Chapter 7
Levant
Felicia’s ship was exactly where we’d left it a couple of hours ago.
It was still as impossible to me to get it out as it had been when I’d first found it, but somehow, Felicia seemed more optimistic about it.
She was standing in front of the narrow hole I’d dug to reach the side panel of the ship.
She was murmuring about what a shame it was that I’d damaged her ship to get to her. I did not share that opinion.
If I hadn’t dug her out as quickly as I had, her stasis pod would have failed before I could wake her.
She would have died. It would have taken weeks to hack through the ice to reach the hatch and free it enough for it to open.
Her stasis pod had been at risk of failing even during the short trip I’d needed to make to get supplies.
I’d powered it with a battery of my own to make sure it couldn’t, and when I explained this, she nodded, but she still looked unhappy.
“I believe you,” she said, her hands on her hips and her stance wide-legged.
She had her head cocked to the side as she stared at the hole in the ice and traced the shape of the ship visible in the light of the lantern I was holding.
“Just, something dug this tunnel, right? So if something can do that, can’t we use it to dig out the Future?
” I’d learned that was the name of her ship, but it was still a little confusing.
The ships at the Shaman Training Grounds also had names, but they were names, not words.
The healing ship aboard which the three Shaman Elders lived was called the Amarathas, for instance. It meant nothing; it was just a name.
“Because what dug this tunnel is a Revenant,” I said to her, and when she gave me a blank look, I was forced to explain further.
“The Burrowing Revenant seems to roam the North Pole. It dug this tunnel and then went in that direction. It is like a force of nature; you cannot control it. It just does.” Auby was watching carefully where I pointed, his head tipped back at an awkward angle, ears drooping as he did so.
I had a feeling he was thinking things behind those lavender eyes that were distinctly Revenant-like—whatever they were.
“Some Revenants are built for death and destruction; others, like this one, simply for destruction. They do; they don’t think.
” I wasn’t explaining it right. I knew most Revenants were machines of war, and the Burrowing Revenant was not, it was a machine built for a different purpose, but it still roamed, still destroyed.
Beyond the mountains of the Bitter Storm Naga, entire plains and forests were uninhabitable because of roaming Revenants.
I’d never heard of any Shaman managing to study one up close, let alone control one.
Having Auby around was a novelty that would require further study.
It was like the Revenant Corin controlled at Haven, though I knew that one could not talk.
“I believe only the smaller ones,” I pointed at Auby, “were built to be controlled or to coexist.” Auby said nothing; he sniffed with his pink nose, and it sounded exactly like the sniff of a Vakarsa calf.
Cute, soft, but in his case with a hint of disdain.
Like I’d been babbling out of my neck, but he wasn’t going to bother correcting me.
I gave him a glare, but he resolutely turned and plunked his furry rump onto the ice, his back to me.
“That’s ridiculous,” Felicia said. Heat instantly crawled up the back of my neck and heated my cheeks.
I could handle the little Revenant disagreeing just fine, but my mate?
Expression tight, I flung out a hand and gestured for her to start talking.
She was grinning as if she very much liked calling me out, and that was…
pleasing? It was strange, but knowing that she enjoyed pointing out the flaws in my knowledge took the sting out of being told I was wrong.
“Someone had to have built that Revenant if it’s not a living creature but a machine.
And there’s only one reason to build a machine: a purpose.
So what is the purpose of this Burrowing Revenant?
Someone, once, had to have controlled it, programmed it to do what it does.
Right?” I cocked my head and nodded as I let her words sink in.
Yes, that was all true. My ancestors had built the war Revenants to fight a civil war.
The Naga-shaped Revenant that had haunted Ahoshaga had been built by a Naga who thought it was his way to live through the Calamities, to live forever. These Revenants had a purpose.
My eyes went to Auby. He no longer appeared to be sulking, but now stood on all six legs, ears pointed up as if he were listening to something in the distance.
Auby was built to be someone’s companion, and he had been built to protect and assist. I had already discovered it was as easy to trust his programming as it was to trust that of my tablet or my ship to do what they were designed to do.
It was just a very novel idea to think you could perhaps access the programming of a Revenant as big as the Burrower and make it do your bidding.
Could we dig out her ship if we had the Burrower at our beck and call?
Perhaps. The question was, why would we?
Felicia had nothing to go back to. Her world had moved on without her, and a thousand years was a very long time to be gone.
Everyone she’d ever known was dead. Here, on Serant, there was me—her fated mate.
And I was the most devoted mate; why would she want to leave?
Perhaps she just wanted her ship with her for sentimental reasons.
If we dug it out, she could take it with her when we left the Pole and decided where to settle and build our nest. Now I was thinking about nest building, and nest play, and the warm sands of Serqethos I missed so much.
Not good, and very distracting. The readings that had alerted the perimeter sensors spread around my camp were getting stronger.
My handheld scanner was warning me with strident beeps and vibrations.
“You are right, the Burrower might be able to get your ship out. That’s not now, though, and whatever your ship is doing, it’s getting stronger.
” Now not just my handheld device was vibrating, but it felt like the ice beneath my coils was trembling too.
A quake rocked and rumbled, increasing in intensity in a matter of seconds, so that a dusting of ice and snow began to fall from the rough tunnel ceiling.
Felicia wobbled, and I caught her by the waist to steady her. Auby was more secure on his six legs, but he was making urgent comments about vacating the premises. He wasn’t wrong, if the tremor got much worse, we were at risk of having the ice tunnel collapse right on top of us.
“No, I can’t leave! I need to find out why this is happening.
Perhaps I can shut it off.” Felicia slipped from my grasp like quicksilver, leaving only handfuls of fur behind.
She had thrown herself into the narrow hole I’d created to enter her ship before I could stop her.
Either I’d haul her out by her foot, or follow her in.
Frankly, the metal structure of the ship might protect us if the tunnel did collapse.
“Go,” I said to Auby, and I lifted him bodily into the hole.
His metal hooves clattered on the ice as he hurried after her.
I cast one look over my shoulder at the shaking tunnel the Burrower had created and followed them in.
The passage was tight, squeezing around my chest, cracking and groaning as the ice shifted.
For a moment, I feared I’d be crushed inside the passage and buried alive.
Then I hauled myself through the metal gap and into the interior of Felicia’s ship.
It was cold inside, and I’d left the pack out in the bigger tunnel; it simply wouldn’t fit, so no heater.
Thankfully, it appeared Felicia had pulled herself into the pilot seat and was running diagnostics on the ship.
She did it with such focus that she wasn’t even aware of how her breath misted in the air in front of her.
Auby was pushed into a back corner, which he accepted with a grumpy curl of his soft pink mouth.
There was simply very little space for him, tiny as he was, and me in here.
“You could have waited outside,” he offered.
“And risk getting crushed under ice? No thanks,” I responded, which made the little Revenant laugh as if I’d made a joke.
Was he genuinely amused, or was that just his programming telling him to make the sound because it had been interpreted as funny?
How was that any different from when something made me laugh?
That could simply be my programming, couldn’t it?
Now Felicia had me thinking about how everything worked—not just the Burrower—and it made my head ache.
My mate was talking, and I rushed to tune in; I tried to figure out if what she said matched what my scanner indicated.
“The experimental FTL drive is powering on. I think it’s trying to engage to follow its programmed path back home.
Except…” She hummed as she pulled up another screen and flicked a few switches with delicate fingers.
“I think it’s overheating and shutting down before it can engage.
Probably because it can’t vent the heat when encased in ice. ”
I lifted my head to look at the ship’s canopy.
It was built to be partially transparent, but ice had covered it.
With this much ice on top, no light came through, and it appeared black as night.
Almost, you could imagine it was a night sky, and the ship could actually tilt its nose up and fly away.
When I raised my lantern overhead, it became opaque white ice, and the illusion shattered.