Page 73 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

Pause.

Again.

Suddenly the whole salt shelf hums beneath us. My stomach knots and my grin dies. The receiver didn’t take the bait. It found the box.

16

Rhazek

The receiver is beneath a flat stone shelf, but the true line runs beneath it and east. Toward a narrow cut between two salt shelves where the air smells of hot metal.

Kessa sees the same thing a breath after I do. I know the moment she sees it because all humor leaves her face and calculation takes its place.

“We don’t cross the shelf,” she says.

Syin’s blade is already out. “Then we circle.”

“No. Circling draws a clean arc. It wants arcs.”

“It does not want,” I say.

She glances at me. “Fine. It records arcs and targets clean fools. Better?”

“Yes.”

“That was a very annoying yes.”

Orek makes a low sound from behind us and we both turn.

Three small striped shapes peer from the shade line to the west. Kedis. Different ones, or the same disaster with friends. Probably drawn by bright metal, noise, and the ugly luck that seems to have attached itself to this mission like a burr.

Lio sees them and turns pale. Maro sees Lio’s face and turns before anyone speaks.

“Oh,” Maro says. “Good. More stomachs.”

The receiver pings and the kedis flinch.

The sound’s pitch is at the edge of nerves. A vibration that makes scavengers turn toward whatever their bodies mistake for food. Kessa’s expression hardens.

“It’s ringing a dinner bell.”

“Yes.”

“Can we break the bell?”

“Only if we reach it.”

“Of course.”

The kedis disappear from sight.

Kessa moves toward the narrow cut. I catch her wrist before I decide whether catching her is wisdom or instinct. The pulse, not the hook, burns in my chest. I push that aside. This is not the time for such things. She looks down at my hand and I release her.

“Trap,” I say.

“I assumed. Be more helpful.”

“The receiver will read pressure on the salt crust. It may not read weight through stone.”