“Stand back,” Eleriss said.
He was talking to me. He stood before his control panel, a hand raised. Jakatra had returned to the tunnel mouth-it seemed to be the only entrance leading into this chamber, though Simon was poking around in a giant alcove on the wall opposite of the smaller ones. Temi was waiting near the tunnel as well, the old spear still in her grip. Simon leaned closer to examine something on a stone wall. Maybe he’d found the laboratory. I ought to go check, but I wanted to see these men returned to life, if that was what Eleriss intended. I took my step back and waited.
He lifted both hands to the panel and tapped against it, as if he were typing on a keyboard-except that I couldn’t see any keys. I might have moved in for a better look, but something was happening inside the chambers. Light seeped out of the sides, and thanks to Simon’s mention of cryonics, I thought of a heat lamp thawing slabs of frozen meat. It wasn’t as if there were ice crystals glittering on the men’s eyelashes, but the image persisted.
The lights winked out in the first two alcoves first. The men dropped like rocks and pitched forward face-first.
Though I’d already stepped back, I jumped back farther. They didn’t move.
Jakatra said something that I interpreted as, “I told you so,” and Eleriss’s, “Kss tess” might have been an, “I know.”
“Those two… didn’t make it?” I asked.
“It has been centuries since these units were serviced,” Eleriss said. “Mechanical failure is unfortunate but expected after such inattention.”
“Centuries?” I mouthed and met Temi’s eyes. She shrugged back at me. I would have shared incredulous looks with Simon, too, but he’d figured out how to turn on a light-or perhaps it had simply come on automatically at his presence-and didn’t seem to be paying attention to what was going on out here.
“Are you saying that these are human beings that were taken from their people for-” my mind cringed away from the word experimentation, “-some reason and frozen here until they were needed again?”
“Frozen?” Eleriss asked.
“Yeah, like cryonics.”
Eleriss said a few words to Jakatra and received a one-word response.
“Oh, no, that would require extensive repair to tissues,” Eleriss said. “This process is different.”
“Care to explain it?”
“Your language lacks the words.”
“Words can be combined and altered to have new meanings. You could try to explain it.”
“Your people also lack the… foundation to understand,” Eleriss said.
My fingers were clenched into fists. I forced them to unwind. What was I going to do? Punch him for calling humans stupid? I didn’t necessarily disagree; I just found his answers more frustrating than silence.
“Is it possible,” Temi asked, “that the others died that way as well? That they were already dead when the creature came, and that they didn’t… suffer?”
I grimaced, understanding the question. Though the Roman had clearly not been dead beforehand, it’d be easier to stomach the grisly treatment of the others if we could believe they’d died long ago.
“No,” Eleriss said, apparently not one to lie, even if it would make a woman feel better. “Those chambers were all functioning adequately. In reflection, we should have woken those people first, but they were…” He glanced at Jakatra, as if wondering if he’d said too much.
Jakatra was listening, but he didn’t glower or shake his head this time. That made me uneasy. Why did I have the feeling he thought we’d already learned too much, and it didn’t matter what else was said, because he wasn’t planning on letting us out of this place? I eyed the alcoves, wondering if they could be reused. The centurion’s warning ran through my mind again.
“They were the worst criminals,” Eleriss continued. “It is unlikely we could have worked with any of them.”
“The worst?” I asked. “Are you saying these were all criminals?”
“Yes.”
“What were their crimes?”
“Sabotage. Torture. Murder.”
“Then why were they preserved?” I was no longer certain I wanted to feel a sense of kinship with the Spartan. “Why weren’t they hung or quartered or whatever they did back then?”
“It is not our people’s way to kill if there is a viable alternative.” Eleriss glanced at Jakatra, or maybe he was looking at the tunnel.
“Your people.” I had about a thousand questions, including one asking who the heck his people were, but I was still trying to wrap my mind around these hibernating men. “Why would your people have chosen their punishment when they’re human beings? They are human beings, aren’t they?”
“They are, but their crimes were against my people.”
“Centuries ago?” I massaged the back of my neck. Was he saying that his people had been here, on Earth, hundreds of years ago? I glanced at the Spartan. Make that thousands of years ago.
“Yes.”
Jakatra said something and pointed at the Celt and the Spartan.
“Yes,” Eleriss said, “I will try.”
“Are these the least worst of the criminals?” I asked. It was stupid-the Spartan should be no different to me than any of the others-but I wanted him not to be a murderer.
Eleriss hesitated. “No. We went to those men first, but their units had also failed.” He turned his back to me, as if to say he was done answering questions, and typed on the invisible keyboard again.
I was watching the Spartan, so I almost failed to notice the walls light up in the Celt’s alcove. They highlighted a ruddy face beneath a thick red beard and a squashed nose that had been broken a time or two. He had a barrel chest beneath his chain mail and a golden torc gleamed about his neck. His stout legs were clad in plaid trousers and, and he gripped an iron long sword before him. I happened to be looking at his face when his eyes popped open. They were a vivid green that would have been captivating, but there was a wildness about them that repelled me.
His feet hit the ground and the clear barrier that contained the alcoves faded away. He burst from the chamber with a roar. Even if I’d studied his language, I doubt I would have understood him. He brandished his sword, spun around the room, his eyes searching but not seemingly seeing or focusing until he spotted me. Then he charged.
I backpedaled and tripped over the uneven ground. He raised his sword, his eyes full of deadly intent.
I rolled away as it descended and scrabbled for my bullwhip. I had a vague notion of snapping it around his hilt and yanking the weapon free, but that might be a hopeless fantasy-I’d settle for not being hewn in half.
Metal squealed against metal. By the time I scrambled to my feet-it couldn’t have taken more than a second-Jakatra was battling the man. The Celt’s roars continued, cries full of rage and fear. I sensed that he hadn’t seen me for a human being and that he wasn’t seeing Jakatra properly either. I had absolutely no idea what to do with that information.
With that wicked glowing blade, Jakatra lopped the long sword off above the cross-guard. The metal blade banged as it struck the stone floor, but the Celt didn’t stop his attack. He tore out a belt knife and lunged at Jakatra.
I looked at Eleriss, hoping he had some backup plan, a tranquilizer or something. His shoulders were slumped in sadness-or defeat.
Though I’d seen Jakatra’s agility against the creature, the Celt was pushing him back with his unrelenting fury and rage. That dagger came close to drawing blood. Jakatra’s face remained calm, and even though his back approached a wall, I thought he could handle himself. Indeed, he nodded as if he’d been contemplating some great decision. I didn’t guess what it might be until he parried a dagger attack and then, his body and arms moving impossibly fast, drove the curving edge of his sword into the Celt’s chest.
CHAPTER 26
I startled myself with a screech of “What?”-I didn’t usually screech, but watching a man killed in front of you tends to erode your veneer of civilization. I whirled toward Eleriss. “You stood there and told me you were so superior and evolved that you don’t kill people. What do you call this?”