,” he replied. “Tomorrow is another selection, and this time I wish to be prepared.”
“Prepared?” she echoed. She scooted closer, intrigued despite herself. “How is a shiny, glowing golf ball going to help fend off a wanna-be baby-momma.”
His gavo twitched, his eyes narrowing at her slightly with a baffled expression that made her grimace apologetically in response.
“You know... all the ladies wanting to cozy up and scramble their eggs with your special batter.” Again, nothing. She sighed heavily. This was more annoying than talking to a citizen. “The breeding queens?”
“Ah,” he rumbled, his gavo snapping as his eyes dropped back to his project. “And you liken this to some kind of toy used to engage the attention of offspring?”
She blinked, puzzled, until she realized that he had latched onto the word ball and had made an assumption from there.
She shrugged. Why not? In her opinion, most of the citizens who idly indulged in hours of golfing lived a charmed life, not unlike that of a child, given all the excessive time they had available for leisure activities.
“The size and shape are similar,” she agreed. “What is it?”
“A toy,” he replied, and her eyes snapped up to his face in disbelief.
“Seriously?”
The corners of his mouth curled, and he gave a cheery snap of his gavo. “Truly. It was made by a mated pair for their offspring’s amusement—not unlike those played with in the shinara. They made several, actually. They gifted me this one—with some modifications—in the hope that it might be useful.”
So, an actual toy. She watched it light up in a shifting sequence as Therxian hummed. “Is it some kind of light toy?” she asked.
“The crystals within are small fragments taken from larger, luminous singing crystals found deep within caverns. Normally such crystals are costly, but it is filled with very small fragments that possess no true value but respond predictably to the vibration of our song.”
“Wicked,” she mumbled, her eyes widening with interest. “So, what does it really do now that you’ve modified it?”
“The problem with these toys is that the crystals are very sensitive,” he replied, ignoring her question entirely.
“The vibrations of particular types of singing crystals do not agree well with others if they are placed too closely, even if they produce an intriguing color variation. This is not common knowledge except to those who know the art of making such toys. As it is, it has taken days for me to pull it apart and reassemble it—adding a few potent crystals in the process that it was previously lacking—but it is finally ready.”
She squinted at him, and her eyes dropped to the toy.
She understood sequencing, basic machinery assembly, and calibration.
Small errors could result in huge safety risks, among other things.
She studied the sphere, her mind replaying the shrill shrieks of his last female guest. Surely such bursts of sound near something intentionally booby-trapped would be like igniting the fuse of an explosive.
“You turned this damned thing into a small explosive!”
He inclined his head. “It could only be used once, and would do significant damage to my nest, but it may create the necessary confusion we require—and the subsequent evacuation of the ‘breeders’—to move you out of the main palace and into a more suitable hiding place that I have been slowly preparing.”
She hoped he knew what he was doing. Smuggling a human through the palace sounded risky the more she listened to him plan.
That Kitanara had managed to do so was impressive in retrospect...
and also gave her delayed anxiety when it occurred to her just how close they probably were to being caught at any time during that particular jaunt through the corridors.
She frowned with the realization that she was about to do it again, except this time with the halls of the palace filled with aliens rushing about in panicked confusion.
She suddenly felt sick.
Therxian’s eyes shifted to her at that moment and he frowned, his gavo rising slightly. “Are you unwell?”
“Fine,” she croaked. Alex swallowed nervously and drew a deep breath to steady her nerves. “It just occurred to me that we are going to be doing something very risky in a space that will be very crowded with panicked Seshanamitesh. It was not the visual that I needed.”
The corner of his mouth hitched. “Nervous?”
“I desperately want to vomit,” she admitted, drawing a hiss of laughter from the male.
“Do not be afraid,” he soothed with a soft, comforting hum sliding over his words.
“While the chaos will be disorienting, it will work well to our advantage. Seshanamitesh have a stronger auditory sense that can overpower our other senses. This works to our advantage when we are hunting or in emergencies, but it will make the Seshanamitesh blind to what we are doing as the explosion and subsequent chaos overwhelm their senses. Once you are within the elder shinara, you will have little to worry about. No one enters the deep caverns of the Aglatha. I was more adventurous than most and explored many of the deeper cavern networks, but even I had never before ventured so far, until now.”
Alex’s eyebrows inched upward. Somehow, he had failed to mention that when they had previously discussed hiding her in the lower caverns.
Her imagination, the fickle beast that it was, immediately began supplying her with the most horrific images.
The mutant alien bugs were bad enough within the shinara.
But what horrors lurked in the darker depths?
It was a very surreal Lord of the Rings moment where great, unknown evils existed in depths that were deeper than any should go.
Now she was going to have nightmares thanks to required reading within the latter part of her primary education.
She was going to compose a sternly worded transmission to her former teacher when she returned to Raza.
“Why is that? Please tell me there isn’t something horrible living in the depths of the caverns beneath the palace.” She clutched her fist over her chest, willing her heart to return to a regular pattern as it raced furiously beneath her hand.
His impatient huff at her question could not hide his amusement as he lowered the toy to focus entirely on her.
“You have such a peculiar imagination. What do you imagine is living in the ancestral palace? There is nothing there except echoes of the past. Seshanamitesh have no interest in casually wandering there. While it is a place of our ancestors and our history, it is also a forgotten and buried part of our past that is deeper than most are inclined to descend. Instead, it is half-remembered in whispered tales that bold nestlings daydream about exploring. But speaking and doing are two different matters. First, it is considered taboo for Seshanamitesh to wander there. Such places belong to the ancient ones who have passed before us and serve as a conduit to them. It is also because no one has any use for the space.”
“And yet, that isn’t slowing you down any?”
He scoffed, his attention returning to the toy.
“I am not a common Seshanamitesh who is susceptible to superstition. Ancestors are better venerated and remembered wherever we are, where they can best protect and bless us. The elder shinara is appropriate to provide you with a comfortable hiding place. Not some horror skulking about.”
“Oh,” she mumbled, suddenly feeling a bit foolish.
Maybe her imagination had hijacked her and attempted to speed away with her.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Isn’t the Aglatha shinara already deep where it is now?
I cannot imagine that it would have been convenient to go even deeper in earlier periods. It seems a bit like overkill.”
Therxian grinned and responded with a hissing chuckle of amusement.
“I am certain there are those who agree. It was practical in the early times when the first heat blasted over our world and our people retreated deep within the stone to hide from it, but many would view it as impractical to make use of with how far into the tunnels one must go to reach the deep palace and the elder shinara. As it is, it took me many hours to smuggle furs and supplies down there.”
That made sense. It was certainly a saner explanation than her odd imaginings. She felt no need to elaborate further to him about what she thought might be down there. “So, how are we going to get there?”
He grinned then, the expression almost terrifying on his inhuman face as he bared all his sharp teeth at her. “As it happens, the access tunnel to the deep palace is very close. Just outside the throne chamber.”
The absolutely worst place. She swallowed a groan.
Of course it wouldn’t be some out of the way corner.
Therxian was going to have to get her dangerously close to the queen before he was able to get her out of there.
She dropped her head to her knees and swallowed back bile only to jump when she felt something large and cool touch her leg.
She glanced over to see Therxian pressing a large metal basin against her leg...
with the tip of his tail, to add insult to injury, as if to maintain distance as much as possible.
“In case you need to vomit,” he muttered, passing it over to her as he glanced resolutely away. He cleared his throat with a crackling hum. “I never said it would be easy,” he grumbled, “but I promise that I will get you down into the tunnel without incident.”
Her eyes slid shut as she leaned her head back against the wall so that the cool air from the vent slid over her skin. “Not easy” was an understatement. If she got through it without having heart-failure, it would be a miracle.
“Are Jathella, Kitanara, and Buosoa going to help us?”
He grimaced, which was not encouraging.
“In their way,” he muttered. “The guards will try to direct the chaos. I will be trusting them to divert it away from where we need to be.”
Her eyes popped open, and she dropped her head back a bit to look directly up at him. “You can’t be serious. You didn’t even warn them about your crazy plan?”
“Of course I did,” he huffed. “I just may not have shared all the details beyond directing Seshanamitesh far from the access tunnels.”
“Oh gods,” she groaned as she allowed her head to drop back again. “Please do not let this male kill me.”
Therxian hissed another chuckle, his eyes slitting warmly at her. “Where is your courage? Are you not a female hunter among your species?”
Alex’s lips twisted. He assumed that she would embrace this foolish plan because he imagined her something akin to the males of the upper cavern.
Males who lived their lives at the edge of existence where they were free from those who would disdain them.
Perhaps she should take a page out of their book after all.
“All right,” she sighed. “May the gods have mercy on us.”
His grin widened as he held the sphere, snapping the last component into place. “Higthar shall surely bless our efforts with his own divine tempests breaking loose through the shinara.”
Alex allowed her eyes to slide shut again. Of course.