Rift in the Sky

More esans? I suppose they brought us here. But I hope this is the last time!

It will be, Aryl sent, smiling at Marcus. “Thank—”

He didn’t smile back. “Hurry,” he insisted, moving out of the way to allow them to climb in.

Funny voice for a Tikitik. But after the observation, Anaj’s presence faded behind her shields.

This aircar had two seats, facing front, with padded benches along each side. No packs or crates cluttered the floor, Aryl noticed with relief as she took one of the forward seats. She’d been wrong. The Human wasn’t dressed for a journey either. He wore his favorite pretend-Om’ray clothes: pants, shirt, and boots of the right shape and color, if wrong fabric and fasteners. The boots were covered in dried mud and had left tracks and clumps everywhere. The shirt was stained with sweat. “Sit, sit,” he urged, throwing himself into the seat beside Aryl’s and stabbing the control buttons.

Naryn and Enris hadn’t reached their seats before the roof closed and Aryl felt the machine lift.

Her relief evaporated. In haste. And alone? Something was wrong.

“Any reason for the rush?” Enris asked, a little too casually.

“Busy day.” A little too glib. “Always busy days. Are you comfortable? Aryl? Naryn?” In that distracted tone. “Enris?”

Not “What are you doing on the other side of the world?” or “Why didn’t you ’port home?” Reasonable questions. Important ones.

Leave this to me, Aryl sent. “We’re fine, Marcus. We were visiting—” he wouldn’t like this, she knew, but continued, “—the Tikitik.”

But instead of the wild-eyed flinch she’d expected, the Human merely nodded. “Scanned lifeforms. Many Tikitik, many other organisms

. Busy place, saltmarsh.”

He didn’t know about Tikitna, she realized with surprise. Perhaps living buildings couldn’t be detected by machines designed to search for ruins of metal and stone.

Right now, he wouldn’t care. She didn’t have to sense the Human’s emotions to read the tremble of his hands on the controls or the sheen on his forehead. His green-brown eyes flicked constantly between two small screens.

Trouble.

The day had been going so well.

The aircar leveled. Marcus sat back with what was more shudder than sigh. Aryl put her hand on his arm, careful to keep her shields tight to avoid any painful contact with his mind. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes lifted to hers, brimming with worry. “Take you home,” he said faintly.

She tightened her fingers to get his attention, not to hurt. “What is it?”

“Might be nothing.” He collected himself with a visible effort, managed a wan smile. “Autosurveillance didn’t resume this morning. Not what I did. I only set for last ’night.” A slide of his eyes behind her. “Only for that one time.”

She didn’t need to ask why. Enris and his dam. She’d been right to suspect something going on with the two of them. It didn’t help her know what troubled him now. Aryl nodded encouragement, hoping the Human would begin to make sense. “Go on.”

“Should have been fixed with nextroutinesweep. Back up at dawn. All working. But not on. Not right. Not normal. Nothing—” Now the words came too fast, but she didn’t try to slow him. “Dawn comes, all systems go dead. No com. No security field. No autodefense. No one comes to see why. Securityprotocol. Someone should have come.”

Too much sense. She might not understand the machines, but any Yena knew what it meant to post scouts, then have them fail to report. “So you’re doing it. Going to them—to the other sites.” Her heart started to pound. Why him? Why alone? “Couldn’t the others do that?”

He shook his head vigorously. “Need them to stay and secure the artifacts. I’m First. My responsibility, everyone on Cersi. My fault.”

“No,” Enris objected. “I asked you to turn off your vids.”

“My decision,” Marcus said simply. In that moment, Om’ray or not, he was the elder. He shrugged, that gesture they had in common. “Should have been no problem. Should have come back on.”

She’d never seen the Human quietly desperate, not even when the Oud were burying them. “This isn’t about machines being broken.”

Marcus covered her hand with his, stared down as if fascinated by the contrast between her tanned, scarred skin and his, white and smooth. “Aryl reading my mind?” he asked with an odd smile.

“You know I—”

“I know.” Softly. The smile disappeared, replaced by something grim. His thumb rubbed hers, then he looked up. “You’re right. Not about machines. About danger. Here. Because of our work.”

Tension. She tried not to show her own. “What do you mean?”