Chapter Four

Rilex peered around the corner, holding his torch up so that he could fill it with as much light as possible. Now that they knew for certain that they were not the only people who had come into this tunnel, he was more on edge and focused on checking every area before they walked into it to make sure that they weren’t wandering into a dangerous trap. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Severine. She was gazing down at the baby wrapped close to her chest, murmuring something to him as he wriggled.

“I think he’s hungry,” she said, glancing up at Rilex. “We’re going to need to stop so that I can feed and change him.”

Rilex didn’t like the thought of pausing again, even for a few moments, but he knew that he didn’t have an option. The baby needed to be properly cared for in order to stay safe and healthy, and if he were to keep pushing them to go further even when he needed care he would soon start to cry, alerting the hybrid army of their presence. It was important that they stopped and made sure that he had the care that he needed so that he could keep sleeping comfortably as they traveled.

“We need to find somewhere off of the tunnel to stop,” he said. “I don’t want to be so exposed.”

Severine nodded and they continued on, Rilex letting the light of the torch run across the walls as they went so that he could find any small chambers that might lead off of the tunnel. They had gone on for a few moments when he saw a dip in the wall and paused. Gesturing for Severine to stay where she was, Rilex took the several steps needed to bring him to the doorway and leaned in with the torch. He didn’t see anything and stepped further inside. The light from the flame of the torch washed across a bare dirt floor and curved dirt walls. This stood apart from the other chambers where they had been that had a smooth stone floor and walls that made them feel much more like true rooms and not just dugout sections of the ground. When he was confident that there was nothing in the room that would pose a danger to them, he stepped back out into the corridor and gestured for Severine to come with him.

Rilex tucked the torch into the dirt so that it stood independently and helped Severine spread a blanket out onto the ground so that she could settle onto it with the baby. He watched as she carefully untied the cloth from around her waist and over her shoulders, rested her hand on his back, and eased him away from her so that she could lay him down on the blanket. Rilex wished that she would give the tiny child a name. He knew that it was something that was still somewhat foreign to her. Even though she had known that she and the other hybrids didn’t have names and had felt that there was something missing about them because of it, and though she now had a name that was carefully selected for her, it still wasn’t something that she fully understood. When she looked at the baby, she thought more about the mother that he had lost in the first moment of his life and the care that she was going to need to give him to ensure he stayed safe even in the difficult world into which he was born. Though he could see the affection in her eyes, he knew that she hadn’t yet come to the place in her thoughts where she understood the value of naming the baby. Perhaps she had. Perhaps she felt that naming him would give her an even stronger connection to him, would make their relationship somehow more real, and she didn’t feel ready to accept that. For someone whose entire life had been defined by pain, heartache, and loss, the thought of building a strong link with not just one, but two people in such a short time would seem overwhelming to her. Bonding with Rilex was one thing. She knew that he was an adult and that the relationship that they had was by their choice. He loved her and was capable of declaring that love for her and making the decision to remain with her no matter what situation they were facing, or the life that they might have to build together.

The baby was different. This was a newborn child who did not truly belong to her. She had claimed him in a moment of desperate protectiveness without thinking about the potential consequences. In her mind, she was the one who was best suited to caring for the baby after his birth mother died. After all, she had been assigned to the nursery in the breeding facility and had been tasked with caring for the hybrid babies when they were born. Rilex wondered if it was now settling into her mind that she didn’t have any real right to take the baby with her when she left the ship and that there might have been other arrangements that should have been made for the child. Though there was no father who could have taken him, one of the other human women might have had further claim to him than Severine did. Rilex didn’t think that that was what was really bothering Severine, though. He knew enough of her by now to know that it wouldn’t matter as much to her if someone else thought that they had more claim on the baby than she did because of the emotional turmoil that it might cause to that person to see him taken from them. Instead, she worried about herself and the impact that it would have to have him taken from her. She already loved this baby and she couldn’t bear the thought of acknowledging their bond more than she already had and then having him taken from her.

Her hands moved swiftly but gently as she changed the baby and then brought him back up to cradle him as she reached back into her bag and pull out the bottle that she had made for him. Rilex watched as she mixed the various components of the formula that she had created and nestled the rubber nipple into the baby’s mouth. The tiny child immediately calmed as he drank and soon Rilex saw his eyes relax and close. He drank deeply for a few more seconds and then fall into a quiet sleep. Severine looked down at him, stroking his cheek as she tenderly rocked him. The baby continued to take sips occasionally, but his face was peaceful and his body soft and trusting in Severine’s arms. Finally, she looked up at Rilex.

“Could you hold him for just a minute?” she asked.

There was tense, tight emotion in her voice and he didn’t want to push her. He reached his arms toward her and Severine rested the baby into them. He pulled him closer and cradled him so that his head rested in the crook of his elbow. The tiny child let out a sigh and snuggled into him, and Rilex felt his heart swell.

“Severine, I was telling you the truth when I said that this baby has a family. He has a mother in you and a father in me. I believed it when I said it then, and I believe it now. It doesn’t matter what else is going on. That will pass. This will all end and we will have a life ahead of us. We will pass that life together and he will be with us.”

“Will we?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Who was that body, Rilex?” she asked. “Who died down here?”

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“You said that it had something to do with your origin and why you ended up on Earth.”

“Yes,” he said. “It does, but I only know that because of the book that I found it holding. I don’t know who it was or why it had the book. I don’t even know when it died or how, except that it has been many years. I can tell you that I think that it was a man.”

“And he was holding the book?” Severine asked.

Rilex nodded.

“Yes. He was lying on his stomach and his arms were tucked under him, so it looked like he was holding the book to his chest. I think he knew that he was dying and didn’t have any chance that he was going to get out of the tunnels, so he wanted to do whatever he could to protect the book. He didn’t want anybody to get their hands on it.”

“Why?” Severine asked. “What could happen if someone found it? Who is it that they don’t want to find it?”

He knew that she was trying her best to pull the information that she wanted from him, but he couldn’t reveal it. This wasn’t the time. They had enough to think about and enough that they needed to overcome. They didn’t need something else hanging over them, especially something that he didn’t know how it connected with this planet or the war that was building above them, if it connected at all. He knew that there would be a time eventually when he needed to explain it all to her, but for now he would continue to hold it within him. Even as he thought this, though, he couldn’t get his mind off of the skeleton that lay alone in the room deeper in the bunker. He wished that he knew who the man was and what had brought him into the tunnels. His presence there proved to Rilex what he had questioned when he first followed Severine down into the chamber where they first hid. Ryan couldn’t have designed and built these tunnels. That man had been lying there for at least one hundred years if Rilex had interpreted the condition of his clothing correctly, which was decades before Ryan was even born. It was far more likely that these had been in place when the prison colony run by the Valdicians was in operation, well before the Nyx 23 crew came and were then sent to Uoria. That meant that Ryan was either told about them or found them on his own and decided to use them for his army. As much as Rilex wanted to know who the man was, who was now lying on the ground, protecting the book with his last breaths, he also wanted to know who had created these bunkers and what that meant for the man who had died in them. Had he known why they were created and that was why he came down here? Had he been on the planet for another reason and discovered the tunnels accidentally, but then wasn’t able to find his way out? Or had he been found when he was on the planet and forced down into the bunkers for the purpose of ensuring that he would die down there and never be found?

Now that they had found the man, Rilex wondered what they should do about him. He felt strange leaving him lying there, especially after taking the book that he had been holding, but he didn’t know what other choice he had. He, Severine, and the baby needed to get through the tunnels and back to the ship, and he couldn’t put additional stress on them by trying to transport the body with them. It would be better to leave him where he was and return for him when he had a better chance to investigate him thoroughly and try to find out who he was and what he might be doing there.