Chapter Thirteen

VEN

I felt the shuttle touch down on an unknown planet. An announcement sounded and seemed to be giving instructions for getting off the spacecraft. I didn’t know for sure because they weren’t speaking Standard. Emmy nodded like she understood every word.

Of course she could speak the language. What other secrets lay hidden inside her head? I felt a tightening in my gut, and an old feeling of inadequacy threaten to overtake me. Was I smart enough or good enough to be here? My mind knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t control my body’s reactions.

“I’m surprised you can understand that.” I tried to distract myself from my feelings.

She had the decency to blush. “I guess it’s strange that I know a few extra languages. Morley made me learn it because he thought it might be useful. He also encouraged me to learn English.”

“English?” Merely saying the word made my mouth feel peculiar.

“It’s one of the ancient languages from Earth. It’s an irrelevant but interesting factoid about me.”

“I supposed it is.” I did not want to know any more interesting factoids about Emmy.

Suddenly she looked uncomfortable. “We need to go now.”

“Of course,” I said, tilting my head and listening. “We’re going. We have to be on guard in case someone’s waiting for us.”

“I meant we have to go right now. I need to use the restroom.”

I shook my head. Women.

“Don’t give me that look. Just because you have a one-gallon bladder, doesn’t mean everyone else does.”

“The flight was only a few hours. The ship must have hyperdrive capabilities. There’s no way we could have reached another planet this quickly without it. You’re lucky it wasn’t a three-day flight. I wonder what time it is here.”

“Three hours are as endless as three days when nature calls.” She started squirming around in her seat.

“Is another interesting factoid that you’re a bad poet? We’ll get off, but we can’t rush around.”

We heard the sounds of several people leaving. “We’re on Heralla.” I had checked my computer twice to confirm. “Isn’t that where you wanted to go? Where the ladle is?”

“Zelia's ladle. And yes, it is.”

“That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Something doesn’t seem right,” she agreed, looking troubled.

“It’s close to sundown. We should wait until it’s dark to leave the ship, but I suppose it won’t hurt to take a peek.”

“What if it’s a trap?”

I held up my gun. “Then they will get an unpleasant surprise.”

In about a minute, the ship was quiet. It was time to move. “Okay, let’s go.” I opened the door. “Stay close to me.”

Emmy followed as we crept through the dark cargo hold to the door. I opened it quietly and surveyed the hallway, trying to see if there was anyone around.

It was empty.

I stepped out into the corridor. There was no sign of people. The ship was silent. We could hear voices outside, but we would worry about them later.

“Finally. A bathroom.” Emmy spotted the sign on one of the doors. “I have to go.” She ducked into the room before I could stop her.

She wouldn’t be able to run if her bladder was about to burst. Come to think of it, neither would I.

I took my turn and with both of us feeling relieved, we made our way to the exit of the spaceship. I stopped at one of the windows and gazed outside, studying the people milling around.

Our shuttle wasn’t far from the main building, which was good. The sooner we could mix in with everyone else, the better. As I watched the people, I heard Emmy come up behind me. She cursed when she looked out the window.

“We didn’t end up on Heralla accidentally. Abel’s men knew we were on the ship. They brought us here on purpose.”

I turned to look at her. “How could you know that?”

She drew in a deep breath. I could see she was scared. “The guy out there with the white hair is Abel. He makes coincidences happen.”

I looked out the window. There was a person outside with long white hair which fluttered in the wind. He seemed stick-thin and frail, like an elderly man. As I watched, he indicated where his people should put the supplies, slightly tottering as he ordered them around.

“What are the chances that we stowed away on the ship of the people who were trying to kidnap us?” I asked, mildly amazed.

“Slim to none,” she said. “But Abel’s powerful and wealthy. Things like this always happen when he’s involved.”

“They brought us here somehow?”

“I think so.” She thought for a moment. “Does it matter how they did it? We shouldn’t waste energy trying to figure it out. We’re stuck here now, no matter what.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “We’re where we need to be. It seems like they plan on keeping us here until we can help them find the ladle.”

“Zelia's ladle,” she corrected me. “You’re right. They won’t kill me until they get it. They can kill you at any time, although with Abel here they might show some restraint. He doesn’t like violence. He just wants to get stuff.”

“We need a plan.” I looked out the window, watching people come and go. They were unloading climbing equipment and other supplies.

“That looks like some gear to go mountain climbing.” She nodded, keeping her eyes on the people outside.

“Yep. The Mestolo’s at the top of a mountain.”

“How do they know?”

“They got that far before. They stopped when Morley discovered them and turned back. He wasn’t going to lead them directly to the artifact. His last transmission came from the top of that mountain,” she said, nodding her head to the left. “Before the cave-in.”

I shifted my neck and spotted the biggest mountain I had ever seen. It wasn’t a place for climbing. It was a place where people died, leaving their corpses frozen for eternity.

“We have to climb that?” I whispered, turning to give Emmy a disgruntled look. She didn’t say anything and just looked at me with her big brown eyes. “With Abel’s men after us?”

“It will give us the motivation to move quickly.”

I smiled for the first time in a long while. Emmy smiled back, and her eyes lit up. She looked fantastic.

I struggled to keep up my end of the conversation, with half of my mind thinking about how beautiful she looked when she smiled. The other half wondered if Emmy had what it took to get up the mountain.

“Definitely motivating. Er…are you sure you’ll be able to manage it?” I said, knowing the question would get me in trouble before it was out of my mouth.

“I’ll manage just fine. It’s you I’m worried about,” she said with sincerity.

The nerve of the little wench. “I hope you can keep up with me.”

EMMY

We waited until sundown to get off the spaceship. As the second sun dropped below the horizon, Ven touched my arm, making me jump.

“It looks like there’s no one around anymore. Darkness will give us the cover we need to get away. If there’s still someone out there guarding the shuttle, we’ll have to deal with them. We’re not going to get a better chance.”

“One more thing,” I added. “We can’t let them get a head start. If we get onto the mountain ahead of them, we’ll be able to move faster because there are only two of us.”

“Right. Keep alert.” Ven pulled out his gun. He set it to the highest stun setting before lethal. It made me feel nervous and safe at the same time. I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that Ven might be a very dangerous person. He had said he was ex-military. Even if he was bad at his job, he had a lot of training on how to kill people.

I suspected Ven had been an excellent soldier. Once he informed me about his background, I sensed a subtle change in his demeanor. He had given himself permission to act naturally again. When I first met him, I thought he was one of the most mild-mannered guys I had ever seen. Now there was a glint in his eye of pure steel. His face was a mask of concentration.

I knew he could protect me, but I wasn’t sure I could do the same for him. If anything happened to him because he helped me, I would never forgive myself.

I followed Ven down a ramp onto the ground and looked around. There was nobody here. At the other end of the spaceport’s broad landing pad, there was some activity. A new shuttle was landing. But in our area, the spaceships were all shut down. Their lights were off. Maybe they were left there for the night, or we were in long-term parking. I had no idea.

Jogging lightly across the lot, Ven and I kept to the shadows. As we approached the building, Ven called for a stop on the outside of the circle of lights, giving him a chance to observe the entrance. Heralla was a low-technology planet and had inadequate security. It didn’t have people or credits, but it was creating a name for itself as a vacation destination. With its rugged landscape and low population density, it was perfect for people who wanted to get away from urban living.

Even though Heralla had established itself as a wilderness environment, that didn’t mean there weren’t people here. They congregated in one place, the capital city. It had a population of over seventy million inhabitants, with plenty of culture and interesting things to do.

I had done a lot of research on this planet.

Other than the one city, the rest of the planet held only small towns and vast tracts of wild areas. The last time I was here, I contracted an illness that sent me home. It took me a long time to recover, but I came away with immunity to the disease.

I started making a list in my head of what we needed to do. First, we had to get into the city. That shouldn’t be difficult. It was only a twenty-minute hovercraft ride away. After we reached the city, our destination was City Hall, the oldest building on the planet. I hoped to find more information about the Stone Goddess before heading up the mountain.

Morley had given me bits and pieces of information when I talked to him, but he had been too paranoid to send everything at once. He thought Abel’s men might be monitoring our conversations. It didn’t matter how many layers of encryption he added to our transmissions. He was always worried. He believed if one mind could figure out how to tangle something, another mind could learn how to untangle it.

He gave me all the clues he had, but I would have to figure out a good deal of it by myself. Morley preferred to leave secrets lost to time and hidden away rather than have them uncovered and fall into the wrong hands.

I tried not to think about Morley any longer. But being here brought back all sorts of memories. I returned to my list. Once I had the info that would get us to Zelia's ladle, we would need to get equipment to climb the mountain and buy supplies for the two-day trek.

We need transportation to the base of the mountain. I hoped the entrance to the cave leading to the ladle was at the top.

Once inside, my wits would be the only thing allowing us to find Zelia's ladle. I hoped I was smart enough.

Someone pressed cold metal against my temple. A familiar voice whispered into my ear. “What do we have here?” It was the blond man who had tried to kidnap me on Stalwart. “I believe we have unfinished business, woman.”

His hand came around my waist, pulling my body against him so I could feel his hard cock. I pressed my lips together in disgust but didn’t move. It would only take a flick of his finger to kill me.

“Put your hands in the air.” He directed his command at Ven, who obeyed but watched closely.

“You and I are going to have some fun together before I bring you back. The boss is going to be happy I didn’t let you get away.” He roughly squeezed my breasts. In the darkness, I wondered if Ven could see what he was doing. “I’m happy myself.”

I cut my eyes over to Ven without moving my head. He was glowering and looked like he was ready to jump my assailant.

“Hey man, stand back.” The blond man pressed the gun more firmly against my head. “Unless you want her in a coma.”

Before he had finished speaking, Ven lunged at us and the gun went off.